© 1987 Jim Johnston
© 1987 The Urantia Book Fellowship (formerly Urantia Brotherhood)
| December 1987 Issue | December 1987 Issue. Special Conference Double Issue — Index | All I ever really needed to know I learned in kindergarden |
The secret of transformation of the individual as well as the world is the vision that you hold of who and what you desire to become, and then acting as though that vision has already become a reality. That’s it. That’s about all that I will be talking about this morning.
The theme of this conference is “Personal Transformation and its Power to Transform the World.” The theme wasn’t posed as a question, but rather as a statement. Can personal transformation, even the spiritual transformation of one individual, actually transform the world? I think that it can.
One only need look at the life of Jesus in both his personal and public ministry, to see the influence of one spiritually transformed individual in the world. His apostles and followers, by virtue of his transforming life in this world, virtually “…turned the whole Roman Empire upside down.” (UB 195:6.9) During his one visit to Rome, Jesus had an influence on the spiritual awakening of more people than most of us will have an influence on in a lifetime. The power of his mere presence was so profound that he merely had to smile upon people for them to experience renewed faith and encouragement.
As Aristotle said to his young pupil, Alexander The Great, in answer to Alexander’s question “How many is one?”: “In the arena of human affairs, one can be a very great number.”
I am convinced that the world essentially gets transformed by and through transformed individuals. Therefore, it is not world transformation that I wish to focus on this morning, but rather, the transformation of the individual. If you want to transform the world, then start by transforming yourself.
Well, how do you transform yourself? One of the essential ingredients seems to be altering your thoughts about who you are, William James noted, The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind."
In his award winning tape, “The Strangest Secret,” social philosopher Earl Nightengale identified a powerful axiom for material success. He drew the idea from Napoleon Hill’s book Think and Grow Rich. The axiom is essentially this: “You become what you think about.”
If you think about yourself as being successful, you will become successful. If you focus on personal growth, your mind will generate the ideas and plans that will lead to personal growth. Your life becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. If you focus on a low self-image, you will provide for yourself a lot of reasons to continue to see yourself in that light. Every mistake that you make will be amplified out of proportion to confirm the poor image that you had of yourself originally. If you focus on fear, you will grow a multitudinous variety of weeds of fear to congest and strangle the garden of your mind. As a Solitary Messenger wrote, “Mind is the cosmic instrument on which the human will can play the discords of destruction, or upon which this same human will can bring forth the exquisite melodies of God identification and consequent eternal survival.” (UB 111:1.6)
In his book Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am, Father John Powell said this: “It is almost a truism of contemporary psychology that one’s image of himself lies at the root of most human conduct.” He went on to say: “What is more difficult to accept is that the image each of us has of himself is really the product of what other people, rightly or wrongly, have told us that we are. If one imagines himself to be evil or inadequate and his life to be governed by Murphy’s law, it will show in his conduct. He will attempt nothing of challenge and will consider safety as that which must be sought above and before all. He will somehow attempt to hide his shame or inadequacy under a veil of anonymity.” As another once said, “So many people seem to be tiptoeing past life’s risks so that they can make it safely to death!”
The day-to-day consequences of one’s self-image is one of the reasons that effective parenting is so important. In revealing the love of God to children, an effective parent will imbed in their children a high self-esteem, a profound self-respect. They will teach them unconditionally that they are loved, good, and whole. They will enrich their children’s lives with an enduring sense of self worth.
Think about the difference between most children and most adults. Stop to consider the difference in enthusiasm, joy, and sense of wonder in their lives, Children are starting out fresh, they have a clean slate and abounding optimism. Too many adults have been beaten down and beaten back by the world, by the opinions, rejection, ill-will, and criticism of others. They are not so much limited by the reality of who they are as their belief of who they are. They carry with them in the form of messages and images, a thousand and one reasons for preserving their low self-image.
When you look at the adult population of any generation, it is easy to understand why Jesus taught he wanted to set men free so that they could start out afresh as little children.
Jesus’ mind was fresh, alive, and unencumbered by fear or self doubt. He kept his mind firmly focused on the chief enterprise of life: seeking the way of God. He believed firmly that the whole universe was friendly toward him. As he told Ganid on their return from Rome: “‘… I have absolute confidence in my heavenly Father’s overcare; I am consecrated to doing the will of my Father in heaven. I do not believe that real harm can befall me; I do not believe that my lifework can really be jeopardized by anything my enemies might wish to visit upon me, and surely we have no violence to fear from our friends. I am absolutely assured that the entire universe is friendly to me-this all-powerful truth I insist on believing with a wholehearted trust in spite of all appearances to the contrary.’” (UB 133:1.4)
His commitment to aligning his life with the way of the Father was so complete, his attitudes of mind so positive, that there was no room for fear, jealousy, hatred, revenge, fear of criticism, or greed. No wonder that it has been said “Let the mind which was in Christ be also in you.” (UB 102:4.1)
The poet Goethe said, “Before you can do something, you must be something.” Perhaps due to our western material conditioning, we often think that we must do something to be something.
Instead, in reality, it seems to be the other way around, If you want to do something, you must be someone in your mind first. You must see yourself as having attained your goal before you attain it. Dr. Dennis Waitely, author of The Psychology of Winning, said this, “There never was a winner who didn’t first see himself as winning.” People generally think that you must have material possessions to be wealthy, Yet the truth seems to be that people see themselves as being wealthy in their mind’s eye long before they ever have wealth, In the Dale Carnegie training, you’re trained to act enthusiastic so you will be enthusiastic. What you actually get from the experience though, is not genuine enthusiasm, but rather an elaborate act of enthusiasm. To be enthusiastic you must simply be enthusiastic. Just as to be of good cheer you must Be of Good Cheer. Neither will you be religious by acting religious or doing religious things. “… Jesus talked at great length, trying to show the twelve what they must be, not what they must do. They knew only a religion that imposed the doing of certain things as the means of attaining righteousness — salvation. But Jesus would reiterate, ‘In the kingdom you must be righteous in order to do the work.’ Many times did he repeat, ‘Be you therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.’ All the while was the Master explaining to his bewildered apostles that the salvation which he had come to bring to the world was to be had only by believing, by simple and sincere faith.” (UB 140:10.1)
The supreme goal of eternity is perfection. Jesus said to “Be…perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (UB 140:10.1) I’ve always wondered about that statement. It has always bothered me that perfection seems so unattainable in this lifetime. Yet he said “Be perfect” just as he said “Be of Good Cheer” and “Fear not.” He didn’t say “Try to be perfect,” or “Aim for perfection.”
I think that part of his message was at least this: Be perfect now in your mind’s eye. Know that you are a child of God, that you have the seed of perfection within you, and act as though you have already attained that perfection.
On the way to Rome in a conversation with a Mithraic priest, Jesus said this about time: “… even to man, because of his sectional and circumscribed view, time appears as a succession of events; but as man ascends, as he progresses inward, the enlarging view of this event procession is such that it is discerned more and more in its wholeness. That which formerly appeared as a succession of events then will be viewed as a whole and perfectly related cycle; in this way will circular simultaneity increasingly displace the onetime consciousness of the linear sequence of events.” (UB 130:7.5)
I don’t pretend to understand the full meaning of the concept of circular simultaneity. Part of it though, I think is this: In our attitude of mind, we can hold perfection as real right now, even though many sunsets must follow many sunrises before perfection has fully blossomed in our lives in eternity.
When you see yourself by faith to be a perfect son or daughter of God, then envy, jealousy, anger, and resentment all tend to evaporate — they become virtually unreal and useless. Truly, life becomes an almost effortless adventure. No longer do you see growth as a series of arduous hurdles that must be traversed in order to attain a state of perfection that seems virtually unattainable. Rather, it becomes the obvious condition of continuous germination in which “Trouble will invigorate you; disappointment will spur you on; difficulties will challenge you; and obstacles will stimulate you.” (UB 130:6.4)
You begin to act as though your eternal goal has already been attained. Of the twelve apostles, The URANTIA Book says, it was the apostle James who “…grasped the thrilling truth that Jesus wanted his children on earth to live as though they were already citizens of the completed heavenly kingdom.” (UB 140:8.25)
The goal of perfection and the truth/fact that we are the offspring of the perfect Father of all can be by faith the new gyro-compass of our lives. Once we have made the decision to attain that Supreme goal, our minds will generate the ideas and plans to take us to our eternal destination. “It is your thoughts, not your feelings, that lead you Godward.” (UB 101:1.3). Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door will be opened.
A new attitude, a new vision of yourself, renewed faith, seem rarely to result in immediate transformation. More commonly, growth is gradual, sometimes imperceptible. Many of the same reaction-habits remain with you until they are shed to make way for the emerging newly directed person. Spiritual growth is often like the Asian Moso bamboo plant. After it is planted, no visible signs of growth occur for up to five years. Then it suddenly begins to grow at a rate of nearly 2½ feet per day, reaching a full height of 90 feet within six weeks. The Moso’s rapid growth is due to the miles of roots it developed during those first five years, getting ready.
Will you continue to make mistakes, to live out of alignment with your new faith/vision of yourself and your relationship to God? Yes you will. What do you do about it? Virtually nothing. Simply keep focusing on the goal of your eternal lifetime. Buckminster Fuller once made the point that you cannot change the old by resisting it, you can only change the old by supplanting it with a new methodology. Continue to seek the way of God and to align your life with the will of God within you. “The possibility of making mistakes is inherent in the acquisition of wisdom, the scheme of progressing from the partial and temporal to the complete and eternal, from the relative and imperfect to the final and perfected. Error is the shadow of relative incompleteness which must of necessity fall across man’s ascending universe path to Paradise perfection.” (UB 130:4.11)
People with training in finance understand the time value of money, but we seldom stop to consider the time value of people. Small, almost imperceptible growth, when compounded, can result in phenomenal overall growth. A dollar that earns compound interest at one per cent per day over the course of a year would be worth $36 at the end of one year; $1,427 at the end of two years; and $54,000 at the end of three years. At the end of six years, the dollar would have grown to close to $3,000,000,000! Small, almost imperceptible growth in individuals as well, when compounded, can result in phenomenal overall growth. The key seems to be to keep focusing on the small positive successes — the movement toward the goal — and building on that movement.
The focus of a growing person is on where they are growing and not where they are now or where they have been. “All religions before and after the times of Jesus, even Christianity, carefully provide for conscientious self-examination. But not so with the religion of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus’ philosophy of life is without religious introspection. The carpenter’s son never taught character building; he taught character growth, declaring that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed.” (UB 140:8.27)
During our lifetimes, we find success frequently in the pattern of visualizing our goals and then persistently acting as though we have already achieved the results. The best corporate managers of change are those who can create a clear vision for the direction of change and then communicate that vision in a thousand and one different ways to their people. As Tom Peters, co-author of In Search of Excellence said, “Whenever anything is being accomplished anywhere in an organization, it is being accomplished by a monomaniac with a mission.” Most successful entrepreneurs are those who have tenaciously clung, like an English bulldog, to a business idea, until they have effectively made that idea a reality. The highest performing athletes are those who already see themselves as winners and who persistently train and evolve their skills until they have made their vision a material reality.
The Adjuster seems to be entirely in accord with these mortal enterprises: “Although the divine indwellers are chiefly concerned with your spiritual preparation for the next stage of the never-ending existence, they are also deeply interested in your temporal welfare and in your real achievements on earth. They are delighted to contribute to your health, happiness, and true prosperity. They are not indifferent to your success in all matters of planetary advancement which are not inimical to your future life of eternal progress.” (UB 110:1.3)
Although these mortal enterprises are enjoyable, satisfying, and often consistent with spiritual goals and values, they ought never take pre-eminence over the spiritual enterprise of seeking God’s way and achieving spiritual growth. “‘… human wills which are fully occupied with passing only upon temporal decisions having to do with the material problems of animal existence are doomed to perish in time. Those who make wholehearted moral decisions and unqualified spiritual choices are thus progressively identified with the indwelling and divine spirit, and thereby are they increasingly transformed into the values of eternal survival unending progression of divine service.’” (UB 130:2.9)
Growth and transformation occur because we act on the consciousness that has been born in our hearts that we are children of God. The fruits of the spirit are paradoxically also the roots of the soul. Jesus said that “It is not possible to respect yourself more than you love your neighbor; the one is the measure of the capacity for the other.” (UB 156:5.14) “… Love one another … as I have loved you” (UB 191:6.2) was his final commandment to us. The more that we love others, the deeper our capacity to love them and the more real we become.
In the children’s story, “The Velveteen Rabbit,” The Skin Horse and The Velveteen Rabbit were talking:
“What is real?” asked the Rabbit one day when they were lying side by side in the nursery before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?
“Real isn’t how you are made. It is a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the skin horse, for he was always truthful, “But when you are real, you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily or have sharp edges or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved off, and you get loose in the joints, and you get very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all because once you are real, you can’t be ugly except to people who don’t understand.”
“I suppose you are real,” said the rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the skin horse might be sensitive,
“But the skin horse only smiled. The boy’s uncle made me real.” he said. “That was a great many years ago. But once you are real, you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”
The secret of spiritual transformation, the process of becoming real, is to change your attitudes of mind “May the mind that was in Jesus be also in you”; to see yourself as a child of the perfect God right now — “Be you perfect, even as the Father in heaven is perfect”; and to act on that new consciousness — to love one another as Jesus has loved us.
One of the most powerful, complete summaries of the process of personal and spiritual transformation anywhere in The URANTIA Book is the dialogue between Jesus and the young man who was afraid. Jesus said:
“Set your mind at work to solve its problems; teach your intellect to work for you; refuse longer to be dominated by fear like an unthinking animal. Your mind should be your courageous ally in the solution of your life problems rather than your being, as you have been, its abject fear-slave and the bond-servant of depression and defeat. But most valuable of all, your potential of real achievement is the spirit which lives within you, and which will stimulate and inspire your mind to control itself and activate the body if you will release it from the fetters of fear and thus enable your spiritual nature to begin your deliverance from the evils of inaction by the power-presence of living faith. And then, forthwith, will this faith vanquish fear of men by the compelling presence of that new and all-dominating love of your fellows which will so soon fill your soul to overflowing because of the consciousness which has been born in your heart that you are a child of God.” (UB 130:6.3)
May the blessings of the Father in heaven ever abide with you, Have a wonderful week.
Jim Johnston
Temple Terrace, Florida
| December 1987 Issue | December 1987 Issue. Special Conference Double Issue — Index | All I ever really needed to know I learned in kindergarden |