|
which their mind resides. Three separate evidences are cited that this is so (2094):
1. Humanitarian fellowship--love. The purely animal mind may be gregarious for self-protection, but only the spirit-indwelt intellect is unselfishly altruistic and unconditionally loving.
Having had extensive experience working with animals, I've long felt it valid to conclude that instances of apparent altruistic behavior in animals are always comprehensible in terms of pure instinct. In contrast, it seems totally impossible to account for altruistic human behavior in this way.
2. Interpretation of the universe--wisdom. Only the spirit-indwelt mind can comprehend that the universe is friendly to the individual.
It requires a lot of hard thinking to agree unconditionally with this conclusion. I believe that we can only do so when we learn to think as Jesus did. Ganid was to ponder upon this problem when Jesus told him: "Ganid, I have absolute confidence in my heavenly Father's overcare; I am consecrated to doing the will of my Father in heaven. I do not believe that real harm can befall me; I do not believe that my lifework can really be jeopardized by anything my enemies might wish to visit upon me, and surely we have no violence to fear from our friends. I am absolutely assured that the entire universe is friendly to me--this all-powerful truth I insist on believing with a wholehearted trust in spite of all appearances to the contrary." (1469)
It does not appear to be an over-statement to say that only a spirit-indwelt mind can comprehend that the universe is that friendly. When I finally learned this, I felt that maybe I had not entirely flunked life's course in religious experience.
3. Spiritual evaluation of life--worship. Only the spirit-indwelt man can realize the divine presence and seek to attain a fuller experience in and with this foretaste of divinity.
The recognition of good in ourselves provides self-substantiating evidence for the divine presence within. How then do we attain a fuller experience with this foretaste of divinity. We are reminded that "morality is the ESSENTIAL pre-existent soil of personal God-consciousness." (2096) Take note of the word "essential." Without morality we are hamstrung, we cannot progress, we cannot attain that better communication with the divine Monitor that we seek. What is it that defiles a man, wrecks his morality? Questioned about this, Jesus said: "But hearken while I tell you the truth concerning those things which morally defile and spiritually contaminate men. I declare it is not that which enters the body by the mouth or gains access to the mind through the eyes and ears, that defiles the man. Man is only defiled by that evil which may originate within the heart, and which finds expression in the words and deeds of such unholy persons. Do you not know it is from the heart that there come forth evil thoughts, wicked projects of murder, theft, and adulteries, together with jealousy, pride, anger, revenge, railings, and false witness? And it is just such things that defile men, and not that they eat bread with ceremonially unclean hands." (1712)
The book tells us that the moral nature is superanimal but sub-spiritual, that the moral zone intervenes between the animal and human types of mind as morontia functions between the material and spiritual spheres of personality attainment. (2096) So, though we humans are only just out of the trees, it appears that we do have special attributes. In fact, it is our capacity for self-consciousness that differentiates us from the animal kingdom (1479), but we need more than just self-consciousness. We need to be open to the whisperings of the Adjutant Mind Spirits who prepare us for that first moral choice that signals our readiness for the arrival of the divine Monitor. (1186) Without this presence, we cannot unselfishly and spiritually love, we cannot properly appraise moral values, we cannot recognize spiritual meanings, and we have difficulty in discerning that which is truly good or truly evil. The book even says our very survival is in great measure dependent on consecrating our will to accepting the guidance of our indwelling spirit-value sorter. (2094/5) No wonder then that we are exhorted to achieve better communication with this gift from God.
This last Paper, The Faith of Jesus, is one of the most profound in the whole of The Urantia Book. In it, I discovered a revelation that helps to make my relationship with the divine Monitor more real, more intense, more personal. Only in this Paper is the Thought Adjuster referred to as my divine lover, my interpreter, and my value-sorter. But it goes a lot further. It says that this divine Monitor is "the child of the Center and Source of all absolute values of divine and eternal reality." (2094)
Describing my Thought Adjuster as a child adds a new dimension to our relationship, for all children are learners. I, too, am a child of the Universal Father. Hence, my Thought Adjuster and I have a relationship that is a sharing partnership of "learning togetherness." In it, I learn to participate in the nature of God, while my Thought Adjuster learns to participate in the nature of man. That sounds like a bad deal for my Thought Adjuster, but if that was really true, then it would not be happening. And, in discussing Michael's mission to Urantia, incarnated as Jesus of Nazareth, did not Immanuel say:
"...exhibit in your short life in the flesh, as it has never been seen in all Nebadon, the transcendent possibilities attainable by a God-knowing human during the short career
|
|
