© 2005 Santiago Rodríguez
© 2005 Urantia Association of Spain
(This article is the second installment of a series of three)
Now we are aware that in the progress of science we base ourselves on ideas that we generate and then verify, but in the progress of understanding spiritual reality we find ourselves with a different scenario, as expected: we can generate ideas in the to base ourselves on but the checks are not relevant in the same way; We can base ourselves on logic and coherence but inevitably we have to resort to something different: the ideas that allow us to begin to know and understand the spiritual world must inevitably come from REVELATION. And it is this revelation that will provide us with the awareness of the True Reality and it will be the trust in God that will give birth to the FAITH that at its time will give us the certainty of the eternal realities that are postulated in the revelation itself.
Revelation has not been and is not an isolated event, it has been a phenomenon that, like man, has been progressive accompanying the evolution of the human being and his ability to know and understand new concepts, which will give us the basis to rationalize and find the logic in spiritual reality. It will be the acceptance of this revelation that will allow us to grow in “knowledge-experience” of spiritual reality.
Now then, each individual is free, having listened to the presumed and different options (because I am convinced that there may be many options, but the revelation is unique), to decide based on his intellect and his inner instinct which of them satisfies in a certain way. more completely and better correlates his awareness and perception of the two aspects of reality that he is capable of observing and experiencing.
For this reason we cannot expect that the revelation shown will be accepted by the whole world or in all times; it is a good that always seems to have followed a pattern. That is, it is granted to a more or less numerous group, and it is intended that the group itself, without appropriating it or manipulating it, is capable of spreading it like a stain is spreading. That is to say, it is known, it is assumed and, more than the way of living, the way of facing the life of each one, there are other beings who are “infected” with the revelation, which is always liberating, never oppressive.
So my questions from the beginning are answered: why are some of us excited and others not? Are we willing to live with what is derived from the acceptance as Good and True and Beautiful, of the Revelation that is glimpsed in the UB?
I personally find that the REVELATION that appears in the UB fulfills my best expectations for the moment and by far, so I accept it as good and desirable. Therefore now I will try to establish the panorama that this revelation presents to me.
Let’s discuss some concepts and then see how the developed panorama looks:
Religion: It is the fact of living life being aware of the spiritual reality, aware of God, for which we can say that it is the supreme gift that people have, being the mission of religion to prepare man to bravely face the vicissitudes of life. In fact, true religion must act, it is alive. There is no true religion without a highly active personality. It has to do with feeling, acting and living, not just thinking.
Kindness: We can define it as service and help to our fellow men.
Reason: It is the technique used in the understanding of science, of fact. It is the act of acknowledging the conclusions drawn by consciousness regarding experience in the physical world of energy and matter, including relationships with this physical world.
Faith: It is the technique used by religious discernment. It can only be accurately instructed by revelation. It is the act of recognizing the validity of spiritual consciousness (something that does not admit another mortal test), and it can only be strengthened and elevated by personal mortal experience, always with the help of the fragment of God that dwells in us. Faith is born in the human heart when the moral conscience begins to understand that human values can be transformed and move from the material to the spiritual, from the human to the divine, from time to eternity. In order to understand the ways of Faith until reaching the supreme achievement (knowing God personally), there must be a hunger for perfection in the human heart.
Trust: Trust in God, trust in revelation, is the raw material that will invigorate and make our Faith grow. the kingdom of celestial ascent, but progress is our duty and our option, depending on the vigorous exercise of a robust and CONFIDENT Faith that the adult man must achieve.
Truth: It is an understanding of cosmic relationships, the facts of the universe, and spiritual values. Then it is easy to deduce that it can always increase, so it will be difficult for us to have the Total Truth, we will always have a more or less incomplete panorama.
Logic: It is based on the constitutive gifts of the mind of human beings, which is also capable of innate recognition of things, meanings and values. That mind seeks the truth of the unity of Faith and Reason (two aspects of reality, a single total reality).
Theology: Deals with the intellectual content of religion. When Theology dominates religion, religion dies. If Theology dominates, religion is no longer life but doctrine.
Religious experience: IS the spiritual content of religion.
We are beings with awareness of our material and spiritual environment, with awareness of our self, with awareness of other “I”, with an interest in perfecting ourselves, with an interest in continuing after physical death, with a mind capable of reasoning logically. We trust in our God and in the revelation that we intuit as beautiful, good and coherent.
As workshops on reality we have Science and Faith, and we will develop Philosophy as an integrator and harmonizer of the two aspects of reality (material and spiritual); in addition to the foreign aid provided by the Revelation.
We know that these workshops are articulated by a logical and coherent thought. We suspect, and it is also revealed to us, that in the mortal state nothing can be proven absolutely, so that both science and religion and philosophy are based on initial assumptions or postulates:
Science: supposes the reality of three things: matter-energy, movement and life. Knowledge is founded on the inherent assumption that reason is valid, that the universe can be understood.
Religion: Assumes the validity of mind, spirit and the universe as a whole. Based on the truth of personal spiritual experience, founded on the inherent assumption that the Faith is valid, that is, that God can be known and attained.
Philosophy: The possibility of coordinated understanding is based precisely on the inherent assumption that wisdom is valid, that is, that the material universe can be coordinated with the spiritual one.
How do these “workshops” affect life and relationships between people? - Science tries in vain to create the brotherhood of men, based on the unity of culture. Knowledge produces pride in the personality that possesses it.
For the work in the workshops described above, men have some tools that are the highest achievements of man:
The reason: it allows us to work fundamentally in the workshop of facts.
*** Wisdom ***: allows us to delve into the world of Truth and relationships.
Faith: allows us to explore divinity and spiritual experiences.
And we also have an extraordinary integrator of knowledge, which is capable of correlating ideas and developing concepts: our MIND.
We have something that is a gift: Personality, which remains unchanged despite all the growth and evolution that accompanies us, and is proper and specific for each one of us. It is a gift from the Universal Father.
At the moment we have a material body, or electrochemical life vehicle that supports what constitutes us as part of ourselves.
We have another gift from the Infinite Spirit, which is the Mind, which will allow us to be an active part of reality. And, of course, be aware that we have and use our free will.
We have a divine spiritual gift (the Adjuster) that is a fragment of the Universal Father himself, who resides in us, in our mind. It is called to be part of ourselves in the future. The material Mind and the spiritual entity (Adjuster) that dwells in us, as we do the will of the Father and live religious experiences, begin to bring into existence something that is neither material nor spiritual: THE SOUL of a new nature ( morontia) which is, along with personality, what is destined for survival.
The Adjuster is proof of spiritual reality, but the validity of this presence is not demonstrable in the outside world. The consciousness that we can have of the Adjuster is based on the intellectual reception of Truth, the supermental perception of goodness, and the motivation that leads the personality to love.
It is transcendental to realize that something that seems as important to us as the Mind is nothing more than a tool that serves as the home of the Adjuster, which will allow us to evolve and grow, and along with it, something that will be eternal will develop for us: the SOUL. . This mortal Mind, as its name suggests, will disappear with our body, and will be “replaced” by a second Mind after the resurrection. Being a gift, I believe that it is our obligation to make it work and make it available not only for our particular interests, but also for the interests of our brothers, which will surely be the interests of the Father.
We recognize a single reality or True Reality, made up of two dissimilar faces (two workshops): The Material Reality and the Spiritual Reality.
We recognize the possibility of having experiences that will allow us to progress, many experiences we choose ourselves since they will be the result of our own decisions. We have the aforementioned tools, which, used by our minds, allow us to work in the workshops, and all because we have a purpose. a destiny that we ourselves choose day by day, based on our work in the two workshops, a destiny that in the long term is the same and unique for all human beings, but we choose the path that leads us to Him through what Although we all arrive at the same place, I suspect that we will be accompanied by a certain baggage that will be different for each one of us, since it will depend on the actions-decisions that we have been choosing; or we have in our hands the supreme choice: we can choose to get off, renounce and leave everything at any time we want, cease to exist at any time.
Let’s take a look at the workshops, and see what they are like and how we work with them:
Let us remember that, above all, our knowledge and ability to interpret and therefore our conclusions will surely change over the centuries at the group level, even over the years at the individual level of each individual. We are beings in evolution…
Let us not forget that “YOU HAVE TO KNOW HUMAN THINGS TO BE ABLE TO LOVE THEM, BUT YOU HAVE TO LOVE DIVINE THINGS FIRST SO THAT YOU CAN KNOW THEM AFTERWARDS”.
(End of the second part)