© 2022 María José Sánchez Santamaría
© 2022 Urantia Association of Spain
| Luz y Vida — September 2022 — Newsletter | Luz y Vida — September 2022 — Index | Urantia Questionnaire: Juan José López Vallejos |
¶ Know yourself
During the summer holidays, with the transfer of trips, excursions, outings that many people usually do, we can make this reflection:
How is it that we travel to marvel at the greatness of the mountains, the undulation of the seas, the evolution of the rivers, the magnificence of the oceans, the evolution of the stars… while we pass by ourselves without ever being amazed?
Have you noticed that we are always wanting to travel to visit beautiful places, go to parks for a walk while listening to the sounds of nature, even going to museums to admire the beauty of artists who wanted to capture their ideas in paintings or sculptures?
It is very common to admire external issues such as trees, skyscrapers, the sea or the possibility that, today, we can travel half the world in a few hours.
But wait a minute, I ask you:
Do you realize how wonderful it is to be alive, to move with this body, to create a simple cooking recipe? Do we admire ourselves, in some pause that we make in our life, of something as close as our body or our mind? Do we admire the fact of EXISTING?
It is not about arrogance or lack of humility, not at all. It’s about valuing ourselves for who we are, recognizing our deepest truth. Because we often act quite inconsistently, as if we were running our lives on “autopilot” and we forget who we are as unique: wonderful children of a divinity, creatures brought into existence in this universe, on this material plane out of love. of the Creator of all things.
God lives in every one of his spirit-born sons. (UB 5:2.2)
We are peculiar creatures, because curiously we are both car and driver, ship and pilot, horse and rider; that is to say, we are an electrochemical mechanism that allows us to handle ourselves in material reality but we are also a self-aware, creative entity capable of transcending matter.
There are, therefore, two realities which impinge upon, and are centered in, the human mind circuits: one, a mortal self evolved from the original plans of the Life Carriers, the other, an immortal entity from the high spheres of Divinington, an indwelling gift from God. But the mortal self is also a personal self; it has personality. (UB 110:2.4)
This matter of our identity, of our true being, has been reflecting on for many centuries:
Many of the Oriental as well as some of the Occidental faiths have perceived that man is divine in heritage as well as human in inheritance. The feeling of the inner presence in addition to the external omnipresence of Deity has long formed a part of many Urantian religions. Men have long believed that there is something growing within the human nature, something vital that is destined to endure beyond the short span of temporal life. (UB 111:0.2)
We all know the simple greeting expression aloha, used for greetings and as an expression of love, compassion and generosity. Etymologically it is made up of the terms alo (presence or being present) and ha (breath or divine inspiration). That is, the aloha greeting means that the divine essence of the other person is welcomed and recognized. This respect affects the loving and joyful way of relating to other human beings.
“Know yourself”. These were the words that were inscribed almost as a warning on the pronaos of the temple of Apollo at Delphi. Pausanias, the famous tourist from the 2nd century AD, explained in his work Description of Greece that this sentence was inscribed in gold as soon as he entered the temple. It was impossible to enter the room and not read this profound sentence.
Now, in the room where the sibyl was (that wise woman trained since she was a child to reveal the message of the oracles) the following inscription could be read:
“I warn you, whoever you are, who wishes to probe the secrets of nature, that if you do not find within yourself what you seek, you will not be able to find it outside either. If you ignore the excellences of your own house, how do you intend to find other excellences? In you is hidden the Treasure of Treasures. Man, know yourself and you will know the universe and the gods.”
These two simple examples that remind us of who we are, that exhort us to seek the best self-knowledge, encourage us to be seekers, in an endless race of progression and limitless expansion.
The great God makes direct contact with mortal man and gives a part of his infinite and eternal and incomprehensible self to live and dwell within him. God has embarked upon the eternal adventure with man. If you yield to the leadings of the spiritual forces in you and around you, you cannot fail to attain the high destiny established by a loving God as the universe goal of his ascendant creatures from the evolutionary worlds of space. (UB 5:1.12)
Is this great promise that can drive us through our lives, that shows us what we really are, widespread and accepted? The answer is obvious; rather we live in many aspects a dystopian reality. Contemporary humanity suffers the evils of always (injustice, alienation, wars, hunger, damage to Mother Earth, etc.) but with more intensity than ever and also new evils (such as the storage and massive processing of information for the domain and social control, or genetic manipulation), new problems that we have never known before.
What is this about?
If we go to the root, to the heart of things, we see that many human beings suffer from the “disease” described by Rudolf Steiner in How can I find the Christ?, consisting of “the denial of the divine”:
«A real and authentic physical defect, a physical disease, a physical belief (…) It is a disease that doctors do not cure; it happens that they often suffer from it themselves.”
Looking around us, we can verify that, indeed, this ailment is widespread. What is the reason that the disease described by Steiner is today a true pandemic?
The answer is as simple as it is complex, as simple as it is profound: the cause lies in the fact that this society has killed God, daily life unfolds with few or no allusions to the spiritual. Humanity rejects, by action or omission, any idea and ideal of transcendence.
Therefore, ignorance of what we really are is widespread, we do not know ourselves as the Greek oracle requested centuries ago. But let’s not confuse things: this problem of secularization has nothing to do with the growing abandonment of established churches or cults, which have often misrepresented and manipulated genuine spirituality, but rather refers to the banishment of Spirituality, with a capital letter, through a practice and vision of life that repudiates the transcendent and throws itself into the arms of the evanescent and superficial.
It is something as catastrophic as it is suicidal, because by doing without God, what happens? We also dispense with the divinity that we treasure. That is, we reject the core of our being.
We clearly experience this crucial problem on our European continent. For this reason, in Urantia Association we have thought it appropriate to try to offer solutions and alternatives to this dystopia that surrounds us in the next European meeting of readers of The Urantia Book. An international conference that, with the title «Overcoming materialism. Illuminate Europe”, will be held from October 20 to 23 in Torremolinos, Málaga (Spain).
To illuminate Europe and therefore the world, turning inward rather than outward.
Very late at night, Nasrudín was circling around a lamppost, looking down. A neighbor passes by.
—What are you doing, Nasrudin? Have you lost something? -The question.
—Yes, I’m looking for my key.
The neighbor stays with him to help him search. After a while, a neighbor passes by.
—What are you doing? —he asks them.
—We are looking for the Nasrudín key.
She also wants to help them and starts looking. Then another neighbor joins them. Together they search and search. Having searched for a long time, they end up getting tired, and a neighbor asks:
—Nasrudín, we have been looking for your key for a long time. Are you sure you have lost it in this place?
—No —says Nasrudín.
—Where did you lose it, then?
—There, in my house.
—Then why are we looking for her here?
—Well, because there is more light here and my house is very dark.
Are we looking for solutions in the right place? Jesus himself guides us in our search, inwards, towards our nucleus. Therein lies the answer to our current problems and concerns.
The Greek religion had a watchword “Know yourself”; the Hebrews centered their teaching on “Know your God”; the Christians preach a gospel aimed at a “knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ”; Jesus proclaimed the good news of “knowing God, and yourself as a son of God.” (UB 5:4.8)
Great and beautiful our good news, the one that Jesus invites us to carry out in these times, in this European meeting.
¶ References
- Article of the Magazine Light and Life Online: https://aue.urantia-association.org/2022/08/30/editorial-septiembre-2022/
| Luz y Vida — September 2022 — Newsletter | Luz y Vida — September 2022 — Index | Urantia Questionnaire: Juan José López Vallejos |