© 2019 Neil Francey
OUR BUSINESS CONCEPTS NEED TO BE REVISED
THE BUSINESSES OF TODAY CAN BE CREATED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE TEACHINGS OF THE URANTIA BOOK.
All of them. Every grouping of people is an aggregate of individuals who are involved in a structured activity with a stated purpose for a desired outcome. These include:
A business creates a specific identity, an image of itself which is a direct reflection of the owner/creator/CEO of the business. How does this occur? Every business starts from the same basic structure and to that the principal adds their ideas, and their heart and soul. It becomes an extension of their mind and energy.
It also needs a set of guidelines. What is its motive for existence, what is its attitude towards customers and staff, what is its commitment to service and value for money? When it is all added up, we see the reputation and the culture of that organization.
Then we have the application of mind. How is new thinking exerted over outworn traditions, what is its attitude towards knowledge and better ways of doing things? Are fresh ideas and innovation encouraged, and does it offer opportunities for the next generation? Can it keep pace with changing mores, emergencies, crises, and respond in a timely way to competition?
Then we can go further and look at even higher values. How seriously do we hold ourselves to our duties and responsibilities, written contracts and agreements, the handshake or word given?
Then we can look at the way the company might apply these values as it extends its reach into the wider community, and for larger firms, the nation. Consider any department of an organization:
That is, add a spiritual dimension to your business.
Business provides circumstances for exploitation, cunning, corruption, deals, the list goes on. And history shows that commerce has always been a battleground between the opposing forces of right and wrong.
Might is not always right, but it usually holds sway in regard to the manipulation of markets, tax arrangements, government lobbying, and the cost of legal argument. And all costs are passed on to the end user. Us.
Today is no exception with multinationals and the global economy providing opportunities for political coercion, questionable international trade agreements, mass production impacting on small operators, invoicing, lobbying, and the possible exploitation of workers and consumers.
It is difficult to know. We are up against the interrelatedness of government and big business, which are both marching to the tune of big finance. And all of these forces are directed at mass populations desperate for survival. The people’s power seems to decrease with every extra control imposed on them.
Small business operators are answerable to their customers and community. Individual responsibility and decent behavior are an essential part of their survival and modest success. They operate on a week to week basis.
Not so with big business. They seem to evade responsibility for the depletion of resources, and impact on a community’s health and education. Such behaviors undermine the exchange of goods and services with fairness and honour. No matter the century, no matter the country. The main concern is monopolistic power. This can control supply chains, increase surveillance, eliminate smaller competitors, reduce employment opportunities and wage levels, expand an economy with unplanned immigration, impose trade barriers to impact food availability, and override national interests in regard to ownership of infrastructure and autonomy. Concepts presented here do not support activities directed solely to profit at the expense of service motives.
We need to find a new way to do business. What is the ideal model? Where do we find it? Who will bother anyway? It is going to be a tough journey. Trade arrangements, treaties, diplomacy, foreign policies, alliances, and balances of power, have not provided the solutions.
But there is an answer. It’s called religion. It is not difficult to understand, but it does need to be redefined. Like a modern day slogan we could say: “Religion — but not as you have known it”.
And it does need champions — men and women of farsightedness and character, those who will run their lives according to the unmatchable teachings of wise teachers and upright leaders.
The greatest of all those teachers and leaders is Jesus. We only need to study his life, his wisdom and methods, to know what needs to be done. And then live such a life.
Jesus is our real BOSS. He has worked his way up through his assignments and has earned his position as the head of a Local Universe. He oversees all of its affairs as sovereign ruler including the administration of our planet. The parent company of the Local Universe is Total Creation. The person in charge of that is God. Therefore God is the ultimate OMNI-BOSS, THE FOUNDER AND CHAIRMAN FOR LIFE of the universe of universes, the biggest organization imaginable, over which he presides from his Head Office located on the Central Isle of Paradise.
Jesus conducts the business of his domain in accordance with the universal laws of that Central Isle of Paradise. It is only through Jesus that we can progress in our universal careers. Step by step we make our way to Paradise.
Each of us has been offered a specific job to do. We are all working on a divine plan. And we are all answerable to God.
This program of new business concepts seeks to apply the teachings of Jesus to the modern day demands of living in a monetary and regulatory world. While there is no clear blueprint for this, there are definite guidelines for the individual to develop a personal and unique way of conducting their commercial activities.
It will show in the way they interact with others, and in the way they choose to act in accordance with a divine will. It is through transformed individuals that corporations improve, and the world becomes a better place.
Co-operation, fairness, service, doing unto others …
Such things give us all a lift for we know they are right and they make us feel good. We know there is a right way of doing things, for we have that permanent spirit and mind set within us. We must overcome those who would rule otherwise, and deal with events over which we have no control.
True, all this may come at an individual cost as you will not be conventional. It may be financial and emotional. It may affect business and personal relationships. However, all thoughts, decisions, and acts, attract an immediate spiritual reward. Material rewards though are a different matter.
So is the inner satisfaction, your possible ‘reward in heaven’, worth all this effort if it doesn’t mean you make an extra dollar now? Or in a non-monetary situation, more power? Perhaps this is not the right question to be asking, not the right basis for decision making. Better to seek the personal spiritual experience of it all, then speak with authority.
But it will be ever true: Each person’s conduct in business needs to be reconciled to the dimension of the highest universal values. The business person needs to be guided by the spirit within. The consequence is God’s.
The teachings of Jesus, the development of the spiritual personality, and the destined way to a settled and enlightened world, will not fail. Because, for all appearances to the contrary, this world is lovingly managed.
We have been given an eternal lifetime guarantee so that eventually, if we choose, each of us will become a satisfied customer. In this highly unpredictable world, survival of a business cannot be guaranteed, but the righteous life brings a promise of eternal spiritual survival for the individual.
Business on Urantia is the Business of Living — Doing and Being. And may all hard working and ethical business operators enjoy that unique and wonderful combination of material success and spiritual attainment.