© 1988 Robert Crickett
© 1988 ANZURA, Australia & New Zealand Urantia Association
Each of us who have in some degree digested and assimilated the teachings in The URANTIA Book, come to reach a clearing beyond our loftiness and bulk and the awesomeness of our lucidity and beauty; awesomeness which easily crushes our refusal of humility.
The clearing appears barren and without novelty to tantalize us. It is only after fine scrutiny that we discover a single fruit, a solitary prompting within us. And it urges ever so gently the question, “So what do I do about it experientially?”
Then in our searching enquiry into the question, playing it by ear and fumbling most of the way, we arrive at the only and obvious solution. We’ve read its words and heard it told to us and even speculated upon it countless times before. Now it makes sense to us in seeming new ways, with a weight behind it which was previously absent. It is revealed within us as truth and as the only course of action which is both realistic and realistically open to us. Do the will of God.
Two often-heard questions we hear among readers are about this: what is the will of God? and how do you do it? The answers are of course always true in the lives of each respondent. And those answers are always changing and growing, embracing more, becoming more simple, becoming more real, personal and actual.
But now that we are no longer hungry for the command to do the will of God, we are intent on knowing the taste of the real thing, we find ourselves catapulted into the solitary’s world. This world is the adventurer’s, the truth finder’s, the experiencer’s domain. Slowly, slowly we wean ourselves away from searching for our answer in books and in conversations and in the answers of others — Both because they prove fruitless distractions and also because we seem to be drawn by powerful forces which urge us inward through ‘being’ avenues. And those forces have a carrot dangling before us: becoming real in our self.
Our original thinking about the nature of the will of God alters. Slowly our urges to evangelize the world, like there’s no tomorrow, fade away. Dissolving too are our urges to nm away and become a recluse in order to uninterruptedly saviour the presence of God. And the need to write volumes of books on the topic of how our own reality has been radically changed as a result of exposure to the teachings; that too loses its nutritious substance and withers.
We find ourselves gearing down more and more so as to be able to focus on the question in real terms. We seek the workshop which is within, recognizable only in deeply personal and quiet tones of the presence of our own deliberations and knowing. A sacred venue, A true venue. The true venue of the heart and self … where it meets God as an equal unopposed by emotion’s turbulence and thought’s speculations. Where confusion and doubt and fear do not enter. Where false bravado is brought to its knees under the sovereignty of truth.
But in our hunger for knowledge about the nature of the will of God, on the way to our true venue, we might research again the papers, or perhaps look to the records of our spiritual heroes who have passed on this route already. People like Francis of Assisi, the Desert Fathers of Scete, saints, gurus, sages and the like. Our eager eyes scan the historic records with hearts sensitive to the least revelation which will make clear to us in experiential terms what the will of God is actually like. We are like traffic victims who will not address our wounds but rather seek out the history of motor accidents and injuries so as to find our identity among them; the starving at a banquet who only engage the chef in questions about his profession. We are still unaware of the real food set before us.
We might often speculate about how others are doing the will of God. The man who is a healer. The woman who is a missionary. The family who spread the gospel. The hermit, the nun, the priest, the author, the counsellor, the friend. They all seem to have a mission. they all seem to know what they’re doing. They all say they’re doing the will of God and they sound so convincing. But oh how empty we ourselves feel. It seems everybody else know what they’re doing, except us! It all seemed so easy and matter of fact for Jesus. How come it’s so complex and confusing for us?
Perhaps our research takes us into the Bible’s records. “(Enoch) walked with God; and he was no more, because God took him away.” (Ge 5:24). “And Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind.” (2Ki 2:11). “He saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I an well pleased’.” (Mk 1:10,11). And we reflect that these Sons at least, among others we have no record of, did O.K. Adjuster fusion, our perfection in the doing of the will of God, had been realized.
And our doubts emerge. Daniel, for all his apparent doing of the will of God, was only destined to become a sleeping survivor (Da 12:13), “As for you, go your way till the end. You will rest, and then at the end of the days you will rise to receive your allotted inheritance.” And what of Adam and Eve who were Adjuster indwelt (UB 76:5.3), and Seth who organized an entire religious movement (UB 76:3.4-5) for his people: “Altogether, Seth lived 912 years and then he died.” (Ge 5:8). And what about the apostles and Abner and Rodan. They seemed to have absolutely everything going for them! But they weren’t fused here.
With a mind which is not yet settled in the true God-knowing venue within, it appears, at first glimpse, that only the superhuman, the one in an epoch, that extra special, unique and rare anomaly of a person who is endowed with abnormal characteristics, is capable of effectively doing the will of God with any degree of recognized success — success being evinced by hearing those seldom uttered words (on earth at least), “This is a beloved son in whom I am well pleased.” (UB 47:8.4)
Yet, the question eats away at us, Our mind is brought to its end’s tether where it cries out in its struggle, “So what do I have to do to do the will of God?!!!” And daily, hourly, the question is revoiced and respondered. All the gathered data is reviewed until not a single stone is left unturned. But still the answer remains unfound, We don’t realize it, but still we are busy chatting with the chef, shouting down the noise of our turny rumbles.
Now we have become genuine in ourselves, authentic in our enquiry. We are innocently curious about it, as a child is. And we realize that doing the will of God isn’t really the problem … becoming a novice, a beginner, is, It becomes plainly clear that we only needed to find out in ourself how we personally make the doing of the will of God real. And that seems to occur by quietening down our gushy heart, having confidence in our nature and the promise of cod, and allowing something serenely assured and creative within us the opportunity to participate in the quest. Then we seem to will the rope into perfect stability, merely by the sincere wish to know the will of God … as if the rope is our sincerity itself. And our sincerity transforms the rope, thin and wobbly as it is, into a wholly grounded huge marble floor. Where we were once perched precariously out on a limb, now we have ample room to move. Our character will not betray us, the marble will not heave us from it; we have made it so.
We have geared down sufficiently so that we don’t get carried away with the emotion of the moment: charge-of-the-light-brigade-like gusto, as we once experienced it with pentecostal fervour, brings little real fruit. Our heart has become quiet.
We have stabilized our self-esteem and enthusiasm after the disappointment encountered in meeting head-on the seeming impossibility of achieving this work of doing the will of God.
It is the abode of clearly knowing ourself, in the presence of God. It is the goal of the seeking heart, and its serenity and lucidity easily provokes simple and appropriate thought, kindly feelings, realistic aspirations, unhurried growth, a return to fundamentals and the realization that it is a supremely gentle heart and mind which discerns the presence and will of God. The needle has been threaded.
Curiously we recognize now that whereas once we wanted to invite the entire universe’s population onto our own flimsy rope, now we can’t and won’t and don’t ask a single soul to join us. For we have found the bosom of God: and it has no room for anyone else but ourself. It is the solitary’s chapel. It is the hermit’s cell. It is Jesus in his hour with the Father. It is home the source — that realness wherein there is no separation from God within.
It is the abode of clearly knowing ourself, in the presence of God. It is the goal of the seeking heart, and its serenity and lucidity easily provokes simple and appropriate thought, kindly feelings, realistic aspirations, unhurried growth, a return to fundamentals and the realization that it is a supremely gentle heart and mind which discerns the presence and will of God. The needle has been threaded.
From this vantage point truth observes others traversing similar steps that we ourselves covered. It sees many who energetically evangelize the gospel of threading the needle who are yet to give even a passing glance at the actual needle. It sees others who in faith have made a wild leap for the rope, hanging on by the skin of their teeth. With every passing mood or whin they shake their rope so violently as to almost dislodge themselves. And they do this in the name of their quest; thinking that the more they do the closer they’ll cone to doing the will of God.
It sees man’s frustrations and fears and hostilities voicing “God told me to do it”, as some kind of feeble excuse, intended to justify confusion mixed with the divine desire. It sees so much erratic rope-thumping which could be wholly avoided if only we would wait for God. Wait and be imbued with wholesomeness and sound wisdom; personality lifted to the heights of spiritual sovereignty; and without separating ourselves from the God whose will we have so genuinely sought, love with such intelligence and care that which we are and shall be, and those we meet … in the light of who they are and who they shall become.
But all too often we interpret our own coercion to be the will of God. Our best but blinded intentions then merely put others ill at ease, or bring then to unrealistic hopes, or incite fears and divisions where none are needed. And our so called doing of the will of God liberates nothing at all! We’re just running another Caligastia trip. And others, perhaps less authoritative, less commanding, less the salesperson, perhaps more naive, believe in us.
Truth reveals to the individual that the will of God is not found outside that which is absolutely real in a person. It is not found in a book or holy scripture. Nor is it found in the utterings of a psychic or holy oracle. It is not found in a dream, nor in the imagination, nor in the desires. We find the will of God in God — just as we find carrot juice in the carrot.
Truth reveals in us that there is no need of an intermediary of any kind in our doing the will of God, regardless of how holy and spiritual we construe it to be. The most feeble of us, and I’d rank myself here, don’t need eloquent skills in thinking, or dazzling metaphysical techniques, or doctrates in theology. Not to do the will of God we don’t. We don’t even need The URANTIA Book, brilliant as it is. We only have to want to do the will of God. And that begins with being a beginner, being sincerely yet unemotionally interested and willing to find out. Then, a quiet “G’day …” and what follows from that point on is so very virginal, so intimate, so ennobling, so real, so present, so much the living heart of Michael, that we wonder what all the fuss was about.
Anyone would think that doing the will of God was difficult, or special, or praiseworthy. There are some in the universe who think that that’s just the way to do things and that any comment about it is like selling water by the river or congratulating an Eskimo for the way in which he shivers in the cold.
All too often we doubt ourselves and rush off to check on whether we’re doing it ‘right’. And we scan the printed word, or consult with ‘the one who ought to know’ … as if the living truth within us is less of an authority for us than the viewpoint of someone else. There’s no liberation in that at all. And less spirit. The will of God stands as its own testament and is not the least swayed by replicas, Getting it ‘right’ needs careful scrutiny of the judge of its ‘rightness’.
“The Bible told me so” or “It’s in The URANTIA Book” just doesn’t cut it. It’s not a real enough authority when it comes to doing the will of God. Only God is.
“Go now apart by yourselves, each man alone with the Father, and there find the unemotional answer to my question, and having found such a true and sincere attitude of soul, speak that answer freely and boldly to my Father and your Father, whose infinite life of love is the very spirit of the religion we proclaim.” (UB 155:5.14)
Some of us “spread the gospel” by introducing others to The URANTIA Book, thinking perhaps that it is the acme of spirit. And many times we witness the hungry soul who is in our presence depart, having received no spiritual nourishment at all … and we are left with an open URANTIA Book and a longing in our heart for “the right thing to have said”.
But did we introduce our visitor to the utter simplicity of doing the will of God? Did we liberate him from his religious shackles? Did we disentangle him from his fruitless spiritual practices and clearly point out to him the simplicity of the matter, and the close proximity of his goal, and the effortlessness of the attainment? Or did we confound his beliefs, test his capacity to believe in a cosmology overnight which for us took years? Did we greet him, or did we greet him as someone whom we thought lacked something fundamental in his capacity to attain God?
Did we flood him with words and fantastic concepts, made more personal by the interjection of heroic spiritual ventures in our own personal history? … a mannerism Jesus never once appears to have resorted to.
Did we spend our time pointing out the flaws in the world’s myriad religions and so bolster in his mind an unqualified authority in The URANTIA Book? Did we endeavour to convince him that the authors have a greater authority and a special wisdom about these matters of the spirit than his own relationship with God? Did we haggle over spiritual fine print? Did we welcome him into yet another club? Did we try to get him to take a book home for his sister too? And his mother? And his boss? And his local minister?
Or perhaps we hoped to number him as one among the flock we will lead into the wilderness on sone URANTIA commune or settlement … and that under our ‘gifted’ guidance and ‘special’ link with the authors he would realize his Adjuster fusion and be counted as among one of the chosen?
Or did we just ignore him? Did we just feel a lot safer with ‘nothing ventured nothing lost’? Did we do this? Did we forget that we are a child of God first, and a URANTIA Book reader second? Did we forget that Michael is a son of God first, just like us? And he’s a Michael and a Son of Man second. Did we perhaps try to sell our visitor into selling his soul out to a saviour … be it a person like Jesus, or a book? Did we do this? Any of this? Or did we give him his own dear Father?
Robert Crickett, Melbourne
To save the world just love the person next to you.