© 1990 Ann Bendall
© 1990 ANZURA, Australia & New Zealand Urantia Association
Like a child I read The URANTIA Book the first tine and I delighted in noting all those lovely sayings like — “If your own mind does not serve you well, you can exchange it for the mind of Jesus of Nazareth, who always serves you well.” (UB 48:6.26)
It was all so simple, all I had to do was pray for a mindexchange. Dear Lord, I need to trade this one in and have one like you had when you walked this earth! — and so I prayed and nothing happened. Each morning I would rumnage through my mind and alas it was still the same doltish inadequate brain as the day before.
Then I read “stabilize mind by subordination to spirit”. So I prayed that my Thought Adjuster just take over completely and chuck out all the guff. Rather than do it at daytime, which I felt might be a bit difficult for my Monitor, I decided nighttime, during sleep, would be perhaps the most suitable time. Despite prayers and a totally dedicated desire, again no change.
So I decided it was time to really read what was in the Blue Book, and, guess what? — looks like I am required to do a little bit of work. Many, many gifts our Father has given me, but a spiritualised way of thinking has to be a dedicated concentrated effort on my part — knowing that my Thought Adjuster is giving me all the help, support and insight, but it is an active process on my part.
We are told — “The spiritual forward urge is the most powerful driving force present in this world; the truth-learning believer is the one progressive and aggressive soul on earth.” (UB 194:3.4)
The Adjuster is not trying to control your thinking, as such, but rather to spiritualise it, to eternalise it. Neither angels nor Adjusters are devoted directly to influencing human thought; that is your exclusive personality prerogative. The Adjusters are dedicated to improving, modifying, adjusting, and co-ordinating your thinking processes; but more especially and specifically they are devoted to the work of building up spiritual counterparts of your careers, morontia transcripts of your true advancing selves, for survival purposes.
Adjusters work in the spheres of the higher levels of the human mind, unceasingly seeking to produce morontia duplicates of every concept of the mortal intellect. There are, therefore, two realities which impinge upon, and are centered in, the human mind circuits: one, a mortal self evolved from the original plans of the Life Carriers, the other, an immortal entity from the high spheres of Divinington, an indwelling gift from God. But the mortal self is also a personal self; it has personality.
You as a personal creature have mind and will. The Adjuster as a prepersonal creature has premind and prewill. If you so fully conform to the Adjuster’s mind that you see eye to eye, then your minds become one, and you receive the reinforcement of the Adjuster’s mind. Subsequently, if your will orders and enforces the execution of the decisions of this new or combined mind, the Adjuster’s prepersonal will attains to personality expression through your decision, and as far as that particular project is concerned, you and the Adjuster are one. Your mind has attained to divinity attunement, and the Adjuster’s will has achieved personality expression.
To the extent that this identity is realized, you are mentally approaching the morontia order of existence. Morontia mind is a term signifying the substance and sum total of the co-operating minds of diversely material and spiritual natures. Morontia intellect, therefore, connotes a dual mind in the local universe dominated by one will. And with mortals this is a will, human in origin, which is becoming divine through man’s identification of the human mind with the mindedness of God." (1205:1-4)
“Trust all matters of mind beyond the dead level of consciousness to the custody of the Adjusters. In due time, if not in this world then on the mansion worlds, they will give good account of their stewardship, and eventually will they bring forth those meanings and values intrusted to their care and keeping. They will resurrect every worthy treasure of the mortal mind if you survive.” (UB 110:4.4)
And it would be so nice if every so often my Thought Adjuster assured me that I was on the right track, but then that is not necessary. I have dedicated my will to our Father’s will being done in every moment of my life, and I know — “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.” (UB 110:2.1)
The mind is the gateway through which all must pass. By practicing introspection and that means non-judgmental, every time we get upset with someone, we will normally discover that we had an erroneous belief about life, ourselves, and that other person.
All too often we look at the situation or person but not ourselves. One sobering thought to pull me back on track when I am revelling in an unappreciated, misunderstood, martyr or judge and jury and executioner roll is the sharp reminder that I am subjecting my Thought Adjuster to this garbage. Usually I’m too busy on my little tangent to do this immediately and so my Thought Adjuster has to stomach my guff until it gets its message through — of what purpose is this train of thought, what reality, love or goodness is in it?
“The indwelling Adjusters are particularly tormented by those thoughts which are purely sordid and selfish; they are distressed by irreverence for that which is beautiful and divine, and they are virtually thwarted in their work by many of man’s foolish animal fears and childish anxieties.” (UB 108:6.2)
I pray one day the time lag will decrease between my tangents and awareness of the presence of a part of God in my mind subjected to my nonsense, and one day a little later it will not be necessary to send a message and that day my Thought Adjuster will have succeeded in removing all the error in my mind.
Another technique I have is prayerfully asking what would Jesus do in this situation — but with a large percentage of my life experiences I suspect he would have had the sense and honesty enough to have avoided them in the first place.
The URANTIA Book has given us so many clues and precise guidelines and these are invaluable. The morontia mota help us to understand the attitudes we must adopt to have peace. Michael’s life on earth, his sermons, talks and parables show us the way. But the spiritualisation of my thinking is an individualistic task different from anyone elses. My Achilles heel will not be my neighbours’. That which to me is easy could be difficult for you, and that pet stultifier to which I am totally oblivious may stick out like a sore thumb to a person who truly loves and cares for me.
Perhaps they may see my fault through limited vision and perhaps with the insight of their Thought Adjuster.
It would be nice to dissect me and get the thinking in order, then work on the emotional maturity and the cosmic morality and all the other bits and pieces — but that is not how growth occurs. Growth is exciting and all embracing. If we work on the cleaning out of the materialistic cobwebs from the corridors of our mind so our Thought Adjuster can guide us to the true, real world, we will discover we have grown emotionally in the process. Our hearts will fill with love, as we realise we now know our father just a little bit more but the process of loving requires us to care enough to honestly understand another person a little bit better, God can only reveal himself as we increase our capacity to comprehend Him. The more we spiritualise our thinking the more we can love and appreciate just how great, and beautiful, and true, and loving and wise, etc. our Father is with a double edged blessing that we also appreciate how little we know.
“Spirituality becomes at once the indicator of one’s nearness to God and the measure of one’s usefulness to fellow beings. Spirituality enhances the ability to discover goodness in values. Spiritual development is determined by capacity therefor and is directly proportional to the elimination of the selfish qualities of love.” (UB 100:2.4)