© 2012 Meredith J. Sprunger
© 2012 Association Francophone des Lecteurs du Livre d'Urantia
| Artistic Scoop Free Interpretation "Adam-Eve" | Le Lien Urantien — Issue 58 — Spring 2012 | I have only you my "Father" |
The most fundamental truth of the universe is that there is a divine plan operating everywhere, and that ultimately God’s will and way will triumph. The entire cosmos is designed to function as a living organism. This intentional plan was, is, and always will be unfolding within a creative process. In the finite universe, the divine plan is underpinned by two basic realities: the deity presence of the Supreme, which acts as the catalyst for all development and progress; and evolution, which is decreed as the divine methodology for all finite growth and change.
The reason for universal evolution is intelligent design, and its underlying intent is progress. The fundamental requirement of life is growth, development, and maturation. The challenge and command of God to all mortals is growth toward perfection. Curiosity, the urge to explore, and the ever-renewed need for adjustment and adaptation to the environment are innate in evolutionary creatures and testify to the existence within them of an inherent striving toward growth and perfection. The story of the rise of mankind from single-celled marine organisms to the creative and rational dominion of the earth is a thrilling and edifying odyssey, testifying to the wisdom and grandeur of the Universal Father’s plan for his sons and daughters on earth. The experience of life is designed for educational purposes, and the entire universe serves as a vast school for evolutionary mortals.
Evolution is the key way of operating of the finite universe. It is the divine creative process for achieving growth. This is why perception, study, growth and maturation are so fundamental to human life. There is no substitute for experience. As we participate in evolutionary growth, we become partners with God in our own creative process of self-realization. We learn that everything begins with the small and insignificant, the inconspicuous and unimportant. From the implementation of these mustard seeds, most of our accomplishments are made with insufficient resources, means, partners and abilities.
Our animal nature seeks ease, pleasure, and the path of least resistance. Change is always more or less unsettling and traumatic. That is why pain and suffering invariably accompany and often stimulate spiritual growth and evolutionary progress. The catalytic power of adversity and the spiritual value of disappointment and defeat are among the least recognized and least appreciated constructive aspects of evolutionary development. Human beings need much time and repeated experience to effect significant changes in their habits of thought and behavior conditioned by custom and tradition. Nevertheless, those who are motivated by living faith discover that it is increasingly easy to do things as they should be done. Although indeed our achievements are slow, our primary duty is to turn and move in the direction of God’s will and way.
There is a fundamental law of readiness that operates in all growth and development. Maturation and achievement are dependent on the elements of evolutionary reality relevant to such achievement. We learn and grow by engaging in manual and mental effort. There is a natural, slow, and sure way to actualize divine intent in individual growth and social development. There are no shortcuts to divine evolutionary methodology. Ultimately, when we try to skip grades in our education, we struggle with a handicap or fail. Acting too quickly leads to a degradation of growth and development. Conversely, when people or institutions act on levels of learning and development, they cannot be restrained for long. Violence, revolution, apathy, or other uncreative reactions occur when such constraints are imposed.
God has established a creative intention in the evolutionary laws and dynamics of the universe. There is a movement from the simple to the complex—from atom to galaxy, from amoeba to man. Development proceeds from the physical to the spiritual, through the mental-psychological. Primitive society and youth emphasize physical activities and pleasure. Civilized society and mature adults stress the importance of discipline and the development of intellectual abilities, education and culture. Sages and saints cultivate spiritual realizations of attainments of truth, beauty and goodness, fostering brotherhood and finding God.
We grow from selfishness and self-centeredness to love and universality, from self-expression to self-mastery, from the negative motivation of fear to positive self-actualization. Maslow points out that human evolution undergoes the following order of priority: physiological needs, security needs, love needs, self-regard needs, self-actualization needs, and spiritual (meta, being or value) needs. There is a dynamic planetary movement from chance, anarchy, and arbitrariness to order, legality, intention, and justice. Primitive or immature peoples see life as determined by whims and caprices and make laws according to their personal advantage. An advanced or spiritually mature civilization perceives a universe governed by law and intention, and recognizes justice, even when it is unfavorable to its immediate, personal well-being.
There is a holistic evolutionary trend from external to internal control, from group rights to individual rights, from force and coercion to freedom and creativity. Immature peoples need strict rules and regulations. Of his own volition, a culturally advanced person practices good and wise action. St. Augustine told the wise person: “Love God and do what pleases you.” However, these intentional dynamics of universal evolution rarely operate on a simple straight line basis. There are fluctuating comings and goings that sometimes result in profound cultural regression before the supremacy of divine intention establishes a stable ascendancy. The endless complexity of interrelated integrations and interrelated adjustments requires an infinite time before the dominance of evolutionary reality and its inherent integral and synergistic characteristics becomes manifest.
The evolutionary nature of the finite universe requires constant growth and endless adjustment. Each generation needs to learn anew the art of living. Much help and guidance can be gained from the principles of truth taught by our elders and verified in the historical process. But truth is living and cannot be captured in static concepts or dogmas. This living, divine, eternal truth unfolds in new manifestations from decade to decade, so that it may serve the particular needs and conditions of each successive generation. It constantly requires fresh and new interpretations and applications.
Spiritual psychology is based on evolutionary perception and methodology. Growth and transformation are not only possible, but the fundamental laws of the universe support such changes. We should not be discouraged by the lack of short-term results. Our concern needs to be directed to those areas that are ripe for improvement. The evolutionary process in human development and social change is measured in modest progress. Patience, courage, and faith are the hallmarks of spiritual maturity. The mill of the Supreme grinds very slowly, but exceedingly finely.
What all human beings most need to hold in their consciousness is that they are sons and daughters of God. This is our true and inalienable identity. Human beings cannot escape or run away from two things: themselves, their personal consciousness of identity, and God, their authentic being within them. Regardless of our temporary state of weakness, poverty, social exclusion or depravity, we are children of our Father in Heaven and as such we are of supreme value. Each person is a child of God without equal in infinity. The loving outpouring of the Spirit of the Universal Father that indwells us and ministers within our minds reveals the transcendent value He places in each of His mortal children.
We discover and maintain a splendid self-respect as we consciously or unconsciously accept and live in this spiritual identity as a son or daughter of God. This self-respect is also coordinated with the love and service we give to our fellow men. We cannot accept ourselves when we fail to love our associates; nor can we love our neighbor unconditionally if we do not have high self-esteem. Everything constructive in our lives comes from this authentic psychological and spiritual identity as children of the Universal Father. Nothing in the entire universe can separate us from this life-enhancing relationship except our failure to live courageously and stubbornly in its psychological reality.
When we know who we are, we recognize that we exist in an organic spiritual relationship of branch to stump. As we maintain this living spiritual relationship with the First Source and Center of all things and beings, we produce abundant fruit. Those who enter into association with God find that great things happen during their earthly sojourn. Our primary concern in life should be to remain open to the will of the Father. His indwelling Spirit has an ideal but optional plan, and it is up to us to work it out. This creative purpose can be realized in varied vocations and social activities. The thrilling potentials of our earthly careers are closely associated with this divinely inspired plan of development. It is the source of wise self-realization and the fundamental condition of self-fulfillment and happiness. When we give to God all that we have, then God makes us more than we are.
Human beings straddle two categories of existence. Although we are children of God, we are also a part of nature and members of the animal kingdom. We are finite, but we are inhabited by a spark of infinity. Humankind exists in the material world; nevertheless, we can transcend nature. Even philosophical materialism is an eloquent demonstration of the non-material aspect of mind. If mind were a purely mechanical machine or material mechanism, it would not be consciously aware of the existence of other dimensions. Human nature has both a potential for goodness and a potential for evil. Finitude is not inherently evil, but it is limited and imperfect. It is the misuse, distortion, and perversion of the finite that gives rise to evil and sin.
It is important to recognize and discriminate among the fundamental possibilities that enable finite beings to be in disharmony with the laws of the universe. Through ignorance, evil is the functional condition contrary to the will of God. It indicates our lack of knowledge and measures our imperfection. Sin is an attitude and action by which we consciously violate divine guidance and the rules of the universe. It is an indication of our deficiency and lack of seriousness in our sincere desire to be spiritually directed. Such destructive behavior reflects a refusal to follow the will of God or our inability to control our animal and irrational tendencies. Iniquity is a state of cosmic insanity in which life is devoted to sin. It is a rebellion against God and a rejection of His loving plan for our spiritual growth and salvation.
Before we consciously undergo a spiritual reorganization of our thinking and acting, we are sometimes dominated by sinful tendencies. Potential sin is inherent in the natural order of the finite universe; in its present state the creation of space-time is imperfect. However, human nature has even greater tendencies toward goodness that direct us to an awareness of the ground of our being and underpin our desire for spiritual transformation. The greatest danger to human nature is pride. Egotism undermines our spiritual integrity, and if left unchecked, becomes a corrupting force. It clouds and obscures our willingness to do God’s will and poisons spiritual insight and growth. There are no substitutes, shortcuts, or improvements on God’s path to spiritual growth, salvation, and perfection.
When we live in the full realization that we are sons and daughters of God, we are delivered from the morbid introspection of those who are dominated by a finite sense of perversion, unworthiness, and guilt. In place of introspection and self-denial, God-knowing people struggle to substitute self-forgetfulness, self-control, and ultimately self-mastery. We should not be discouraged because we are human beings. When our lives are transformed by the spirit, we are strengthened and made more powerful by the constant spiritual renewal of our minds, so that we are no longer slaves to our animal instincts, but through self-mastery we experience the new freedom and qualitative fullness of those who are in fact and truth the children of the Universal Father.
Through this birth of the spirit, this increased self-realization, we live in the spiritual psychological security of those who are certain of their eternal well-being. These God-knowing people are not burdened by unhappiness and suffering, they are not depressed by disappointment and defeat. They are challenged and energized by problems and frustrations, and they demonstrate tenacious courage and indomitable faith in the face of uncertainty and the unknown. They know that ultimately all things work in unison for the growth and well-being of the sons and daughters of God.
The concomitant fact of our spiritual identity as children of God is that we are all members of the family of the Universal Father. We recognize that all of the Father’s mortal sons and daughters are our brothers and sisters. This planetary fact and spiritual truth demands that we constantly expand our group perceptions and realize that we can have social and institutional unity without having racial, cultural, intellectual, or religious uniformity. Our well-being is closely tied to loving relationships with the members of our family, our neighborhood, our community, and the world.
The foundation of spiritual psychology is the realization that we are children of God; and, as such, have supreme value. In accordance with this relationship, our experiences bring us into all kinds of life. God’s creative intention for our lives gives meaning to all our actions. Being His sons and daughters delivers us from introspection and morbid guilt because of our limitations and deficiencies. As children of the Universal Father we are inspired, given full scope to revive our efforts, our self-forgetfulness, our self-control and our self-mastery.
(to be continued)
Meredith J. Sprunger
| Artistic Scoop Free Interpretation "Adam-Eve" | Le Lien Urantien — Issue 58 — Spring 2012 | I have only you my "Father" |