© 1981 Marvin Gawryn
© 1981 The Urantia Book Fellowship (formerly Urantia Brotherhood)
| The Human Response | July 1981 Issue - Special Conference Issue — Index | Revitalization and transformation within the family |
Good morning. Let’s start with a moment of quiet to thank the Father for all that he has given us, and to get in touch with his presence within us.
This quote is from UB 110:3.4: “I cannot but observe that so many of you spend so much time and thought on mere trifles of living, while you almost wholly overlook the more essential realities of everlasting import, those very accomplishments which are concerned with the development of a more harmonious working agreement between you and your Adjusters. The great goal of human existence is to attune to the divinity of the indwelling Adjuster; the great achievement of mortal life is the attainment of a true and understanding consecration to the eternal aims of the divine spirit who waits and works within your mind.”
That’s the topic for this morning: developing a “working agreement,” “attuning” to the Adjuster. The format I’d like to use is to present a series of quotes on a theme, then present my own thoughts and reactions to these quotes, and then pose some questions and ask for your thoughts and experiences.
The first theme is: How does communion with the Adjuster happen, and how can we make it happen more effectively? These are two quotes l’d like to share.
“Jesus taught his followers that, when they had made their prayers to the Father, they should remain for a time in silent receptivity to afford the indwelling spirit the better opportunity to speak to the listening soul.” (UB 146:2.17) So, the importance of taking time to listen, time for silent receptivity, is expressed.
Now let’s explore a very rich section: “Supreme and self-acting Adjusters are often able to contribute factors of spiritual import to the human mind when it flows freely in the liberated but controlled channels of creative imagination. At such times, and sometimes during sleep, the Adjuster is able to arrest the mental currents, to stay the flow, and then to divert the idea procession; and all this is done in order to effect deep spiritual transformations in the higher recesses of the super-consciousness.” (UB 109:5.1) So, our thoughts are flowing along in a free creative manner, in worship, prayer, communion, and the Thought Adjuster diverts our thought flow, adjusts, rearranges things in the mental realms above our normal level of awareness — in our higher consciousness.
“Thus are the forces and energies of mind more fully adjusted to the key of the contractual tones of the spiritual level of the present and the future.” (UB 109:5.1) So, in a sense, during communion the Adjuster programs us, sensitizes us, in the higher reaches of the mind. He tries to make us more sensitive to his spiritual tones of contact. He’s trying to train us to respond to his spiritual “tones” or “value” signals later on, when we are no longer in the midst of worship or communion.
Let’s take a closer look at that first sentence again. “Supreme and self-acting Adjusters are often able to contribute factors of spiritual import to the human mind when it flows freely in the liberated but controlled channels of creative imagination.” (UB 109:5.1) What is that state of mind? How can we cultivate it? Have you had any thoughts or experiences with it? In trying to understand what this inner listening is like, the analogy of playing a piano comes to mind. It’s as if my mind is a piano, an instrument which I use for thinking thoughts, feeling emotions, and I use that mind-instrument with my will. Usually I’m sitting at the bench playing along on the instrument of my mind. Well, in the inner listening of communion, it’s as if I say to the Adjuster, “Okay, I’m going to get up off the bench for a while; you sit down at the keyboard and play some mental melodies.” And I just sort of stand back and listen to what’s being played on my own mind. Have any of you experienced a similar kind of thing? Any thoughts or reactions? How do our “… preconceived opinions, settled ideas, and long-standing prejudices” (UB 109:5.3) block that free creative flow?
Let’s take a couple of minutes of quiet and experiment with this inner listening process, actually try it out. Remember now, free-flowing thoughts, channeled in a spiritual direction; sort of listening to the Adjuster “playing” on the instrument of your mind.
Okay, let’s look at another theme; the role of prayer and worship in Adjuster communion. I’d like to share several quotes with you.
“…the better approach to the morontia zones of possible contact with the Thought Adjuster would be through living faith and sincere worship, wholehearted and unselfish prayer.” (UB 100:5.7)
“…indirectly and unrecognized the Adjuster is constantly communicating with the human subject, especially during those sublime experiences of the worshipful contact of mind with spirit in the super-consciousness.” (UB 110:1.1)
“Prayer … does so often dig out larger and deeper channels wherein the divine bestowals may flow to the hearts and souls of those who thus remember to maintain unbroken communion with their Maker through sincere prayer and true worship.” (UB 194:3.20)
What’s the nature of this “unbroken communion”? Can prayer and worship become constant? Is communion always a conscious function, or is it sometimes more or less going on outside of our conscious awareness? Here are some interesting quotes on that topic:
“Every mortal who is consciously or unconsciously following the leading of his indwelling Adjuster is living in accordance with the will of God.” (UB 107:0.4)
“The fact that such Adjuster activity may be unconscious to the human partner does not in the least detract from its value and reality.” (UB 108:5.9)
Can communion go on without our conscious awareness?
Let’s go on to the next set of quotes on the theme of emotions and their impact on Adjuster communion.
“There exists a vast gulf between the human and the divine, between man and God. The Urantia races are so largely electrically and chemically controlled, so highly animal-like in their common behavior, so emotional in their ordinary reactions, that it becomes exceedingly difficult for the Monitors to guide and direct them.” (UB 110:4.5)
“While their mortal hosts are asleep, the Adjusters try to register their creations in the higher levels of the material mind … Your own passions, urges, and other innate tendencies translate themselves into the picture and substitute their unexpressed desires for the divine messages which the indwellers are endeavoring to put into the psychic records…” (UB 110:5.4)
“But with the vast majority of Urantians the Adjuster must patiently await the arrival of death deliverance; must await the liberation of the emerging soul from the well-nigh complete domination of the energy patterns and chemical forces inherent in your material order of existence.” (UB 110:7.6)
“But usually, when your Adjuster attempts to communicate with you, the message is lost in the material currents of the energy streams of human mind…” (UB 110:3.1)
So, they’re using a number of different terms here to describe essentially the same phenomenon: “material currents, energy streams of human mind; chemical and electrical forces; passions and urges; emotional reactions.” What real life examples or experiences can you share of this situation, where the Adjuster’s leading is blocked by the electrochemical passions and urges?
I think a very important point is that these are not mental and emotional flows over which we have no control. In one of the early papers in The URANTIA Book there’s an important statement:
“The Father is not in spiritual hiding, but so many of his creatures have hidden themselves away in the mists of their own willful decisions and for the time being have separated themselves from the communion of his spirit … by the choosing of their own perverse ways and by the indulgence of the self-assertiveness of their intolerant minds and unspiritual natures.” (UB 5:1.10)
So, to some extent, we choose to divert ourselves with these emotional passions and intellectual urges. We feed these passions that block the Adjuster from reaching us. We give them more importance, energy, priority than the more subtle leading of the Adjuster.
The question then is how we gain some mastery over these built-in urges, and thus allow the Adjuster to influence us more? The answer is decisions; making decisions and acting on them. The URANTIA Book has much to say on the centrality of decisions in developing Adjuster communion.
“So few mortals are real thinkers; you do not spiritually develop and discipline your minds to the point of favorable liaison with the divine Adjusters.” (UB 110:7.6)
“Since this inner life of man is truly creative, there rests upon each person the responsibility of choosing as to whether this creativity shall be spontaneous and wholly haphazard or controlled, directed, and constructive.” (UB 111:4.9)
“You are so devoid of courageous decisions and consecrated co-operation that your indwelling Adjusters find it next to impossible to communicate directly with the human mind.” (UB 110:4.5)
“This year Jesus made great progress in the organization of his mind. Gradually he had brought his divine and human natures together, and he accomplished all this organization of intellect by the force of his own decisions and with only the aid of his indwelling Monitor…” (UB 127:2.12)
“Circle by circle your intellectual decisions, moral choosings, and spiritual development add to the ability of the Adjuster to function in your mind…” (UB 110:6.5)
“Every decision you make either impedes or facilitates the function of the Adjuster.” (UB 110:6.6)
“The success of your Adjuster in the enterprise of piloting you through the mortal life … depends … upon your decisions, determinations, and steadfast faith. All these movements of personality growth … help you to co-operate with the Adjuster; they assist you in ceasing to resist.” (UB 110:3.2)
“But man does not passively, slavishly, surrender his will to the Adjuster. Rather does he actively, positively, and co-operatively choose to follow the Adjuster’s leading when and as such leading consciously differs from the desires and impulses of the natural mortal mind.” (UB 111:1.8)
So there’s the key to controlling those emotional passions and urges. It’s right at this crucial point in time, when we’re struggling between the “desires and impulses of the natural mortal mind,” and the Adjuster’s leading. that is exactly the time when we must make the decision to “cease to resist,” to let go of our primitive emotions and accept the Father’s will.
Here’s a question; What is it about decisions and actions that clear the way for greater Adjuster contact? Here’s an interesting quote on that question.
“If you so fully conform to the Adjuster’s mind that you see eye to eye, then your minds become one, and you receive the reinforcement of the Adjuster’s mind. Subsequently, if your will orders and enforces the execution of the decisions of this new or combined mind, the Adjuster’s prepersonal will attains to personality expression through your decision, and as far as that particular project is concerned, you and the Adjuster are one.” (UB 110:2.5)
So, in a sense, you experience a minor fusion; through a decision you can actually become one with the Adjuster in a limited way.
One of the greatest of those passions that block Adjuster communion has to be fear. How can we overcome fear? These quotes give us a pretty good start: “The indwelling Adjusters … are virtually thwarted in their work by many of man’s foolish animal fears and childish anxieties.” (UB 108:6.2) “The Thought Adjuster would like to change your feelings of fear to convictions of love and confidence; but they cannot mechanically and arbitrarily do such things; that is your task, In executing those decisions which deliver you from the fetters of fear, you literally supply the psychic fulcrum on which the Adjuster may subsequently apply a spiritual lever of uplifting and advancing illumination.” (UB 108:5.8)
Again, the importance of decisions, Let’s take a minute and think of a situation that presently exists where you have been captured by some degree of fear. What decision could you make to break the fetters of fear and allow your Adjuster greater influence? How would it feel to make that decision?
The next quote focuses on a specific area of decision making — service to our fellows — and how it improves contact with our Adjusters.
“Jesus often took his apostles away by themselves for short periods to engage in meditation and prayer, but for the most part he kept them in service-contact with the multitudes…” (UB 91:7.2) “The contact of the mortal mind with its indwelling Adjuster, while often favored by devoted meditation, is more frequently facilitated by wholehearted and loving service in unselfish ministry to one’s fellow creatures.” (UB 91:7.1)
So to improve contact with our Adjusters, meditation is great, but service is more effective. Have you had any experiences where service/ministry has made you feel closer to your Thought Adjuster?
Here’s another question: What benefits do we derive from regular communion? Rodan had some thoughts on that subject.
“This worshipful practice of your Master brings that relaxation which renews the mind; that illumination which inspires the soul; that courage which enables one bravely to face one’s problems; that self-understanding which obliterates debilitating fear; and that consciousness of union with divinity which equips man with the assurance that enables him to dare to be Godlike. The relaxation of worship, or spiritual communion as practiced by the Master, relieves tension, removes conflicts, and mightily augments the total resources of the personality.” (UB 160:1.12)
What benefits have you derived from communion with your Adjuster?
I’d like to close with these paragraphs:
“Why do you not aid the Adjuster in the task of showing you the spiritual counterpart of all these strenuous material efforts? Why do you not allow the Adjuster to strengthen you with the spiritual truths of cosmic power while you wrestle with the temporal difficulties of creature existence? Why do you not encourage the heavenly helper to cheer you with the clear vision of the eternal outlook of universal life as you gaze in perplexity at the problems of the passing hour? Why do you refuse to be enlightened and inspired by the universe viewpoint while you toil amidst the handicaps of time and flounder in the maze of uncertainties which beset your mortal life journey? Why not allow the Adjuster to spiritualize your thinking, even though your feet must tread the material paths of earthly endeavor?” (UB 111:7.3)
“May I admonish you to heed the distant echo of the Adjuster’s faithful call to your soul? The indwelling Adjuster cannot stop or even materially alter your career struggle of time; the Adjuster cannot lessen the hardships of life as you journey on through this world of toil. The divine indweller can only patiently forbear while you fight the battle of life as it is lived on your planet; but you could, if you only would — as you work and worry, as you fight and toil — permit the valiant Adjuster to fight with you and for you. You could be so comforted and inspired, so enthralled and intrigued, if you would only allow the Adjuster constantly to bring forth the pictures of the real motive, the final aim, and the eternal purpose of all this difficult, uphill struggle with the commonplace problems of your present material world.” (UB 111:7.2)
— Marvin Gawryn
Berkeley, California
| The Human Response | July 1981 Issue - Special Conference Issue — Index | Revitalization and transformation within the family |