© 2018 Yvon Gagne
© 2018 Matthew Block, for the translation from the French
© 2018 The Urantia Book Fellowship
The following article is from the Fellowship Archives.
The Urantia Book portrays the role of the Supreme on such a magnificent scale that it is often difficult to see how each of us fits personally within this gigantic process, a process of universal proportions. My aim is to share with you my understanding and personal experience of how the Supreme enters into our active lives. My remarks reflect more my own ways of thinking, living, and expressing myself than any particular teaching. Although the teachings of The Urantia Book are basic to my account, I will endeavor to relate what I feel in my deepest self in response to the phrase “the consciousness of the Supreme.”
The Supreme is not a God in the proper sense of the term. The Supreme is rather a Deity issuing from the Paradise Trinity. The Supreme is a super-personality who encompasses all the developing universes. He is the “project manager” of all the stellar infrastructures, coordinating the physical, intellectual, and spiritual activities of the grand universe. The Supreme therefore has a global vision of the plans and the final outworking of the universes of time.
Descending directly from the Paradise Trinity, the Supreme enjoys a rather privileged status. He is independent of the three great administrative structures stemming from the three Paradise Deities. He takes his orders solely from the Trinity which acts (by way of comparison) as his Thought Adjuster. He enjoys uncontested legitimacy and complete autonomy throughout the universe.
No one can communicate directly with the Supreme or seek to act upon him in any way. Although our relationship with the Supreme is impersonal, we are born in him, grow in him, and emerge from him as sons and daughters of the universe.
The Supreme plays such a primal role that his presence resembles that of a diving Mother, a mother who carries within herself al the universes of time and space. The influence of the diving Mother is so omnipresent that even the Thought Adjusters, resembling the Father in nature and in divinity, become similar to the Supreme when they penetrate into the cosmos. This transformation of the Thought Adjusters leaves no doubt that the Father’s will as expressed in the time-space universes is truly unified in the Supreme.
The Supreme is not a perfect deity but rather an experiential deity undergoing the evolutionary process. The personalities in charge of the physical control of the universe work ceaselessly to master matter so as to create stability and harmony in the physical domains. Other personalities work to perfect their knowledge of all areas, to grow in wisdom and experience. Far from resembling a monolith, the Supreme appears rather as a mosaic whose unity has yet to be achieved.
The incessant efforts of the Supreme to unify the realms of spirit, mind, and matter are reflected in the microcosmic level in the emergence of creative forces within the mind itself. These are the creative forces which impel volitional personalities of the universe to devote themselves to the construction of organized and spiritualized worlds. All the minded circuits are surcharged by creative forces which stimulate personalities—including mortals—to develop the material, morontial, and spiritual domains of our planet. Thanks to this relationship of cosmic interdependence, the divine Mother grows with the creatures of time. In the same way, human parents grow with their children in the experience of parenting.
The Thought Adjuster is a gift of the Universal Father to the human mind, serving as an active spiritual presence in the background of human consciousness. As well as stimulating our most profound experiences, the Adjuster acts as a beacon to the mind in situations involving moral and spiritual choosing. He is the source of the inner dynamic of personality and of the desire for perfection. On a still higher level, the Adjuster is the personal contact with the Father—the reassuring relationship in prayer and the ecstatic light in worship.
If the Supreme is a personality, then why can’t we contact him personally? We know that the Supreme has not completed his evolution, and it is this incomplete growth of the Supreme Soul that renders his personality inaccessible. But one day in the eternal future, all creatures will be able to participate simultaneously in the discovery of the personality of the Supreme when his perfection will have been universally attained.
How do we relate the Supreme to the various influences which surround us, such as the Thought Adjuster, the Spirit of Truth, and the Holy Spirit? These spiritual influences both internally and externally, have diverse origins and act differently to influence us in different ways.
The Thought Adjuster is a gift of the Universal Father to the human mind, serving as an active spiritual presence in the background of human consciousness. As well as stimulating our most profound experiences, the Adjuster acts as a beacon to the mind in situations involving moral and spiritual choosing. He is the source of the inner dynamic of personality and of the desire for perfection. On a still higher level, the Adjuster is the personal contact with the Father—the reassuring relationship in prayer and the ecstatic light in worship.
The Spirit of Truth is defined in The Urantia Book as the bestowal of the Creator Son of our local universe. While the Thought Adjuster operates on the active level of thought, the Spirit of Truth operates on the reactive level, on a whole gamut of positive or negative impressions, true or false, beautiful or ugly, good or bad, or yet again on states of the soul which are characterized by interior conviction, spiritual sensitivity, the sentiment of communion, and profound peace. Collective, the Spirit of Truth harmonizes values as they evolve not only on any single inhabited planet but in the whole local universe. The Spirit of Truth is the schema of common references bringing to bear a vision of values which we accept at once as our own and share among ourselves.
The Holy Spirit derives from the Spirit Mother of our local universe. The Urantia Book tells us that the Holy Spirit is spiritual reason and the intelligence of the soul. We understand spiritual intelligence to mean the emergence of a mind capable of both conceptual order abstract thinking with regard to the spiritual world. If the Thought Adjuster and the Spirit of Truth are the source of our most profound aspirations, the Holy Spirit translates them into meanings for the reason and finality for the soul. The Holy Spirit stimulates reflection on values and authorizes self- criticism, thus allowing us to reach the level of personal and authentic thought.
The unified functioning of these spiritual influences, which we refer to as the Supreme in us, generates attitudes of the soul which are sublime and rather difficult to define. For example:
The sum total of these states of the soul denotes an intense and dynamic spiritual sensitivity accompanied by a desire to surpass oneself.
Our relation with the Supreme is the foundation for cosmic morality, the universal sensitivity to duty, and its acceptance. Cosmic morality is not what one might think at first, i.e. a doctrine which teaches us what to do and what not to do. Cosmic morality aims to determine the supreme ends of life and to exercise faith in commitment to these ends.
Cosmic morality expresses itself to powerful appeals to the conscience, in situations appealing to moral duty, and to the sense of responsibility. The appeals to conscience embrace the great ethical, moral, and spiritual questions confronting our own day and age. It also reveals a universal sensitivity to duty which transcends the strict family and social milieu, a sensitivity which crosses religious, cultural, and language barriers.
The Supreme:
What are the signs that the consciousness of the Supreme is evolving on a planet such as ours? The discovery of the physical laws which govern the material world has gradually liberated us from the metaphysics of fear, superstition, and guilt.
In the future, it won’t be so much that humanity will change, as that our vision of society, our vision of humanity, our vision of the planet, and our vision of the universe, will change. An embryonic form of planetary consciousness is now growing, and is leading us to the stage of conscious and collective responsibility. The consciousness of the Supreme does not emerge in our minds to complicate our peaceful lives but rather to solve problems related to our individual and collective growth.
The consciousness of the Supreme renders us spiritual pillars in the service of the Reserve Corps of Destiny, composed of volunteers and thinkers who are sincerely devoted to the service of the human fraternity as our planet slowly advances toward the age of light and life. Because of the vital growth we play in the very growth of the universe, the Supreme confers on each of us the status of potential universe citizen, a citizen with virtually boundless rights and privileges, but also with duties and responsibility worthy of the most beautiful of destinies offered in this age.