© 1997 Dominique Ronfet
© 1997 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
| Coherence, or Principle of Evanescence? | Le Lien Urantien — Issue 5 — Autumn 1997 | Personality, Identity, Divinity |
The quest for truth, the search for one’s own awakening, can only take place in stages.
The successive experiences of our life allow us to discover ourselves (the Personality) and to better understand this Spirit (the Adjuster) who seeks to guide us. In this path we do not lack support. Let us take the one who, as its name indicates, can interest us particularly: the Spirit of Truth.
We can read that the Spirit of Truth, the new teacher, was given as a support to the soul of every sincere seeker since the departure of Jesus so that we could free ourselves from the old constraints.
“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)
“Do not overlook the fact that the Spirit of Truth was bestowed upon all sincere believers; this gift of the spirit did not come only to the apostles. The one hundred and twenty men and women assembled in the upper chamber all received the new teacher, as did all the honest of heart throughout the whole world. This new teacher was bestowed upon mankind, and every soul received him in accordance with the love for truth and the capacity to grasp and comprehend spiritual realities. At last, true religion is delivered from the custody of priests and all sacred classes and finds its real manifestation in the individual souls of men.” (UB 194:3.6)
Have we progressed throughout history in our collective research? Have religions come closer together? No, because what divides has been stronger than what could unify us. Yet have there never been men who loved the truth and who knew? Yes, of course. And this whatever their culture and religion, let us have no doubt.
This Spirit of Truth, as I understand it, spirit of tolerance, openness, humility…and lucidity must help us find the right attitude in our daily behavior.
This Spirit can support us in correcting our main fault: pride.
I think that The Urantia Book, which participates in this revelation of Truth, can wonderfully help to bring together individuals from different cultures and religions.
Provided that we already avoid the most obvious pitfalls which could prove our immaturity to a sincere researcher:
And this brings us to a path of great wisdom.
But what is this demanding wisdom?
Perhaps true faith in action.
“Divine or spiritual clairvoyance is a gift, but human wisdom must evolve” UB 101:4.2. (this excerpt from a chapter on the limitations of revelation ultimately relates…to our own limits).
To finish and illustrate in a pleasant way this human failing which leads us to take a part for the whole, and thus make us miss the truth that we seek, I will take a little story-teaching from a book by Idries SHAH “Dervish Tales”, an author whose reading I highly recommend.
The blind men and the elephant.
"Beyond Ghor there lay a city whose inhabitants were all blind. A king arrived there, accompanied by his court and an entire army; they established a camp in the desert. Now this monarch possessed a powerful elephant which he launched into battle to increase the terror of his enemies. The populace burned to see the elephant and some of the members of this community of blind people rushed in disorder upon discovering it._
As they knew neither the shape nor even the outline of the elephant, they felt it blindly, gathering information by touching this or that part of the animal. Each believed he knew something because he had been able to feel a part of it. When they returned to their fellow citizens, they were immediately surrounded by eager groups. All were anxious, quite wrongly, to learn the truth from those who were in error. They asked questions about the shape and appearance of the elephant and they listened to everything they were told about it.
The man whose hand had reached one ear was asked about the nature of the elephant. And this man affirmed: “It is a large rough thing, as wide as a carpet.”
The one who had touched the trunk proclaimed: “I know what to expect. It looks like a straight, hollow pipe, horrible and destructive.”
“He is powerful and firm as a column,” said in turn the one who had felt the legs.
Each had touched a part of the elephant’s body. Each had perceived it incorrectly. None knew the whole: knowledge is not the companion of the blind. All imagined something. And the image they had of it was false.
The creature knows nothing of divinity. The ways of ordinary intellect are not the Way of divine science. »
Dominique Ronfet
dominique.ronfet@hol.fr
| Coherence, or Principle of Evanescence? | Le Lien Urantien — Issue 5 — Autumn 1997 | Personality, Identity, Divinity |