© 2019 Nigel Nunn
© 2019 ANZURA, Australia & New Zealand Urantia Association
By Nigel Nunn, VIC
¶ Mining the Archives
(Editor’s Note: Mining the Archives is a collection of articles that have been published in various newsletters over the years and have been lying buried in the archives. A team of volunteers have been “mining the archives” for the gems, so now we can bring them into the light of day to share using modern-day technology. This one is from the Arena Newsletter, Volume 6 No 4, Summer 1999)
¶ The Inner World of Mankind: Seeking a Description for the Fifth Epoch
The advances of true civilization are all born in this inner world of mankind. [UB 111:4.3]
Mankind has not yet shared an inner world. So far, the inner worlds of our tribes and nations have been fragmented and local. Instead of a rich tapestry of truth and fact, the backdrops to these partial inner worlds have been more or less crude collages, woven from dreams, fears and ambitions, sometimes sprinkled through with dislocated gems of revelation.
In the past, the heritage our tribes and nations passed to their children was a complex reflection of shared delusions, augmented with whatever skills and techniques each generation had acquired.
As we enter this fifth epoch, we have an opportunity to change this unimpressive cycle: together with Michael, his Most Highs, and the United Midwayers of Urantia, and armed with the truths offered via the Urantia Papers, there is at last a real hope that we can lay out a valid frame for this intended and inevitable planet-wide “inner world”. With such a frame in place, the fabric of truth will weave itself through the minds of sincere mortals, anchoring to and filling this frame with splendour, forming an “inner world of mankind” with centre stage reserved for the truths of Michael and the facts of Nebadon.
So how do we proceed? How on earth do we contribute to this noble construction?
“Creating paradigms is a very long process. It is much easier for the individual than for a societal group.” (Travis Binion, 23 October 1999)
This is an obvious but important insight. Clearly, this notion of an “inner world” applies not only to that potential shared heritage of all mankind, but also to the private worlds we each build. Consider how, within each of us, an inner world is created by the adjutants, then lit by Michael’s spirit of truth. This is an auspicious start: our inner stage is built from near divine material. But how do we furnish these private apartments? How do we open these unseen rooms to our fellows? By what process do we as individuals engage a shared reality?
For the most part, our fantastic Phantasitc dreamscapes, woven from experience, from truth and myth and fact, remain private — a personal evolutionary essay. They represent our conscious effort to understand, and to respond to the challenges of life. (How much this essay is influenced by the spirit of Michael, and by the echoes of Adjustment that well up from within, remains mysterious.)
Of course, we are free to make a mess of this interior design. But remember, the Adjuster makes no mistake. Our best efforts, however many or few, are salvaged and organized into the fabric of our soul. With this level of security and guarantee, all fears become foolish.
Recently we have been exploring the idea that humanity needs an epic backdrop, a description of reality that is consistent, describable, sharable and arousing. In past epochs, cultures spun myths to act as their universe.
When the spiritual tests of greatness are applied, the moral elements are not disregarded, but the quality of unselfishness revealed in disinterested labour for the welfare of one’s earthly fellows, particularly worthy beings in need and in distress, that is the real measure of planetary greatness…[UB 28:6.20]
Revelation is a technique whereby ages upon ages of time are saved in the necessary work of sorting and sifting the errors of evolution from… [UB 101:5.1]
These Papers are an ideal tool to help coordinate, integrate and elevate the myths and ideologies that currently sustain and restrain the cultures of our world. (And surely we will not make the mistake of merely swapping old myths and fables for a new credo. A valid concept can evoke truth, or be caged as dogma.)
Approaching this idea via the word “myth” helped trigger in me deep reflection about the way we individually and communally furnish this inner world. A better term might be “paradigm”. My personal favourite is “description”, since, at least for me, the process of furnishing this inner world has felt like building a “description of reality”.
But the problem remains of how we share these private inner worlds with our fellows. Even though as individuals we may converse with our Adjusters and cavort with Michael’s spirit in an ecstasy of intuitive experience, how can we, as a community, share these private descriptions, and by so doing, enlarge our private little worlds? This communal task requires some accessible form, and a language familiar to the group.
Enter the Urantia Papers, a set of fine-tuned concepts, designed to decorate our inner worlds.
This may at first seem abstract, but consider how we pass to our children echoes from our own inner worlds. Our friends and associates soon sense whether our inner world is full of beauty, or embarrassing mess. On a normal world, the people of each generation can expect to receive and pass on some more-or-less valid description of reality, one that had taken root in revelations from the civilizations of both a Planetary Prince and an imported Adamic race. But on Urantia, and in particular during recent generations, we have faced the problem of having no serviceable myth, no sufficiently valid description, to pass on to our children.
Until now.
There is a way that “Things Are”. In each succeeding age, humanity has evolved some extended and more appropriate way to describe it. The Most Highs appear to be suggesting that, for this fifth epoch, we try the version presented within their Urantia Papers.
As early recipients of this fresh description, after we first repair and redecorate our own internal worlds (an effort in which the whole universe is conspiring to help us succeed), we are invited to join a project sponsored by these Most Highs: launching Urantia’s fifth age.
As readers, each of us have had this seed of revelation planted within. It is around this seed, upon this core of fundamental truth, that we have begun to build the first halting, evolutionary, versions of this fifth epoch frame. The difficult next step is to so extend our small understandings, our private “inner worlds”, that we can contribute to the establishment of this “inner world of mankind”. A worthy contribution to the advance of true civilization.
The advances of true civilization are all born in this inner world of mankind. [UB 111:4.3]
Future generations will live within some paradigm. As readers dedicated to the Father and our Michael, we are powerfully equipped to help the Most Highs build it. But many early recipients seem to be clients, not servers. Many appear ready and keen to enjoy this future “inner world”, neglecting the fact that it is not yet in place. While all of us will enjoy drinking the wine, we cannot yet press the grapes we have just begun planting.
Life is but a day’s work—do it well. [UB 48:7.13]
And never is it necessary that any influence be brought to bear upon the Father to call forth his loving-kindness. The creature’s need is wholly sufficient to insure the full flow of the Father’s tender mercies and his saving grace. [UB 2:4.2]