© 2008 Anne-Marie Ronfet
© 2008 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
“Here is the man”
THIS MEETING WAS ABOUT HOW JESUS LIVED HIS EVERYDAY LIFE, THE TRAITS OF HIS CHARACTER THAT WE CAN SHARE WITH HIM, LIFE IN GENERAL, WHAT HE TEACHES US ABOUT OURSELVES AND WHAT WE CAN DO TO HAVE A BEAUTIFUL RELIGIOUS LIFE.
We took as a basis chapter 7 of booklet 100 “the apogee of religious life” and a presentation made by our friend Chris concerning “Jesus, the man”.
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. The most effective presentation of Jesus consists in following the example of the one who said, as he gestured toward the Master standing before his accusers, “Behold the man!” (UB 100:7.1)
Question: Did Jesus benefit from his previous bestowals in order to live? Jesus had a real human life. He had to have a true human experience. Therefore, he should not have remembered his previous experiences.
Jesus is ONE; man cannot be separated from his divine being, any more than we can separate our humanity from our Adjuster.
Jesus lived as a creature as a child, under the influence of the Adjutant Mental Spirits, of the cosmic mind… From the moment his Adjuster leaves him, he is not truly human. It is something else. However, he is the human prototype par excellence. He also has a genetic heritage, a patrimony. And he used his human baggage to the maximum.
As a child, if he made a mistake, he only made it once, just once… While we often have to repeat our mistakes to understand how to act well. Jesus invites us to master our nature as he himself did. Master both material life and spiritual life unlike some religious leaders who only concern themselves with the spiritual life.
He optimized his human life with his possibilities and in a natural way without interventions from his divine prerogatives, without distorting the game.
A child’s faith in Jesus is a trust, an openness and not an intellectual faith which acts as a “barrier”. Living like a child, who has trust:
A sick or injured adult human who has to relearn how to walk normally takes a very long time, months or even years. Whereas a small child launches forward with confidence, naturally, without asking questions, being SINCERE, without doubts and without affectation.
Support for reflection: the apogee of religious life UB 100:6.6
Discussion on the terms mastery and harmony:
Harmony and balance are to be sought as much as perfection. Seeking perfection can be a source of problems for us. Becoming too spiritual is no better than remaining too material. The solution is in mastery and balance.
Jesus was the truth: He spoke the truth tactfully when people asked Him. The goal is not the truth that kills. The goal is wisdom. He had acquired this wisdom through his knowledge, itself acquired through his insatiable curiosity since his early childhood. He uses this natural confidence with love.
Jesus had a strength of character that enabled him to overcome his own disappointments.
Since his childhood, he listened to what people were saying as caravans passed by…
Enthusiasm must be our way of life. Where does the surprising vitality of some people, even elderly ones, come from? Where can we find this enthusiasm?
Importance of the intuitive aspect in intelligence.
Role of emotion in life: in many spiritual traditions we tend to want to “bridle” emotion, whereas it is a trigger that must be channeled. Emotion spreads and is controlled, becoming a source of inspiration:
We talked about the universality of BACH’s music which conveyed emotion without overflowing…
Regarding the unification of Jesus as a model UB 100:7.2 and UB 100:7.4:
Balanced people attract. In balance, serenity emerges. A balance manifested on the 3 levels, physical, mental and spiritual is attractive.
The wise man unifies opinions and creates harmony that is satisfactory to everyone.
The originality of Jesus:
He was himself, without suffocation, without fanaticism. All this is due to self-confidence to which is added a great curiosity towards others.
Many of us have rejected our religion of birth. He did not reject his religion. He knew it thoroughly and went beyond it because he took WHAT RESONATED within him…
Absolute authority and natural authority:
When he speaks of the Father, Jesus speaks with absolute authority because he has become aware of his divine character. Then he is more than himself, he has AUTHORITY. But his natural authority is human, stemming from his confident character, his intimate convictions and his experience of speaking.
Jesus is ready for adventure. He is not afraid. He is ready to move forward. He is a pioneer. He allowed others to get rid of erroneous, stifling concepts without revolution. He swept away useless habits.
Jésus a confiance dans son Père et nous dit « Faites confiance aussi au Père, Vous pouvez lui faire confiance. » LU 100:7.6-7
He was immune to disappointments, through his liberating faith, through his mastery and the overcoming of his ego. He speaks to everyone without prejudice.
Leave the past, live in the present moment. It teaches us the “globality” of spiritual experience in a future full of hope and thus allows us not to dwell on our failures. Besides, failures are only apparent. They are growth techniques if they are well understood.
Respect for the difference of others, due to its capacity to probe souls. But there we leave the human and we brush against the divine personality.
Jesus is dynamic, always in motion because movement is life. We ourselves sometimes have difficulty moving. The more he gave, the more he received.
He also trusted men. He rejoiced as a creator in advance of our evolution, seeing in us more than what we currently are.
He was joyful and optimistic. We talked about the meaning of celebration: cheerfulness to face adversity and suffering. We questioned modern pessimism, perhaps due to the consumer society. We must cultivate sharing and conviviality. Sharing is part of the archetypes. In the world of houses, social taste will have to be developed.
His life is an exhortation to courage and to live one’s convictions.
The Master was always generous. He never grew weary of saying, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Said he, “Freely you have received, freely give.” And yet, with all of his unbounded generosity, he was never wasteful or extravagant. He taught that you must believe to receive salvation. “For every one who seeks shall receive.” (UB 100:7.10)
We then talked about waste, the art of doing a lot with a little. Controlling waste is about mastery and this challenges us to the highest degree as modern man. Planetary waste occurs at the level of energies, money and spiritual forces. We must learn COSMIC ECONOMY.
God gives abundantly but despite everything, Jesus “did not throw pearls before swine.”
Doing the right thing at the right time.
Jesus loves the sinner and hates sin. It is difficult for us to discern between the person and his actions.
Back to Chris’s text
Jesus’ devotion to the Father’s will and the service of man was even more than mortal decision and human determination; it was a wholehearted consecration of himself to such an unreserved bestowal of love. No matter how great the fact of the sovereignty of Michael, you must not take the human Jesus away from men. The Master has ascended on high as a man, as well as God; he belongs to men; men belong to him. How unfortunate that religion itself should be so misinterpreted as to take the human Jesus away from struggling mortals! Let not the discussions of the humanity or the divinity of the Christ obscure the saving truth that Jesus of Nazareth was a religious man who, by faith, achieved the knowing and the doing of the will of God; he was the most truly religious man who has ever lived on Urantia. (UB 196:1.1)
We will go to Salvington to present ourselves before him. He will validate our passage. Chris asks us the question on how we envision this moment. Will we have a greater responsibility following Michael’s passage on Urantia and the 5th Revelation?
We wonder for a moment about the special Bond that can be forged between Jesus and us, ex-Urantians.
Chris’ question challenged us but we did not get to the end of the answer. This is in the HEART. It is up to each of us to think about it and meditate. Jesus was religious, religious in the sense of “connected.” True religion is a direct link with God.
Jesus, who has confidence in us, revalues, in our own eyes, the fact of our passage here below on Urantia.
Our life has value. Children who die very young will go to Heaven but will not be able to become finaliters. This gives our time on earth a special meaning.
We then talked about the spontaneity of Jesus who acted naturally, when events presented themselves. Effective spontaneity is often the result of years of work and experience.
Jesus revealed man to himself and he feels magnified by service. Giving and receiving. Being oneself and taking one’s true place is also a way of serving.
Man only truly becomes himself when he is born to the Spirit. His reality comes with his Spirit. We are potential until fusion and it is only at that moment that we become real.
Then comes the testimony of a reader about his faith which brings a certain serenity despite the hazards and uncertainties of life. We sometimes experience traumatic events and the end of “our world”, of our bearings. We must not underestimate the upheavals of existence, but faith allows us to rebuild ourselves over time.
Jesus regenerated himself by isolating himself, by praying. Everyone must therefore find their own way of recharging their batteries. Jesus was truly wise and honest in his decisions. Like him, we can take breaks (internalize ourselves to better externalize ourselves later), breaks to reflect.
Regarding the ethical decisions we must make, we have the answer within us using the tools at our disposal.
Jesus used to isolate himself to recharge his batteries. His decisions were not immediate but thoughtful. This is a lesson for us.
The human choice for Jesus:
The next great problem with which this God-man wrestled and which he presently decided in accordance with the will of the Father in heaven, concerned the question as to whether or not any of his superhuman powers should be employed for the purpose of attracting the attention and winning the adherence of his fellow men. Should he in any manner lend his universe powers to the gratification of the Jewish hankering for the spectacular and the marvelous? He decided that he should not. He settled upon a policy of procedure which eliminated all such practices as the method of bringing his mission to the notice of men. And he consistently lived up to this great decision. Even when he permitted the manifestation of numerous time-shortening ministrations of mercy, he almost invariably admonished the recipients of his healing ministry to tell no man about the benefits they had received. And always did he refuse the taunting challenge of his enemies to “show us a sign” in proof and demonstration of his divinity. (UB 136:8.1)
To bring his mission to the knowledge of men, Jesus fixed his choice on a method eliminating all these practices, and he lived consistently according to this great decision. Jesus wanted to remain within the natural limits of humanity. He could not afford to transgress the natural laws of the world he had created. The lesson of this for us is not to seek the exceptional event but the slow, true and profound inner spiritual evolution.
The requirement of the booklets gives man back the meaning of his destiny, without easy miracles, without dogmas. Miracles, when there are any, are done naturally by faith, if the father wants it.
Spirituality heals through the energy of love.
3. Along with the faith of the creature and the life of the Creator it should also be noted that this God-man was the personified expression of the Father’s will. If, in the contact of the human need and the divine power to meet it, the Father did not will otherwise, the two became one, and the healing occurred unconsciously to the human Jesus but was immediately recognized by his divine nature. The explanation, then, of many of these cases of healing must be found in a great law which has long been known to us, namely, What the Creator Son desires and the eternal Father wills IS. (UB 149:1.7)
Report from Saturday November 22, 2008 in Suresnes.
Anne-Marie Ronfet