|
claw evolutionary origins. The first is the unselfish set, the second set is probably always totally selfish--despite any appearances to the contrary.
I'll stick my neck out here and state that to become a Jesus' follower, there can be absolutely no compromise between these opposing forces. But that does not mean we will have no lapses. What it does mean is that to be a Jesus' follower requires a sincere commitment to always try to do things in God's way. And "always" means always with no closet reservations. If we make that decision, our subsequent ongoing problem then becomes its implementation. Confirming this no compromise viewpoint, from The Urantia Book we have: "To isolate part of life and call it religion is to disintegrate life and to distort religion. And this is just why the God of worship claims all allegiance or none." (1224)
I've been a dedicated Jesus follower for considerably more than sixty years of my life and a Urantia Book reader for about twenty five of those years--so can lay claim to a reasonable amount of personal experience in this task of trying to be totally committed. A long time ago now one of my sons became disillusioned with Christianity and decided to try out Buddhist-style meditation. We talked about it and he explained that his problem with the Christian way is that there is no method. At the time, I had no answer for his problem.
In fact, it has taken me a long, long time to realize that there is a Urantia Book method of the kind my son was seeking. Then a further period elapsed before I understood the importance of the method. But it is only relatively recently that I believe I've cottoned on to the significance of what the book has to say on how to go about implementing its method.
Discussing this method the revelators tell us that children sometimes "evince a tendency to converse with imaginary companions. In this way a budding ego seeks to hold communion with a fictitious alter ego." (Latin for "other self") Then, in discussing communication with our Thought Adjusters, they say: "the more effective technique for most practical purposes will be to revert to the concept of this nearby alter ego,... and then to recognize that the idea of the alter ego has evolved from a mere fiction to the truth of God's indwelling mortal man in the factual presence of the Adjuster so that man can talk face to face, as it were, with a real, divine alter ego that indwells him, and is the very presence and essence of the living God, the Universal Father." (997)
The revelators comment that the most practical way of developing continuous communication with our Adjusters is to carry on a conversation with our alter ego just as children do, was authoritarian enough for me to personally adopt the method. Compared with my previous efforts at Adjuster communication, I rated it as a great success. But even when it became habitual, I was conscious that something was missing. Communication with my Thought Adjuster remained a monologue--but that was all I had expected, so I really had no obvious reason to be dissatisfied.
Then one day I overheard my four year old grandchild doing this alter ego thing just as it is described in the book. I was intrigued by the fact that he was actually playing the part of the other characters exactly as if they were real people. Each alter ego character had a name, voice and mannerisms all of its own. And his conversation was definitely a dialogue and not a monologue. When I checked The Urantia Book references I found:
"By this technique the child early learns to convert his monologue conversations into pseudo dialogues in which this alter ego makes replies to his verbal thinking and wish expression." (996)
Even after reading this, I was still a bit slow on the uptake but eventually it sank in that the technique being recommended to us by the revelators was really intended to be a dialogue. We are supposed to be both ourselves and also to speak the part of our own Thought Adjuster, replying to ourselves exactly as if we were truly our indwelling God-spirit.
To take the part of God in a conversation would appear to be somewhat presumptuous if it were not for the fact that it has the sanction of the revelators who recommend it. But to do so effectively it becomes essential that we already have a reasonably accurate idea of what God might say to us in any particular circumstance. How can we do this? The Urantia Papers inform us that: "The nature of God can best be understood by the revelation of the Father which Michael of Nebadon unfolded in his manifold teachings and in his superb mortal life in the flesh."
That comment leaves us without doubt that the best way for us to know how God might respond to us is to be thoroughly familiar with the life and teachings given to us by Jesus. Once we achieve this, in a dialogue in which we also take the part of our own Thought Adjuster, when an answer is required we simply need to ask ourselves, "What do we think Jesus would have done?"
Despite a long exposure to the Gospel stories and The Urantia Book, I still find it useful to have a flash card memory jogger covering major points about Jesus and what he taught. Short daily sessions with these serve to keep this knowledge to the forefront of my mind. We'll take a look at this later if there is time.
That brings us back to our major topic of worship. The diversions were required because of what we encountered at the beginning: "The quality of our worship is determined by the
|
|
