© 2013 Dave Holt
© 2013 The Urantia Book Fellowship
| A Cosmology of Race | Volume 13, Number 1, 2013 (Summer) — Index | Spiritual Faith, Incertainty and Cosmic Citizenship |
The doing of the will of God is nothing more or less than an exhibition of creature willingness to share the inner life with God. UB 111:5.1
The inner or interior life is a landscape of memories, assessments of the past, questions about our life experience, and fears of the future. We can identify emotions, ideas, hopes, and dreams when recognizing a few of these topographical features. Religious groups usually offer a guide to help you traverse these mountains, a Sherpa to take you over the Himalayas, and I have been shepherded through some difficult passes by various pathways. Truth seekers are often promised that they will receive divine help by taking a particular path the trail guide advocates. In this paper I’ll emphasize exploring inner life in personal partnership with a spirit guide or God, known as the Thought Adjuster to Urantia Book readers, a partnership that can be formed regardless of the official religious path you are on.
The Father desires all his creatures to be in personal communion with him. UB 5:1.8
The idea that a spirit guide or guardian is available to us in our inner life was once taught as part of the contemplative tradition in Christianity. As I experienced the Christianity of my youth in the Protestant church, it had lost influence. The absence of Jesus’ teaching, “the kingdom of God is within you,” was one of the factors that led to the “death of God” in the 1960s. Western Christian culture, so focused on preserving the authority of the church, no longer understood the teachings about personal spiritual experience. Because of this, many Westerners turned to Eastern religious traditions and New Age movements, some of which are based on modern psychological discoveries that combine harmoniously with spiritual teachings.
Pope John Paul VI led efforts to revive the “contemplative dimension of the Gospel” within the Catholic Church in 1971. The silent Prayer of the Cloud, based on an ancient text, the Cloud of Unknowing, eventually led to the development of Centering Prayer and Lectio Divina. Both spiritual practices are now even popular at our Urantia Book Fellowship conferences.
Contemplative worship (as meditation) was always an integral part of Asian religions. “Far beyond the range of vision, he cannot be seen by mortal eyes but he can be known by the heart and the mind.” (Svetasvatara Upanishad pt. 4)[1]
It is also still taught in American Indian spiritual teachings, such as when the youth are guided through the ritual of the Vision Quest. A “New Thought” path popular in the U.S. is A Course in Miracles. The “Course” advises seeking guidance from the Holy Spirit in one’s prayer and meditation practices.
Some Christian commentators still speak of Christianity as a “transforming friendship with Jesus,”[2] Jesus taught, “In preaching the gospel of the kingdom you are simply teaching friendship with God.” UB 159:3.9 The inner life is connected to a religion of personal experience, identified as “true religion” in The Urantia Book. It is the religion Jesus intended to establish. He is “ the author and finisher of our faith.” UB 196:2.1 (Hebrews 12:2)
Carl Jung expressed the opinion that “the opening of the unconscious always means the outbreak of intense spiritual suffering.”[3] (fr. Psychotherapists or the Clergy ) At the same time, he advocated persuasively for the assimilation of the unconscious into the total self as a therapeutic cure. However, I don’t think Jung’s picture accurately describes everyone’s experience. I could, for example, say that the opposite of his description happened to me. The “outbreak of intense spiritual suffering” led me to undertake an exploration of the unconscious.
Perhaps you were interested in having an inner life relationship with God or Spirit but were disappointed before, dissatisfied with the outcome of the effort. You may feel like it only brought confusion and more disillusionment.
Author Scott Peck wrote on this topic in The Road Less Traveled : “So if your goal is to avoid pain and escape suffering, I would not advise you to seek higher levels of consciousness or spiritual evolution. First, you cannot achieve them without suffering, and second, insofar as you do achieve them, you are likely to be called on to serve in ways more painful to you, or at least demanding of you, than you can now imagine.”[4]
Many have an active prayer and worship life but still suffer from psychological problems, and may still need a Prozac prescription. Undoubtedly they sometimes wonder why prayer and meditation isn’t as effective in the treatment of depression as they were told it would be.
Our society and our churches have not put a high value on the inner life in the past, so we may also carry the burden of social disapproval to live with and overcome.
Do we continue to undervalue the inner experience with spiritual reality in our culture, even while religions of all kinds experience a revival in America? Is Christianity itself trying any harder to place value on the inner life as much as it does in the authority and knowledge of the Bible? The Emergent Christian movement boldly emphasized the value of contemplative practices starting in the late 1990s, in spite of withering criticism from scripture-based, traditional (or fundamentalist/evangelical) Christians. The Southern Baptist (SBC) web site, Apprising Ministries,[4:1] decries “unbiblical practices such as ‘contemplative prayer,’” and uses the derogatory label, Contemplative Spirituality Mysticism (CSM), to “preach” against it.
Churches of all kinds are prone to reassert their authority in matters of inner life experience, providing answers from well-worn scriptures rather than encouraging actual personal experience in their parishioners.
Whatever difficulties you encounter with your inner life, I hope you will feel comfortable, and will make each other feel comfortable, with confronting such problems by sharing them with each other.
The philosopher and Urantia Book source author, A. Campbell Garnett, pointed out, “Many people grow to spiritual maturity without passing through any marked period of storm and stress… Yet full religious and moral development is a prize that can no more be won without effort, struggle and occasional failure than can excellence in any other form of human achievement.”[5]
Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disturbed, disquieted within me?”[6]
Our first steps in making spiritual progress may involve healing the pain acquired from previous experiences, whether it was a result of our own missteps or was unjustly inflicted on us by others. If asked, the spirit guide, Jesus (through the ministry of the Spirit of Truth), or the Thought Adjuster, will participate in our therapy.
Why do you not encourage the heavenly helper to cheer you with the clear vision of the eternal outlook? UB 111:7.3
This can be difficult because we then have to stand before this almighty spirit in prayer with honest admissions of our pain, along with shame or regret we may feel in confronting our own weakness. The Bible has an important Christian adage about this first stage of renewal (thinking here of “Christ” as the spirit guide or teacher): “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”[7]
The feeling of being comforted may be our initial experience of God as friend. In Urantia Book terms we think of “the Comforter” as the Spirit of Truth bestowed on earth at the end of Jesus’ life, Michael’s bestowal.
Some stages of the project of self-realization, or self-actualization, may go on hold until damage controls are in place and healing has begun. In reality, many of us exist at various points along the continuum between psychological deficiencies and self-realization. “The differing factor in spiritual presence, or reaction, is the fluctuating differential in its recognition and reception by will creatures.” UB 13:4.4
It is best in my view to take care of our own back yards first to the best of our ability, to water the garden of one’s own heart before going out to serve others.
“Make a tree good and its fruit will be good.”[8]
Jungian psychology points out that the superconscious mind can work with archetypes from the unconscious. Jung posited a “collective psyche,” where the history of the species has been laid down in memory. Consider the example of the historical memory of angels. We can work with this archetype in forming a vital connection with spirit guidance, one that comes from an outside helper not from the inner life (although angels are invisible).
Jung used “active imagination” as a technique of therapy involving an invitation to the unconscious to become part of the everyday mind.[9] We can draw upon it to write down our mythological journey, finding heroic myths in our own life story. Those who are writers, artists, sculptors, or musicians will understand this use of craft: “Often the hands know how to solve a riddle with which the intellect has wrestled in vain.”[10] One of the goals that naturally emerges from the pursuit of an inner life is the desire to live creatively. We can consciously seek in our prayer life to unify input from the superconscious with our own creative thinking, with whatever forms our creativity may take. A true mingling of our experience and ideas with the ministries of divine wisdom is possible, indeed desirable.
This is the “expansion of will” discussed in The Urantia Book, Paper 111: “…such choosing raises the creature will…to that higher estate wherein the personality of the creature son communes with the personality of the spirit Father.” UB 111:5.5.
Why not allow the Adjuster to spiritualize your thinking…? UB 111:7.3
Besides the obvious creative activity involved in the arts of making a poem, a story, or a symphony, what else could be meant by creativity in this “divine” sense? If you are, or have been, a parent, you can probably recall how much of your creative energy was directed into the project of laying a foundation for the good character of your children.
The Urantia Book says, “You are quite incapable of distinguishing the product of your own material intellect from that of the conjoint activities of your soul and the Adjuster.” UB 110:4.2 In spite of such strong discouragement, we are still encouraged to continue making the effort. The Urantia Book suggests we adopt a goal of developing an unbroken communion, “Prayer… does so often dig out larger and deeper channels wherein the divine bestowals may flow to the hearts and souls of those who thus remember to maintain unbroken communion with their Maker…” UB 194:3.20
I have settled on this rule of thumb for myself: Whenever I put words to an inner life experience, I make myself remember that they are my words. But I have observed, usually in retrospect, times in my life where I must have received some divine help or inspiration. I’ve seen the “fruits” of spiritual contact in my own life—less of my energy consumed by fear, an expanded optimism, and the possession of a hopeful viewpoint. In recollection, I recognize that I have grown beyond the more constricted, fearful point of view I held before.
Perhaps so, but it might be more productive to consider how an inner life will motivate us to make real peace in the soul, and serve others in need. Our society will benefit from the added presence of more service motivated individuals. Surely one result of an increase in community workers devoted to social welfare would be a decline in violence and a corresponding growth of peace in our neighborhoods.
When the topic of contemplative traditions from the East comes up, we often hear the pejorative label mysticism used just as we noted previously how Emergent Christians are discredited and maligned with the label, Contemplative Spirituality Mysticism (CSM). What comes to our mind is the common picture of the guru, or hermit, in his retreat, who withdraws from the world to seek God in a quiet and remote location. You and I will more likely experience partnership with the indwelling spirit by service and ministry to each other, more than we would by living alone in a cave or on a mountaintop.
The advances of true civilization are all born in this inner world of mankind. It is only the inner life that is truly creative. UB 111:4.3
Only in the higher levels of the superconscious mind… can you find those higher concepts… which will contribute to the building of a better and more enduring civilization. UB 111:4.5
The past is unchangeable; only the future can be changed by the ministry of the present creativity of the inner self. UB 111:4.12
…spiritual idealism is the energy which really uplifts and advances human culture from one level of attainment to another. UB 81:6.27
The development of a personal relationship with God anticipates the next evolutionary step in human consciousness. By consciously taking this next step, we begin to create a true brotherhood and sisterhood on the planet. Then we can begin to set our sights on a greater and higher ideal: the coming of an age of peace and good will, an era of spiritual harmony.
Born in Toronto, Canada, of Irish, English, and Ojibway Indian ancestry, Dave Holt moved to California in 1970 where he discovered The Urantia Book (in 1978) through his wife, Chappell. He has presented workshops and worship programs at IC96, IC 99, IC02, IC05, IC08, and at Summer Study conferences (2001, 2006) as a member of the Fellowship’s Education Committee. He serves as Communication Officer for the Golden Gate Circle Urantia Society.
| A Cosmology of Race | Volume 13, Number 1, 2013 (Summer) — Index | Spiritual Faith, Incertainty and Cosmic Citizenship |
Leslie Weatherhead, Jesus and Ourselves, ( Urantia Book source author) ↩︎
Carl Jung, Psychotherapists or the Clergy ↩︎
A. Campbell Garnett, A Realistic Philosophy of Religion ( Urantia Book source author) ↩︎
Marie-Louise Von Franz, His Myth in Our Time ↩︎
Carl Jung, “The Transcendent Function,” essay ↩︎