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At the end of the first paper presented as the Urantia Revelation, we read the following astounding statement. “[Presented by a Divine Counsellor, a member of a group of celestial personalities assigned by the Ancients of Days on Uversa, the headquarters of the seventh superuniverse, to supervise those portions of this forthcoming revelation which have to do with affairs beyond the borders of the local universe of Nebadon. I am commissioned to sponsor those papers portraying the nature and attributes of God because I represent the highest source of information available for such a purpose on any inhabited world. I have served as a Divine Counsellor in all seven of the superuniverses and have long resided at the Paradise center of all things. Many times have I enjoyed the supreme pleasure of a sojourn in the immediate personal presence of the Universal Father. I portray the reality and truth of the Father’s nature and attributes with unchallengeable authority; I know whereof I speak.]” The Urantia Book, Paper 1 Section 7 Paragraph 9.
Through this statement alone the Urantia Book begins a presentation to humanity of a challenge of celestial proportions. By this alone, we are challenged individually and collectively as a planetary society, to comprehend a new awareness of the nature of creation. We are to do this not as citizens of a blue/green orb floating in a vast lifeless space, but as a member of a highly organized and structured material and Celestial Universe and from the perspective of Celestial individuals from that Universe. These individuals are personally conscious of our place in this vast cosmos, as well as their place and function in the hierarchy of the Celestial Universe. Though we are not the first generation in the history of our planet to be introduced to these truths, we are the first to be given the details in what is essentially encyclopedic format.
So monumental is the task of understanding this reference book, only a few brave human beings have tried it out. Sometimes I feel like an ant crawling on a giant sugar cube attempting to devour it granule upon granule while hoping myself adequate to the task. I seem to have an amazingly ability to self-congratulate, believing I am mastering the comprehension and understanding of this book. I don’t expect I am alone in this. However, within this isolated group of adventurers, there is a confusion and argumentation belying our self-proclaimed status as master sugar eaters. Effectively I/we have become drunk on sugar. We know the book’s teachings but we have allowed ourselves the privilege of thinking our knowledge is equal to our application of these truths. We are intellectuals attempting to identify intellectual understanding as synonymous with spiritual experience. This tends to allow me to place myself as intellectually equal to the author’s declarations. I am not! Consequently, the sugar has inebriated me and it is unattractive to observers, I have found. My confession here is that I notice others are not attracted to me as a result of my spiritual fruit; in fact they seem to be repelled.
Further, as I have become thus inebriated, I find myself challenged with an alternate view of reality, one which I am unable to share with the world at large to any significant degree. Am I seeing this alternative because I am sugar drunk or is it our new reality? Some may even be prideful enough to allow themselves to think they are doing all they can, that God expects no more from us than we are doing and that it is the world which is unwilling. I believe the world is screaming for help and we won’t respond. This picture is validated by the fact that mainstream thinking planet wide seems to be willfully sugar averse, choosing to avoid the book and any information presented by it as if it were poison. To them it is. It is poison intended to obliterate the evil of self from our lives. In a world of self-focus nothing could be more antithetical. So, while the Revelation is presented in abundant love and grace, it cuts away our selfish nonsense with impunity; at least it has that potential, if we let it; if we follow its guidance. It is this personal revolution in our persons which the world is clamoring for and doesn’t see, yet. But we can’t reveal what we won’t endure. Are we thinking about this book in the wrong way? I suggest we may be. Instead of using it simply to fill our minds with the Celestial reality of Urantia knowledge, we might turn our gaze inward and use it to challenge the man in the mirror; challenge that is to adhere to the Celestial value standards we are discovering. We can do that if we empty ourselves of self-willed direction. The following statement is not easy to appreciate, but it must be accepted.
“For example: The human mind would ordinarily crave to approach the cosmic philosophy portrayed in these revelations by proceeding from the simple and the finite to the complex and the infinite, from human origins to divine destinies. But that path does not lead to spiritual wisdom. Such a procedure is the easiest path to a certain from of genetic knowledge, but at best it can only reveal man’s origin; it reveals little or nothing about his divine destiny.” The Urantia Book, Paper 19 Section 1 Paragraph 5.
Planetary civilization rests somewhat uncomfortably on a wide variation of origin myths. Western civilization on a loose appreciation of the Genesis creation story, though scientific discoveries are chipping away at the credibility of that even within the church communities. Eastern civilization rests mainly on science or a number of etiological explanations; something from nothing; something from chaos; something from others. In either case, the average individual has no well-defined philosophy of creation beyond these variants. Go to the streets to ask passersby what creation means to them to see that I am right.
Then along comes the Urantia Revelation and unknowable becomes knowable as mankind is confronted with the Celestial version of truth. Such audacity these Celestials exhibit when they provide answers like this. How dare they! But they don’t stop with origins. They reveal destiny as well and go on to explain the path from the beginning to the never-to-end. But do we want to know what we don’t? What kind of adjustments in our living practices will we have to make if we allow the veil to be lifted and we find ourselves face to face with irrefutable facts? I am reminded of Hebrews 10:31, “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” When I am face to face with a realization of God’s truth, especially a major one, all the courage I can muster is needed to make such a decision, to realize it and place my faith in it. When the act of God is so overt as to eliminate the realization process leading to the decision, as in this Epochal Revelation, I am undone. I must face the truth that the path to reality is not of my design. This brings me to the next quotation from the Papers.
“All religions teach the worship of Deity and some doctrine of human salvation. The Buddhist religion promises salvation from suffering, unending peace; the Jewish religion promises salvation from difficulties, prosperity predicated on righteousness; the Greek religion promised salvation from disharmony, ugliness, by the realization of beauty; Christianity promises salvation from sin, sanctity; Mohammedanism provides deliverance from the rigorous moral standards of Judaism and Christianity. The religion of Jesus is salvation from self, deliverance from the evils of creature isolation in time and in eternity.” The Urantia Book, Paper 5 Section 4 Paragraph 5
“The religion of Jesus is salvation from self”.
In my view, this is one of the most profound statements in the entire Urantia Papers. In a self-seeking world, one that upholds self-fulfillment above all else, to proclaim the opposite is a task sure to find objection. But, what the world needs is to see our personal transformation of this salvation from self. Transferring our identity from unknown to known, from self-identification to spirit identification; this is “deliverance from the evils of creature isolation in time and in eternity.” And it is no small task. It is simple but it is not easy.
The religion of Jesus is salvation from self! Seriously! Are we to understand by this that ‘self’ is our objet de mépris, our object of scorn? The philosophical implications of this are so profound as to undermine our entire concept of reality. How can this be? Must we become something other than ourselves to comprehend what being alive truly means? Can this mean that we are not to fulfill the humanist manifesto to be all we can be, to do all we can do, and to fully become ourselves by achieving the full measure of our abilities; to live life to the fullest by doing our own thing? Is this the deep mystery that we all secretly seek to realize and view from the other side? I believe it is. This is the true meaning of Jesus’ proclamation that the Kingdom is within us. All this Revelation is only truly valuable as we internalize it, as we realize it within us.
Freedom from the struggle to be right; freedom from the demand to know what we don’t; freedom from the challenge to compete with each other over nonsensical issues; freedom from the pressure to achieve a better world; freedom from fear that we will not be adequate; freedom from the embarrassment of failure, these are the foundations of our rebirth in spiritual reality. It is these issues and many more, we long for freedom from while we endeavor to claim freedom within. But humans make poor life guides, at least I know I do. I can’t even guide myself well, yet I know of nobody who could guide me better than me, or so I think. How can I be expected to guide anyone else at all? My only solution is to renounce my own selfish designs on my life and succumb to the humbling guidance of God within. How simple to say and how hard to do.
So, we find ourselves with a real challenge. We know the truth of our Celestial Universe, the Fifth Epochal Revelation clarifies that. We know the reality of spirit, the reality of God within us, our interactive faith provides validation of that. We know intellectually what we are taught in this amazing gift to the planet yet we apparently get it wrong. At least I know I do. The expectation I identify with is in the following.
“The time is ripe to witness the figurative resurrection of the human Jesus from his burial tomb amidst the theological traditions and the religious dogmas of nineteen centuries. Jesus of Nazareth must not be longer sacrificed to even the splendid concept of the glorified Christ. What a transcendent service if, through this revelation, the Son of Man should be recovered from the tomb of traditional theology and be presented as the living Jesus to the church that bears his name, and to all other religions.” The Urantia Book, Paper 196 Section 1 Paragraph 2.
So, maybe my last essay, “How Much is Enough?” is answered differently than I had anticipated. The discovery of the “living Jesus” will happen. It hasn’t happened yet, at least not in my experience. My own experience tells me it will happen when I truly choose to be real with God rather than attempting to simply be right about him.
For the last several months I have repeatedly offered my thoughts in the form of essays for a couple of reasons. First, I did not want to engage this forum in another argumentative conversation about who reads the Urantia Book more correctly or some other nonsensical challenge. Secondly, I was led by God to reveal my personal struggle to realize his guidance in relation to these issues I have expounded upon. I knew I would be challenged by some and I thought I would be ignored by many. For the most part I have no idea what the value of these essays is to anyone, and I don’t expect to. I do hope and pray my struggles have revealed something of value to others as they seek God. My great desire is to fulfill the admonition in 196:1.2. That can only be done as I discover the actuality of the potential within me, us, all of us. That potential is in my self-controlled will, the will of my personal self, the will that seeks the reality of conscious identification with God but seems to do everything it can to avoid such a meeting. Adopting righteousness is eradicating self. Salvation from self is profound stuff.
Jim
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