© 2003 Hubert Gallet
© 2003 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
| Carolyn Kendall talks about history the Time factor | Le Lien Urantien — Issue 28 — Winter 2003 | The 100 Factor or the 757,575 years that separate us (maybe) from Paradise |
This text is a summary of the speech presented on August 9, 2003 at the Urantia Congress of Canada, and attempts to provide, based on the Life of Jesus from The Urantia Book, a user guide for life, reconciling our thirst for the spiritual with our material constraints.
Jesus did not come to earth to impose anything on us, but to live his life as best he could, and thereby show us a path, create a high ideal and thus gently inspire a fundamentally innovative art of living in a world then beset by evil.
And yet, his life was most difficult: “no young man on Urantia has or will ever have had to go through more trying conflicts or painful difficulties than he” (UB 127:0.2). Thus, from the age of 14, after losing his father Joseph, he had to provide first as a carpenter for the needs of his large family. He had to experience humility, the greatest poverty, the sense of duty, discipline, responsibility and family solidarity. Subsequently, he lived essentially as an instructor, just as poorly, like a nomad without a fixed address. And he ended his existence, crucified like the worst of criminals.
And yet, Jesus exuded harmony and serenity. He was galvanizingly dynamic and had boundless enthusiasm. He had immense charisma, and despite the vicissitudes he endured, he spread goodness, comfort and love around him. It is in this apparent contradiction between a stressful material life and a behavior radiating quiet strength that we must seek Jesus’ art of living.
How did Jesus manage to show, in such a difficult environment, a great art of living? He tells us that to act well in life, we must first be upright: In the kingdom, we must first be upright, by faith, before doing right (UB 140:10.1).
Now, for many, our being has been, from a very young age, the object of multiple conditionings forcing us to do this, forbidding us to do that, leading us to act in a programmed way according to the circumstances. We have been, from then on, in a way identified, for example with the role, the job, or the function that the family or society has assigned to us. But when this role disappears, the being collapses. And then there are many cases of despair, depression, and drama. This is because our society puts too much emphasis on what a man does, his social status, his fortune, etc., and not on what he is, his deep values. Jesus puts things back in their place by privileging the being before his function.
It teaches us in fact that there are two realities from which we cannot escape: God and ourselves. Wherever we go, we take ourselves, and we take God, who is in us. Let us therefore not try to deceive ourselves and face this double reality of our being. And since we are fortunate to always have God in us, in the form of his Adjuster, let us have the desire to associate ourselves with him fully, because this association of ourselves with God is natural: it is the gift of spiritual filiation, which completes and ennobles our material filiation from a mortal father.
But how can we make this filiation to God the Father live in us? First of all by opening ourselves to him, through our heart and our mind, then by understanding that we are his children, finally by becoming aware of his existence in us, all around us. This process can be difficult, and lead us to accept that material and temporal securities are vulnerable and transitory, while spiritual realities are invulnerable and eternal. It can take us very far since “for him who knows God and believes in the Kingdom, what matters is all earthly things broken” (UB 100:2.7). As soon as this awareness is established, God begins to exist again for us and in us, but this time, unlike what we experienced when we were children, we understand what this means. In addition to being born materially, we are now born spiritually, and this because we desired it. We are born again.
Being from then on re-connected to the Father, we can seek to harmonize ourselves with him, and ensure, as Jesus suggests, that we love him, as a son naturally loves his father. For just as love is the most widespread feeling among us humans, so, in the universe of universes, love is the supreme relationship, the greatest of spiritual realities. This also means that we re-connect ourselves to God our Father by faith, that we now have complete trust in him at all times. This relationship of filiation, love and faith finally means that the Father, like a human father, for his part listens to us and helps us, if we are willing to address him, and that he too trusts us. Our being has straightened up towards God, has become straight again, candidly, as when we were children.
In this relationship of filiation, the little child that we are in relation to God is built, flourishes, strengthened by the faith that we have in him, and frees himself by the strength that it brings him. And this strength pushes back our false, negative thoughts, our prejudices, blockages, repressions, stress and anxieties. On this subject, Jesus says to John and James: “Do not concern yourself with the things that maintain your anxiety, but rather to do the will of the Father” (UB 137:1.6). His password is: “Have no fear”. Thus, the faith generated by our filiation to God frees us, liberates the divine supra-human activity that resides in our human mind. By freeing the spiritual forces in us, faith heals us: “Your faith has healed you” Jesus says to Veronica whom he has just saved (UB 152:0.3).
We are also descended from animal evolution and have inherited from it an almost complete domination over our minds of the energy patterns and chemical forces peculiar to our human order. According to Urantia, “few mortals are real thinkers and can develop and discipline their minds to the point of fostering a link with the divine Adjuster within us” (UB 110:7.6). Furthermore, we are dependent upon our base instincts and animal urges for “before the rebirth of the spirit, man is subject to the evil inclinations inherent in his nature” (UB 148:4.6). And while these inclinations cannot be fundamentally changed, our reactions to these tendencies can be improved through our union with God through lived sonship. In a strong character, emotional reactions are integrated and coordinated, producing a unified personality (UB 140:4.8). In this sense, Jesus suggests that we substitute our temptations with superior and idealistic lines of conduct, and this without depressing internal conflicts, gently. (UB 156:5.6).
Finally, our nature leads us to indolence and to take at face value the morals, ideologies or beliefs that promise us paradise in exchange for the passive acceptance of their rules of life. The relationship of divine filiation also allows us to free ourselves from these regimentations, and by reinforcing ourselves in our free will, pushes us to express ourselves, to realize ourselves in the function of creation with which God has endowed us, in short, to do right.
However, the current political and social environment does not encourage us to act rightly. Fueled by lust, greed or thirst for power, subject to their baser instincts, many continue to trigger endless wars and damage. To fight against this, religions and other institutions have each defined their conception of good and put in place a whole framework of moral rules, traditions and ceremonies, which each defends tooth and nail, sometimes crushing individuals in the process.
At the beginning of his teaching, Jesus proposed to simplify all of this by saying that the totality of human duty is summed up in a single commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your mind, with all your heart and with all your soul, and love your neighbor as yourself.” (UB 163:4.8). And he suggested putting it into practice by applying as a rule of life to “do to others what you would have them do to you”, which he later improved into the recommendation to “do to others what we think God would do to them” (UB 147:4.9), a formula which has the immense advantage of encompassing in a concise way the two fundamental concepts of spiritual Paternity and human fraternity.
Because in the life of the time as in the current life, the biggest problem is to discern good from evil, true from false, to make the right choice, certain acts decided in the name of good can lead to evil, as a result of unforeseen circumstances, ignorance, insufficient analysis, etc. To make the right choice, one must of course rely on one’s experience, one’s reason, and flawless morality. But for Jesus, one must also put our daily life in tune with the will of the Father. According to Urantia, this is not an abandonment, but rather an expansion, a glorification of our will. It is not a negation of it either, but an affirmation: “It is my will that your will be done”. (UB 111:5.6).
To know the will of the Father, Jesus had the almost permanent habit of praying, then tells us the Urantia Book, to “remain for some time in silent recollection to give the inner spirit the best chance of speaking to the attentive soul. For it is at the moment when human thought is in an attitude of adoration that the spirit of the Father speaks best to men.” (UB 146:2.17). This is what we must try to practice. Many apply this technique of prayer-adoration, in particular through meditation, which has the added advantage of bringing energy and relaxation. More precisely, “prayer can be compared to a recharging of the spiritual batteries of the soul, and adoration to the synchronization of the soul to capture the communications of the spirit of the Father” (UB 144:4.8).
Jesus also had the habit of retiring to the mountain alone to be even closer to the Father when He had to make important decisions.
And once the choice is made, on what criteria should we base ourselves afterwards, to be sure that we have not made a mistake? In retrospect, we can consider that “an experience is good when it elevates the appreciation of beauty, increases the moral will, enhances the discernment of truth, develops the ability to love and serve, exalts spiritual ideals, and unifies the supreme human motives with the eternal plans of your indwelling Adjuster” (UB 132:2.5).
Jesus put as much enthusiasm into teaching as into living his teachings, demonstrating his talents and his qualities everywhere in a great dedication to the service of his neighbors, in all possible forms, ranging from useful and comforting advice to healing.
For him, the essence of life is based on relationships with others and with God. For the Urantia Book, only relationships between personalities count because “many material experiences will disappear like old scaffoldings that served as bridges to pass to the morontia level and no longer have any use. But personality and relationships between personalities are never scaffoldings; human memory of personality relationships has a cosmic value and will persist”. (UB 112:5.22).
Jesus showed us the way. As a child, he lived as a friendly and attentive brother. When he had to replace his father Joseph, he learned to become a loving father too. For his seven brothers and sisters, he was the “father-brother” who raised them and guided them as best he could. In addition, from a very young age he met many people of different origins, was confronted with multiple situations and experiences, and traveled a lot. This is how he quickly understood that the most important thing in life, after our filiation with the Father, was our relationship of fraternity with our brother, man. He was of constant consideration and respect for all human beings, whatever their race or social status. He was the first to say that women should be granted equal rights with men, and recruited women as evangelists on the same level as men. He forgave his enemies, and did not resist aggression. He did not accuse the sinner, but condemned the sin.
“He was a positive instructor of true virtue and therefore carefully avoided the negative method of handing out directives. He was not a moral reformer.” (UB 140:8.21). And his rare condemnations were directed against pride, cruelty, oppression and hypocrisy. He lavished tact and tolerance, an active and spontaneous kindness, a natural love, “and he extended the notion of neighborliness to include all human beings, without distinction” (UB 140:8.11).
In civil life, Jesus recommended being prudent and discreet, going so far as to say: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (UB 140:8.9). He was in favor of a progressive evolution of society, and not of a militant revolution. Jesus was not a sociologist and respected civil laws and rules. His closest sociological statement was to say: “Do not judge, that you be not judged” (UB 140:8.12). He told his apostles: “Be as prudent as serpents and as harmless as doves.” (UB 140:8.13).
His social philosophy centered on the family, the basic unit of society. “He praised family life as the highest human duty, but made it clear that it should not interfere with religious obligations. He taught a new and broader brotherhood of men, that of the sons of God” (UB 140:8.14)
In this sense, shortly before the supreme act of love of the crucifixion, he harmonized his words with his actions by giving, as a result of his previous teachings and his entire earthly life, his new commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you.” (UB 180:1.1).
If Jesus were on earth today, he would certainly refuse to take sides in current political, social or economic disputes. He would probably remain reserved, asking us above all to perfect our interior life to make us better able to solve our human problems.
And we could say, to summarize, that the application of his teaching at the level of our way of life, consists rather in expressing as best as possible the spiritual interior experience of our being, once it has decided to do the will of the Father, in particular by manifesting a sincere adoration of God and a loving service to our neighbors.
Hubert Gallet
| Carolyn Kendall talks about history the Time factor | Le Lien Urantien — Issue 28 — Winter 2003 | The 100 Factor or the 757,575 years that separate us (maybe) from Paradise |