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Another and Greater John the Baptist!
Ann Bendall, Australia
In our second issue we asked for suggestions as to how "another and greater John the Baptist is going to arise proclaiming the kingdom of God is at hand without referring to the visible church or the second coming of Christ."
One such way could be by medium of the "personal development" courses being popularly attended. Over the past thirty years a number of psychological techniques aimed at enriching the individual's quality of life have been developed. Most have been either unsubstantiated by research, or have been incapable of being substantiated, and yet have gained popular acceptance. One of these techniques is called "Self-Parenting" and is well described in a little book called "Self-Parenting--12 Step Workbook." by Patricia O'Gorman and Philip Oliver-Diaz.
Although the effectiveness of certain of the techniques may be questionable, the philosophy behind the perspective is sound-- based on recognition of both our individual personality and our Higher Parent (approximately equivalent to the Thought Adjuster of The Urantia Book).
The authors hold that we have two inner voices of our true selves. One is that of our inner child, the other that of our Higher Parent--to us God. At birth these two voices are connected. Our inner self is the:
"centre of us, our personality, our loving and trusting nature. It is that part of us which is exquisitely alive, vital, creative, and from which we draw our energy. It is the part of us that feels our pain, anger and rage. Our inner self knows fear. Our inner self needs love, tenderness, and support and feels hopeless without them.
"Our higher Parent is the gentle centre of our inner wisdom and intuitive knowledge. Our higher Parent knows what is best for us. Our Higher Parent is objective and problem solving, the part of us that acts as our loving guide, should we so choose."
As children most of us were subjected to negative experiences and the conditional supplying of love, on a reward or withholding basis. In our attempt to survive we developed beliefs as to what life, ourselves and others were, often replacing our Higher Parent by self -will and self-reliance, i.e., we indulged ourselves in God-playing! We learnt that we can only depend upon ourselves for survival and carry this belief into adulthood, feeling that we can depend on no one and nothing else but ourselves. With some people this process can lock them into a childlike belief in God as a "bad parent who has abandoned us in our time of need."
"It is only by restoring and maintaining the connection between our 'inner child' and our Higher Parent that we can free ourselves to be the complete individual we were born to be." Hence it is a spiritual pathway whereby we recover from fear of abandonment, rejection, misguided sense of loyalty to our family and/or their beliefs, bitterness, self-reliance, desire to control our environment or whatever belief or strategy we use to survive. "Without the help of a power greater than ourselves, we rarely find the strength to take the steps necessary to change our lives." The process of believing that recovery is possible through faith opens the door to limitless growth and self-actualization, and as long as we have faith in our Higher Parent we are never really alone. Also included in this recovery process is the creation of a more mature concept of God, one "that accounts not just for the pain but also for the love in the world."
Recovery is about joining the family of man. "It's about learning to share our love with others. When we break down the walls between ourselves and others by practising humility, we join the human community and leave behind the isolation and mistrust of our childhood.... It is about remembering that no task is greater than any other, no job more important than any other, no race or religion better than any other. It is about being brothers and sisters to one another."
The "inner child" work which we must undertake to recover (i.e., to re-establish the link between our "inner child"" and our Higher Parent) consists of:
a) becoming self-accepting. Self acceptance is defined by the authors as "the gift we give ourselves when we look openly at our inner self and Our Higher Parent and bear witness to their existence within us. From this we learn to value all that we are and all that we can become."
b) allowing a spiritual awakening by letting "God into our lives (our Higher Parent) and learning how to reach out for love. It is about letting go of the baggage of the past, healing old wounds and learning how to avoid recreating these painful patterns in our present. It is about allowing our inner self to be spontaneous, joyful, alive, free. It is about allowing our Higher Parent to guide us with inner wisdom."
c) creating intimacy by joining with our Higher Parent and following "Him trustingly through the dark times while our inner self makes its healing energy of love available to us and those
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