© 2000 Carolina Arana
© 2000 Urantia Association International (IUA)
| The Spirit of Truth, Guardian Angels and Other Friends | Journal — September 2000 — Index | Quantum Physics, Joy, and the Father's Will |
Carolina Arana, Bolivia
This is the fifth and last paper of the series presenting the narrative of the Universal Father by a Divine Counselor of Uversa. The paper has six sections. The author leads us progressively from: the approach to God, the presence of God, true worship, God in religion, the consciousness of God and the God of personality. The Divine Counselor explains to us one of the greatest unfathomable mysteries of God: The divine presence in the mind of man is the mystery of mysteries [UB 1:4.1].
The divine mystery consists of the inberent difference which exists between the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the eternal, the time-space creature and the Universal Creator, the material and the spiritual, the imperfection of man and the perfection of Paradise Deity. [26.17-27.0]
The infinity of the perfection of God is such that it eternally constitutes him a mystery [UB 1:4.1]. But God is a reality in our human spiritual experience.
We are constantly confronted by this mystery of God; we are nonplused by the increasing unfolding of the endless panorama of the truth of his infinite goodness, endless mery, matchless wisdom, and superb character. [UB 1:4.4]
Is it possible for us to approach God ?
Our inherent condition as a material being makes it impossible for us to approach God; but God has bridged the gap between his infinity and our finite condition, adjusting our mind though the Thought Adjusters, making it possible for us to approach him.
Yes, the Thought Adjusters are our best gift from our loving Father. He has personalized his love in this spiritual endowment. We are all equally privileged to enjoy the same divine presence and to seek intimate personal communion with his divine spirit.
When man loses sight of the love of a personal God, the kingdom of God becomes merely the kingdom of good. [UB 2:5.12]
Although, we must await our spiritual progression until we will qualify to be in his presence even now, today we can make contact with his divine presence in us. When we experience this fact, God becomes a reality in our spiritual experience.
Yes, God is real in us and we are real in him. He is our source, nature, and destiny.
It is the indwelling Thought Adjuster that gives us the feeling of reality to our spiritual insight into the cosmos. The Thought Adjuster is the cosmic window through which the finite creature may faith-glimpse the certainties and divinities of limitless Deity, the Universal Father. [UB 103:0.1]
Could we doubt the presence of God ?
He who has gone though the experience-idea of God, knows the certainty of his presence. We cannot prove the presence of God unless we experience him in our mind. Our experience is the only proof we have of his reality. The Father idea is still the bighest human concept of God [UB 196:3.35].
The divine spirit makes contact with mortal man, not by feelings or emotions, but in the realm of the highest and most spiritualized thinking [UB 101:1.3]. Our thoughts, not our feelings, lead us Godward.
The presence of God in us is determined by the indwelling of the Thought Adjusters, but his effective presence is determined by the cooperation we give to the guides of this divine spirit.
The presence of this divine Adjuster in our human mind is revealed by three experiential phenomena:
- The intellectual capacity for knowing God.
- The spiritual urge to find God.
- The personality craving to be like God.
The effective presence of God is determined by our capacity of receptivity and by our will’s consecration to the Father’s will (UB 5:2.1).
The only proof we have to recognize this fellowship with the divine Adjuster is our daily life. By their fruits you shall know them UB 5:2.4.
Worship as a reactive response to the effective presence of God is a natural and spontaneous reaction to the recognition of this loving presence in us: we simply worship God for what we comprehend him to be [UB 5:3.3]. We worship the Father, first because be is, then, because he is in us, and last, because we are in him [UB 16:9.14].
Worship is for its own sake; prayer embodies a selfinterest element (UB 5:3.3). True worship is an experience realized on four levels: the consciousness of mind, soul, spirit, and their unification in personality [UB 5:3.8].
Prayer is indeed a part of religious experience. An effective prayer will be directed exclusively for divine wisdom to solve the specific human problems encountered in the Paradise ascension… [UB 91:9.7]. Prayer may enrich life, but worship illuminates destiny [UB 102:4.5].
¶ Religion as a Dynamic Experience
Religious force is not the product of the individual’s personal prerogatives but rather the outworking of that sublime partnership of man and the everlasting source of all wisdom. [UB 102:2.2]
The wisdom of religious experience is something of a paradox in that it is both humanly original and Adjuster derivative. [UB 102:2.2]
The work of the Thought Adjuster constitutes the explanation of the translation of man’s primitive and evolutionary sense of duty into that bigher and more certain faith in the eternal realities of revelation. [UB 102:1.1]
Religious experience is the realization of the consciousness of having found God. Then we experience an indescribable restlessness of triumph in the discovery that: Even if I cannot do this, there lives in me one who can and will do it, a part of the Father-Absolute of the universe of universes. And that is the victory which overcomes the world, even your faith [UB 4:4.9].
True religion is alive and must act. Never will religion be content with mere thinking or inactive feeling; it is dynamic! (UB 102:2.8)!
. . . religious experience means incessant activity in spiritual growth, intellectual expansion, factual enlargement, and social service. There is no real religion apart from a highly active personality. [UB 102:2.7]
. . . the truly religious individual seeks to identify the self with the universe and then to dedicate the activities of this unified self to the service of the universal family of fellow beings, human and superhuman. [UB 5:4.3]
¶ The Consciousness of God
There is no word in any human language which can be employed to designate this “sense,” “feeling,” “intuition,” or “experience” which we have elected to call God-consciousness. The spirit of God that dwells in man is not personal—the Adjuster is prepersonal—but this Monitor presents a value, exudes a flavor of divinity, which is personal in the bighest and infinite sense. If God were not at least personal, he could not be conscious, and if not conscious, then would be be infrahuman. [UB 103:1.6]
God-consciousness must consist of three differential levels of reality realization:
(1) Mind consciousness: the comprehension of the idea of God; (2) Soul consciousness: the realization of the ideal of God; (3) Spirit consciousness: the realization of the spirit reality of God
By the unification of these conscious levels our mortal personality will have realized the personality of God. This spiritual experience demands to find God and sincerely strive to be like him (UB 5:5.11).
When the mind believes God and the soul knows God, and when with the fostering Adjuster, they both desire God, then is survival assured. [UB 1:5.7]
¶ The God of Personality
Without God and except for his great and central person, there would be no personality throughout all the vast universe of universes. God is personality [UB 1:5.7]. Personality, in the supreme sense, is the revelation of God to the universe of universes [UB 1:5.13]. God and man cannot enjoy one another unless both are persons. This personal communion may be greatly facilitated by the presence of the Thought Adjuster. With the endowment of personality we discover God as a loving person. We are able to have a fellowship. Only a person can love and be loved. Fatherhood becomes a universe reality because the Father has bestowed us with personality and has encircuited us in the personality circuit.
Our personality has two phenomena of reactive behavior:
Self-consciousness: The ability to recognize the reality of our personality actuality and other personalities, plus the capacity for individualized experience in and with cosmic realities, equal to the attainment of identity status in the personality relationships of the universe. Ranging from the minimum of self-consciousness to the maximum of God-consciousness.
The realization of relative independence of creative and determinative free will (UB 16:8.6).
Personality gives us positive and temporal identity. The personality is potential in our mind endowment. Personality is inherent in the prepersonal Adjuster, but our experiental personality is active after it has been liberated of the life vehicle and the fetters of causation response. Then the Father stands aside, and in this moment we exercise absolute sovereignty of our free will, choosing the eternal destiny of oun personality. No other being, force, creator or agency can interfere in this decision. . . . the portal of eternity opens only in response to the freewill choice of the freewill sons of the God of free will. [UB 5:6.12]
Why has the Father decided to live within us subject to our will?
Our Father is eternally motivated by the perfect idealism of divine love [UB 4:4.6]. In his plan of progressive attainment of his proposal: Let us make mortal creatures in our own image [UB 7:4.4], the Thought Adjusters are the image of God [UB 108:6.3], his personal love applied to us. The Father’s nature finds its strongest expression and greatest satisfaction in loving and being loved [UB 4:4.6].
If the Father made us in his own image we could only find satisfaction having the greatest experience: to love God and be loved by him [UB 56:9.13]. This is the purpose of our creation and the Father’s reason to live within us subject to our will. Such an experience of love does make us live the golden rule: to love our brothers and sisters as he loves us.
Only then will we be able to join Jesus, saying with him: Father, glorify your name, your will be done UB 174:5.9.
| The Spirit of Truth, Guardian Angels and Other Friends | Journal — September 2000 — Index | Quantum Physics, Joy, and the Father's Will |