© 2001 The Brotherhood of Man Library
from Urantia Paper 180, Sect. 5.
“We must clearly recognize that the golden rule (do unto others as you would have them do to you) can never be understood properly if treated as dogma or precept. It can only be comprehended by living it.”
The golden rule appears to have four levels of discernment that merge into one another. It may be seen as simply a rule for high ethical conduct or an affirmation of human fraternity—a yardstick for gauging social relationships.
In moral beings it becomes a central reference point for social conduct.
At a higher level again, the kingdom of believing and God-knowing truth lovers, it takes on a spiritual connotation by which its practitioners endeavor to so relate themselves to their fellows that they will receive the highest possible good as a result of the believers’ contact with them. Referring to this group Jesus says,
“My Father and I are able to live in the hearts of all who love us and make that love real in their experiences by loving one another even as I have loved you.”
At the highest level the true meaning of the golden rule is only attained through its interpretation in specific circumstances by the Spirit of Truth to the indwelling Father Spirit and then realized in action as the love of the spirit-led individual acting in a way that ensures the highest cosmic good of the recipient of that love.
Section 5 entitled “The Spirit of Truth” is one of the most profound in the whole collection of Urantia Papers. It needs to be read many, many times to catch the different shades of meaning implied by the same words in different context. At some date in the far distant future, it should become one of the most common sections singled out for thesis writing by theology students. What follows is an attempt to draw attention to some of its salient features.
In at least some of the Urantia Papers, the word “truth” is used with meticulous and exacting discrimination. In contrast to its common use as being synonymous with “correct,” “right,” “factual,” “accurate,” etc., truth is given the connotation of “divine truth” with its immediate source being the indwelling spirit forces available to us.
“Divine truth is spirit-discerned and living reality. Truth exists only on high spiritual levels of the realization of divinity and the consciousness of communion with God.”
“When you undertake the human formulation of divine truth, it speedily dies.”
In rare moments of our dwelling upon supermaterial levels, it is possible for us to experience divine truth having its immediate origin in our Thought Adjuster. This “truth,” having become activated as spiritual truth, then becomes a permanent part of our growing soul.
Provided at our personal request to aid us in the discernment of truth is the “Spirit of Truth,” in function, the combined spirits of the Father and our Creator Son. (UB 194:2.16)
“This divine endowment is not the letter or law of truth, neither is it to function as the form or expression of truth.” (UB 180:5.1)
Whereas the Thought Adjuster is the gift of the Father to all men and women of Urantia, regardless of race or religion, and is constitutive with each person from the moment of their first moral decision in childhood, the Spirit of Truth is available “on request.”
“The new teacher is the conviction of truth, the consciousness and assurance of true meanings on real spirit levels. And this new teacher is the spirit of living and growing truth, expanding, unfolding, and adaptive truth”—provided to us for the specific purpose of truth identification. (UB 180:5.1)
“The true child of universe insight looks for the living Spirit of Truth in every wise saying. The God-knowing individual is constantly elevating wisdom to the living-truth levels of divine attainment;” (UB 180:5.4)
Wise sayings or other everyday experience, once recognized with the help of the Spirit of Truth as having truth value, may then, through the action of our Thought Adjuster, become constituent parts of our soul growth.
Living truth is special. It is “dynamic and can enjoy only an experiential existence in the human mind.” Elevated to the levels of divine attainment, “truth is a spiritual reality value experienced only by spirit-endowed beings who function upon supermaterial levels of universe consciousness and who, after the realization of truth, permit its spirit of activation to live within their souls.” (UB 180:5.3)
There are several levels of attainment in truth comprehension that we may reach during our Urantian experience.
“This new teacher is the Spirit of Truth who will live with each one of you, in your hearts, and so will all the children of light be made one and be drawn toward one another. And in this very manner will my Father and I be able to live in the souls of each one of you and also in the hearts of all other men who love us and make that love real in their experiences by loving one another, even as I am now loving you.” (UB 180:4.5)
To expand upon these levels of attainment, Jesus utilized the so-called Golden Rule. The Papers (UB 74:7.5) tell us it was taught in the Garden of Eden which may also explain it being known to such men as Plato, Aristotle, the Cyprian, Isocrates, Confucius in China, the first century BC Jewish scholars, Hillel and Philo, and also being cited in the Apocrypha (Tobias 4.15). Confucius taught it as, “Do to others as you would want them to do to you” but more often it was expressed in a negative form.
The Papers appear to distinguish four levels by which the Golden Rule progresses to its highest form. It’s low level is:
“The golden rule, when divested of the superhuman insight of the Spirit of Truth, becomes nothing more than a rule of high ethical conduct.” (UB 180:5.5)
It is raised to a higher level as the positive injunction of a great moral teacher who embodied it with “the highest concept of moral obligation as regards fraternal relationships” where it becomes “the wise center and circumference of all their philosophy.”
It attains a higher level of interpretation in the kingdom of God-knowing truth lovers “requiring them so to relate themselves to their fellows that they will receive the highest possible good as a result of the believer’s contact with them.”
This appears to be the level in which the Spirit of Truth lives “with each one in your hearts.” Then at its highest level a quantum leap is made from “highest possible good” of recipients to their “highest cosmic good” relative to their future universe careers.
“But the true cosmic meaning of this rule of universal relationship is revealed only in its spiritual realization, in the interpretation of the law of conduct by the spirit of the Son to the spirit of the Father that indwells the soul of mortal man.” (UB 180:5.8)
“Love, unselfishness, must undergo a constant and living readaptative interpretation of relationships in accordance with the leading of the Spirit of Truth. Love must thereby grasp the ever-changing and enlarging concepts of the highest cosmic good of the individual who is loved.” (UB 180:5.10)
This is the level in which “my Father and I will be able to live in the souls of each one of you.”
“And then love goes on to strike this same attitude concerning all other individuals who could possibly be influenced by the growing and living relationship of one spirit-led mortal’s love for other citizens of the universe.” (UB 180:5.10)
To operate at this level we would need to have attained a communication level with the Spirit of Truth comparable to that which the human Jesus attained with his Thought Adjuster:
“Perfect synchrony and full communication had become established between the mortal mind of Jesus and the indwelling spirit Adjuster.” (UB 136:2.2)
The following information may be helpful:
“Do not make the mistake of expecting to become strongly intellectually conscious of the outpoured Spirit of Truth. The spirit never creates a consciousness of himself, only a consciousness of Michael, the Son. From the beginning Jesus taught that the spirit would not speak of himself. The proof, therefore, of your fellowship with the Spirit of Truth is not to be found in your consciousness of this spirit but rather in your experience of enhanced fellowship with Michael.” (UB 194:2.4)
It certainly provides us with something to work on.
Each of the many, many stations in my Father’s house is a stopping place, a life designed to prepare you for the next one ahead. (UB 181:1.2)