© 2015 Ginés Avilés
© 2015 Urantia Association of Spain
According to The Urantia Book, paper 160: “Successful living is nothing more or less than the art of the mastery of dependable techniques for solving common problems”. UB 160:1.7 This document or the extracts from Rodán’s philosophy present us with two techniques for solving problems: one technique is the one that Rodán himself proposes and another is the one that arises from the observation of what Master Jesus does: «the solitary adoring meditation.”
When I thought about the presentation, I was convinced that one clear thing is better than two half-baked ones, so the presentation is based on the first of these techniques.
Although Rodán’s technique is very good, we first need two requirements or necessary conditions that depend on ourselves for its application to be effective:
A. In the first place, we are told that: “Only a brave person is willing honestly to admit, and fearlessly to face, what a sincere and logical mind discovers” (Ibid.), that is, sincerity with oneself and special courage, that which, faced with the shadows of what we discover in ourselves and in the rest, decides to move forward.
Attention because it is more difficult than it seems, especially with ourselves: “The great mistake is that, when life problems excite our profound fears, we refuse to recognize them.” (Ibid.) I understood this point very well when I thought about how people with addictions to alcohol, drugs, etc. He goes through a denial process until he ends up accepting his addiction. Perhaps that deep fear of seeing their self-esteem on the ground is awakened in them when they feel truly addicted, preferring to deny it to themselves.
“Likewise, when the acknowledgment of our difficulties entails the reduction of our long-cherished conceit, the admission of envy, or the abandonment of deep-seated prejudices, the average person prefers to cling to the old illusions of safety and to the long-cherished false feelings of security”. (Ibid.)
I repeat: “the reduction of our long-cherished conceit”. When we’re honest, we may discover that we’re not as smart, not as good-looking, or as good at what we’ve based our self-esteem on, what we return to in our minds when we’ve been hurt or depressed, and what makes us feel good. . Or that we actually treat that other person a little badly because we envy how well they do at something or their position at work or their life in general. Or, that we have “deep-seated prejudices” about other races, some social groups, religions, the other sex, etc. and we miss them when they are not. However, ; we are all purple by the Thought Adjuster!
Notice that the “price” that can be paid, depending on the person, can be high because, sometimes, we touch the base of our self-esteem or completely destroy it and, even momentarily, not be valued for ourselves It makes us, of course, feel bad or very bad. Is all this related to that rebirth of the spirit?
B. The second condition is to have “Hunger and thirst for true righteousness”. Something that I would summarize in simpler terms as wanting to be better people.
Neither this technique nor any other will compensate for “the defects inherent to personality” (although from this specific part of the document it is not very clear to me what exactly is meant by personality)
PAPER 160 RODAN OF ALEXANDRIA: PROBLEM SOLVING TECHNIQUES
“Successful living is nothing more or less than the art of the mastery of dependable techniques for solving common problems.” (UB 160:1.7)
¶ Rodan’s technique
Well now we go with the technique of Rodán de Alejandría that is presented to us. For me, this technique is essentially analytical, searching for what is true and real. These are the steps:
- “Locate the difficulty” and “isolate the problem”, that is, for a second, reflect, what is the problem?
- “Frankly recognize its nature and seriousness”. It is first a matter of making an effort to keep the “mind free of inclinations, passions and any other purely personal prejudice that may interfere with the impartial analysis of the real factors that together constitute the problem that has been presented to be solved”. That is, to be impartial.
For me, a good way to be as impartial as possible is to put yourself in the shoes of your best friend, that is, what would my best friend say to me in this situation, seeing what exactly I have seen? Thanks to this mental effort we can leave behind the personalities involved and the feelings that they produce in us, our prejudices, passions or fears that can distort the pure and hard facts.
Then it is very important to apply that sincerity and courage that we talked about before. In reality, it is about accepting the result of that impartial analysis.
Finally, you have to consider its severity or relevance: how serious is the problem? Sometimes, it can happen that from our analysis it is discovered that the matter is very minor or very insignificant, that is, it does not have any seriousness. So we just accept it as it is and we don’t need to act.
Okay, we already have an opinion on what happened. Now it’s time to act, but on what basis and how do we act? The first question is not resolved by the document, but the requirement of having “hunger and thirst for true righteousness” can serve as a point of support: - My answer, or the answer that has convinced me the most, is to look for a motto or question that inspires me and serves as a guide, my example: the best for all those involved. But there are also other possible slogans or phrases that can be useful to us in light of the point of support, for example: “love one another as I have loved you”, or questions: what would Jesus do in my place? Always consider that, by free will, we could go to annoy the other or make any possible positive or negative decision about the other or about ourselves… it’s our choice!
- Regarding the how, Rodán gives us more clues: “Tact and tolerance”. “Even though you are effectively armed to meet the difficult situations of life, you can hardly expect success unless you are equipped with that wisdom of mind and charm of personality which enable you to win the hearty support and co-operation of your fellows” UB 160:1.9
In summary, the technique by steps would be:
- PTO1: what is the problem?
- PTO2: seen from outside, what happened?
- PTO3: based on what has been discovered and on seeking that rectitude, what am I going to do?
- PTO4: and lastly, how am I going to do it with tact and tolerance?
¶ Examples
Now it is about applying the technique to a real case to make it a little clearer. Note that the resolution of the problem is purely personal, that is to say, that you could reach other different conclusions and more or less certain than the one I show here.
¶ Example 1
Juan is going through a difficult economic time. He has two children and his wife has just lost her job, so the only source of income they have left is their own work. Based on thinking about it, he is increasingly stressed and a habit of thinking negatively is created: the fear of being poor.
OK. Apparently everything is normal in Juan’s life and, as always in the morning, Juan gets up and goes to work; he sits in the chair, turns on the computer and begins to pass some data, like every morning. After 10 minutes the head of the company comes, passes in front of him and Juan says: good morning boss! And he doesn’t answer, as if there was no one there.
Immediately afterwards, the fears created by Juan act in his head: «He has not greeted me, what will happen to me? Maybe he hasn’t seen me, but no, it’s not possible if I was 2 meters from him! Something is wrong with him, maybe he is not happy with my work, maybe with the drop in sales due to the crisis he has to fire someone. Good grief, if sales fell by more than 30% last month, he’s a good person, but the company loses money for sure, wow! I have all the ballots! It kicks me out! MY MOTHER, what am I going to live on? I won’t be able to pay the mortgage, what are we going to eat?"
Without haste but without pause, the thoughts are happening in his head and he manages to make the day bitter with all of them. Grief prevents him from enjoying the beer with friends, the good day it’s having and his daughter’s grades this semester… but is it justified?
Let’s apply the technique as if we were Juan himself: PTO 1: what is the problem? They are going to fire me from work
PTO2: what happened? First I get rid of passions, I see it as if it were people I don’t know and I don’t think about the fear of being fired. That is, I see it from the outside. What has happened is that he simply has not greeted me.
What is the cause of not greeting me? Well, there really can be a lot. He could perfectly well have other more important problems and come home thinking about them (infinite possibilities) or he simply hasn’t realized it (another possibility) or that of kicking me out is also another possibility, etc. Is it realistic that he wants to kick me out just because he didn’t say hello today? NO, because it’s a small possibility in the face of countless of them and it doesn’t seem at all likely based on that one experience.
Seen this way, the seriousness of the matter is small
PTO3: Objectively, the best thing for everyone is to think about something else, to accept that reality is not what my fear of losing my job tells me. Let it continue as usual because this is not important.
PTO4: Here tact and tolerance would mean accepting that the other also has their things and we all get confused: tolerance. And continue as if nothing treated it the same: tact.
Important: if we acted out of fear and believed that they wanted to fire us, perhaps we would treat it with anger, we take the dismissal for granted, or on the contrary we would be balls. We could complicate the situation dramatically and change the bottom line of everything and maybe actually get fired for it. Here I speak from my experience, and I think you also have similar experiences: we can complicate everything a lot by not being OBJECTIVES
¶ Example 2
Ginés is at the house of a friend of her mother’s, a very cordial person who really enjoys cooking for the people she appreciates and seeing how they enjoy their food. Ginés’ relationship with this family is so good that he goes to this family’s house every Sunday. But Ginés doesn’t like eating a lot of things: wheat flour, milk, onion, garlic and pepper, and this woman uses them a lot in her cooking, as is normal.
At first, Ginés doesn’t say anything because he doesn’t bother, but he spends Sunday afternoons lying on the sofa, it takes him days to digest, it really makes him feel bad. Ginés also knew that if she put so many prohibitions on food, this woman would feel very bad and that if she didn’t go on Sundays it would make her feel worse. In addition, Ginés really enjoyed the company of the family.
PTO1: How to resolve this situation so that Ginés does not have a bad time eating and everyone can enjoy a day with the family?
PTO2: how would our best friend see it from the outside? He would tell us: “let’s see, friend:”
“—You are not going to spend every Sunday in terrible health.”
“—It is not good for anyone to stop going for that and ruin the good personal relationships you have.”
“—If someone is offended because something feels bad to you, is it not most likely that they have too much vanity to cook well and this is not good for anyone?”
PTO3 and 4: what is best for everyone? Confess my eating problems and tell the truth. Being constant and patient with what happens to me but saying things tactfully.
There is true rectitude, because I look for the good for myself and for others. And if you don’t like anything that you come to eat after the above? I’m going to have to accept it, accept myself, and be tolerant about someone else rejecting me in some way for basing their self-esteem on how well I cook.
The root of the problem was my fear of saying no, or of not making others happy, but I must value myself on an equal footing with others and that may mean that there are people who do not accept me. Also, with this technique, we discover a possible fear in others (basing self-esteem on being a good cook), which is not good to feed either.
As you can see, I have customized this example with the aim of showing you that it can be applied and that it gives good results when discovering what really happens, you just have to get to it!
¶ Why do I think this technique works?
Looking at our first example, our real problem is the fear of being fired; without him we would not have given importance to anything and we would have acted the same as always.
Well, based on repeating and realizing what the truth or reality of the matter is, through this technique, that fear is diluted because we do not believe it or think about it. Little by little we accept more the real thought and less the negative one of fear. And we can do all this because, as science says, our brain is plastic, it can adopt thinking habits but it can also change them… with enough repetition and insistence. Nice tool!
¶ To reflect on
Finally, I would like to remind you of these phrases that resonate with me about the validity of this technique:
“You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (UB 162:7.2) Free from the fear that imprisons the soul!
““If my words abide in you and you are minded to do the will of my Father, then are you truly my disciples. You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. I know how you will answer me: We are the children of Abraham, and we are in bondage to none; how then shall we be made free? Even so, I do not speak of outward subjection to another’s rule; I refer to the liberties of the soul. Verily, verily, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the bond servant of sin. And you know that the bond servant is not likely to abide forever in the master’s house. You also know that the son does remain in his father’s house. If, therefore, the Son shall make you free, shall make you sons, you shall be free indeed.” (UB 162:7.2)
Or the slogan of Jesus himself: “Fear not” (UB 140:8.20)
. . .“Fear not” was his watchword, and patient endurance his ideal of strength of character. The teachings of Jesus constitute a religion of valor, courage, and heroism. And this is just why he chose as his personal representatives twelve commonplace men, the majority of whom were rugged, virile, and manly fishermen. (UB 140:8.20)
After a period of time, I think I have discovered that this technique has the divine qualities of truth (impartial analysis), kindness (tolerance), and beauty (tact). And as far as I know, this Rodán technique is complementary to the technique that Jesus proposes.
Kind regards!
¶ References
- Light and Life Magazine (all old issues): https://aue.urantia-association.org/numeros-antiguos-del-lyv/