© 2021 Esther Wood
© 2021 The Urantia Book Fellowship
My theory is this: What the adjutants do for the mortal mind, the Spirit of Truth and the Holy Spirit do for soul consciousness.
I’ve known the Spirit of Truth for as long as I can remember. I’ve always known God was real because I experienced Divine Presence since I was a child. To me, God has always been a wise loving Person who guides me into truth, beauty, and goodness as I seek to do God’s will. This doesn’t mean I’ve been a first circler since I first gave my life to God when I was nine years old. But it did give me the opportunity to start growing into my full capacity. I prayed to a Person in my mind because I believed God was real. Everyone I knew believed God was real. The problem was, I grew up in a home in which Jesus’ teachings were talked about more than practiced.
My mother was a closet alcoholic. She wasn’t an honest person, though she tried to be. Her faith was strong and she wrote poetry and beautiful songs praising God. But her actions were based on her fears and she wasn’t willing to admit her weaknesses. She held on tight to memories of what she thought other people did wrong and when she got angry at my dad, she spewed out every single one of those grudges at him. My siblings and I called it “the Tape;” we all heard it almost every night. She spent so much energy preserving those beliefs that she had little left for her creative purpose.
Since I was her firstborn and failed to be a son, she didn’t like me. I knew she consciously tried to love me, but subconsciously, she treated me with hostility. Looking back on my childhood, I can see why I retreated into my soul out in nature. I grew up on a farm, next to a river, with lots of woods to explore. I could walk and talk to God about what happened and I asked for help in coping.
While hoeing beanfields with my brother (who was a year younger than me) we talked about Mom’s behavior, how she yelled at Dad every night. My brother knew as well as I did that she favored him over me and how unfair that was. Looking back on our talks, I’d say we could see these inconsistencies because we both knew Jesus’ teachings and compared her to those standards. Even as a preteen, I was conscious enough to know that my brother wasn’t to blame for the way Mom treated me but, being so young, I was very much in the dark about how to understand my feelings about myself and the people around me. It helped to talk about the Tape with him. We were allies in seeing how unfair Mom was. At that time, we had no way of knowing about Dad’s passive-aggressive behavior because we were so focused on Mom’s screaming and hadn’t learned enough about life to put our experiences into perspective.
It took a lot of research and therapy over many years before I could finally recognize the difference between what my beliefs are and what God reveals about life. I’m thankful for my childhood now; it was the pain of feeling motherless that drove me to learn about my mind so I could finally make sense of my disordered childhood. By turning my mind Godward I was able to identify with the part of me that looked at my emotions and behaviors objectively enough to keep me from getting lost in them. Unfortunately, I wasn’t conscious enough to process my emotions in a healthy way.
I grew up in the sixties and experimented with psychotropic drugs along with my cohorts. Most of the time, my drug of choice was alcohol. It covered up my painful feelings of orphanhood. I was a hippy and learning about God in ways I never could have when I attended church, and yet the Presence of God was becoming more real to me. Every time I transcended my doubts and searched for truth, I experienced a flow of Consciousness that was bigger than my own. This I knew as the Spirit of Truth, the Comforter. Because I grew up feeling shy, I often relied on a verse in Matthew to help me get to the state of mind where I could trust Jesus to help me through challenging, and sometimes dangerous, situations. Whenever I feared to speak, this verse reminded me that I wasn’t alone.
“When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour.” (Matt. 10:19)
After spending two years in college, I left Michigan with my friend Grace and my dog Gypsy to hitchhike across the United States. I used that verse as sort of a mantra so I could free myself of the limiting beliefs I grew up with. At that time, I had no idea what I was doing. I was just experiencing life with God in my mind on my quest to learn more context in the world.
Trusting God helped me stay present with the people I met along the way, which was an adventure to see where God would lead. It was a pilgrimage for me (although I didn’t know it at the time), a journey to find the “edge” of God.
I already knew God was real beyond the church but, at that time, I didn’t know how far I could adventure into other religions and practices before the truth blurred. I encountered a lot of times when I had to rely on God to get me through and I never doubted He would. At least I don’t remember worrying about it. I recall one kindly farmer who gave Grace, Gypsy, and me a ride somewhere in the Midwest; he said he was concerned about our safety and I told him about God. He drove us a lot farther than he’d planned because he saw us as being in the Kingdom too. He said he’d picked us up because we reminded him of his daughters and our faith had confirmed his hunch to do so.
We met a lot of other people who continued to reinforce our faith. God truly does bring souls together for growth. I learned through experience that “when the student is ready a Teacher will appear,” as Buddhist philosophy teaches. The interesting thing about being on a search for truth is that, when you transcend fear in order to focus more on what God is leading you to know, the answers come in ways that reveal greater glimpses of reality.
A year after I settled in Portland, Oregon, I found The Urantia Book and it opened me up to an even greater reality. I found my mantra verse in there, presented in a larger context that clarified a lot of meaning for me. Jesus was warning his Apostles they would be harassed by their enemies and that they would be given help to speak their truth when their trials came.
“And when our enemies bring you before the rulers of the synagogues and before other high authorities, be not concerned about what you should say and be not anxious as to how you should answer their questions, for the spirit that dwells within you shall certainly teach you in that very hour [emphasis added] what you should say in honor of the gospel of the kingdom.” [UB 165:3.7]
Jesus said that “he who has seen me has seen the Father,” therefore when I turn my consciousness toward God, I first “see” the Spirit of Truth. I’ve come to realize the “edge” I was looking for is within myself. I choose how to see my world, whether it is a fearful place or a place with God at the center. I can either fall into the limiting beliefs of my childhood programming or see my world as an opportunity to cocreate with the Divine.
I’ve found the best way for me to recognize God is to know what God is not. The Urantia Book teaches us all about our mind, which is my favorite subject. I’ve come to realize how the adjutants function in my mind and this is helping me to distinguish the parts that are more animal than spiritual. The lower adjutants operate my behaviors subconsciously unless I make a conscious effort to be aware of what I perceive, feel, think, and intend.
Fear is a driving force meant to keep us alert enough to survive. Our first three adjutants are primed to respond to fear and deal with it in a hurry: Attend—Process—Act. The creature freezes, perceives information, triggering a flood of biochemicals to rush through the body according to patterns based on memories of previous experiences (and in humans, the beliefs associated with them). This determines the energy that manifests as the emotion that determines the character of action, either flight or fight. The other option is faith, but that requires higher mind functioning, in order to override the basic animal process.
The first three adjutants to activate mind comprise the activity in what’s been called the Reptilian brain. Intuition attends to basic survival needs. There are other reflexes besides fear that trigger behavior, such as hunger, disgust, pleasure, and pain. Believe it or not, vanity is a survival trigger too. It traces its IndoEuropean roots back to the same as “want,” meaning “void, empty.” These indicate needs that determine the direction in which a creature invests its energy in order to achieve its goal. Survival depends on fulfilling needs, the primary ones first. As creature needs are met, intuition triggers thoughts and behaviors to fulfill such higher needs as finding meanings and values in life.
Understanding can best be understood as conditioned learning. Pavlov’s dogs “learned” to salivate at the sound of a bell because its toll was associated with the arrival of food. This is the level of emotional actions based on previous programmed patterns of emotional response. Memories and beliefs both operate to determine these patterns. At this level, it activates action before thinking takes place.
The emotional feeling represents the activity of courage, which manifests as behavior. It causes a change to take place, even if it’s within—reinforcing a belief, for example. Our characters are either defensive (manifesting in retreat or offense) or open and willing to learn. Courage triggers action. It’s the motivating adjutant. In the chakra system (based on earlier revelations of the adjutants), it is said to represent will. We do what we want, despite our intentions. This is the “unruly beast” of our unconscious actions, but with conscious cooperation with God we can master the animal so we can live most effectively as a citizen while we live here as a mortal being.
The spirit of intuition [emphasis added]—quick perception, the primitive physical and inherent reflex instincts, the directional and other self-preservative endowments of all mind creations; the only one of the adjutants to function so largely in the lower orders of animal life and the only one to make extensive functional contact with the nonteachable levels of mechanical mind.
The spirit of understanding [emphasis added]—the impulse of co- ordination, the spontaneous and apparently automatic association of ideas. This is the gift of the co-ordination of acquired knowledge, the phenomenon of quick reasoning, rapid judgment, and prompt decision.
The spirit of courage [emphasis added]—the fidelity endowment—in personal beings, the basis of character acquirement and the intellectual root of moral stamina and spiritual bravery. When enlightened by facts and inspired by truth, this becomes the secret of the urge of evolutionary ascension by the channels of intelligent and conscientious self-direction.” [UB 36:5.6-8]
Courage is also included in a triad with Knowledge and Counsel; this triad being the mindal construct commonly referred to as our ego, the part we identify with, our self- consciousness. A mind that is able to appease the fear-triggers is able to transcend into a more curious state of consciousness, which allows learning to occur. Taking in new information and experimenting with new concepts allows growth to take place. Playing and the scientific method both spring from this instinct. Art dabbles in this frame of consciousness as well. Science reverberates with Causality, one of the three Cosmic Intuitions.
The spirit of knowledge [emphasis added]—the curiosity-mother of adventure and discovery, the scientific spirit; the guide and faithful associate of the spirits of courage and counsel; the urge to direct the endowments of courage into useful and progressive paths of growth.
The spirit of counsel [emphasis added]—the social urge, the endowment of species co-operation; the ability of will creatures to harmonize with their fellows; the origin of the gregarious instinct among the more lowly creatures.” [UB 36:5.9-10]
It’s curious to note that “faith” and “fidelity” stem from the same etymological root which means “to believe.” We crave order and are inclined to defend what we believe, because that’s what helps give us a sense of control over our lives. We need to believe we have the ability to do things in our environment so we can accomplish our goals, which are always based on our unfulfilled needs (whether consciously and unconsciously). Our beliefs control our triggers so that we can be more likely to survive the dangers of this world. We experience perceived dangers as well as real dangers, and we’ve reached the social stage of development such that we are able to comprehend that we can view our dangers more objectively. We can evaluate our beliefs and why we perceive certain stimuli as dangerous and others as neutral or beneficial.
It took me a while to realize that I was not what I thought I was in relation to my life. I found true relief when I realized that I have the power to change my beliefs. It’s a process of being willing to acknowledge what I feel and use this information to help me find my purpose and to serve God, this process of finding myself and expressing my truth. The Revelators tell us we are meant to learn with others in this life we’re living now.
“Human self-consciousness implies the recognition of the reality of selves other than the conscious self and further implies that such awareness is mutual; that the self is known as it knows. This is shown in a purely human manner in man’s social life. But you cannot become so absolutely certain of a fellow being’s reality as you can of the reality of the presence of God that lives within you. The social consciousness is not inalienable like the God-consciousness; it is a cultural development and is dependent on knowledge, symbols, and the contributions of the constitutive endowments of man—science, morality, and religion. And these cosmic gifts, socialized, constitute civilization.” [UB 16:9.4]
The first five adjutants comprise the body- mind levels of our Local Universe Mother’s consciousness that we share with animals and other non-personal beings, such as perhaps, frandalanks and chronoldeks. Plants represent mechanical mind, bees work amazing things at the level of intuition, lizards are able to flee from danger and attack other creatures. Wolf pups play with each other and learn how to live within the pack. Humans share traits with all these other living beings, but we also share mindal capacities with Midwayers and other spiritual beings.
As soon as my consciousness ventures into the realms beyond matter, my intellectual belief system is challenged with either a fear or love response. Either way, there’s a powerful realization that no matter how much I know or am able to learn, no matter how much information our whole society has gathered and put to good use, there remains more beyond our grasp. This should be nothing but a humbling experience. I am grateful to know that God knows more than I do. And I am willing to trust God more so that I can expand the breadth of my social consciousness in fellowship. This is helping me to learn to be who I am and to express the truth of my being more effective over the length of my experiences through time and on into eternity.
The spirit of worship [emphasis added]—the religious impulse, the first differential urge separating mind creatures into the two basic classes of mortal existence. The spirit of worship forever distinguishes the animal of its association from the soulless creatures of mind endowment. Worship is the badge of spiritual-ascension candidacy.
The spirit of wisdom [emphasis added]—the inherent tendency of all moral creatures towards orderly and progressive evolutionary advancement. This is the highest of the adjutants, the spirit co-ordinator and articulator of the work of all the others. This spirit is the secret of that inborn urge of mind creatures which initiates and maintains the practical and effective program of the ascending scale of existence; that gift of living things which accounts for their inexplicable ability to survive and, in survival, to utilize the co-ordination of all their past experience and present opportunities for the acquisition of all of everything that all of the other six mental ministers can mobilize in the mind of the organism concerned. Wisdom is the acme of intellectual performance. Wisdom is the goal of a purely mental and moral existence.” [UB 36:5.11-12]
I grew up with a knowledge of God, and for that, I am grateful to my parents, despite their mortal imperfections. I know the value of worship, of being able to recognize the sacred in my world and to be able to personally connect with God, who is love. Religion has always been part of my life. I’ve always expected answers to my prayers and I got them—not always in the way I wanted, but certainly the answers I received helped me in the best way in the long run. I learned more about my purpose here and I’m growing so that I can better serve the Whole. This is my supreme duty. It’s what I choose to do because I want to serve God as authentically as I can. It’s a process and it requires patience because I’m not perfect and neither is anyone else around me.
“ The seventh [psychic] circle. This level is entered when human beings develop the powers of personal choice, individual decision, moral responsibility, and the capacity for the attainment of spiritual individuality. This signifies the united function of the seven adjutant mind-spirits under the direction of the spirit of wisdom, the encircuitment of the mortal creature in the influence of the Holy Spirit, and, on Urantia, the first functioning of the Spirit of Truth, together with the reception of a Thought Adjuster in the mortal mind. Entrance upon the seventh circle constitutes a mortal creature, a truly potential citizen of the local universe.” [UB 110:6.13]
I appreciate elevating my attention into Soul consciousness, which was born in me when I attained enough consciousness to activate my seventh adjutant by making a moral choice (around five years old). Worship attracted the Holy Spirit to my mind, which facilitated the activation of wisdom, giving me the capacity for moral consciousness and personality growth.
“Faith-insight, or spiritual intuition, is the endowment of the cosmic mind in association with the Thought Adjuster [emphasis added], which is the Father’s gift to man. Spiritual reason, soul intelligence, is the endowment of the Holy Spirit [emphasis added], the Creative Spirit’s gift to man. Spiritual philosophy, the wisdom of spirit realities, is the endowment of the Spirit of Truth [emphasis added], the combined gift of the bestowal Sons to the children of men. And the co-ordination and interassociation of these spirit endowments constitute man a spirit personality in potential destiny.” [UB 101:3.2]
My awareness of the cosmic intuitions, which activate worship, duty, and science, allows me to connect my experiential depth with my vertical attainment of higher levels of consciousness.
“The cosmic mind unfailingly responds (recognizes response) on three levels of universe reality. These responses are self-evident to clear-reasoning and deep-thinking minds. These levels of reality are:
Causation— the reality domain of the physical senses, the scientific realms of logical uniformity, the differentiation of the factual and the nonfactual, reflective conclusions based on cosmic response. This is the mathematical form of the cosmic discrimination.
Duty— the reality domain of morals in the philosophic realm, the arena of reason, the recognition of relative right and wrong. This is the judicial form of the cosmic discrimination.
Worship— the spiritual domain of the reality of religious experience, the personal realization of divine fellowship, the recognition of spirit values, the assurance of eternal survival, the ascent from the status of servants of God to the joy and liberty of the sons of God. This is the highest insight of the cosmic mind, the reverential and worshipful form of the cosmic discrimination.
These scientific, moral, and spiritual insights, these cosmic responses, are innate in the cosmic mind, which endows all will creatures. The experience of living never fails to develop these three cosmic intuitions; they are constitutive in the self - consciousness of reflective thinking. But it is sad to record that so few persons on Urantia take delight in cultivating these qualities of courageous and independent cosmic thinking.” [UB 16:6.5-9]
My goal is to master my adjutant mind so that I can facilitate growth in my soul consciousness. Therefore I aim to be a first circler so that my beloved Adjuster has more room to express whatever needs to be said through my living being. I am willing to submit and learn and grow because life is far more interesting that way. My soul’s consciousness started in the adjutant of wisdom; and as I grow with my Adjuster, we’re expanding our soul consciousness “out” into intuition, so that my unconscious actions can be more in harmony with God’s will.
“ The first [psychic] circle. The Adjuster cannot, ordinarily, speak directly and immediately with you until you attain the first and final circle of progressive mortal achievement. This level represents the highest possible realization of mind-Adjuster relationship in the human experience prior to the liberation of the evolving morontia soul from the habiliments of the material body. Concerning mind, emotions, and cosmic insight, this achievement of the first psychic circle is the nearest possible approach of material mind and spirit Adjuster in human experience.” [UB 110:6.15]
I love God and seek to grow in every dimension that I can, so that my Adjuster and I can attain the best realization of our relationship, so that I can be a more effective sharer of the gospel. My Thought Adjuster resides at the “nucleus” of my personality, so therefore, it behooves me to still my mind so that I am more able to become conscious of this Divine Presence within, which helps me to recognize the Divine Presence working in the world around me. As I understand how my adjutant mind works, I am better able to submit its workings to directionalize my intuitional reflexes so that I am harmonizing with the spiritual beings working in my life.
“Personality has a perfected range of cosmic dimensional performance. The dimensions of finite personality are three, and they are roughly functional as follows:
Length represents direction and nature of progression—movement through space and according to time— evolution.
Vertical depth embraces the organismal drives and attitudes, the varying levels of self-realization and the general phenomenon of reaction to environment.
Breadth embraces the domain of co - ordination, association, and selfhood organization.” [UB 112:1.5-8]
“The finite dimensions of personality have to do with cosmic length, depth, and breadth. Length denotes meaning; depth signifies value; breadth embraces insight—the capacity to experience unchallengeable consciousness of cosmic reality.” [UB 112:1.10]
I am inspired by the fact that I am not alone; I accept the invitation to become more than I am now. Jesus has always inspired me to pursue truth and to live it. The Urantia revelation is showing me that the Spirit of Truth and Holy Spirit exert almighty power in my soul, which God within has birthed within me. This gives me the chance to experience supreme values and hopefully to help others to discover more meaning in their lives as well.
“But we know that there dwells within the human mind a fragment of God, and that there sojourns with the human soul the Spirit of Truth; and we further know that these spirit forces conspire [emphasis added] to enable material man to grasp the reality of spiritual values and to comprehend the philosophy of universe meanings. But even more certainly we know that these spirits of the Divine Presence [emphasis added] are able to assist man in the spiritual appropriation of all truth contributory to the enhancement of the ever-progressing reality of personal religious experience— God-consciousness.” [UB 0:12.13]
“The mind-experience accumulations of the seven adjutant mind-spirits, in their ministry to the physical level of intellect, are a part of the local universe experience of the Divine Minister, and through this Creative Spirit they probably find registry in the mind of Supremacy. Likewise are mortal experiences with the Spirit of Truth and the Holy Spirit probably registered by similar techniques in the person of Supremacy.” [UB 117:5.10]
Jesus gave us this gift of himself, the Spirit of Truth, so that we might more surely find the Father through his experience, and he offers insights when we’re willing to exchange our mind for his. I know from experience that it really helps to know this, especially when I am aware that my reflexive triggers could hijack my behaviors if I don’t do something proactive:
“Even on Urantia, these seraphim teach the everlasting truth: If your own mind does not serve you well, you can exchange it for the mind of Jesus of Nazareth, who always serves you well.” [UB 48:6.26]
¶ References
- Article obtained from The Fellowship site