© 1985 Helena E. Sprague
© 1985 The Urantia Book Fellowship (formerly Urantia Brotherhood)
| Review: “I am thou: meditations on the truth of India” | April 1985 Issue — Index | Evolution of the gospel |
Revelation is as old as man. In fact, it defines him. When the adjutants of worship and wisdom became fully active in the minds of Andon and Fonta, the Life Carrier tells us that “mind of will dignity” (UB 62:7.4) had arrived on Urantia. Aborigines had become men. And here we have the clear message that revelation is not necessarily an experience of the conscious mind.
In The URANTIA Book, we are told a great deal about revelation, its nature and function. There are two forms, epochal and auto. (UB 101:4.4) So far on Urantia, there have been five epochal revelations: the Planetary Prince, Caligastia; the Material Son and Daughter, Adam and Eve; the Emergency Son, Machiventa Melchizedek; the Creator Son, Jesus of Nazareth; and the URANTIA Papers, Epochal revelation is the function of a celestial agency, personality, or group. The second form is auto revelation; this is the conscious and unconscious communication between supermortal and mortal. Auto revelation comes from the Thought Adjuster and other spirit beings or circuits to the individual mortal mind. “Truth is always a revelation,” (UB 101:4.3), and for us on Urantia, revelation is the substitute for morontia mota, our missing insight. In the paper on Foundations of Religious Faith, we learn that revelation, “liberates men and leads them out on the eternal adventure,…discloses his capacity for partnership with God… is the assurance of personality survival…hunger for truth is a revelation…revelation tends to make men Godlike.” (UB 102:3.9-15) Bear in mind the verb, ”tends.“ In the same paper, the Melchizedek tells us, “Revealed religion is the unifying element of human existence.” (UB 102:4.6) He also states that revelation, “…answers in human experience those questionings of the mortal mind which craves to know how the Infinite works out his will and plans in matter, with minds, and on spirit.” (UB 101:2.2) And how thrilling to read, in Paper 142, that “…the revelation of the nature and ministry of these Paradise Deities will continue to enlarge and brighten throughout the endless ages of the eternal spiritual progression of the ascending sons of God.” (UB 142:3.8)
So we see that auto revelation is continuous and no epochal revelation is discriminatory. “The rain falls on the just and the unjust.” A Solitary Messenger makes abundantly clear the imperative of revelation for us when he says, “If the Adjusters indwelling the minds of the inhabitants of Urantia were to be withdrawn, the world would slowly return to many of the scenes and practices of the men of primitive times…” (UB 109:4.4) In the paper, After Pentecost, we are told, “…times of great testing and threatened defeat are always times of great revelation.” (UB 195:9.3) Here we are left to ponder our growing capacity for physical destruction and the timing of the arrival of The URANTIA Book.
Revelation is a gift. Like all gifts it is composed of two processes. A gift is not a gift if it is not received; it remains a gesture. The difference is unequivocal. In the first paper, the Divine Counselor “who knows whereof he speaks” states, “The God of universal love unfailingly manifests himself to every one of his creatures up to the fullness of that creature’s capacity to spiritually grasp the qualities of divine truth, beauty and goodness.” (UB 1:4.5)
On our troubled planet, with its irregular history, and in the course of the pains and triumphs of social and spiritual evolution, what particularly retards receptivity to revelation? Annas was told! You recall that Annas was the former high priest at the temple in Jerusalem, and a distant relative of Salome, mother of James, David, and John Zebedee. When he was living with the Zebedees, Jesus was given a letter of introduction to Annas by Salome. The priest was so impressed with the young man that he urged him to attend the school of the rabbis in Jerusalem. So they were not strangers when Jesus, in the early months of his public work, called on Annas, who had been getting disturbing reports of the little group and their teachings. In the doorway of his palace on Olivet Annas was cool and reserved, so that Jesus left at once, saying, “‘Fear is man’s chief enslaver and pride his greatest weakness.’” (UB 142:0.2)
Fear and pride. While distorted ego and damaging anxiety may be reciprocals, they are best considered separately. One would not wish for another that he have no ego; therapy would be in order. The goal is a balance, aspiring even to that superb balance of Jesus’ personality. Where self-respect is well established, one can effortlessly be humble, gracious, concerned for others, and forgiving. To reach out and serve is a tried and true antidote for an exaggerated concept of one’s importance, as well as for stress and depression. But twists in human ego are tricky; they may hide in the guise of service,
Rarely is fear separate from anger, and blessed is the child whose emotional needs have been met so that he finds constructive channels for his anger. The book clarifies that both fear and anger have been essential to survival, and that in the evolutionary process, they are positive precursors: fear leads to awe, reverence, and religious awareness; anger leads to indignation at wrong doing, action, and the forward thrust. Stored and festering in a human psyche, they disrupt personality integration and subvert auto revelation.
We are fragile, electro-chemical beings; Jesus lovingly called his apostles “earthen vessels.” (UB 140:6.14) We are subject to “fundamental chemical overcontrol.” (UB 112:2.14) We are at this time and place being reared in a culture which puts essentially no stock in training for parenthood, and when very young we are conditioned by unintended emotional impacts and social pressures which for many are not softened by a climate of religious faith. Is it any wonder that many of us waver between courage and fear, between a healthy self-image and behavior which attempts to compensate for haunting feelings of inadequacy?
The loving and patient God-fragment waits and watches within the human mind. We’re told in the Adjuster papers that, “In executing those decisions which deliver you from the fetters of fear, you literally supply the psychic fulcrum on which the Adjuster may subsequently apply a spiritual lever of uplifting and advancing illumination.” (UB 108:5.8) Auto revelation! Could we each ask, “What releasing decisions about the stressors in my life can I execute?”
Is it a mix of fear and self-importance which is demonstrated in a closed mind? Consider the Pharisees. We’re told in Paper 109, The Adjuster’s ministry is “… greatly retarded by your own preconceived opinions, settled ideas, and long-standing prejudices.” (UB 109:5.3). We should have some understanding of this: ed mind?
It would not be fair to turn our consideration of deterrents to receptivity into a guilt trip. There are conditions outside our control which interfere. We are an experimental planet. Don’t you look forward to your course in Planetary History 101 on some mansion world when you will be informed of all the effects of this status? Urantia has been torn and retarded by the conflict of rebellion and the deprivations of default. Our several evolutions — scientific, social, intellectual, spiritual — stand in such a relation to each other that we have been led to a marvelous material civilization, but one in which many consider the bellwether to be making and spending money and wielding power, and where all-encompassing decisions, such as the management of enormous physical energy, have little or no religious component, by contention are impossible to make, or by default are somebody else’s. With barely emerging cosmic consciousness, many Urantia mortals are thin on patience and serenity; they are enmeshed in a pleasure mania and, in order to pack much into what they call “life,” they are inclined to feel entitled to instant everything. “One of the great troubles with modern life is that man thinks he is too busy to find time for spiritual meditation and religious devotion.” (UB 195:6.7)
In an earlier reference, I asked you to bear in mind the verb, “tends.” “…revelation tends to make men Godlike.” (UB 102:3.14) To me this implies possibility and denies fiat. Certain outcomes of previous revelations may not make it easy for us to develop receptivity to revelation, but we are free-will creatures. We can make the choice to strive for spiritual outgrowth. And we have the priceless model of Jesus of Nazareth who brought together in a short 35-year life span the matchless doing of the Father’s will with the demands of a strenuous and humble human existence.
Jesus was practical! I’ll offer you several fuses to ignite your practical thinking, but lists like these are not more than launching pads and are never complete. We must function in the realm of personal experience and listen to the midwayers when they point out that “… mind is not the seat of the spiritual nature, but it is indeed the gateway thereto.” (UB 155:6.13) Perhaps in your own meditations, or better, in discussion groups, some of these items will bear examination; the book tells us that several minds coming together are effective beyond their simple sum.
The question is: What are some ways to cultivate a healthy, balanced, spirit-oriented receptivity to revelation, both epochal and auto?
First, epochal revelation, for us The URANTIA Book:
While there are similarities between the two forms of revelation, among ways to enhance receptivity to auto revelation we might consider:
To enhance receptivity of revelation, readers of The URANTIA Book come together to share the startling fact, astonishment, and wonder that we are among those who can, if we choose, be true receivers on both levels. On the last page of the book, the midwayers tell us, “The great challenge to modern man is to achieve better communication with the divine Monitor that dwells within the human mind. Man’s greatest adventure in the flesh consists in the well-balanced and sane effort to advance the borders of self-consciousness out through the dim realms of embryonic soul-consciousness in a whole-hearted effort to reach the borderland of spirit-consciousness-contact with the divine presence.” (UB 196:3.34)
Salute the Revelator within you!
— Helena Sprague
Farmington, Connecticut
| Review: “I am thou: meditations on the truth of India” | April 1985 Issue — Index | Evolution of the gospel |