© 1989 Mario C.J. Harrington
© 1989 The Urantia Book Fellowship (formerly Urantia Brotherhood)
As more individuals follow up on their self-conscious religious promptings, they seek guidance as to the paths of prayer and worship, or how to practice the presence of God. The path to the Universal Father is first of all an inward journey. In prayer there is an element of self-interest involved. Many of us have experienced that prayers are not necessarily answered at the level formulated. The overcontrol of the spiritual forces of the universe tends to answer our requests at their higher and purer level. Once in a while our petitions are actually met and we are subsequently surprised in experiencing the reality of our desire. Prayer enriches life, but worship illuminates destiny.
Many who had been comforted by the extrinsic religions of intellectual conformity increasingly find no solace in the repetition of set prayers and the empty formalities of ritual. This is not astonishing for we are, each one of us, individuals, sons of God, and our souls desire in their way to express worship, love and reverence to our Universal Father. The goal of our eternal existence is to reach the Paradise presence of our Creator on Paradise. That can only be accomplished by our spiritual development, which we achieve through the guidance of our Thought Adjuster in order to acquire the nature of God. As we know, the words we express are not relevant to worship, but the attitude of the soul is. The recognition of spiritual values makes cosmic meanings discernible and our personality is freed from the strappings of time and released from the limitation of space.
Worship is pure, it asks nothing and expects nothing.
Our Father reveals himself to his creatures through an endless effort and an elaborate scheme of exalted ministering spirits. “There is an infinite grandeur and an inexpressible generosity connected with the majesty of his love which causes him to yearn for the association of every created being who can comprehend, love, or approach him…” (UB 5:1.2) Worship is each son of God’s direct link with the Universal Father. No mortal can pretend to act as an intermediary on our behalf in communicating with him since his spirit indwells each one of us.
As we in due succession learn to do the Father’s will and suffer concomitantly from our strong egotistic manifestations that thwart carrying out our soul’s attitude, we come to realize that worship — the contemplation of the spiritual-is the highest and first duty of all of us. Through the Father’s personality circuit our adoration is indeed transmitted directly to him, whereas petitions are directed to other venerable venues. Worship takes place on the superconscious level, the quality of self-realizing oneself on the individual and universal levels.
Worship is pure, it asks nothing and expects nothing. Worship is effortless attention, soul rest, and quiescent spiritual exertion. Worship is for its own sake and for what we each comprehend God to be. “True worship, in the last analysis, becomes an experience realized on four cosmic levels: the intellectual, the morontial, the spiritual, and the personal-the consciousness of mind, soul, and spirit, and their unification in personality.” (UB 5:3.8) We are also taught that “Sincere worship connotes the mobilization of all the powers of the human personality under the dominance of the evolving soul and subject to the divine directionization of the associated Thought Adjuster.” (UB 5:3.7)
Worship, the impulse to spiritual volition, gives us an anticipated flavour of the liberation from the fetters of time through the partial escape from moment catenation. This comes about through making a conscious choice which identifies with the will of our Universal Father. This glory is manifested by the grace of the resplendence of his “spark” in us. At an evening conference on Mount Gerazim, Jesus said that “The strain of living — the time tension of personality — should be relaxed by the restfulness of worship.” (UB 143:7.3)
We render such devotion and engage in such worship as a spontaneous and natural reaction to the recognition of the Father’s matchless personality, his lovable nature, his beneficence, and adorable attributes, which he generously shares with each of us under the divine guidance of the Mystery Monitor.
Let us express our gratefulness that we are free from cosmic isolation, to have the opportunity for almost limitless growth of mind, to savour the joy of spiritual communion, to anticipate the pilgrimage on the ascension path, to understand the downstepping of power-energy and being able to participate in the universal world of spiritual and brotherhood service. Hence, the sum of our experiences, spiritual and earthly, evoke deep emotions of thanksgiving for all the bounties and blessings that have descended upon us. The soul soars and we are invaded with a cosmic feeling of belonging. The holiness of the moment invades our total being down to the cell. We find ourselves in ecstasy and we have become privy to the highest joy of existence known on Paradise.
The soul soars and we are invaded with a cosmic feeling of belonging… We find ourselves in ecstasy and we have become privy to the highest joy of existence known on Paradise.
For we should know that
“The affectionate dedication of the human will to the doing of the Father’s will is man’s choicest gift to God; in fact, such a consecration of creature will constitutes man’s only possible gift of true value to the Paradise Father. In God, man lives, moves, and has his being; there is nothing which man can give to Cod except this choosing to abide by the Father’s will, and such decisions, effected by the intelligent will creatures of the universes, constitute the reality of that true worship which is so satisfying to the love-dominated nature of the Creator Father.” (UB 1:1.2)
Mario C.J. Harrington
Pompano Beach, Florida