© 1996 Larry Mullins
© 1996 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
Plato observed that ideas such as truth, beauty, and goodness are more “real” than the actual material world in which we live. Modern philosophers have generally brushed that concept off. “Platonic” is a term that has come to mean unrealistically idealistic.
Now The Urantia Book gives us an astounding new perspective. Plato was closer to the truth than many of us may have thought. We read in the Urantia Papers that fact — material existence — is only one aspect of reality. Matter is stuff in the constant process of perfecting, of becoming more and more “real.” The perfect pattern that matter is seeking to achieve is found on the Isle of Paradise. We understand divine perfection more easily as values — truth-beauty-goodness — all of which combine as love. Values are “bytes” of Divinity.
Another way of saying this is: fact is what is, and values (or Spirit) are what ought to be. Between what is, and what ought to be, is the dynamic process of becoming — living (or emerging) reality. What we call “reality” is thus always in the process of change, it must ever be redefined. That which is perfect, the Paradise pattern, is indeed more real than what we see; life is but the shadow of spirit realities.
We read in The Urantia Book that God the Supreme (the evolving aspect of Deity) is to the Paradise Trinity what the human soul is to the Thought Adjuster (indwelling Spirit of God). (p. 1285) Just as the Supreme is being created, the soul is also in the process of becoming. The gift of personality is the reality that makes it possible for mortals to choose. Between the God-endowed personality and the Thought Adjuster lies the enchanted loom upon which the mortal soul is woven by means of human choices. The mortal personality becomes more and more real as it chooses higher spiritual realities. These spiritual choices are recorded within the soul-the material-spirit “mind” — which the reconsciousized personality will take up after death.
What does this mean in our day to day lives?
It means that as we identify more and more with our personality essence through wise choices, we become more and more real. As we become more real we can better “hear” the voice of the indwelling Spirit of God, and more and more identify with, and use our immortal soul in day to day living. The indwelling Spirit of God is objective reality, and when we achieve union with it we bring something new, something human, something won from our struggles in experiential reality to this divine-human union. This is our gift to God.
In my job as a business consultant, I observe that businesses are more and more recognizing the reality and significance of values. Values are reality-potentials. Values represent what ought to be. By lifting high values and honoring them, businesses target a company Mission — something seemingly “unattainable,” yet worth striving to achieve. Businesses can evaluate where they are — facts — visualize where they ought to be — values — and in striving to attain their Mission, business associates give their activities, and their business culture new meaning.
Thus, we can better understand the “new reality”-the “living truth” of Jesus. In The Urantia Book, fact is observed as Beauty, value as Goodness, or spiritual potential, and meanings are perceived as emerging Truth, living Truth.
Values are the ultimate measure by which we should guide our lives. Science has discovered that chaos is brought into a meaningful pattern by what they call the “strange attractor,” something that configures apparently meaningless activity into a cohesive, and beautiful pattern. This is how the supreme power of values works in the material world.
Values are indeed more real than ordinary life, especially more real than a life that worships only material reality. A life that is merely successful is wasted. We must learn to see life as what is becoming, and less as what it seems to be. Recall the Man of La Mancha, Don Quixote. When admonished that he must come to terms with life “as it is” he replied:
I have lived nearly fifty years, and I have seen life as it is. Misery, pain, hunger — cruelty beyond belief. I have heard the singing from taverns, and the moans from filth in the streets. I have been a soldier, and have seen my comrades fall in battle or die more slowly under the lash in Africa. I have held them in my arms in the final moments. These were men who saw life as it is, and yet they died despairing. No brave words, no gallant sayings. Only in their eyes a confusion, and whimpering the question: “Why?” I do not think they asked why they were dying, but why they had lived. When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Too much sanity may be madness! To surrender dreams, this may be madness. To seek treasure, where there is only trash. But maddest of all, to see life as it is, and not as it ought to be!
Thus, we may understand the thrilling new truth that Jesus taught the apostles, and only James grasped at first: They were to live life as though they were ambassadors of a glorious earth kingdom of light and life that already exists. (UB 140:8.25) All true members of the kingdom of God should live as such noble ambassadors, for the gospel of Jesus reveals to us that the Father’s spiritual family is to be found within the eternal now.
Larry Mullins is a consultant in advertising and marketing. He is author of “Immature People With Power” and “Jesus: God and Man.”