© 1977 Henry Begemann
© 1977 The Urantia Book Fellowship (formerly Urantia Brotherhood)
Because it would be impossible to deal adequately with such a complex and difficult subject as pattern in a short article, I asked myself what the principal meaning and practical value of pattern is for me. In the first place it is linked up with perfection, The presence of pattern is the validation and justification of the divine mandate: “Be you perfect, even as I am perfect.” How could our loving Father demand his children to be perfect if that perfection were not already present as a potential?
The perfection that is being demanded of us here and now is not absolute perfection. There exists variety in perfection (see The URANTIA Book, UB 0:1.19). Pattern also has its variety in phases. Paradise is the absolute of pattern, Havona the perfection of pattern. The Supreme
Creators project pattern in time and space on ever descending levels, but, nevertheless, pattern remains pattern; it is always relatively perfect. The mercy of our Universal Father warrants that there is always a perfect balance between what is demanded of us and what is the potential for us, pattern. And at the same time there is the endless perspective: “ . . . as I am perfect.” A mandate of the God of love must be characterized by that love. What he demands of his sons he already has given them in potential. Said the father to the elder brother of the prodigal son: “ . . . all that I have is thine.” His mandate is really our greatest privilege.
Pattern is not a controlling force like gravity (see The URANTIA Book, page UB 0:6.11). It more resembles love. Love must be voluntarily accepted and returned. One cannot be forced to love. As the Father gives us his love without forcing it upon us, so he offers us pattern to activate and actualize, the lure of sonship with him.
Pattern can configure energies, arrange energies, in such a way that these energies take form after pattern. Then pattern is realized; the pattern-form is the reality of pattern. But true pattern remains pattern, the potential, invisible, immeasurable, mysterious, never bestowed, divine “force” behind the resultant individual form. This form can be material, mindal, or spiritual. To me, “worshipful problem-solving” is an example of pattern realization on the mind-level, spiritual healing an example on spiritual-mindal-material levels.
On whatever level the results of pattern activation become experiencible, the true process itself is spiritual. Pattern can be activated by us only through faith. In this phase of our career we are only faith-sons of the Father, and now and ever we can only have sonship with him. In worshipful communion the spirit-mind acknowledgment of pattern-perfection becomes a living truth. It is important to know that pattern, perfection, is behind everything, because this lifts us above the “prayer of petition” into worship, “the practice of the presence of God,” to whom no problem exists.
Ideally, finding the contact with the Father should be more important to us than the practical results. It is not for the “loaves and fishes” that we try to attain that “definite spiritual phase of true prayer, which concerns its reception and recognition by the spiritual forces of the universe,” (UB 91:2.6) When finding the Father within is “all” to us, we can endure the delays of the time-factor, be patient with ourselves and our brothers.
—Henry Begemann