© 2013 Rev. Gary Deinstadt
© 2014 Olga López, for translation
© 2013 The Urantia Book Fellowship
| Luz y Vida — No. 38 — Presentation | Luz y Vida — No. 38 — December 2014 — Index | Reflections for Readers of The Urantia Book |
of the rev. Gary Deinstadt (Somers, New York)
(Published in the Summer 2013 issue of the Fellowship Herald)
True religion must ever be, at one and the same time, the eternal foundation and the guiding star of all enduring civilizations. (UB 92:7.15)
The evolution and status of progressive civilization determine the time and place of the planetary missions of the divine Sons. The Urantia Book tells us that religious revelation is essential for brotherhood to come true, that it requires not only some spiritual pressure from above, but some progressive acts on our part. So how do we begin today to consider ways in which we can best work together, along with revelation, to carry out society’s ultimate goal of “one” religion?
¶ Uniqueness
Have you ever heard the joke about the Buddhist who goes to the hot dog stand and the vendor asks, “How can I help you,” and the Buddhist says, “Make me one with the whole!”?
Well, that’s unlikely to happen anytime soon. We also know that it takes more than just wanting or being willing to make it happen. It is going to take the effort of everyone and everyone who chooses to be a part of this incredible opportunity to experience becoming one with God.
God as “one” lovingly stripped himself of all of himself for his creation at some point in eternity. We are told that the more we travel in space, the further we get from Paradise, the separation between matter and spirit increases and the two diverge completely. I believe that the separation of things, cultures, races, demarcations of the superuniverses, matter, spirit, are purposely done that way so that we can participate in the experience of bringing them together again. The ultimate true brotherhood of humanity will only come from the experience of acting as brothers and sisters. It’s the only way to truly possess it! The more we experiment in bringing humanity together, the more we come to love them. Trying the act of loving is the only way we can begin to know love, and love can only be defined a little more in the experience of loving something or someone more. You can’t wish for love to happen. As with God, believing in brotherhood cannot replace the experience of brotherhood.
Even on normal evolutionary worlds the realization of the world-wide brotherhood of man is not an easy accomplishment. On a confused and disordered planet like Urantia such an achievement requires a much longer time and necessitates far greater effort. Unaided social evolution can hardly achieve such happy results on a spiritually isolated sphere. Religious revelation is essential to the realization of brotherhood on Urantia. While Jesus has shown the way to the immediate attainment of spiritual brotherhood, the realization of social brotherhood on your world depends much on the achievement of the following personal transformations and planetary adjustments:
- Social fraternity. Multiplication of international and interracial social contacts and fraternal associations through travel, commerce, and competitive play. Development of a common language and the multiplication of multilinguists. The racial and national interchange of students, teachers, industrialists, and religious philosophers.
- Intellectual cross-fertilization. Brotherhood is impossible on a world whose inhabitants are so primitive that they fail to recognize the folly of unmitigated selfishness. There must occur an exchange of national and racial literature. Each race must become familiar with the thought of all races; each nation must know the feelings of all nations. Ignorance breeds suspicion, and suspicion is incompatible with the essential attitude of sympathy and love.
- Ethical awakening. Only ethical consciousness can unmask the immorality of human intolerance and the sinfulness of fratricidal strife. Only a moral conscience can condemn the evils of national envy and racial jealousy. Only moral beings will ever seek for that spiritual insight which is essential to living the golden rule.
- Political wisdom. Emotional maturity is essential to self-control. Only emotional maturity will insure the substitution of international techniques of civilized adjudication for the barbarous arbitrament of war. Wise statesmen will sometime work for the welfare of humanity even while they strive to promote the interest of their national or racial groups. Selfish political sagacity is ultimately suicidal—destructive of all those enduring qualities which insure planetary group survival.
- Spiritual insight. The brotherhood of man is, after all, predicated on the recognition of the fatherhood of God. The quickest way to realize the brotherhood of man on Urantia is to effect the spiritual transformation of present-day humanity. The only technique for accelerating the natural trend of social evolution is that of applying spiritual pressure from above, thus augmenting moral insight while enhancing the soul capacity of every mortal to understand and love every other mortal. Mutual understanding and fraternal love are transcendent civilizers and mighty factors in the world-wide realization of the brotherhood of man. (UB 52:6.2-7)
So today on Urantia how do we work with the spiritual pressure from above while raising the soul’s capacity to love and better understand ourselves? It seems we will need to embrace the aforementioned personal transformations, the multiplication of international trade and contact, that every race and every religion be familiar with the thoughts and feelings of all races and religions. With all the organized religions we have in the world today, how do we begin to build one out of so many? Probably the common response from most religious communities, including ours, would be that the best way to achieve such unity is to focus on our commonalities. I think there is some truth in it. It does put us in the starting point for getting to know each other and working more effectively with each other. It gives us a place to start from, but I see that focusing on commonalities limits us a lot. It is looking at our reality from the limitations of our perspective and our experiences.
My father is now about 85 years old and recently met with me to discuss his last wills and testament. He also dealt with the same subject with my two brothers, separately and at different times. When my siblings and I got together to talk about each other’s experience with Dad, we all agreed that the basic facts were the same, but as individuals we ended up walking away with many different reactions and viewpoints. Initially I found him interesting, but then again, his relationship with him is very different from mine. Suddenly the idea arose in me that the best way to learn more about my father is through my brothers. Through them I get a clearer and more objective idea of who he really is. I think the same thing happens with God. Although he dwells within me and I have a personal relationship with God, my understanding of him will always be limited until I can experience him supremely through the eyes of all his children.
Obviously, as much as what we know of God is partial and incomplete, you would be amazed at how many new insights the world’s religions provide into the reality of the possibilities of that faith-child relationship with a Universal Father.
Relying only on the commonalities of the world’s religions will not get us very far in our understanding of each other and our faith. In the long run, we will need to find out more about what separates us, but how can we objectively begin to see religion through the eyes of others without including our biases and beliefs? Well, it’s probably not possible, but we do need to start somewhere, and what better place to start than the person right next to us? If we can begin to see God in and through others, we will not only come to know God better; we will have a better chance of breaking down the walls that separate us. It’s the only way we can begin to meet people where they really are.
¶ Work with Disclosure
When we consider the successes and failures of past revelations, we can determine that the fifth epochal revelation alone will hardly give rise to a race, a language, or a religion. Dalamatia only lasted 300,000 years and soon fell apart once the rebellion broke out. Adam and Eve’s mission basically failed. Machiventa’s bestowal was an emergency mission. We ended up crucifying our own Creator Son and it seems too soon to predict how far the Urantia Papers will take us. It seems that before we can come close to having one religion, one language, etc., more revelation and more spiritual pressure from above is going to be needed.
The Urantia Book tells us that, if we compare ourselves to a normal evolutionary world, we are probably closer to resembling the post-Adamic age. “Great ethical advancement characterizes this era; the brotherhood of man is the goal of its society.“ UB 52:3.12 Also in the post-Adamic age, it is said that these ages are characterized by new revelations of truth, and that ”the Most Highs of the constellations begin to rule in the affairs of men. Truth is revealed up to the administration of the constellations.” UB 52:3.11
Almost at the end of the next magisterial age of a normal planet, it is read: «There are no race or color problems; literally all nations and races are of one blood. The brotherhood of man flourishes, and the nations are learning to live on earth in peace and tranquillity.“ UB 52:4.1 In the age after the bestowing Son, it is said: ”Under the spiritual influence of these ages, human character undergoes tremendous transformations and experiences phenomenal development. It becomes possible to put the golden rule into practical operation.“ UB 52:5.8 ”There are many nations, mostly determined by land distribution, but only one race, one language, and one religion." UB 52:5.10 Is it possible right now to put the golden rule into practice?
¶ In preparation for the second revelation on Urantia, what had to happen or be in place before Adam and Eve arrived?
Before Adam and Eve, the Life Carriers realized that the races had reached the apex, and the Melchizedeks agreed. So, they requested biological elevators from the Most Highs. Tabamantia, supervisor of the decimal/experimental worlds, comes here, inspects, and agrees that the time has come. One hundred years later, we get Adam and Eve.
¶ What had to happen or be in place before Miguel arrived?
Prior to Michael’s bestowal, the recipients Melchizedek and Machiventa saw the spiritual poverty that existed and felt that something had to be done. They knew Miguel was coming, but they didn’t know when. So they asked permission from the Most Highs. His initial plea was denied. Machiventa later volunteered, the authorities on Salvington agreed, and then Machiventa had his emergency mission.
What I find amazing is that it is not that these orders came directly to the Life Carriers / Melchizedek etc., coming from a higher authority like the Most Highs or even from Michael himself. No one came to them saying, “Okay, we think it’s time for an Adamic mission.” It was up to the local administrators to make the call and act. Do you see what the pattern is here? Many of us have said at one point, “Oh God, tell me what you want me to do!” The Life Carriers and Machiventa asked nothing of God or Michael. Nor did they wait to be told. They saw the problem, took responsibility, got permission from a higher authority, and acted.
¶ What had to be in place before Michael’s bestowal?
Monotheism was the general belief. The location was centered on and around Jerusalem. It was the mecca of its time, a centralized city with a good mix of people, and the idea of the Father was already established.
The centralization of the Jewish temple worship at Jerusalem constituted alike the secret of the survival of their monotheism and the promise of the nurture and sending forth to the world of a new and enlarged concept of that one God of all nations and Father of all mortals. The temple service at Jerusalem represented the survival of a religious cultural concept in the face of the downfall of a succession of gentile national overlords and racial persecutors.
The Jewish people of this time, although under Roman suzerainty, enjoyed a considerable degree of self-government and, remembering the then only recent heroic exploits of deliverance executed by Judas Maccabee and his immediate successors, were vibrant with the expectation of the immediate appearance of a still greater deliverer, the long-expected Messiah. (UB 121:2.6-7)
By revealing himself, obviously, God needs us as much as we need him.
Consider the way the revelators went about revealing. First they learned a lot about those they were going to reveal to. Remember the thousands of years of training seraphim have to go through before they are allowed to minister alongside a mortal?[1] Adam and Eve spent 15,000 years in the physical testing and trial laboratories of Jerusem, and long before that. that they had been instructors in the citizenship schools for newcomers to Jerusem. Consider how long it takes a Creator Son before he can join us here where we are. And after all this training, to a certain extent, he becomes one of us. Even with all those thousands of years of preparation by brilliant beings, nothing can replace the experience of learning, loving and teaching ourselves. I think we can learn a lot from the example of our developers. We too need to learn much more about who we are going to reveal ourselves to and then, to some degree, become one of them. The pattern of disclosure is reciprocal. It shows that while the revealer is revealing himself, he is also being revealed.
¶ The Religion of One
We alone cannot bring a religion to the world, but we can help build the way. We can consider the pattern as we prepare the fertile ground for a future revelation.
About three and a half years ago, I found out I was going to lose my job at CBS. The TV show I was working on was going to be cancelled. About six months later, due to financial, family, and work responsibilities, I had to step down as Fellowship Education Chair. Shortly thereafter, I received a call from the dean of All Faiths Seminary International, which is an interfaith seminary located in New York founded by Rabbi J. Gelberman. The dean of the seminary, the Reverend David Rothblat, told me that it was in the rabbi’s phone book and that they were calling everyone to say that he had just passed away. He was 98 years old. I met the rabbi approximately thirteen years ago while doing volunteer work with another interfaith organization called The Temple of Understanding. Back then, Rabbi Gelberman suggested that I would be a good candidate for his seminar. We meet for an hour or two and discuss it in depth. I was somewhat intrigued by the curriculum, but my work life took over and that was the last time I saw or spoke to the rabbi.
After expressing my condolences on the rabbi’s passing, I asked Reverend David about the status of the seminary. He said he was starting a new semester, and I asked him if he had room for one more. When I was chair of the Education Committee, one of the things we had difficulty with was creating a program to help train instructors.[2] I always felt it was important for students and instructors of revelation to study the religions of the world. world, so I decided to take this opportunity to start being what our committee was trying to create. I also felt very grounded in my own personal religious experience and thought it was time to learn more about others. Three and a half years later, I am an ordained interfaith minister with a Master of Divinity. I was recently accepted as a member of the seminary’s executive board. I am involved in local interfaith work and as a pastor at a local Presbyterian church. Due to my involvement in the local church, I enrolled in their CLP (Commissioned Lay Pastor) program. I continue to take online classes from the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary.
I see the value and importance of organizations like the Fellowship, the Foundation, and UAI, who work diligently in various relief efforts such as book fairs and the like. In the years that I served on the General Council and the Executive Committee of the Fellowship, I saw that most of the dissemination work came from the “outside-in” approach - for example: stickers that said: “You have to read this book”, signs of The Urantia Book in the stands of the fairs, participation in book fairs, presentation talks, etc. There have also been large relief efforts by individuals and small groups, but I am beginning to see progress in relief efforts using the ”inside-out“ approach. Like anyone, we’ve come out to become participants/servants in our community, but when you ask us what motivates me/us (and eventually someone will ask), I tell you the truth: I’m motivated by what I’ve learned from The Book of Urantia. I think we may have reached the point where it is safe to come out of the disclosure closet. Seminary professors and classmates, including seminary board members, local clergy, church members, etc., all know that I read The Urantia Book. Three pastors, an interfaith minister, and members of the congregation come to my home to participate in a study group on The Urantia Book. The ”inside-out" approach has been slow but effective. Actually, more people have asked me about The Urantia Book in the last three and a half years than in the last thirty.
One Sunday, a Presbyterian pastor began his sermon by saying, “When I get up in the morning, I like to start the day by reading a religious text. It could_ be the Bible, it could_ be The Urantia Book”. They could have blown me down! I was amazed that all this came from my sincere desire to learn and know more about the faith and religious experiences of other peoples. It was never about promoting The Urantia Book. He had no intention of revealing anything to anyone. I never wanted to put new wine in old wineskins; I was more interested in what happened when creating a good wine. He was there because he wanted it revealed, not the other way around. In the process, I discovered that revelation lives in places I didn’t even know existed. My sincere desire to learn from others taught me a lot about how the spirit works in and through others. Just as I learned more about my father through my brothers, I learned more about God through my brothers’ religion.
We will continue to make the mistake of revealing too much or too little if we do not learn more about the religious experiences and religious backgrounds of our fellow human beings. It takes much more than just knowing what they believe. You need a greater awareness of each other’s religious base before you can try to build on it. It is also important to keep in mind that the person you are revealing something to has just as much to give to them, as much as you have to give to them. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you have something more to offer than him or her. This attitude can lead to an exaggerated sense of self and make it difficult to get where others are. When we get to where others really are, we can better understand what they really need, rather than giving them what we think they need. Within the act of giving, helping or teaching, live the opportunity for new growth. In learning we discover, and isn’t it interesting what follows each discovery? What follows is the understanding of how much remains to be learned. Learning more creates the opportunity to give more, and who understood us and gave us more than Jesus?
As they thus tarried before embarking on their active public preaching, Jesus and the seven spent two evenings each week at the synagogue in the study of the Hebrew scriptures. In later years after seasons of intense public work, the apostles looked back upon these four months as the most precious and profitable of all their association with the Master. Jesus taught these men all they could assimilate. He did not make the mistake of overteaching them. He did not precipitate confusion by the presentation of truth too far beyond their capacity to comprehend. (UB 137:7.14)
One of the best ways we can reveal ourselves to others is to become one of them, just like Melchizedek, Adam and Eve, and Jesus did. Of course it’s a little different for us, but the principle is the same. In a way, isn’t what the authors strove to do with the Urantia Papers get us to where we were?
Ordinary people listened to Jesus with pleasure, and they will respond again to the presentation of his sincere human life of consecrated religious motivation, if these truths are proclaimed again in the world. People listened to him with pleasure because he was one of them, an unassuming layman; the greatest religious instructor in the world was actually a layman. UB 196:1.4
The Master then proceeded to warn his listeners against maintaining the idea that all the old teachings had to be totally replaced by the new doctrines. Jesus said: “What is ancient, but also true, must remain. In the same way, what is new, but false, must be rejected. Have the faith and courage to accept what is new and also true. Remember that it is written: 'Do not abandon an old friend, because the new one is not comparable to him. A new friend is like new wine; if it grows old, you will drink it with joy.’” UB 147:7.3
Revelation is everywhere, and you don’t have to dig far to find it! The religions of the world continually inspire and motivate. They all ask us to seek God, to seek perfection. They all ask us to practice the “golden rule.” They continue to provide fertile ground for the final fruits of future revelation, fertile enough for the fifth epochal revelation to take root. For example:
Did you know that the Sh’ma of Judaism is the key commandment from which Jesus built all of his teachings?
“Hear, Israel: Jehovah our God, Jehovah is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words that I command you today will be on your heart; and you shall repeat them to your children, and you shall speak of them when you are in your house, and when you walk on the road, and when you lie down, and when you get up. And you will tie them as a sign on your hand, and they will be like frontals between your eyes.”[3]
Jesus replied: “The first commandment of all is: 'Hear, Israel; the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the main commandment. And the second is similar: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’. There is no other commandment greater than these.”[4]
In Hinduism, The path to God through Love - the goal of bhakti-yoga is to direct towards God the love that lies at the base of all hearts… bhakti-yoga has innumerable followers and is, of course, the most popular of the four… the bhakta will strive not to identify himself with God, but to worship God with every element of his being.[5]
Rabbi J. Gelberman, who was also a modern Hasidic rabbi and a teacher of Kabbalah teachings, wrote an excerpt in a book that included many other Jewish authors. The book was titled Jesus Seen Through Jewish Eyes. His fragment was titled: My friend Jesus. He wanted to convey that following Jesus was following God. He wrote: “Do not follow me: follow God.”
“We have a part of the Messiah in each one of us and we act accordingly by embracing and loving each other. That is the way of the Messiah. The Messiah could come today. As far as I’m concerned, he’s here right now. Do you love me? What do you see when you look at me? Let’s see God in the other… the most important prayer —Let’s see God within us, let’s see the God who dwells within us”.[6]
«In the same way that there is fragrance in the flower,
and reflection in the mirror,
God lives within us;
look for him in your heart!».[7]
Chuang Tzu says: “A man considers God as his father, and loves him to the same extent”.[8]
Jainism says: “Being themselves eternal, humans can also achieve ‘the quality of being perfect’ or divinity”.
Did you know that most Catholic scholars believe that Jesus was probably born in August and between 7 and 2 BC?
Paul experienced the love of Christ, and his calling was to share and reveal that love to all. He dedicated himself to translating. “I have made myself to the Jews as a Jew, to win the Jews… those who are without law, as if I were without law… to win those who are lawless”[9]. He had Hellenistic rhetorical skills, quoted the Greek Scriptures, and knew the deuterocanonical books composed or preserved in Greek. His tenacious birth to love and his knowledge of and respect for those he taught are attributes as valid today as they were 2,000 years ago.
Paul glorified the Son, and through his faith in the love of Christ, his simplicity of purpose and devotion enabled him to find this new religion of faith, hope, and charity. He achieved in an obvious and personal way a sublime peace in his religious experience, a stable faith that transcended doubt and hostility when he said: “I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor What is present, nor what is to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”[10] What an incredible level of faith and trust in God so that we all aspire to him!
Buddhism is essentially the practice of being perfect in and through love. A Buddhist monk once told me, “Stormy seas make great sailors.”
The Baha’i Faith emphasizes the importance of seeking our understanding of reality and respecting the efforts of others to do the same. Did you know that they believe religion evolves? They await divine revelation. They believe in true brotherhood, in a universal language, in a world order, world peace, complete equality between races and sexes, etc.
Baha’is also believe that heaven is the indescribable joy of being close to God, harmony with God’s will as revealed in the Manifestations—eternal spiritual life. The closer we are to knowing and loving God, the greater the joy of paradise. Hell is the self-inflicted torture of isolating ourselves from God—spiritual death. Unlimited spiritual growth towards perfection continues after death.
The Sufis, who were alarmed by the mundanity they saw taking over Islam, sought to purify and spiritualize it from within. The external must lead to the internal, the matter to the meaning, the external symbol to the internal reality. “Love the jug less and the water more,” they exclaimed. [11]
Did you know that the profusion of gods in Hinduism is simply the many faces and roles of the one God?
In Confucianism, “The moral law begins in the relationship between man and woman, but ends in the vast scope of the universe”.[12] It defines the way in which present actions propagate in a vast universe of infinite possibilities. . A little further: “The act is ours; the consequences, of God” UB 48:7.13
In Taoism—the path of ultimate reality—everything is inhabited within. It highlights the importance of achieving inner harmony with the definitiveness of reality.
Here I am only scratching the surface. Obviously, there is old-fashioned theology, but it continues to inspire the believing individual who actively seeks to know God/Spirit in their own personal way. In the world’s religions there is still much we can learn and contribute. My journey through interfaith and world religions has made it more obvious to me that regardless of our faith, religion, background, profession, gender, race, etc., if we sincerely seek, if we truly and sincerely seek to know God and being like him, no matter the circumstances, we will not be denied. Many of our brothers reap much fruit that has grown or originated from a primitive belief. Obviously, the Father responded. So if the Father responds to any small glimmer of faith, shouldn’t we?
Gary Deinstadt has been studying The Urantia Book since 1982. He is an ordained interfaith minister and has a Masters of Divinity. He is also a musician and composer and has received two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Music Directing and Composition in 2007 and 2008. He is also the recipient of two BMI Awards for Music for Motion Pictures and Television. More information: http://www.rev.garydeinstadt.com and http://www.garydeinstadt.com
¶ References
- Light and Life Magazine (all old issues): https://aue.urantia-association.org/numeros-antiguos-del-lyv/
- Original from the Fellowship Herald, Summer 2013 issue.
| Luz y Vida — No. 38 — Presentation | Luz y Vida — No. 38 — December 2014 — Index | Reflections for Readers of The Urantia Book |
¶ Grades
For more information, see Documento 38: sección 5, párrafos 1-4 ↩︎
Between 1955 and 2010, the Fellowship Constitution required the Education Committee to train instructors and leaders. Since then it has been changed. ↩︎
Houston Smith, The world’s religions ↩︎
Rabbi Joseph Gelberman ↩︎
Adi Granth, P. 684 (Sikh scriptures) ↩︎
Herbert A. Giles, Confucianism and its Rivals, p. 134 ↩︎
Houston Smith, Islam, p. 76 ↩︎
Doctrine of the middle ↩︎