© 2018 Dominique Ronfet
© 2018 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
| The Child Jesus and the Doctors of the Law | Le Lien Urantien — Issue 82 — June 2018 | The Dropper, the Spoon and the Shovel |
Dominique R.
“If you are still fragmented, without certainty — what difference does it make whether you make one decision rather than another?” (Hakim Sanai, The Walled Garden of Truth, 12th century)
— Hello. What do you mean by that? The Booklets are clear: we have received the gift of Personality. This allows us, through self-awareness, to enjoy free will. Which makes us totally responsible for our actions. What is this sensitivity to the Personality circuit doing here?
— Hello. Have you never had the impression that sometimes, by making generalities, which are later presented to us full of nuances, the authors were speaking to us like children?
Concerning this gift of Personality, several approaches are proposed to us. I will start from the definition of personality as it is presented to us in this short passage from the introduction:
Personality is a level of deified reality and ranges from the mortal and midwayer level of the higher mind activation of worship and wisdom up through the morontial and spiritual to the attainment of finality of personality status. That is the evolutionary ascent of mortal- and kindred-creature personality, but there are numerous other orders of universe personalities. (UB 0:5.1)
— Mmmmm…so what? »
— It seems reasonable to me to consider this gift of Personality like any other gift. If it is not cultivated it remains in a state of dormancy.
You may claim everywhere and in every tone that you have an undeniable gift for music, but this is of no interest if you do not develop it.
— So how, according to you, do we develop this gift of Personality?
— By working on this gift we seek to be more sensitive to a circuit that is beyond us. This is the first evidence that we must accept.
— It cannot therefore be a question of reinforcing, or developing certain traits of our characters. It is a question of refining our sensitivity to the last two adjutants.
— But then we have to work on our thinking habits, therefore on our character traits if we want to react more finely to these two influences?
— It seems we are facing a game of spiritual hide-and-seek.
We are as if asleep within ourselves, and the mental tool that we use to develop ourselves is also the one that imprisons us… to protect us from an uncertain elsewhere.
— You mean we don’t want to evolve?
— Yes, most of us do not want it, our existence is at stake. The whole process is not natural at all.
— There I agree with you. But yet we have choices to make.
— We do indeed make many decisions. But how many can be recognized as “enlightened,” in the light of a wisdom that is beyond us?
— Do you want to make everyone doubt their own choices?
— First of all, we should not be afraid of our own doubts.
They are completely natural and are even essential. Humor and the sense of play that is life can help us to bear this tension between what we are and what is expected of us, what we are called to become.
From our point of view it seems to me that our Personality can be considered as a motor which seeks to actualize (realize) us through its work of unification on the “other factors of our individuality” (UB 5:6.6).
And then we are like tightrope walkers in the making… of ourselves.
— You like ready-made formulas a little too much. And I have the impression that you’re mixing everything up.
— I’m just trying to share what seems obvious to me.
Nothing new under the sun, we find in the booklets an explanation of what others have been able to testify through experience.
— What are you getting at?
— We must listen as much as we act.
If we do not develop our ability to listen to what is foreign to us, our intellectual and artistic curiosity and thus maintain our desire to seek ourselves, we will not be able to be open to this circuit of Personality. And therefore to think… for ourselves. We will only repeat the same “magic” phrases in a loop, the same modes of thought, in a hypnotic way, which our primitive mind adores. Let us be creative with ourselves, let us learn self-awareness! (UB 16:6.9).
This is the only way we can get closer to our Creator.
At least that’s my opinion.
— ???
— Why are you making that face?
— You scare me a little. And I don’t understand anything you’re saying.
| The Child Jesus and the Doctors of the Law | Le Lien Urantien — Issue 82 — June 2018 | The Dropper, the Spoon and the Shovel |