© 1994 Ann Bendall
© 1994 The Brotherhood of Man Library
This really does not appear an overly complicated process; actually it is surprisingly simple as long as I decide right here and now to revert to about the level of a five year old child—an average, ordinary, five year old child, the perfect model for me to follow being—the child named, “Jesus.” Emmanuel stated to Michael that he should only be concerned with unbroken communion between you and your Paradise Father while living as Jesus on Urantia. UB 120:1.4 If it was good enough for my model of perfection it is good enough for me!
Of course the blocks to my reverting to Jesus-at-five-years-of-age will have to be removed first. For the main part these will consist of:
Jesus was provided with an environment to stimulate the development of his mind. He had many friends from a very early age. His play consisted of lots of time in his sand pit (wonderfully creative medium for experimentation and problem solving). He enjoyed drawing (good healthy mind stimulating stuff also), explored nature, examined flowers and star gazed at night. And all this while, in his dear little alter ego, he was creating a real as real image of God and developing a one-to-one relationship with Him.
Now, my parents did the best job they could, armed with their knowledge. I am aware that between them, me, and my life experiences to date, I have a lot of garbage to clear out before I can truly have Jesus teach me how to play in his sand pit. The Urantia Book tells me that “the fact of life comes first, its evaluation or interpretation later. In the cosmic economy insight precedes foresight”. The fact of my being alive is beyond question. However the insight and therefore foresight is cluttered with lots of illusions. I must eradicate all of my interpretations of my life experiences and BE THAT LITTLE CURLY HEADED GIRL OF FIVE PLAYING IN THE SAND PIT WITH MY SAME-AGED FRIEND, JESUS.
On Becoming as a Little Child
When I asked you to become as little children as the price of entering the kingdom, I referred not to ease of deception, mere willingness to believe, nor to quickness to trust pleasing strangers. What I did desire that you should gather from the illustration was the child-father relationship. You are the child, and it is your Father’s kingdom you seek to enter. There is present that natural affection between every normal child and its father which insures an understanding and loving relationship, and which forever precludes all disposition to bargain for the Father’s love and mercy. (UB 140:10.4).
Intimations of Immortality
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
but trailing clouds of glory, do we come.
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing boy,
But he beholds the light and whence it flows…
Full soon thy soul shall have her
earthly freight, and custom lie upn thee like a weight
Heavy as frost, and deep as lile!
William Wordsworth
To be true to my model I have to do one more task—I have to remove from my mind my knowledge of our Universal Dad, so Jesus can tell me what our Father is really like. And now we can play a game? He will teach me the rules.
Jesus at five was a pretty smart kid. He knew Aramaic and was starting to learn Greek. He was very much interested in religion; its customs permeated his whole life. When I was five, life was totally different from this. I put more effort into football, than learning to know God (and I was not really very interested in football). But now, with an “0” added at the end of my age I am trying to live life like him, so that I can be at the level where we can wander around looking at the flowers by day, gazing at the stars by night UB 123:3.10. And he will teach me, with all of the creativity of a five year old, how to develop better communication with my Thought Adjuster. He assures me it is simple—just chat with God as I would chat with a loving father, having “a little talk with my Father in heaven” UB 123:3.6.
Does this sound far fetched? Do I require a few glasses of wine before getting in the mood? I think not! How many times have I day dreamed of a true soul mate? How many times have lovely romantic songs like “Until the Twelfth of Never” stirred my emotions? How many times have I dreamed about a wonderful relationship with someone whom I could love, laugh and grow with, and never be separated from? The child, Jesus has shown me how this dream is a reality right now—for the person of my dreams is God. The relationship is with Him through my Thought Adjuster who turns my dreams of an eternal lover into a reality of my mind.
I listen to the young Jesus telling me of our Universal Dad and then he tells me something more. He reminds me that this is my personal relationship with our Father. Just as my human dad had different and unique relationships with each of my brothers and sisters, so does our Universal Father. Just as each person has a unique relationship with every other person that they know—so different that you could describe a mutual friend to me, with the utmost of honesty and that person would sound totally alien to the person I know. This is because we are interacting with that person on different levels of subjectivity (based on different degrees of illusion/honesty/reality). We are unique and hence so will our relationships with others (including God) be unique. God is the one constant. The relationship is personal and creative. We are the ones who are changing.
As all relationships are to a large measure warped as they pass through our perceptual filters (so warped that with some people black can be seen as white, and vice versa) so I will be prone to warp my image of God. But if I try, as Jesus did when he was just a child, to hold an image of God as always the highest of truth, beauty and goodness that I can imagine, then I will be seeing Him in the most realistic of lights at my current state of development.
Now I know that my “Thought Adjuster has no special mechanism through which to gain self-expression; there is no mystic religious faculty for the reception or expression of religious emotions. These experiences are made available through the naturally ordained mechanism of mortal mind. And therein lies one explanation of the Adjuster’s difficulty in engaging in direct communication with the material mind of its constant indwelling.” UB 101:1.2 I also know the potential of my alter ego to create personalities and develop relationships with them. I saw how real were the “imaginary” friends of my brothers when they were 4 to 6 years old. One day Davey Crockett; the next, great adventurers or philosophers or same age friends who had to learn a lesson about following the “rules”. They were anything and everything my little brothers desired.
Jesus stuck to one friend only. He called Him “Papa”. He dreamed his dream, created it so well that his Thought Adjuster could grab the truth and add to it. And Jesus went on to attain perfect mastery of his human mind.
And so I spin a dream through my alter ego as humans have done right from the beginning of humanity (see UB 91:3.3), I say a prayer of gratitude for all the folks who have walked this earth before me. They have enabled my dear little alter ego to adaptively grasp the concept of One God. I say a prayer of thanks to our Father for dreaming a dream and calling its potential—me. He blessed me with the unique gift of personality through which, long before my Thought Adjuster arrived, had developed a “Subjective self-consciousness” as well as an “Objective response to the Father’s personality circuit.” UB 9:8.8 Hence I was able to grasp the concept that I was unique and an individual in the true sense of the word, and also that I was His child.
Then I praise God for the reality base of my alter ago—my Thought Adjuster. UB 91:3.1 Through God’s gift of a part of Himself to me, forevermore, I “will be discovering not only the infinity of the objective Deity but also the unending potentiality of the subjective fragment of this same God.” UB 107:4.7 And when I get too subjective in my discoveries, it will be back to the sand pit with Jesus, so that he can help me to see our Dad with a tinge more reality and a tinge less illusion
Next a prayer of love to Jesus for offering to be my “little child” model. And then a prayer of gratitude to all those personalities who so spoilt me by giving me The Urantia Book to make it all so easy—a step by step technique to unbroken communion with my Thought Adjuster! They have shown me the process. It is up to me to utilize it.
Seeing I totally agree with the concept of my never being able to have enough of a good thing, I realize that in using Jesus as my model, in developing a unbroken communion with my Thought Adjuster, I am actually acquiring two friendships—God and Jesus-Michael. And, with my rudimentary knowledge of the universe, there are lots of spiritual folks who adopt the attitude “If it is good enough for God and Jesus-Michael to call Cecilia Ann a friend, it is good enough for us!”. So I probably am acquiring billions of friends by this one process, all through my alter ego with the loving dedicated assistance of my two best friends—God and Jesus.
And my final and most fervent prayer must be: “Dear Lord, please protect me from myself. Help me to get really serious. Help me to not be one of those: “Modern men and women of intelligence (who) 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.” UB 195:9.6
Help and guide me to dominate me, transform me, so that I can make the home of my mind and spirit a truly lovely, comfy place for my Thought Adjuster. Then we can chat away with me no more putting words in God’s mouth but giving Him the opportunity to put words in mine!