© 2002 Marvin Gawryn
© 2002 The Urantia Book Fellowship
| Reflections on the Urantia Movement in 2002 | Volume 4, Number 1, 2002 (Summer) — Index | Eugenics and The Urantia Book: Another Perspective |
When I began reading The Urantia Book many years ago, the possibility it promised that most excited me was that I could have a direct relationship with God. It asserted that I was a child of God and that I could actually experience this truth daily. How can we vividly experience sonship with our Father each day? How can we enjoy intimate communion with our indwelling Adjusters, a constant affection-filled friendship with God? After all Jesus said, “It is not so important that you should know about the fact of God as that you should increasingly grow in the ability to feel the presence of God.” UB 155:6.12
Ever since those first magical months of discovering the revelation, I have searched in The Urantia Book and beyond for ways to more fully share the inner life with God. Regular worship greatly expands our capacity to feel and share God’s presence. Worship techniques help us to align the mind and soul in effortless attention upon God. In the worship embrace we simultaneously pour forth our adoration and are enveloped in God’s love; we experience the astounding exchange of affection that makes the experience of being God’s child utterly real.
If we take time to rest daily in the nourishing embrace of worship, our awareness of God’s presence and myriad actions begins to spread steadily into all the parts of our lives. This is the great goal of human living: “Man’s greatest adventure in the flesh consists in the well-balanced and sane effort to advance the borders of self-consciousness out through the dim realms of embryonic soul•consciousness in a wholehearted effort to reach the borderland of spirit-consciousness—contact with the divine presence … Such spirit-consciousness is the equivalent of the knowledge of the actuality of sonship with God.” UB 196:3.34 If we persist in the habit of frequent immersion in the divine presence, then the “pearl of great price,” the delightful prospect of unceasing relationship with God, can eventually be ours.
For centuries the great teachers of Christian spirituality have sought to develop contemplative methods, practices designed to aid in the approach to union with God. Thirty years ago a group of Trappist monks, inspired by Thomas Merton, began to recover the work of the great contemplarives of the Middle Ages (John of the Cross, Theresa of Avila, The Cloud of Unknowing). They combined these methods into a simple discipline, which any of us can practice in the midst of our busy lives. Merton and his colleagues used the term “Centering Prayer,” even though the approach actually leads to an experience of worship as The Urantia Book defines it. This practice of Centering is a deeply restful technique of opening to God’s presence and action in the innermost recesses of our being. Practiced twice daily as suggested, it is one of the most potent methods of developing inner relationship with God that I have encountered.
The description of Centering which follows is adapted from the book, Open Mind, Open Heart by Thomas Keating, Abbot of the Trappist Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado.
Centering is the opening of mind and heart—our whole being—to God, the Ultimate Mystery, beyond thoughts, words, and emotions. We open our awareness to God whom we know by faith is within us, closer than breathing, closer than thinking, closer than choosing—closer than consciousness itself. Centering is a process of interior purification leading, if we consent, to divine union. During the time of centering, we consent to God’s presence and action within. At other times our attention moves outward to discover God’s presence everywhere.
I. Choose a sacred word as the symbol of your intention to consent to God’s presence and action within.
II. Sitting comfortably and with eyes closed, settle briefly and silently introduce the sacred word as the symbol of your consent to God’s presence and action within.
III. When you become aware of thotights, return ever-so-gently to the sacred word.
IV. At the end of the Centering period, remain in silence with eyes closed for a couple of minutes.
- The additional 2 or 3 minutes give the psyche time to readjust to the external senses and enable us to bring the atmosphere of silence into daily life.
The experience of entering the “inner chamber” for twenty to thirty minutes to rest completely in God’s presence, to let go and open to God’s actions inside, is like no other experience I have ever encountered. It is profoundly an act of reception, of receiving the most valuable gift; direct relationship with God. It is like a little child climbing up into the lap of its parent to be held in loving embrace for an extended time of nurture, until its heart is full.
What has amazed me is how little I must do to receive this gift. It was a great relief for me to realize that it is not my responsibility to make worship happen. God gives the gift of the worship experience. I simply have to want it enough to dedicate the time required to receive it. As a Divine Counselor explains “The mortal mind consents to worship; the immortal soul craves and initiates worship; the divine Adjuster presence conducts such worship in behalf of the mortal mind and the evolving immortal soul.” UB 5:3.8 It is the Adjuster that orchestrates the divine encounter. We simply bring our profound yearning, our craving, our hunger for connection with God; the Adjuster within each of us lays out the spiritual feast and nourishes us. What we must do is dedicate the time, put aside all of our other preoccupations long enough to sit ourselves down to the table and partake of the feast.
A friend asked me what changes result from a regular practice of the divine embrace. In my experience, quite a bit changes when I am worshipping regularly, and even more markedly when I worship a second time each day. Without trying, or even thinking about it, I find myself acting with noticeably greater patience, affection, and generosity. Love seems to well up in me more often, gently, and overflows in little ways to people all around; my children, my coworkers, even passersby. I find myself looking into people’s eyes and smiling, instead of staring off in a different direction.
When I don’t worship for a day or two, I feel a pervasive underlying tension that is both psychological and physiological. When I worship regularly that tension just isn’t there, and I experience an almost delicious sense of relaxation and well being. As Jesus taught, “The strain of living—the rime tension of personality—should be relaxed by the restfulness of worship.” UB 143:7.3
I also find that, if I have worshipped recently, when I encounter situations that arouse anger, fear, or other negative emotions the feelings seem less visceral, lacking their usual power. It is easy to “see past them,” and they subside quickly. Larger, more encompassing perspectives easily prevail.
I believe that each time we engage in worshipful contact with God, the Father’s qualities, the fruits of the Spirit, suffuse through us. We become ever so slightly more like the Person with whom we have shared the embrace; we experience a microfusion of sorts. The process is effortless, unconscious. It seems to be a natural effect of the God-contact which is its cause.
As expressed in the comments above, the principal effects of this centering process seem to occur not so much in the period of worship itself as in the rest of daily life. The immediate worship embrace is certainly a wonderful experience. But during the hours in between I have experienced a delightful semi-conscious sense of God hovering just close by. It is as if he is touching my soul often in brief encounters, some of which I am aware and some not except for the increased fruits.
I believe that by regularly encountering God and inviting him to act within us, we give our Adjusters a powerful kind of “carte blanche” permission to work on our soul growth with increased access. We open all our interior doors wide and invite God in to work in the deepest recesses of our personalities. Seemingly without any other action on our part, the pace of growth picks up and new insights, emotions, challenges, and capabilities begin to emerge in many parts of our lives.
All of these marvelous results, I believe, flow naturally from the simple practice of time spent intimately with our Father. In the words of a Solitary Messenger, “The doing of the will of God is nothing more or less than an exhibition of creature willingness to share the inner life with God…” UB 111:5.1
Marvin Gawryn is a long time reader of The Urantia Book living in the Seattle area, and he is the chairman of the Fellowship’s Interfaith Committee. He has served as a psycho-therapist in private and agency settings for more than twenty-five years. He is the grateful husband of a superior mate and the proud father of twin sixteen/year-old daughters, whose unfolding potentials never cease to surprise and amaze him.
| Reflections on the Urantia Movement in 2002 | Volume 4, Number 1, 2002 (Summer) — Index | Eugenics and The Urantia Book: Another Perspective |