Worship is the mark that we are candidates for spiritual ascension. The practice of worship meditation and effective prayer carry us upward. Worship and prayer require, among other things, attention, vigilance, diligence, constancy, discipline, persistence, silence, and stillness. Worship and prayer are significant and valuable tools for ascending.
SPIRITUALITY THERMOMETER. Distribute it and ask them to read and answer the questions. I’m referring to the questionnaire provided, which is very personal, although you can share it with others if you’d like. Save it for last.
What do I mean by “upward” and indicate what I think the mind is.
The word meditation in 1934, at the completion of the writing of the revelation and meditation to this day. «The revelators used almost exactly the definition of meditation from the mid-1930s: “turning a matter over in one’s mind.”
Meditation 1934: Intimate or continuous thought, turning a subject over in your mind, close contemplation; frequently and particularly, thought devoted to religious matters.
Meditation TODAY: 1) A. Buddhism and Hinduism. To train, calm, or empty the mind by focusing attention on a single object. B. To engage in prayerful contemplation. 2) To think or reflect, spatially in a calm and deliberate manner.
Example of how Jesus “meditated”, prayed, prayed and worshipped.
At the age of 11, Jesus engaged in “deep meditation and serious contemplation,” thinking about how he would fulfill his obligations to his family and at the same time obey the call of his mission to the world.
At the age of 13, Jesus meditated deeply on how these Jews from the most distant places had gathered here. He meditated alone in the garden and occupied himself with “the contemplation of weighty problems.” He was humanly certain that he was destined to fulfill a mission on Earth to enlighten humanity and reveal God.
Jesus at 15: «His deep periods of meditation, frequent trips to the hilltop to pray, and the many strange ideas that Jesus occasionally advanced, intensely alarmed his mother. «But Jesus was learning not to speak all his thoughts, not to present all his ideas to the world, not even to his own mother.
Jesus at 25: “In his periods of deep meditation he was interrupted frequently by Ruth, by everyone.”
Immediately after his baptism, Jesus went into the hills for 40 days: “…he desired to be alone for a season of quiet meditation so that he might work out plans and decide upon procedures** for the prosecution of his public labors in behalf of this world and all the other worlds in his local universe.” During this period of meditation, he “…became so absorbed in thought that he entirely forgot to eat (2 days).” And the “results of this memorable season of meditation conclusively demonstrated that the divine mind had triumphantly and spiritually subdued the human intellect.”
Jesus meditated on the next step to take in the work of extending the kingdom.
Our goal should be to identify ourselves more and more with our “divine mind,” the mind of our Thought Adjuster, and to accept its spiritualized version of our thoughts, which are our own thoughts.
Jesus meditated and gained the knowledge of the Father’s will. And so can all of us! That’s the most obvious purpose of meditation. (UB 160:3.5)
To reach the Father, it takes a great effort that requires very constant preparation, therefore, I must pray very continuously to stay in shape and in line with Him. It’s like preparing to run a marathon.
Roland of Alexandria, speaks about the prayer that Jesus facilitated for the apostles after they insistently requested it.
Explain Prayer and Worship. I read the introductory text meditation in worship and effective prayer.
Effective prayer; conditions for prayer to be effective:
To empower ourselves as powerful prayers, sincerely and courageously confronting the problems of universal reality. Cosmic vigor.
To have honestly exhausted all human capacities for adaptation. To have been industrious.
Abandon all desires of the mind and longings of the soul. Enhance meanings and elevate values.
Choose sincerely the divine will. Eliminate the deadlock of indecision.
Not just recognizing the Father’s will and choosing to do it, but unconditional consecration and dynamic dedication to actually doing the Father’s will.
Prayer will be directed exclusively toward obtaining divine wisdom to resolve human problems that we will encounter during our ascension to Paradise.
Have faith — a living faith.
Prayeris self-reminding—sublime thinking;worship is self-forgetting—superthinking.
Worshipis effortless attention,true and ideal soul rest, a form of restful spiritual exertion.UB 143:7.7
Prayeris aspiritual support. Prayer constitutes the expressive side of my relationship with my Creator; it allows me to share who I am with my heavenly Father, to express my affection, the difficulties, and the needs of my daily life. But I also need to receive, to listen, to be receptive to what He wants to share with me. Through meditation and prayer I have been able to listen to the Thought Adjuster and also establish a relationship with Him similar to those I maintain with other human beings; only with human beings we use other methods of communication. The heavenly Father is a real personality.
Intense periods of reflection can occur when walking in nature or listening to music. I always find these moments surprising, exciting, and thrilling. The more I give myself over to meditation, the more this spontaneity tends to disappear when I allow myself to be buried in the many details of life, which force me to set aside these periods of intimacy with my Creator: my face-to-face encounters with God.
True worship, in the last analysis, becomes an experience realized on four cosmic levels: the intellectual, the morontial, the spiritual, and the personal—the consciousness of mind, soul, and spirit, and their unification in personality. [UB 5:3.8]
Thought Adjuster figure, 1,000,000G (5G) mobile, and smoke signals. These inner activities are certainly a sure way to elevate our thoughts and help our Thought Adjuster contact us.
HEAR GOD. We hear the Thought Adjuster’s communications in the mind through the same high-level thoughts with which we access the area of the mind within which the Monitor dwells.
God speaks to us, “You are utterly incapable of distinguishing the product of your own material intellect from that of the conjoint activities of your soul and the Adjuster.” UB 110:4.2
“The great challenge of modern man is to achieve better communication with the divine Monitor within the human mind” UB 196:3.34
“We have difficulty in contacting our Adjustersbecause of our veryinherent material nature.” UB 110:7.6
Thought Adjusters do not speak to our minds, but they must use our minds to speak to us. And they do this with our very thought process: The divine spirit makes contact with mortal man not through feelings or emotions, but in the field of the highest and most spiritualized thought. “The Adjuster does not attempt to control your thinking, but rather to spiritualize it, to eternalize it. The Adjusters are engaged in the improvement, modification, adjustment, and coordination of your thinking process.”UB 110:2.3
It is we who must take our thoughts and direct them toward God. Jesus said: “Do not be constantly over-anxious about your daily needs, do not fret about the problems of your earthly existence, but expound, through prayer and supplication and in a sincere spirit of thanksgiving. Jesus admonished “his believers to use prayer as a means of being led through thanksgiving to true worship.” Worship or Worshipful Meditation.UB 146:2.16
Prayer is the only technique by which each man can communicate with his Maker, whereby the creature contacts the reality of the Creator, with the Thought Adjuster who dwells within him.UB 91:6.7
“Prayer will bring earth mortals into the communion of true worship.” But “Meditation brings the mind into contact with the spirit”UB 144:4.4
The recognition of religious living in others, reflective meditation on cosmic meanings, solution of problems through worship, sharing of the spiritual life with one’s fellows, avoidance of selfishness, refusal to assume divine mercy, living as if in the presence of God.UB 100:1.8
DANGERS. “We communicate with our Adjuster, most often indirectly, but it is dangerous to entertain the idea that every new concept originating in the human mind is dictated by the Adjuster. What you accept as the voice of the Adjuster is in reality an emanation of your own intellect.”
Religious growth.
The child evaluates experience according to its pleasure content; maturity is proportional to the substitution of higher meanings for personal pleasure, loyalty to higher concepts.
The fundamental ground for religious growth presupposes a progressive life of self-realization, pleasure in reasonable adventures, experiencing feelings of satisfaction, attraction to the marvelous, awareness of our smallness, humility.
The habits that favor religious growth include: cultivating sensitivity to divine values, recognizing the religious life of others, reflective meditation, solving problems using worship, sharing your spiritual life with your fellow human beings, avoiding selfishness, refusing to abuse divine mercy, and living as if you were in the presence of God.
Religious growth develops on the superconscious levels of the mortal mind. The experience of understanding the reality that religious growth is unconscious is the only positive proof of the functional existence of superconsciousness.
Spiritual growth. We have many opportunities throughout our lives to demonstrate who we are. When we face any problem, we can apply the “scanner” of truth, beauty, and goodness. DOC 100.2
Spiritual growth is spiritual progress based on the intellectual recognition of our spiritual poverty, the desire to know God, the sincere intention to do the Father’s will.
Spirituality enhances the ability to discover beauty in things, to recognize truth in meanings, and to discover goodness in values. This is directly proportional to the elimination of the selfish elements of love.
The goal of human self-realization should be spiritual. The only realities worth striving for are divine, spiritual, and eternal. Mortal man has a right to the enjoyment of physical pleasures and the gratification of human affections, but these are not the eternal foundations upon which the immortal personality is to be built.
Once we possess a normal body and reasonable health, we must next seek those attractions that will act as a stimulus to bring forth the mastered spiritual forces of man. Jesus taught us that God lives in man; emotional excitement is not the ideal spiritual stimulus. Excitement does not increase energy; rather, it exhausts the forces of mind and body. Observe your Master. The secret is spiritual communion in worship. From the human point of view, it is a matter of combining meditation and relaxation. Meditation brings the mind into contact with the spirit; relaxation determines the capacity for spiritual receptivity.
When we fight for what is right, both the victor and the vanquished suffer defeat. The Master says that “if a wise man tries to enter through a closed door, he does not destroy the door, but seeks the key to open it.” Too often we fight only to convince ourselves that we are not afraid.
At every peak of intellectual thought there is rest for the mind, strength for the soul, and communion for the spirit. From this vantage point of the higher life, man is able to transcend the material irritations of the lower levels of thought—the worries, jealousy, envy, revenge, and pride of the immature personality. The purpose of life must be jealously guarded against the temptation to seek easy and transitory achievements; likewise, it must be fostered in such a way as to become immune to the disastrous threats of fanaticism.
Souls who climb to these heights are freed from a multitude of conflicts and the upstream minutiae of living, thus becoming free to achieve awareness of higher currents of spiritual conception and heavenly communication. These habits of worship eventually form a spiritual character, and such a character is eventually recognized by our fellow men as a mature personality. At first, these practices are difficult and time-consuming, but when they become habitual, they provide both rest and time-saving benefits.
“I had developed my own ritual and was a prisoner of what I had imposed on myself.”
SPIRITUALITY THERMOMETER. The truth is, if the answers are affirmative, then I’m not in line with the guidelines in The Urantia Book and the example of Jesus’ life, understanding the inner life upward.
¶ THE INNER LIFE II: UPWARDS. THERMOMETER OF SPIRITUALITY
JUST DISPUTE YES OR NO
If you are a spectator of a terrible situation that does not affect you directly (e.g., the murder of a child at the hands of a heartless person), do you condemn it? Do you sentence it? YES NO
In your daily life, do you feel like every hour is filled until it’s finally time to rest? YES NO
Can you recognize that you forget to give thanks every day for the everyday things that happen to you? YES NO
Do I frequently correct others on the most appropriate way to solve problems? ☐ YES ☐ NO
Do I vacillate in my decisions between what I think is God’s will and my feelings? YES NO
Do I think that not all religions lead to the Father? YES NO
When I face a serious problem in my life, do I usually feel great anxiety or lose sleep? YES NO
Do I find it impossible to find a moment or place of silence and solitude in my life or at home? YES NO
In my conversations with the Father, do I introduce negative words, bad thoughts, get angry… ☐ YES ☐ NO
Do I believe that my prayers, if expressed with great sadness, tears, complaints, etc., will be better heard? YES NO