© 2022 Claudia Ayers
© 2022 The Urantia Book Fellowship
“Knocking on Heaven’s Door”
(John Shinn rewrite of Bob Dylan’s classic)
Spirit, take these fears from me
Remove the worries, cares, and war
Bring me closer to your peace
Feels like I’m knocking on heaven’s door
Knock-knock-knockin’ on heaven’s door
Knock-knock-knockin’ on heaven’s door
Knock-knock-knockin’ on heaven’s door
Knock-knock-knockin’ on heaven’s door
Spirit, take these thoughts from me
I don’t need them anymore
I release them now to thee
Hear me knocking on heaven’s door
Now I let go and I let be
And feel the love I came here for
Let it flow through and from me
Now I’m knocking on heaven’s door
Now I feel the place in me
Where all is still down to the core
In this presence let me be
Always knocking on heaven’s door
Note: My friend, John Shinn, has upgraded Bob Dylan’s popular song. Used with permission.
Increasingly, worldly people on our planet are becoming willing to explore spirituality. Then, if the impulse to investigate takes root, they discover that there are myriad paths to better experiencing or better understanding faith. Because the Urantia Papers [which compose most of The Urantia Book] offer dogma-free, rational, philosophic, inspirational, and well-written chunks of wisdom, it will be increasingly attractive to people seeking truth residing on this warweary and often frightening world. As more and more of us have the comfort of having one foot firmly planted in eternity, we will all the sooner find our home sphere more settled, all lives more comfortable, and more of us knocking on heaven’s door. Why? Because, without fear we can better advocate for truth and stand up for our ideals. To replace fear with love and faith is awesomely powerful.
The heart of this article are some quotes from The Urantia Book. This book helped transform me from an atheistic college undergraduate to a person profoundly grateful for the security and satisfaction of an evolving personal faith. The Urantia Book has a Foreword and 197 papers (as chapters) which are, as a whole, divided into four parts. The fourth part, beginning with “Paper 120,” includes an intriguing biography of Jesus. Below, the quotes I use from The Urantia Book are cited as they are in the rest of this publication.
Most people feel that we are now living in particularly tough times with confusion, lockdowns, masking, and restrictive mandates on the one hand, and international tensions rising on the other. These all seriously curtail the more optimistic lives we had so recently been living. To be sure, this planet has always been a tough place to live: what could be more challenging than living in caves, living as serfs, or being in any of billions of war-torn or pioneering situations over the past million years of human evolution? Does faith, belief in a higher power, help to negotiate difficult life paths? Yes, it surely does; confirm this by rereading and contemplating the lyrics above. Then, read on.
These ascendant children of time have learned to feast upon uncertainty, to fatten upon disappointment, to enthuse over apparent defeat, to invigorate in the presence of difficulties, to exhibit indomitable courage in the face of immensity, and to exercise unconquerable faith when confronted with the challenge of the inexplicable. Long since, the battle cry of these pilgrims became: “In liaison with God, nothing-absolutely nothing-is impossible.” (UB 26:5.3)
We, the children of God, have been given an ascension plan that begins here on our native evolutionary planet. Our planet’s celestial name is Urantia; there are many millions of other such inhabited planets sharing the cosmos with us. When we leave our mortal bodies behind, we are destined to take up life again on the next level in shiny new bodies. We will do this repeatedly, through a long series of evolutionary steps that will transform our once physical beings into spiritual forms. We are always ourselves; we don’t reincarnate as someone else-that would be an odd and confusing plan if you think about it.
The test of time is almost over; the race for eternity has been all but run. The days of uncertainty are ending; the temptation to doubt is vanishing. … From the very bottom of intelligent existence the creature of time and material personality has ascended the evolutionary spheres of space, thus proving the feasibility of the ascension plan while forever demonstrating the justice and righteousness of the command of the Universal Father to his lowly creatures of the worlds: “Be you perfect, even as I am perfect.” (UB 26:9.3)
Religious skeptics used to argue that anyone with half a brain should realize there is no God. The scientific mind can scarcely contemplate the transference of a person’s existence to some far away “heaven” in “the sky.” But now there are all kinds of scientific studies and discussions suggesting that the human brain is “wired” for “religious experience.” If that is so, as I now believe, we can better understand how a scientific understanding of the brain can lead to spiritual experiences which can be “carried” into an “afterlife.”
The expansion of material knowledge permits a greater intellectual appreciation of the meanings of ideas and the values of ideals. A human being can find truth in … inner experience, but … needs a clear knowledge of facts to apply … personal discovery of truth to the ruthlessly practical demands of everyday life. (UB 111:6.7)
It is only natural that mortal man should be harassed by feelings of insecurity as he views himself inextricably bound to nature while he possesses spiritual powers wholly transcendent to all things temporal and finite. Only religious confidence-living faith-can sustain man amid such difficult and perplexing problems. (UB 111:6.8)
After more than seven decades on this planet, I was hoping that I would see more progress towards global peace and security. I have been disappointed, but not disheartened.
During the psychologically unsettled times of the twentieth century, amid the economic upheavals, the moral crosscurrents, and the sociologic rip tides of the cyclonic transitions of a scientific era, thousands upon thousands of men and women have become humanly dislocated; they are anxious, restless, fearful, uncertain, and unsettled; as never before in the world’s history they need the consolation and stabilization of sound [personal] religion. In the face of unprecedented scientific achievement and mechanical development there is spiritual stagnation and philosophic chaos. (UB 99:4.6)
Without hope for a better future, especially for our children, we are only left with despair. This, however, is unacceptable. “Fear not” is the motto for all who are “faith-full.”
Personal, spiritual religious experience is an efficient solvent for most mortal difficulties; it is an effective sorter, evaluator, and adjuster of all human problems. [Personal] religion does not remove or destroy human troubles, but it does dissolve, absorb, illuminate, and transcend them. True [personal] religion unifies the personality for effective adjustment to all mortal requirements. (UB 196:3.1)
It has helped me, exceedingly, to know thatand also this:
There is a great and glorious purpose in the march of the universes through space. All of your mortal struggling is not in vain. We are all part of an immense plan, a gigantic enterprise, and it is the vastness of the undertaking that renders it impossible to see very much of it at any one time and during any one life … The whole marvelous and universal mechanism moves on majestically through space to the music of the meter of the infinite thought and the eternal purpose of the First Great Source and Center. (UB 32:5.1)
This valuable insight boosts my ability to do my part in community and in global problem solving. Sometimes I pick up trash, sometimes I help my neighbors, and sometimes I make a serious attempt to share information with my brothers and sisters. I do what I can, here and there, as I pass by. The two things I have always been are curious and adventurous.
Curiosity-the spirit of investigation, the urge of discovery, the drive of exploration-is a part of the inborn and divine endowment of evolutionary space creatures. These natural impulses were not given you merely to be frustrated and repressed. True, these ambitious urges must frequently be restrained during your short life on earth, disappointment must be often experienced, but they are to be fully realized and gloriously gratified during [our ongoing ascension]. (UB 14:5.11)
In my primary career as an educator I was enormously guided by just one sentence in this amazing book:
The purpose of all education should be to foster and further the supreme purpose of life, the development of a majestic and well-balanced personality. (UB 195:10.17)
And what about Jesus? He’s pivotal in the faith paths of more people on our planet than anyone else. According to a Pew Research Center paper from 2010, nearly one in three of our fellow planetary citizens identify as some sort of Christian. About one in four practice Islam in some form; nearly one in six have no religious affiliation; one in seven are Hindu; one in fourteen are Buddhists; and around one in fourteen follow formal paths with fewer adherents (Jews and Jains among them). I do not actually identify so much as Christian, rather as follower of Jesus’ personal religion. My personal religion is not about Jesus, mine is a personal religion that I align with the religion of Jesus himself. There is a lovely 775-page biography of Jesus in Part IV of The Urantia Book that informs me about his abiding faith.
Modern men and women of intelligence 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)
Selfish men and women simply will not pay such a price for even the greatest spiritual treasure ever offered mortal man. (UB 195:9.7)
Anyone needing a little something to kickstart or restart your spiritual journey? I offer these words from The Urantia Book:
Of God, the most inescapable of all presences, the most real of all facts, the most living of all truths, the most loving of all friends, and the most divine of all values, we have the right to be the most certain of all universe experiences. (UB 102:7.10)
There is in the mind of God a plan which embraces every creature of all his vast domains, and this plan is an eternal purpose of boundless opportunity, unlimited progress, and endless life. And the infinite treasures of such a matchless career are yours for the striving! (UB 32:5.7)
In this presence let me be . . always knocking on heaven’s door.