© 1994 Ken Glasziou
© 1994 The Brotherhood of Man Library
When computers store your letters and articles in memory so that you can get them back later, they really make a hash (mash?) of it. Storage is done as a file to a disk that is subdivided into sections. A bookkeeping system keeps an index and when you want your file back, you just type its name and press the magic button. However, the file isn’t necessarily all in the one filing cabinet. When it is being stored, the librarian inside the computer goes looking for any spare space in partly filled cabinets and, being fastidious, insists on filling all vacant spaces with bits and pieces of your file. So your file actually gets stored all over the place. Eventually that makes the librarian’s task slow and tedious. But a cure is at hand! Just type DEFRAG (which is short for defragment) and lo and behold, all the bits and pieces of all your files are put back together, are stored in one place, and the index is updated so it can be recovered swiftly and easily. It works like magic.
Now wouldn’t it be great if human organizations could be defragmented in the same way? Whenever we human creatures come together into some kind of collective activity, it is not long before we start jockeying for position, power, prestige, possessions, anything by which we can feel special—superior to our fellows, or at least one (or maybe some) of them. Very quickly, whatever it is we are trying to do collectively and co-operatively becomes fragmented in one way or another. We break up into groups, factions, parties, tribes, states, nations, whatever. Then, within all of those, power struggles are inevitable. That’s the way we are. Pride and seflishness makes us that way. That is also the way we have always been. Some think that is the way we always will be. And there is no real evidence to the contrary, not even in the Urantia movement, its tribes, its sub-tribes, and its study groups.
Wouldn’t it have been great if the Revelators had accepted the fact that we are what we are—evolutionary creatures—and given us a defragment program like our computers have. Then we would simply need to utter the magic word “DEFRAG” and low and behold, we would all be happily together again. Well actually they did! Or at least, Jesus did! First he gave us a little lecture, as was his wont: “You do not have to see alike or feel alike or even think alike in order spiritually to be alike. Spiritual unity is derived from the consciousness that each of you is indwelt, and increasingly dominated, by the spirit gift of the heavenly Father.” UB 141:5.1
DEFRAG is the Thought Adjuster! And in the upgrade, DEFRAG2, the Spirit of Truth is added for free.
DEFRAG2 is in the public domain, available for the asking. It even has a utility to patch up personal relationships. All we have to do to institute the second great commandment, “to love one another as Jesus loved us” is to plug into the utility program, answer “Yes” to the question, “Do you really want to?” and then get your orders from the “Spirit of Truth who directs the loving contact of one human being with another.” UB 180:5.11
If we are sincere about this, we can actually use the name “DEFRAG” to call up the program and get it operating. Whenever we have a personal relationships problem, stop for a moment, roll your eyes and look up to the heavens, soulfully mutter “DEFRAG” and after you get the bugs out of the system, you can guarantee the Spirit of Truth will take over and solve your problem.
Please note that it is your part of the problem that DEFRAG2 solves. If the second party is not using DEFRAG2 it cannot solve their part—but that is none of your business anyway. However it is amazing how often, if your part is solved, their part also gets solved. According to the book, this should be a cinch if both parties are using DEFRAG2. When this is so, all kinds of good things can happen. The book says: “Your personalities may be refreshingly diverse and markedly different, while your spiritual natures and the spirit fruits of divine worship and brotherly love may be so unified that all who behold your lives will of a surety take cognizance of this and have thereby learned, and acceptably, how to do the will of the Father in heaven.” (UB 141:5.2). Now wouldn’t that be something!
To get DEFRAG2 to operate in enhanced mode, it is helpful if individual users all have a common motive for life service, that they “desire above everything else to do the will of the Father in heaven.” Another factor is having a common goal of existence, that they all “purpose to find the Father in heaven, thereby proving to the universe that they have become like him.” UB 141:5.3
Another helpful way for defragmenting our personal relationships problems is by taking the course from which we can graduate from being human creatures and get our diplomas as human beings. Naturally a requirement of the course is to learn to be—how can we expect to be a being if we don’t be? Jesus did a lot of coaching on this point to show us what we must be, not what we must do. We creatures have a habit of going about the doing of certain things as a means of attaining righteousness as an insurance policy for our salvation. But Jesus repeated again and again that, “in the kingdom you must be righteous in order to do the work.” (UB 140:10.1) He also told his followers: “Be you therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” But that turned out to be a pretty tough assignment and no one had much success until he gifted us with the Spirit of Truth.
This is where we can again make use of DEFRAG2. Think hard on the name “DEFRAG”, this calls up the icon which is a mental image of Jesus and then “love, unselfishness undergoes a constant and living re-adaptive interpretation of relationships in accordance with the leading of the Spirit of Truth.” (UB 180:5.10) It is important to use the right icon because the Spirit of Truth never creates consciousness of himself only a consciousness of Jesus. (UB 194:2.7)
DEFRAG2 is described in detail in The Urantia Book, its use does not require a licence, and it is free. It is one of the most valuable utilities described in the book and could solve a lot of our crashes and glitches. On a scale of one to ten, it scores ten.
We have to note very carefully the word the Christian ethic uses for love. It is the word agape…It means an undefeatable attitude of goodwill; it means that no matter what the other man does to us we will never under any circumstances seek anything but his good.