© 1983 Henry Begemann
© 1983 The Urantia Book Fellowship (formerly Urantia Brotherhood)
In The URANTIA Book the term “personality” is used in a double sense. In the first place it is the personality as the Universal Father bestows it on a living organism with mind. This aspect we could call ‘the pure personality,’ or as the Germans would say, the personality an sich. But the combination of the pure personality with the organism often is also called personality. Sometimes the latter is called the identity. This identity is what the personality believes itself to be, with which personality identifies itself. This article deals mainly with the identity.
The first aspect of the personality-identity that we observe is the physical body, the living material energy system of man. A system is a conglomerate of at least three different parts, which function together as a unit. In the case of the physical body there are countless parts. In the last analysis each living cell is a part, and there are even smaller parts; a real microcosmos. A system is not an aggregate of the parts, but, seen from the level of the parts, it represents a new individual unit of a higher order. As it is an energy system, a discrete and limited system with its boundaries, it must have a form. It is not diffused energy. The material energy system form is visible to us as the material body.
The second aspect is the mind, or mindal energy system. Again such a system has its parts, which function together as a unit. It is hardly possible to state how many parts there are in the material energy system, and the same applies to the mindal energy system. (Let us continually remember that we, on our lowly level, know very little.) But at least, some parts we can distinguish. Starting from below, we first find the material mind. This term is sometimes used in the sense of the mind that is steeped in matter, a materialistic mind. This is a figurative use of the word. But it also has a literal meaning. It is that part of the mind that pervades the material body. “Human consciousness rests gently upon the electro-chemical mechanism…” (UB 111:1.5) Little is known about this part of the mind-system. Physiologists know much about its physical substratum, but though the boundaries between mind and matter are for us often difficult to perceive, there is a basic difference between the realities of mind and matter. A remarkable thing about this part of the mindal system is that it can live on a for a short time even after the person has clinically died. Hairs, nails, and other parts of the body grow even a bit after death. For surgical transplantations living material is needed that can be taken from a body during a short time after clinical death. This material mind must be closely related to all parts of the material body that it pervades.
I often wondered why the resurrection of Jesus took place in the tomb, when the material body was not the object that was resurrected. Could it be that Jesus needed the material mind to recover the memory that it may contain? No Adjuster, nor seraphim, nor any created being was allowed to give the Creator that assistance which normally is given to mortals. And after his resurrection Jesus was in full possession of his earthly memory.
Another part of this “…thinking, perceiving, and feeling mechanism…” (UB 0:5.8), is the animal mind, which we evolutionarily inherited and which probably has its substratum in the small brain, the cerebellum. This is the center of the animal urges like fear for dangers that beset the animal life, anger (adrenaline related), material hunger, and so on.
In a later phase of evolution the higher, human mind, connected with the cerebrum, was bestowed on man by our local universe Mother. This part of the mind we mostly experience as our consciousness. And because we also distinguish here between normal consciousness and subconsciousness, our book suggests we also should distinguish a super-consciousness, the dwelling place of the Thought Adjuster. The definition of mind in the Foreword spends half of its length on the aspect which it describes as “The intelligence associated with the emotional life reaching upward through worship and wisdom to the spirit level.” (UB 0:5.8) Mind reaches here its highest level. It sometimes is referred to as “the spirit-mind,” mind enlightened and directed by spirit.
The mindal energy system is knowable; it is not visible to material eyes, though sometimes people experience having a mind-form or -body in case of an accident or an operation. Our book states there are mind (and soul) forms. The word form suggests again a discrete, non-diffused, energy system, that directs the physical-energy system, and is directed, or should be directed by the spirit-energy system.
Mind is a vast and fascinating domain. Unfortunately it can be too fascinating for many people who search for some God in this domain by mind-training, knowledge of, and experimenting with the mind, but get stuck there and fail to really seek for the personal God, our Father. The good is all too often the enemy of the better. We seek for our Father in the soul domain, about which I will say more later on.
The URANTIA Book states there is a third energy system, the spirit-energy system. If the reader should be asked to give a definition of spirit, he could hardly succeed. Definition belongs to the mind-level. The higher spirit system we cannot know like the mind system, let alone discern it with our material eyes. But because our book calls it a system, it must have a form. This spirit form we’ll see at least and at last when we have left the local universe behind us, when we are classified as spirits. If we cannot see nor intellectually know this spirit energy system, how can we know about it? Only through revelation. Our book speaks about spirit, though its words cannot really depict it, And there is continual personal revelation, which transforms words into living experience.
Matter is visible, mind is knowable, spirit can be experienced. Spirit values must be felt, states our book. And spirit values are what we may know of spirit on our level. Spirit values are what we experience of the attributes of our Father, who is spirit. These values are higher than the moral values, and far higher than the material values. Values are spirit-energies, again organized in a system. All values are connected with each other and function as a unit. We can differentiate, but not segregate them. (see UB 2:7.12) Values are powers. We know about the power of love, of truth, beauty, and goodness, By the power of love the universe is governed. They are also motivating powers. These powers are intelligent and create their goals and purposes, Motives can also be found in the mind realm. Spirit motives and spiritual mind motives are not identical, however. How can we differentiate them? Spirit motives are the expression and result of the experienced attributes of the Father, through communion. “The human Jesus saw God as being holy, just, and great, as well as being true, beautiful, and good. All these attributes of divinity he focused in his mind as the will of the Father in heaven.” (UB 196:0.2) When we have to make a decision, want to follow a particular plan of action, and long to know if it is the Father’s will, or the Father’s way, we can put our plan to the test of the Father’s divine attributes.
What is moving us, time-pressure (mind) or the restfulness of faith-action (spirit)? Are we completely willing to let quality (spirit) prevail over quantity (mind)? The Father has countless attributes. Faith is the attitude of the spirit-mind, ‘good motives’ condition our human actions. Spirit motivation is characterized by “…self-possessed ideas … (becoming transformed by the Adjuster) into increasingly practical but nonetheless supernal ideals…” (UB 101:6.7) The Father’s way is the slow, but sure way. The human mind all too often finds seemingly faster ways, which, if not ideal, are at least apparently more practical. So spirit motivation is downgraded into “good” human motivation. There is loss of quality. It is always more or less a compromise. We too often lack in faith. And we make shortcuts which we Later regret.
The three energy systems together constitute a new and higher system. Or rather, so should it be. But the parts of the system function along different lines, are antagonistic. A unifier is needed, the personality, which the Father bestows on such an organism. Personality has the prerogatives of will and choice. But personality is handicapped by its lack of self-realization. We know and believe that this personality is majestic in nature, because of its revealed origin and future. But we have hardly begun to realize this transcendent fact. How could personality on this low level unify these vast and conflicting energy systems, while our highest and most important energy system, the spiritual system, is so little known? The Universal Father, knowing our dilemma, has potentially already solved it for us, by sending us a spirit fragment of his own prepersonal nature. This absolute spirit entity functions in part as an auxiliary to our own spirit energy system, that, according to our book, is mostly handicapped by spiritual blindness. The Adjuster spiritizes and spiritualizes the mind, thereby also creating more unity between the systems.
Why is it that the Adjuster indwells the mind, and not the spirit system, its own domain by nature? It is because on our level of evolution the center of our personality-identity, the I is yet in the mind. Our Father adjusts to us on our own low level. One of the functions of the Adjuster is to pilot the mind-ship, of which the I is the captain, into safe and deep waters. But our spirit-partner is first of all concerned with our potential universe career. And for such a career a vehicle is needed. The Adjuster helps us, or rather takes the lead in the process, to create such a living universe vehicle, a morontia vehicle, and to foster it. Our book teaches us that he spiritizes our thoughts and ideas. He adds to our thoughts (mindal energy) spirit energy, which we ourselves could not handle. The complementing and uniting of mindal energy (from our mortal mind) with spirit-energy (from the Adjuster), begets a new energy system, a morontia energy system, the soul. This new system is yet incomplete; it lacks the physical energy system. This will be supplied in the resurrection on the mansion worlds, not materially physical, but morontia-physical. The spirit energy system will not be lacking; it is there because spirit is changeless, like personality; spirit is not evolutionary like the material body and mind.
The soul, though it possesses a form, does not have a physical energy system with which to manifest itself in a material world; it is embryonic during our lifetime here. After the soul has been begotten by the Adjuster and the mortal mind, it must grow. An embryo that does not grow will die. The soul is not immortal in and of itself. The Father of the soul, the Adjuster, is more than willing to nurture the embryonic soul. But in this he is dependent on the mother, the mortal mind. The mortal mind must provide such thoughts and ideas as lend themselves to be spiritized, to be united with spirit, resulting in morontia soul substance. The growth of the soul is not an automatism. Not every thought can be spiritized. “The divine spirit makes contact with mortal man [mind] … in the realm of the highest and most spiritualized thinking. It is your [highest] thoughts … that lead you Godward.” (UB 101:6.7) If the mortal mind fails in providing its part of the nutrition of the soul, the embryo will at the least not be full-grown when death overtakes its mother; and therefore it cannot be born, cannot become an independent being standing on its own feet’ in the higher life of the morontia worlds. Taking this ordained technique into consideration, the common expression among us nowadays-he or she has graduated to the mansion worlds — is no more than a newly instituted cultist tradition, even apart from the presumption that we could judge in matters that are definitely in very high hands (the Magisterial Sons, or even the Creator-Sons as on our planet, where we have had no Magisterial Son, but a Creator-Son instead).
Is a soul that does not attain the mansion worlds at once after death of the material body, annihilated? Of course not, this would be quite contrary to the Father’s loving and kind nature. There are several lesser possibilities for such a personality, but it would require another article to go deeper into that subject. A Divine Counselor assures us that, when the whole of the first life could be viewed by us, it would be clear to us that the Father’s will prevails. And it is his will that all should be saved. “Never doubt your survival,” our book encourages us. But it does not say when.
Anyway, survival requires a wholehearted effort, a half-hearted effort will not do. Ours is the choice. Our Father-partner within puts up a whole-hearted effort. Should we fail him?
— Henry Begemann
Wassenaar, Netherlands