© 2016 Dominic Ronfet
© 2016 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
| Testimony from Ivory Coast | Le Lien Urantien — Issue 76 — December 2016 | Implication of Free Will in the Cosmos |
Translation: How to live open to the Spirit
About twenty years ago, in my insatiable curiosity, I was looking for a book whose edition was out of print.
(No, it was not the Urantia Book that I was already reading, besides the subject of the book is of little importance.)
My research led me to contact by telephone a lady who had known the author.
This person, whom I did not know at all, offered to send me a copy without further ado. And indeed, I was surprised to receive, a few days later, a copy of this book of nearly 400 pages, in A3 format, bound. And all this without having to spend a single penny.
Accompanying this impressively heavy document was a small card with this curious text:
“I am the One who came from the One who is open”.
This memory came back to me while I was “thinking” about the theme I wanted to address in this article: what does it mean to be open to the Spirit, which I compared to the popular expression “how to have an open mind”? (Obviously the reader of the Urantia Book will have translated the popular expression as “How to have a mind open to the Spirit”?)
This same reader will put what he wants, or rather what he can behind the word Spirit (adjuvant, Spirit of Truth etc.), but that too is not very important.
I’ll warn you right away: I don’t have any recipes, and this article does not seek to demonstrate a thesis but to place the reader in a state of listening and intellectual openness, of questioning.
If I ever achieve this goal with some people then this article will not have been useless.
But first let’s take as a backdrop the situation of the readership of the Fascicules, French, the one I know best, but also more generally as it emerges from international experiences: meetings, Ubis schools, study groups.
Many readers are searching and wondering
Yeshoua Jesus on the purpose of these writings.
- Should we study them, for how long, and to achieve what?
- Why does The Urantia Book remain so little known and recognized?
- Should we create a new religion?
Should we become active missionaries, in order to follow a “Michael Plan”, so obvious to some? In short, the readership doubts, the readership is exhausted, the readership is aging (especially in France), but also to counterbalance this phenomenon some are engaging more openly and do not doubt that their proselytizing or other efforts will be rewarded. I will not bring any criticism to the courageous and praiseworthy efforts of those who through their intense work offer courses here, seminars there etc.
My aim is to place us, individuals, in a position to have a philosophy of life mentally open to a higher reality, since it seems that this is the meaning of biological evolution.
A first quote to set our perspective:
“Jesus knew men were different, and he so taught his apostles. He constantly exhorted them to refrain from trying to mold the disciples and believers according to some set pattern. He sought to allow each soul to develop in its own way, a perfecting and separate individual before God. In answer to one of Peter’s many questions, the Master said: “I want to set men free so that they can start out afresh as little children upon the new and better life.” Jesus always insisted that true goodness must be unconscious, in bestowing charity not allowing the left hand to know what the right hand does.” (UB 140:8.26)
- I would note four points in this extract:
- Have restraint with respect to a pre-established teaching model,
- Find your unique path as an individual,
- Rediscover your taste for freedom, with confidence, like a little child,
- Finally, don’t forget that true generosity is unconscious
If we try to integrate this perspective, this mental opening towards a new space of freedom, we risk becoming dizzy, and in order not to start speaking multiple dead languages such as Aramaic, we very quickly return to our old reflexes: to start… reflect as we know so well how to do. Reflection, study are important, but undoubtedly less because of the subject addressed, even if it is “supremely ultimate”, than by the sympathetic effort that we make in our gilded cage.
But let’s listen to what Edward de Bono, a doctor who specializes in behavioral studies, tells us:
What is the purpose of reflection?
It serves primarily to abolish reflection. The brain works to make intelligible what is confusion and uncertainty, to recognize in the external world structures that are familiar to it. As soon as the brain recognizes a structure, it engages with it and follows it — all additional reflection being abolished. It is similar to driving a car. Once you arrive on a known road, you no longer need to use a map or compass, to ask for directions and to read road signs. In a sense, reflection is a bit like the permanent search for a familiar road that would make reflection superfluous.
"The brain’s main purpose is to be brilliantly ‘uncreative’. And that’s in the order of things. But every now and then a change of structures is necessary. It’s difficult, because we don’t really have the appropriate mechanisms. In politics, we have the extraordinarily unprofitable and inefficient system of ‘confrontation’. For want of anything better, we do the same in intellectual and scientific endeavors.
In medicine, most of the great discoveries have come about through chance, accident, or error. This is hardly surprising, because in a system as complex as the human body, systematic research is impossible. As soon as a breakthrough is made, the scientific method can follow and intervene with its arsenal of analysis and production tools.
As far as the brain is concerned, the mechanisms for changing structures are error, accident and humor. It is difficult to see other possible mechanisms. Working within existing structures will never, in itself, produce new structures. dward de Bono. "Think quickly and well. I completely share De Bono’s analysis, which also joins those of Zen or Sufi masters, with the nuance that as a reader of the fascicles I believe that my efforts can be rewarded by a higher influence.
But it is still necessary that these efforts do not reinforce my own barriers, beliefs and prejudices.
At the very least, a part of me must be listening, or to a certain extent destabilized, so that a liberating intuition can come to illuminate a facet of reality with a strong, non-intellectual meaning: truly significant for me.
This relationship to this other reality, which we will more broadly call “spirit”, is complicated because it can only pass through our “mind”, that is to say in this space where we “think, feel and perceive, consciously and unconsciously” (0.5.8.8).
It is in this aquarium that our relationship with the world is constructed, that we develop all the cultural and other filters so that we can live with a stable and secure mental framework, even if temporary.
Our mind is here both our gateway and our prison.
If we cultivate our little inner film to the extreme, always the same, even if we coat it in cosmic terminology, then we will never change.
On the other hand, if we arrive at times, “by mistake, by accident or by humor” as de BONO says, then we allow new light to appear.
For this it is essential that we do not limit our mental effort to our cerebral effort.
We must feel, through our body, our capacity to think well.
But who is this Spirit who, under the expression of Spirit of Truth, seeks to unify humanity?
“Pentecost was designed to lessen the self-assertiveness of individuals, groups, nations, and races. It is this spirit of self-assertiveness which so increases in tension that it periodically breaks loose in destructive wars. Mankind can be unified only by the spiritual approach, and the Spirit of Truth is a world influence which is universal.” (UB 194:3.18)
Arrogance is a fairly widespread form of expression of power and domination of one population over another, of one individual over another.
Our entire history is built around these battles which ultimately start from poorly constructed individuals, convinced that they understand the meaning of what is happening to them while we are like blind people forcibly guiding other blind people.
“On the day of Pentecost the religion of Jesus broke all national restrictions and racial fetters. It is forever true, “Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” On this day the Spirit of Truth became the personal gift from the Master to every mortal. This spirit was bestowed for the purpose of qualifying believers more effectively to preach the gospel of the kingdom, but they mistook the experience of receiving the outpoured spirit for a part of the new gospel which they were unconsciously formulating.” (UB 194:3.5)
So why do we listen so little to others? Why do we still have these reflexes of arrogance, of believing our certainties as being truths of experiences to be imposed, absolutely.
The Fascicles seem to end with this message:
“Ok, you have the necessary endowments, you now have the explanation through history, that your evolution is indeed gradual. So don’t make the same mistakes again!!, Live, learn, love and grow.”
My free interpretation simply invites everyone to have an open behavior, to recognize that, no, whatever we do, the Spirit is not in the search for what is already known, but rather in a creative effort to go beyond what we believe to be correct, because our mind is terribly deceptive and does not want us to be free.
The Book invites us to be free, responsible and creative in our lives.
An image often comes to me: let us put the Urantia Book under our feet, it will raise us up, let us put it on our heads (fill our brains to the limit with its contents) it will flatten us.
There you have it, I’ve reached the end of the little walk I wanted to take you on.
Many may be disappointed: no demonstrative study.
Just a stroll in a garden that some will find disjointed and confusing. A far cry from the French garden that many love.
I hope that others will find themselves there and that it will also invite them to cultivate their own aromas. To remain questioning the world.
And let’s not forget that whatever we do, whatever the activity carried out, exchanges between people remain the privileged ground for escaping our natural confinement.
To finish I would quote the Pakistani poet Mohamed Iqbal, in the introduction to his book The Book of Eternity:
Happy is the man whose soul knows no rest:
He is the rider of the steed of time;
The dress of life is made to measure,
For he is the last-born of creation,
and before him the ages open.
Dominique Ronfet.
| Testimony from Ivory Coast | Le Lien Urantien — Issue 76 — December 2016 | Implication of Free Will in the Cosmos |