Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous
and
The Urantia Book

A Harmony

by Tom Allen

QUOTATION: Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.

ATTRIBUTION: Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Essays. Of studies.

It is my considered and personal opinion that the two most important documents to emerge from the 20^th Century to be "chewed and digested" are the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Urantia Book.  Both books emerged in the 1930's although the Urantia Book was not published until 1955.  It seems natural and uplifting to compare them in harmony.  The spiritual parallels are enlightening.  The first 164 pages of the Big Book and the entire Urantia Book are in the public domain. To further the pursuit of truth, quotations from philosophers, poets, scientists and religionists through the ages have been included with each harmony.

The quest for recovery among  alcoholics, addicts or anyone who is powerless over some aspect of their behavior is satisfied with the earnest pursuit of a simple spiritual program which is well defined in the Big Book. The Urantia Book does not specifically identify nor does it endorse any particular program, but rather supplies the underlying spiritual concepts which can emerge as leaven to validate and justify any program based upon spiritual principles.

When reading these words, remember to place them in context.  If they do not sound quite right, go back to the original text and see what precedes the words and what comes after.  That way the Spirit of Truth is able to work to further insight and understanding.  Allow the Comforter to fill your soul with inspiration for progress and growth as you apply these wise sayings to your daily life.  As we read in the Urantia Book:

"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; the spiritually unprogressive soul is all the while dragging the living truth down to the dead levels of wisdom and to the domain of mere exalted knowledge." (180:5.4)

The Hindu Proverb that "Painted cakes do not satisfy hunger," is further corroborated  in this quote from the novelist Henry Miller:  "Until it is kindled by a spirit as flamingly alive as the one which gave it birth, a book is dead to us. Words divested of their magic are but dead hieroglyphs."  May we all learn to make these words live in our hearts and in our deeds.

True to the principle of "progress not perfection," this will always be a work in progress.  Any additions, corrections, suggestions or criticisms are certainly welcome and even solicited.  Send an email to tommykaren@cox.net, or write Tom Allen, 5908 Burnham Place, Oklahoma City, OK, 73132.

This work is dedicated to the life and memory of Peggy M. Johnson whose sobriety and  Urantia service have been an inspiration to many.

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QUOTATION: Alcohol doesn’t console, it doesn’t fill up anyone’s psychological gaps, all it replaces is the lack of God. It doesn’t comfort man. On the contrary, it encourages him in his folly, it transports him to the supreme regions where he is master of his own destiny.

ATTRIBUTION: Marguerite Duras (b. 1914), French author. “Alcohol,” Practicalities (1987, trans. 1990).

BB - THE DOCTOR'S OPINION, p. xxvi-xxvii  They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks -- drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.

UB - 110:1.5  The Adjuster remains with you in all disaster and through every sickness which does not wholly destroy the mentality. But how unkind knowingly to defile or otherwise deliberately to pollute the physical body, which must serve as the earthly tabernacle of this marvelous gift from God. All physical poisons greatly retard the efforts of the Adjuster to exalt the material mind, while the mental poisons of fear, anger, envy, jealousy, suspicion, and intolerance likewise tremendously interfere with the spiritual progress of the evolving soul.

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QUOTATION: Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights.

ATTRIBUTION: Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862).

BB - BILL'S STORY, p. 13-14  My friend promised when these things were done I would enter upon a new relationship with my Creator; that I would have the elements of a way of living which answered all my problems. Belief in the power of God, plus enough willingness, honesty, and humility to establish and maintain the new order of things, were the essential requirement.

BB - INTO ACTION, p. 73  ….they only thought they had humbled themselves. But they had not learned enough of humility, fearlessness and honesty, in the sense we find it necessary, until they told someone else all their life story.

UB - 9:5.7  Too often, all too often, you mar your minds by insincerity and sear them with unrighteousness; you subject them to animal fear and distort them by useless anxiety. Therefore, though the source of mind is divine, mind as you know it on your world of ascension can hardly become the object of great admiration, much less of adoration or worship. The contemplation of the immature and inactive human intellect should lead only to reactions of humility.

UB - 100:1.5  The soil essential for religious growth presupposes……a normal consciousness of smallness, humility.

UB - 140:3.3  Happy are the poor in spirit, the humble, for theirs are the treasures of the kingdom of heaven.

UB - 140:8.20  .…..you have also held perverted ideas about the Master's meekness and humility. What he aimed at in his life appears to have been a superb self-respect. He only advised man to humble himself that he might become truly exalted; what he really aimed at was true humility toward God.

UB - 167:1.5  Forget not, every one who exalts himself shall be humbled, while he who truly humbles himself shall be exalted.

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QUOTATION: Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.  Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works; show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works.  Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well; the devils also believe, and tremble.  But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?

ATTRIBUTION: Bible, James 2:17-20.

BB - BILL'S STORY, p. 14  Faith without works was dead, he said.  

BB - INTO ACTION, p. 88  "Faith without works is dead."

BB - WORKING WITH OTHERS, p. 93  To be vital, faith must be accompanied by self sacrifice and unselfish, constructive action.

UB - 110:6.17  The motivation of faith makes experiential the full realization of man's sonship with God, but action, completion of decisions, is essential to the evolutionary attainment of consciousness of progressive kinship with the cosmic actuality of the Supreme Being. Faith transmutes potentials to actuals in the spiritual world, but potentials become actuals in the finite realms of the Supreme only by and through the realization of choice-experience. But choosing to do the will of God joins spiritual faith to material decisions in personality action and thus supplies a divine and spiritual fulcrum for the more effective functioning of the human and material leverage of God-hunger.

UB - 163:2.4  Jesus said: "If you keep all the commandments--do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your parents--you do well, but salvation is the reward of faith, not merely of works."

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QUOTATION: ... religious experience, as we have studied it, cannot be cited as unequivocally supporting the infinitist belief. The only thing that it unequivocally testifies to is that we can experience union with something larger than ourselves and in that union find our greatest peace.

ATTRIBUTION: William James (1842–1910), philosopher, psychologist. Varieties of Religious Experience.

BB - BILL'S STORY, p. 14  These were revolutionary and drastic proposals, but the moment I fully accepted them, the effect was electric. There was a sense of victory, followed by such a peace and serenity as I had never known. There was utter confidence. I felt lifted up, as though the great clean wind of a mountain top blew through and through. God comes to most men gradually, but His impact on me was sudden and profound.

BB - APPENDIX II, p. 563  Yet it is true that our first printing gave many readers the impression that these personality changes, or religious experiences, must be in the nature of sudden and spectacular upheavals. Happily for everyone, this conclusion is erroneous.

                In the first few chapters a number of sudden revolutionary changes are described. Though it was not our intention to create such an impression, many alcoholics have nevertheless concluded that in order to recover they must acquire an immediate and overwhelming "God-consciousness" followed at once by a vast change in feeling and outlook. Among our rapidly growing membership of thousands of alcoholics such transformations, though frequent, are by no means the rule. Most of our experiences are what the psychologist William James calls the "educational variety" because they develop slowly over a period of time.

BB - WE AGNOSTICS, p. 57  To this man, the revelation was sudden. Some of us grow into it more slowly. But He has come to all who have honestly sought Him.

UB - 91:7.3  Religious ecstasy is permissible when resulting from sane antecedents, but such experiences are more often the outgrowth of purely emotional influences than a manifestation of deep spiritual character. Religious persons must not regard every vivid psychologic presentiment and every intense emotional experience as a divine revelation or a spiritual communication. Genuine spiritual ecstasy is usually associated with great outward calmness and almost perfect emotional control. But true prophetic vision is a superpsychologic presentiment. Such visitations are not pseudo hallucinations, neither are they trancelike ecstasies.

UB - 100:5.4  Most of the spectacular phenomena associated with so-called religious conversions are entirely psychologic in nature, but now and then there do occur experiences which are also spiritual in origin. When the mental mobilization is absolutely total on any level of the psychic upreach toward spirit attainment, when there exists perfection of the human motivation of loyalties to the divine idea, then there very often occurs a sudden down-grasp of the indwelling spirit to synchronize with the concentrated and consecrated purpose of the superconscious mind of the believing mortal. And it is such experiences of unified intellectual and spiritual phenomena that constitute the conversion which consists in factors over and above purely psychologic involvement.

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QUOTATION:  A false balance is abomination to the Lord: but a just weight is his delight.

ATTRIBUTION:  Bible, Proverbs 11:1.

BB - THERE IS A SOLUTION, p. 21  He is often perfectly sensible and well balanced concerning every thing except liquor, but in that respect he is incredibly dishonest and selfish.

UB - 110:6.4  It is to the mind of perfect poise, housed in a body of clean habits, stabilized neural energies, and balanced chemical function--when the physical, mental, and spiritual powers are in triune harmony of development--that a maximum of light and truth can be imparted with a minimum of temporal danger or risk to the real welfare of such a being. By such a balanced growth does man ascend the circles of planetary progression one by one, from the seventh to the first.

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QUOTATION:  Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed , and walk.  And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked;

ATTRIBUTION: Bible, John :8-9.

BB - THERE IS A SOLUTION, p. 18, 19  That the man who is making the approach has had the same difficulty, that he obviously knows what he is talking about, that his whole deportment shouts at the new prospect that he is a man with a real answer, that he has no attitude of Holier Than Thou, nothing whatever except the sincere desire to be helpful; that there are no fees to pay, no axes to grind, no people to please, no lectures to be endured these are the conditions we have found most effective. After such an approach many take up their beds and walk again.

UB - 147:3.5  This afflicted man had waited all these years for somebody to help him; he was such a victim of the feeling of his own helplessness that he had never once entertained the idea of helping himself which proved to be the one thing he had to do in order to effect recovery--take up his bed and walk.

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QUOTATION:  Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

ATTRIBUTION:  Bible, Philippians 2:5.

BB - THERE IS A SOLUTION, p. 24  The great fact is just this, and nothing less: That we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward God's universe. The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous. He has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves.

UB - 48:6.15  Even on Urantia, these seraphim teach the everlasting truth: If your own mind does not serve you well, you can exchange it for the mind of Jesus of Nazareth, who always serves you well.

UB - 102:6.4  Faith transforms the philosophic God of probability into the saving God of certainty in the personal religious experience.

UB - 117:4.14  When man consecrates his will to the doing of the Father's will, when man gives God all that he has, then does God make that man more than he is.

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QUOTATION: …there have lived in this world certain men who….see, know, and feel spiritual facts and experience psychical phenomena, which being veiled from, are still of most vital import to, the world at large;

ATTRIBUTION: Richard Maurice Bucke (1837-1902), Cosmic Consciousness, p. 373.

BB - THERE IS A SOLUTION, p. 27  Here and there, once in a while, alcoholics have had what are called vital spiritual experiences.

UB - 100:5.3  It should be made clear that professions of loyalty to the supreme ideals--the psychic, emotional, and spiritual awareness of God-consciousness--may be a natural and gradual growth or may sometimes be experienced at certain junctures, as in a crisis. The Apostle Paul experienced just such a sudden and spectacular conversion that eventful day on the Damascus road. Gautama Siddhartha had a similar experience the night he sat alone and sought to penetrate the mystery of final truth. Many others have had like experiences, and many true believers have progressed in the spirit without sudden conversion.

UB - 110:1.4  Adjusters are interested in, and concerned with, your daily doings and the manifold details of your life just to the extent that these are influential in the determination of your significant temporal choices and vital spiritual decisions and, hence, are factors in the solution of your problem of soul survival and eternal progress.

UB - 124:6.15  On the day before the Passover Sabbath, flood tides of spiritual illumination swept through the mortal mind of Jesus and filled his human heart to overflowing with affectionate pity for the spiritually blind and morally ignorant multitudes assembled for the celebration of the ancient Passover commemoration. This was one of the most extraordinary days that the Son of God spent in the flesh; and during the night, for the first time in his earth career, there appeared to him an assigned messenger from Salvington, commissioned by Immanuel, who said: "The hour has come. It is time that you began to be about your Father's business."

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QUOTATION:  Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

ATTRIBUTION:  Bible, 2 Corinthians 5:17.

BB - MORE ABOUT ALCOHOLISM, p. 42-43  Quite as important was the discovery that spiritual principles would solve all my problems. I have since been brought into a way of living infinitely more satisfying and, I hope, more useful than the life I lived before. My old manner of life was by no means a bad one, but I would not exchange its best moments for the worst I have now. I would not go back to it even if I could.

UB - 143:2.3  In the Father's kingdom you are to become new creatures; old things are to pass away; behold I show you how all things are to become new. And by your love for one another you are to convince the world that you have passed from bondage to liberty, from death into life everlasting.

UB - 157:2.2  The issues of life and death are being set before you--the sinful pleasures of time against the righteous realities of eternity. Even now you should begin to find deliverance from the bondage of fear and doubt as you enter upon the living of the new life of faith and hope.

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QUOTATION: I stand amid the dust o’ the mounded years—
                         My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap,
                         My days have crackled and gone up in smoke,
                         Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.

ATTRIBUTION: Francis Thompson (1859–1907), British poet. The Hound of Heaven (l. 120–123).

BB - MORE ABOUT ALCOHOLISM, p. 43  Most alcoholics have to be pretty badly mangled before they really commence to solve their problems.

UB - 132:7.2  Ganid, the man was not hungry for truth. He was not dissatisfied with himself. He was not ready to ask for help, and the eyes of his mind were not open to receive light for the soul. That man was not ripe for the harvest of salvation; he must be allowed more time for the trials and difficulties of life to prepare him for the reception of wisdom and higher learning.

UB - 195:9.7 Only when man has become sufficiently disillusioned by the sorrowful disappointments attendant upon the foolish and deceptive pursuits of selfishness, and subsequent to the discovery of the barrenness of formalized religion, will he be disposed to turn wholeheartedly to the gospel of the kingdom, the religion of Jesus of Nazareth.

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QUOTATION: The lesson which these observations convey is, be, and not seem. Let us acquiesce. Let us take our bloated nothingness out of the path of the divine circuits. Let us unlearn our wisdom of the world. Let us lie low in the lord’s power, and learn that truth alone makes rich and great.

ATTRIBUTION: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. Spiritual Laws, Essays, First Series (1841, repr. 1847).

BB - WE AGNOSTICS, p. 45  Lack of power, that was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a Power greater than ourselves. Obviously. But where and how were we to find this Power?

UB - 140:1.6 Even now is the kingdom at hand, and some of you will not die until you have seen the reign of God come in great power.

UB - 158:7.5  Nevertheless, many of you now standing before me shall not taste death till you see this kingdom of God come with power.

UB - 194:0.6  These believers felt themselves suddenly translated into another world, a new existence of joy, power, and glory. The Master had told them the kingdom would come with power, and some of them thought they were beginning to discern what he meant.

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QUOTATION: The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.

ATTRIBUTION: Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860), German philosopher. Parerga and Paralipomena, vol. 2, ch. 1, sct. 17 (1851).

BB - WE AGNOSTICS, p. 45  We know how he feels.  We have shared his honest doubt and prejudice.

BB - WE AGNOSTICS, p. 46  Yes, we of agnostic temperament have had these thoughts and experiences. Let us make haste to reassure you. We found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a Power greater than ourselves, we commenced to get results, even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that Power, which is God.

BB - WE AGNOSTICS, p. 47  Do not let any prejudice you may have against spiritual terms deter you from honestly asking yourself what they mean to you.

BB - WE AGNOSTICS, p. 49  We, who have traveled this dubious path, beg you to lay aside prejudice.

UB - 100:1.2  The chief inhibitors of growth are prejudice and ignorance.

UB - 109:5.3  But your unsteady and rapidly shifting mental attitudes often result in thwarting the plans and interrupting the work of the Adjusters. Their work is not only interfered with by the innate natures of the mortal races, but this ministry is also greatly retarded by your own preconceived opinions, settled ideas, and long-standing prejudices.

UB - 160:1.8  The wise and effective solution of any problem demands that the mind shall be free from bias, passion, and all other purely personal prejudices which might interfere with the disinterested survey of the actual factors that go to make up the problem presenting itself for solution.

UB - 160:1.13  Prejudice blinds the soul to the recognition of truth, and prejudice can be removed only by the sincere devotion of the soul to the adoration of a cause that is all-embracing and all-inclusive of one's fellow men. Prejudice is inseparably linked to selfishness. Prejudice can be eliminated only by the abandonment of self-seeking and by substituting therefor the quest of the satisfaction of the service of a cause that is not only greater than self, but one that is even greater than all humanity--the search for God, the attainment of divinity.

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QUOTATION: All our steps are ordered by the LORD; how then can we understand our own ways? ATTRIBUTION: Bible, Proverbs 20:24.

BB - WE AGNOSTICS, p. 46  As soon as we admitted the possible existence of a Creative Intelligence, a Spirit of the Universe underlying the totality of things, we began to be possessed of a new sense of power and direction, provided we took other simple steps. We found that God does not make too hard terms with those who seek Him.

UB - 170:3.2  Though Jesus taught that faith, simple childlike belief, is the key to the door of the kingdom, he also taught that, having entered the door, there are the progressive steps of righteousness which every believing child must ascend in order to grow up to the full stature of the robust sons of God.

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QUOTATION: Behold, I stand at the door, and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

ATTRIBUTION: Bible, Revelation 3:20.

BB - WE AGNOSTICS, p. 46  To us, the Realm of Spirit is broad, roomy, all inclusive; never exclusive or forbidding to those who earnestly seek. It is open, we believe, to all men.

UB - 159:3.2  Remember that I have said: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock, and if any man will open, I will come in."

UB - 166:3.7  "I am the door, I am the new and living way, and whosoever wills may enter to embark upon the endless truth-search for eternal life."

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QUOTATION: These things, the steam railway and the electric telegraph, were to the popular imagination of the middle nineteenth century the most striking and revolutionary of inventions, but they were only the most conspicuous and clumsy first fruits of a far more extensive process. Technical knowledge and skill were developing with an extraordinary rapidity, and to an extraordinary extent measured by the progress of any previous age.  Now here altogether we have such a change in human life as to constitute a fresh phase of history. In a little more than a century this mechanical revolution has been brought about. In that time man made a stride in the material conditions of his life vaster than he had done during the whole long interval between the palæolithic stage and the age of cultivation, or between the days of Pepi in Egypt and those of George III. A new gigantic material framework for human affairs has come into existence.

ATTRIBUTION: H.G. Wells (1866–1946), A Short History of the World. 1922.

BB - WE AGNOSTICS,  p. 51  This world of ours has made more material progress in the last century than in all the millenniums which went before. Almost everyone knows the reason. Students of ancient history tell us that the intellect of men in those days was equal to the best of today. Yet in ancient times, material progress was painfully slow.

UB - 160:1.3  The more complex civilization becomes, the more difficult will become the art of living. The more rapid the changes in social usage, the more complicated will become the task of character development. Every ten generations mankind must learn anew the art of living if progress is to continue. And if man becomes so ingenious that he more rapidly adds to the complexities of society, the art of living will need to be remastered in less time, perhaps every single generation.

UB - 195:8.7  To the secularistic revolt you owe the amazing creativity of American industrialism and the unprecedented material progress of Western civilization.

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QUOTATION: Man cannot live without a permanent trust in something indestructible in himself, though both the indestructible element and the trust may remain permanently hidden from him. One of the ways in which this hiddenness can express itself is through faith in a personal god.

ATTRIBUTION: Franz Kafka (1883–1924), Prague German Jewish author, novelist. The Third Notebook, December 7, 1917.

BB - WE AGNOSTICS, p. 53-54  Without knowing it, had we not been brought to where we stood by a certain kind of faith? For did we not believe in our own reasoning? Did we not have confidence in our ability to think? What was that but a sort of faith? Yes, we had been faithful, abjectly faithful to the God of Reason. So in one way or another, we discovered that faith had been involved all the time!

UB - 99:5.7  Since true religion is a matter of personal spiritual experience, it is inevitable that each individual religionist must have his own and personal interpretation of the realization of that spiritual experience. Let the term "faith" stand for the individual's relation to God rather than for the creedal formulation of what some group of mortals have been able to agree upon as a common religious attitude. "Have you faith? Then have it to yourself."

UB - 101:3.5  We know, then, by three phenomena, that man has a divine spirit or spirits dwelling within him: first, by personal experience--religious faith;

UB - 101:8.1  Belief has attained the level of faith when it motivates life and shapes the mode of living. The acceptance of a teaching as true is not faith; that is mere belief. Neither is certainty nor conviction faith. A state of mind attains to faith levels only when it actually dominates the mode of living. Faith is a living attribute of genuine personal religious experience.

UB - 102:6.4  Faith transforms the philosophic God of probability into the saving God of certainty in the personal religious experience.

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QUOTATION: Nothing is so insufferable to man as to be completely at rest, without passions, without business, without diversion, without study. He then feels his nothingness, his forlornness, his insufficiency, his dependence, his weakness, his emptiness. There will immediately rise from the depth of his heart weariness, gloom, sadness, fretfulness, vexation, despair.

ATTRIBUTION: Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), French scientist, philosopher. Pensées, no. 131 (1670).

BB - WE AGNOSTICS, p. 54  Could we still say the whole thing was nothing but a mass of electrons, created out of nothing, meaning nothing, whirling on to a destiny of nothingness? Or course we couldn't. The electrons themselves seemed more intelligent than that.

BB - BILL'S STORY, p. 10  I was not an atheist.  Few people really are, for that means blind faith in the strange proposition that this universe originated in a cipher and aimlessly rushes nowhere.

UB - 102:0.1-2  To the unbelieving materialist, man is simply an evolutionary accident. His hopes of survival are strung on a figment of mortal imagination; his fears, loves, longings, and beliefs are but the reaction of the incidental juxtaposition of certain lifeless atoms of matter. No display of energy nor expression of trust can carry him beyond the grave. The devotional labors and inspirational genius of the best of men are doomed to be extinguished by death, the long and lonely night of eternal oblivion and soul extinction. Nameless despair is man's only reward for living and toiling under the temporal sun of mortal existence. Each day of life slowly and surely tightens the grasp of a pitiless doom which a hostile and relentless universe of matter has decreed shall be the crowning insult to everything in human desire which is beautiful, noble, lofty, and good.

 But such is not man's end and eternal destiny; such a vision is but the cry of despair uttered by some wandering soul who has become lost in spiritual darkness, and who bravely struggles on in the face of the mechanistic sophistries of a material philosophy, blinded by the confusion and distortion of a complex learning. And all this doom of darkness and all this destiny of despair are forever dispelled by one brave stretch of faith on the part of the most humble and unlearned of God's children on earth.

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QUOTATION: Do not put off your work until tomorrow and the day after. For the sluggish worker does not fill his barn, nor the one who puts off his work; industry aids work, but the man who puts off work always wrestles with disaster.

ATTRIBUTION: Hesiod (8th century B.C.), Greek didactic poet. Works and Days, 410.

BB - HOW IT WORKS, p. 58  We thought we could find an easier, softer way.

UB - 48:5.8  One of the purposes of the morontia career is to effect the permanent eradication from the mortal survivors of such animal vestigial traits as procrastination, equivocation, insincerity, problem avoidance, unfairness, and ease seeking.

UB - 102:2.7  Evolutionary man does not naturally relish hard work.

UB - 113:4.3  To accept the guidance of a seraphim rarely means attaining a life of ease. In following this leading you are sure to encounter, and if you have the courage, to traverse, the rugged hills of moral choosing and spiritual progress.

UB - 154:2.5  The animal nature and the lower forms of will creatures do not progress favorably in environmental ease.

UB - 178:1.10  Tempt not the angels of your supervision to lead you in troublous ways as a loving discipline designed to save your ease-drifting souls.

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QUOTATION: There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.

ATTRIBUTION: William James (1842-1910), The Principles of Psychology (1890), ch. 4.

BB - HOW IT WORKS, p. 59  Half measures availed us nothing.

UB - 91:9.5  You must make a wholehearted choice of the divine will. You must obliterate the dead center of indecision.

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QUOTATION: So intoxicated as to be wholly powerless. Pythagoras has finely observed that a man is not to be considered dead drunk till he lies on the floor and stretches out his arms and legs to prevent his going lower. 

ATTRIBUTION: E. Cobham Brewer (1810–1897). Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.

BB - HOW IT WORKS, p. 59  We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable.

UB - 156:5.4  I admonish you that, while you recognize temptation honestly and sincerely for just what it is, you intelligently redirect the energies of spirit, mind, and body, which are seeking expression, into higher channels and toward more idealistic goals. In this way may you transform your temptations into the highest types of uplifting mortal ministry while you almost wholly avoid these wasteful and weakening conflicts between the animal and spiritual natures.

UB - 195:9.7  Selfish men and women simply will not pay such a price for even the greatest spiritual treasure ever offered mortal man. Only when man has become sufficiently disillusioned by the sorrowful disappointments attendant upon the foolish and deceptive pursuits of selfishness, and subsequent to the discovery of the barrenness of formalized religion, will he be disposed to turn wholeheartedly to the gospel of the kingdom, the religion of Jesus of Nazareth.

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QUOTATION: The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.  He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.  He restoreth my soul.

ATTRIBUTION:  Bible, Psalm 23.

BB - HOW IT WORKS, p. 59  Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

UB - 156:5.5  If you would be truly triumphant over the temptations of the lesser and lower nature, you must come to that place of spiritual advantage where you have really and truly developed an actual interest in, and love for, those higher and more idealistic forms of conduct which your mind is desirous of substituting for these lower and less idealistic habits of behavior that you recognize as temptation. You will in this way be delivered through spiritual transformation rather than be increasingly overburdened with the deceptive suppression of mortal desires. The old and the inferior will be forgotten in the love for the new and the superior. Beauty is always triumphant over ugliness in the hearts of all who are illuminated by the love of truth. There is mighty power in the expulsive energy of a new and sincere spiritual affection. And again I say to you, be not overcome by evil but rather overcome evil with good.

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QUOTATION: Here I stand; I can do no other.  God help me. Amen.

ATTRIBUTION: Martin Luther (1483-1546), speech at the Diet of Worms.

BB - HOW IT WORKS, p. 59  Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

UB - 67:3.7  But it is entirely possible for the indwelling spirit to make direct contact with the decision-determining powers of the human personality so as to empower the fully consecrated will of the creature to perform amazing acts of loyal devotion to the will and the way of the Father in Paradise.

UB - 161:1.3  He did say to Thomas: "It matters little what idea of the Father you may entertain as long as you are spiritually acquainted with the ideal of his infinite and eternal nature."

UB - 196:1.1  Jesus' devotion to the Father's will and the service of man was even more than mortal decision and human determination; it was a wholehearted consecration of himself to such an unreserved bestowal of love.

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QUOTATION: Happy the man who could search out the causes of things.

ATTRIBUTION: Virgil (70-19 BC), Eclogua, 1,1. 490.

BB - HOW IT WORKS, p. 59  Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

UB - 140:8.27  The three apostles were shocked this afternoon when they realized that their Master's religion made no provision for spiritual self-examination. All religions before and after the times of Jesus, even Christianity, carefully provide for conscientious self-examination. But not so with the religion of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus' philosophy of life is without religious introspection. The carpenter's son never taught character building; he taught character growth, declaring that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. But Jesus said nothing which would proscribe self-analysis as a prevention of conceited egotism.

UB - 155:2.2   Being thus deprived of the satisfaction of winning souls for the kingdom, each of them the more earnestly and honestly took stock of his own soul and its progress in the spiritual paths of the new life.

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QUOTATION: Confession of our faults is the next thing to innocence.

ATTRIBUTION: Publilius Syrus (1^st century BC) Maxim 1060.

BB - HOW IT WORKS, p. 59  Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

UB - 89:10.5  The confession of sin is a manful repudiation of disloyalty, but it in no wise mitigates the time-space consequences of such disloyalty. But confession--sincere recognition of the nature of sin--is essential to religious growth and spiritual progress.

UB - 91:5.2  Confession, repentance, and prayer have led individuals, cities, nations, and whole races to mighty efforts of reform and courageous deeds of valorous achievement.

UB - 131:3.3  Restraint is born of repentance. Leave no fault unconfessed to the Noble One.

UB - 131:5.5  I know when I make confession, if I purpose not to do again the evil thing, that sin will be removed from my soul.

UB - 133:4.13  You need not fear to meet the judgment of God if your repentance is genuine and your faith sincere.

UB - 156:2.7  Said Jesus: "My disciples must not only cease to do evil but learn to do well; you must not only be cleansed from all conscious sin, but you must refuse to harbor even the feelings of guilt. If you confess your sins, they are forgiven; therefore must you maintain a conscience void of offense."

UB - 187:4.2  The Master had time amidst the pangs of mortal death to listen to the faith confession of the believing brigand.

UB - 193:3.3  Trust, therefore, and confide in one another.

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QUOTATION: Hide thy face from my sins, and blot all mine iniquities.  Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

ATTRIBUTION: Bible, Psalm 51:9-10.

BB - HOW IT WORKS, p. 59  Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

UB - 47:3.8  Almost the entire experience of mansion world number one pertains to deficiency ministry. Survivors arriving on this first of the detention spheres present so many and such varied defects of creature character and deficiencies of mortal experience that the major activities of the realm are occupied with the correction and cure of these manifold legacies of the life in the flesh on the material evolutionary worlds of time and space.

UB - 100:6.4  The morbid recognition of human limitations is changed to the natural consciousness of mortal shortcomings, associated with moral determination and spiritual aspiration to attain the highest universe and superuniverse goals.

UB - 159:1.5  How can you come to God asking consideration for your shortcomings when you are wont to chastise your brethren for being guilty of these same human frailties?

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QUOTATION: Classic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. ROLLING IN THE MUCK IS NOT THE BEST WAY OF GETTING CLEAN.

ATTRIBUTION: Aldous Huxley (1894–1963), British author. Brave New World, introduction to 1946 edition.

BB - HOW IT WORKS, p. 59  Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

UB - 54:4.6  Supreme justice can act instantly when not restrained by divine mercy. But the ministry of mercy to the children of time and space always provides for this time lag, this saving interval between seedtime and harvest. If the seed sowing is good, this interval provides for the testing and upbuilding of character; if the seed sowing is evil, this merciful delay provides time for repentance and rectification.

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QUOTATION: Take the opportunity to teach your children the art of and value in negotiation, and to demonstrate your ability to empathize, your willingness to compromise, and your readiness to apologize for hurt you have inflicted on others..

ATTRIBUTION: Lawrence Balter (20th century), U.S. psychologist and author. “Not in Front of the Children...,” Ch. 4 (1993).

BB - HOW IT WORKS, p. 59  Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

UB - 131:3.3  By your efforts to make amends for past sins you acquire strength to resist future tendencies thereto.

UB - 132:5.12  If any portion of your fortune has been knowingly derived from fraud; if aught of your wealth has been accumulated by dishonest practices or unfair methods; if your riches are the product of unjust dealings with your fellows, make haste to restore all these ill-gotten gains to the rightful owners. Make full amends and thus cleanse your fortune of all dishonest riches.

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QUOTATION: To state the facts frankly is not to despair the future nor indict the past. The prudent heir takes careful inventory of his legacies and gives a faithful accounting to those whom he owes an obligation of trust.

ATTRIBUTION: John F Kennedy (1917-1963), 35th US President On outgoing administration, State of the Union address 30 Jan 61.

BB - HOW IT WORKS, p. 59  Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

UB - 131:9.3  When you find yourself in the wrong, do not hesitate to confess your error and be quick to make amends.

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QUOTATION: The first of all beautiful things
                          Is the continual possession of God.
ATTRIBUTION: Gregory of Nyssa, (335-394 AD).

BB - HOW IT WORKS, p. 59  Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

UB - 146:2.12 There is but one form of prayer which is appropriate for all God's children, and that is: "Nevertheless, your will be done."

UB - 146:2.14  Jesus taught that the prayer for divine guidance over the pathway of earthly life was next in importance to the petition for a knowledge of the Father's will. In reality this means a prayer for divine wisdom. Jesus never taught that human knowledge and special skill could be gained by prayer. But he did teach that prayer is a factor in the enlargement of one's capacity to receive the presence of the divine spirit. When Jesus taught his associates to pray in the spirit and in truth, he explained that he referred to praying sincerely and in accordance with one's enlightenment, to praying wholeheartedly and intelligently, earnestly and steadfastly.

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QUOTATION: I believe that the rendering of useful service is the common duty of mankind and that only in the purifying fire of sacrifice is the dross of selfishness consumed and the greatness of the human soul set free.

ATTRIBUTION: John D Rockefeller Jr. (1874-1961), (Credo engraved in plaza of Rockefeller Center, quoted in New Yorker 23 Mar 68.

BB - HOW IT WORKS, p. 60  Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

UB - 25:1.1  In the spiritual world there is no such thing as menial work; all service is sacred and exhilarating; neither do the higher orders of beings look down upon the lower orders of existence.

UB - 129:0.2  The more fully we bestow ourselves upon our fellows, the more we come to love them;

UB - 156:5.15  As the days pass, every true believer becomes more skillful in alluring his fellows into the love of eternal truth. Are you more resourceful in revealing goodness to humanity today than you were yesterday? Are you a better righteousness recommender this year than you were last year? Are you becoming increasingly artistic in your technique of leading hungry souls into the spiritual kingdom?

UB - 157:2.2  And when the feelings of service for your fellow men arise within your soul, do not stifle them; when the emotions of love for your neighbor well up within your heart, give expression to such urges of affection in intelligent ministry to the real needs of your fellows.

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QUOTATION: Progress, man’s distinctive mark alone,
                         Not God’s, and not the beasts’: God is, they are,
                         Man partly is and wholly hopes to be.

ATTRIBUTION: Robert Browning (1812–1889), British poet. A Death in the Desert, l. 586-8, Dramatis Personae.

BB - HOW IT WORKS,  p. 60  The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.

UB - 1:0.5-6  Urantia mortals can hardly hope to be perfect in the infinite sense, but it is entirely possible for human beings, starting out as they do on this planet, to attain the supernal and divine goal which the infinite God has set for mortal man; and when they do achieve this destiny, they will, in all that pertains to self-realization and mind attainment, be just as replete in their sphere of divine perfection as God himself is in his sphere of infinity and eternity. Such perfection may not be universal in the material sense, unlimited in intellectual grasp, or final in spiritual experience, but it is final and complete in all finite aspects of divinity of will, perfection of personality motivation, and God-consciousness.

 This is the true meaning of that divine command, "Be you perfect, even as I am perfect," which ever urges mortal man onward and beckons him inward in that long and fascinating struggle for the attainment of higher and higher levels of spiritual values and true universe meanings. This sublime search for the God of universes is the supreme adventure of the inhabitants of all the worlds of time and space.

UB - 100:2.1  Spiritual progress is predicated on intellectual recognition of spiritual poverty coupled with the self-consciousness of perfection-hunger, the desire to know God and be like him, the wholehearted purpose to do the will of the Father in heaven.

UB - 132:3.10  Universe progress is characterized by increasing personality freedom because it is associated with the progressive attainment of higher and higher levels of self-understanding and consequent voluntary self-restraint. The attainment of perfection of spiritual self-restraint equals completeness of universe freedom and personal liberty.

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QUOTATION: Self-will in the man who does not reckon wisely is by itself the weakest of all things. ATTRIBUTION: Aeschylus (525–456 B.C.), Greek tragedian. Prometheus Bound, l. 1012.

BB - HOW IT WORKS, p. 60  The first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success.

UB - 54:1.5 Unbridled self-will and unregulated self-expression equal unmitigated selfishness, the acme of ungodliness. Liberty without the associated and ever-increasing conquest of self is a figment of egoistic mortal imagination. Self-motivated liberty is a conceptual illusion, a cruel deception. License masquerading in the garments of liberty is the forerunner of abject bondage.

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QUOTATION: For one soul that exclaims, "Speak Lord, for Thy servant heareth," there are ten that say, "Hear Lord! For Thy servant speaketh," and there is no rest for these.

ATTRIBUTION: Pamela Grey (1871-1928).

BB - HOW IT WORKS, p. 62  Selfishness—self-centeredness!  That, we think, is the root of our troubles. 

BB - HOW IT WORKS, p. 62  So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kill us!  God makes that possible.

UB - 99:7.4  Man can never wisely decide temporal issues or transcend the selfishness of personal interests unless he meditates in the presence of the sovereignty of God and reckons with the realities of divine meanings and spiritual values.

UB - 111:1.9  Only by selfishness, slothfulness, and sinfulness can the will of man reject the guidance of such a loving pilot and eventually wreck the mortal career upon the evil shoals of rejected mercy and upon the rocks of embraced sin. With your consent, this faithful pilot will safely carry you across the barriers of time and the handicaps of space to the very source of the divine mind and on beyond, even to the Paradise Father of Adjusters.

UB - 195:9.7  Selfish men and women simply will not pay such a price for even the greatest spiritual treasure ever offered mortal man. Only when man has become sufficiently disillusioned by the sorrowful disappointments attendant upon the foolish and deceptive pursuits of selfishness, and subsequent to the discovery of the barrenness of formalized religion, will he be disposed to turn wholeheartedly to the gospel of the kingdom, the religion of Jesus of Nazareth.

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QUOTATION: Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of  God:

ATTRIBUTION: Bible, I John 3:1.

BB - HOW IT WORKS, p. 62  He is the Father, and we are His children.

UB - 1:1.1  If we believe that we are the children of this Creator, it is only natural that we should eventually call him Father. But this is the name of our own choosing, and it grows out of the recognition of our personal relationship with the First Source and Center.

UB - 147:3.3  You are all God's children; you are the sons of the heavenly Father.

UB - 196:3.32  When all is said and done, the Father idea is still the highest human concept of God.

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QUOTATION: Thou shalt have the power to degenerate into the lower forms of life, which are brutish.  Thou shalt have the power, out of thy soul's judgment, to be reborn into the highest forms, which are divine.

ATTRIBUTION: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494), On the Dignity of Man.

BB - HOW IT WORKS, p. 63  More and more we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to
life. As we felt new power flow in, as we enjoyed peace of mind, as we discovered we could face life successfully, as
we became conscious of His presence, we began to lose our fear of today, tomorrow or the hereafter. We were reborn.

BB - TO WIVES, p. 120  You will lose the old life to find one much better.

UB - 140:6.2  You find it difficult to receive my message because you would build the new teaching directly upon the old, but I declare that you must be reborn. You must start out afresh as little children and be willing to trust my teaching and believe in God.

UB - 141:6.4  That night Jesus discoursed to the apostles on the new life in the kingdom. He said in part: "When you enter the kingdom, you are reborn.

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QUOTATION: Nothing on earth consumes a man more quickly than the passion of resentment.

ATTRIBUTION:  Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900), Ecce Homo [1888].

BB - HOW IT WORKS, p. 64  Resentment is the "number one" offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else.

BB - HOW IT WORKS, p. 66  It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness.

BB - HOW IT WORKS, p. 66  But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal.

UB - 139:12.9  Judas became increasingly a brooder over personal disappointment, and finally he became a victim of resentment. His feelings had been many times hurt, and he grew abnormally suspicious of his best friends, even of the Master. Presently he became obsessed with the idea of getting even, anything to avenge himself, yes, even betrayal of his associates and his Master.

UB - 139:12.11  Jesus did everything possible, consistent with man's moral freedom, to prevent Judas's choosing to go the wrong way. The great test finally came. The son of resentment failed; he yielded to the sour and sordid dictates of a proud and vengeful mind of exaggerated self-importance and swiftly plunged on down into confusion, despair, and depravity.

UB - 140:8.5  He never ceased to warn his disciples against the evil practice of retaliation; he made no allowance for revenge, the idea of getting even. He deplored the holding of grudges. He disallowed the idea of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. He discountenanced the whole concept of private and personal revenge, assigning these matters to civil government, on the one hand, and to the judgment of God, on the other.

UB - 140:8.7  A wrong is not righted by vengeance. Do not make the mistake of fighting evil with its own weapons.

UB - 141:3.8  Jesus portrayed conquest by sacrifice, the sacrifice of pride and selfishness. By showing mercy, he meant to portray spiritual deliverance from all grudges, grievances, anger, and the lust for selfish power and revenge.

UB - 156:5.17  ….the measure of your human strength of character is your ability to resist the holding of grudges and your capacity to withstand brooding in the face of deep sorrow.

UB - 177:4.11  ….there was always left in Judas's heart a scar of bitter resentment; and as these scars multiplied, presently that heart, so often wounded, lost all real affection for the one who had inflicted this distasteful experience upon a well-intentioned but cowardly and self-centered personality.

UB - 177:4.11   And every mortal man knows full well how love, even when once genuine, can, through disappointment, jealousy, and long-continued resentment, be eventually turned into actual hate.

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QUOTATION: And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive those who trespass against us.

ATTRIBUTION: Bible, Matthew 6:12.

BB - HOW IT WORKS, p. 66,67  This was our course: We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. Though we did not like their symptoms and the way these disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too. We asked God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend. When a person offended we said to ourselves, "This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done."

UB - 100:4.4  If some one irritates you, causes feelings of resentment, you should sympathetically seek to discern his viewpoint, his reasons for such objectionable conduct. If once you understand your neighbor, you will become tolerant, and this tolerance will grow into friendship and ripen into love.

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QUOTATION:  A good man does not argue;

                            He who argues is not a good man.

ATTRIBUTION: Lao-tzu, (604-531 B.C.), Tao-te Ching.

BB - HOW IT WORKS, p. 67  We avoid retaliation or argument.

BB - TO WIVES,  p. 118  Next time you and he have a heated discussion, no matter what the subject, it should be the privilege of either to smile and say, "This is getting serious. I'm sorry I got disturbed. Let's talk about it later." If your husband is trying to live on a spiritual basis, he will also be doing everything in his power to avoid disagreement or contention.

UB - 125:5.8  As a youth, and later on as a man, he [Jesus] seemed to be utterly free from all egoistic desire to win an argument merely to experience logical triumph over his fellows, being interested supremely in just one thing: to proclaim everlasting truth and thus effect a fuller revelation of the eternal God.

UB - 155:5.9  "When an enemy smites you on one cheek, do not stand there dumb and passive but in positive attitude turn the other; that is, do the best thing possible actively to lead your brother in error away from the evil paths into the better ways of righteous living." Jesus required his followers to react positively and aggressively to every life situation. The turning of the other cheek, or whatever act that may typify, demands initiative, necessitates vigorous, active, and courageous expression of the believer's personality.

UB - 160:3.4  My philosophy tells me that there are times when I must fight, if need be, for the defense of my concept of righteousness, but I doubt not that the Master, with a more mature type of personality, would easily and gracefully gain an equal victory by his superior and winsome technique of tact and tolerance. All too often, when we battle for the right, it turns out that both the victor and the vanquished have sustained defeat.

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QUOTATION:  To him who is in fear everything rustles.

ATTRIBUTION: Sophocles (495-406 B.C.), Acrisius, fragment 58.

BB - HOW IT WORKS, p. 67  This short word (fear) somehow touches about every aspect of our lives. It was an evil and corroding thread; the fabric of our existence was shot through with it.

UB - 48:7.4  Few persons live up to the faith which they really have. Unreasoned fear is a master intellectual fraud practiced upon the evolving mortal soul.

UB - 100:7.15   His courage was magnificent, but he was never foolhardy. His watchword was, "Fear not."

UB - 110:1.5   …the mental poisons of fear, anger, envy, jealousy, suspicion, and intolerance likewise tremendously interfere with the spiritual progress of the evolving soul.

UB - 113:2.5  The only emotion actuating you which is somewhat difficult for them [angels] to comprehend is the legacy of animal fear that bulks so large in the mental life of the average inhabitant of Urantia. The angels really find it hard to understand why you will so persistently allow your higher intellectual powers, even your religious faith, to be so dominated by fear, so thoroughly demoralized by the thoughtless panic of dread and anxiety.

UB - 140:5.6  Fear and anger weaken character and destroy happiness.

UB - 142:0.2  "Fear is man's chief enslaver and pride his great weakness; will you betray yourself into bondage to both of these destroyers of joy and liberty?"

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QUOTATION: And as for the unbelievers,
                          their works are as a mirage in a spacious plain
                          which the man athirst supposes to be water,
                          till, when he comes to it, he finds it is nothing;
                          there indeed he finds God,
                          and He pays him his account in full;

                          (and God is swift at the reckoning).

ATTRIBUTION: Qur’An. Light, 24:39, ed. Arthur J. Arberry (1955).

BB - HOW IT WORKS, p. 68  We can laugh at those who think spirituality the way of weakness. Paradoxically, it is the way of strength.

UB - 103:8.5  The certainty of the God-knowing religionist should not be disturbed by the uncertainty of the doubting materialist; rather should the uncertainty of the unbeliever be mightily challenged by the profound faith and unshakable certainty of the experiential believer.

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QUOTATION: There’s nothing wrong with sexual feelings in themselves, so long as they are straightforward and not sneaking or sly. The right sort of sex stimulus is invaluable to human daily life. Without it the world grows grey. ATTRIBUTION: D.H. (David Herbert) Lawrence (1885–1930), British author “Pornography and Obscenity,” Sex, Literature, and Censorship.

BB - HOW IT WORKS, p. 69  We all have sex problems. We'd hardly be human if we didn't. What can we do about them?

BB - HOW IT WORKS, p. 69  In this way we tried to shape a sane and sound ideal for our future sex life. We subjected each relation to this test -was it selfish or not? We asked God to mold our ideals and help us to live up to them. We remembered always that our sex powers were God-given and therefore good, neither to be used lightly or selfishly nor to be despised and loathed.

UB - 82:1.10  No human emotion or impulse, when unbridled and overindulged, can produce so much harm and sorrow as this powerful sex urge. Intelligent submission of this impulse to the regulations of society is the supreme test of the actuality of any civilization. Self-control, more and more self-control, is the ever-increasing demand of advancing mankind. Secrecy, insincerity, and hypocrisy may obscure sex problems, but they do not provide solutions, nor do they advance ethics.

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QUOTATION: We confess our faults that our sincerity might repair the harm those faults themselves have done us in the esteem of others.

ATTRIBUTION: François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680), Moral Maxims and Reflections, no. 185.

BB - INTO ACTION, p. 72  We think we have done well enough in admitting these things to ourselves. There is doubt about that. In actual practice, we usually find a solitary self-appraisal insufficient. Many of us thought it necessary to go much further. We will be more reconciled to discussing ourselves with another person when we see good reasons why we should do so.

BB - INTO ACTION, p. 73  We must be entirely honest with somebody if we expect to live long or happily in this world.

UB - 193:3.2  You also well know that, when I was in the flesh, I did not permit myself to be alone for long periods. From the very beginning of our associations I always had two or three of you constantly by my side or else very near at hand even when I communed with the Father. Trust, therefore, and confide in one another.

UB - 193:4.2  He [Judas] persistently refused to confide in, or freely fraternize with, his fellow apostles.

UB - 193:4.3  They grew in grace and in a knowledge of the truth. They became increasingly more trustful of their brethren and slowly developed the ability to confide in their fellows. Judas persistently refused to confide in his brethren.

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QUOTATION:  What you are thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.
ATTRIBUTION:  Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882).

BB - INTO ACTION, p. 73  More than most people, the alcoholic leads a double life. He is very much the actor. To the outer world he presents his stage character. This is the one he likes his fellows to see. He wants to enjoy a certain reputation, but knows in his heart he doesn't deserve it.

UB - 48:7.17  Affectation is the ridiculous effort of the ignorant to appear wise, the attempt of the barren soul to appear rich.

UB - 100:7.2  The unfailing kindness of Jesus touched the hearts of men, but his stalwart strength of character amazed his followers. He was truly sincere; there was nothing of the hypocrite in him. He was free from affectation; he was always so refreshingly genuine. He never stooped to pretense, and he never resorted to shamming. He lived the truth, even as he taught it. He was the truth. He was constrained to proclaim saving truth to his generation, even though such sincerity sometimes caused pain. He was unquestioningly loyal to all truth.

UB - 111:4.11  All conflict is evil in that it inhibits the creative function of the inner life--it is a species of civil war in the personality.

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QUOTATION: Nothing is impossible to a willing heart.

ATTRIBUTION: John Heywood (1497-1580), Proverbs pt. 1, chap. 4.

BB - INTO ACTION, p. 76  We have emphasized willingness as being indispensable.

BB - APPENDIX II, p. 570  Willingness, honesty and open mindedness are the essentials of recovery. But these are indispensable.

.

UB - 26:4.8  Willingness to believe is the key to Havona.

UB - 34:6.11 Every step you take must be one of willingness, intelligent and cheerful co-operation.

UB - 110:3.2  The secret of survival is wrapped up in the supreme human desire to be Godlike and in the associated willingness to do and be any and all things which are essential to the final attainment of that overmastering desire.

UB - 111:5.1  The doing of the will of God is nothing more or less than an exhibition of creature willingness to share the inner life with God.

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QUOTATION:  If we were to ask the question:  "What is human life's chief concern?" one of the answers we should receive would be" "It is happiness."  How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness, is in fact for most  men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.

ATTRIBUTION:  William James (1842-1910), The Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 78.

BB - INTO ACTION, p. 83  We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.

UB - 55:5.6  The pursuit of happiness is an experience of joy and satisfaction.

UB - 94:8.13  His followers [Gautama Siddhartha] overlooked the fact that the highest happiness is linked with the intelligent and enthusiastic pursuit of worthy goals, and that such achievements constitute true progress in cosmic self-realization.

UB - 100:4.3  The highest happiness is indissolubly linked with spiritual progress. Spiritual growth yields lasting joy, peace which passes all understanding.

UB - 103:5.11  "Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."

UB - 111:4.7  Happiness and joy take origin in the inner life. You cannot experience real joy all by yourself. A solitary life is fatal to happiness.

UB - 131:3.5  Joy and happiness are the outcome of a good life.

UB - 131:10.6  This new religion of ours is very full of joy, and it generates an enduring happiness.

UB - 147:7.2  …in the coming kingdom the sons of God shall experience freedom from fear and joy in the divine spirit.

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QUOTATION: Regret for wasted time is more wasted time.

ATTRIBUTION: Mason Cooley (b. 1927), U.S. aphorist. City Aphorisms, Eleventh Selection, New York (1993).

BB - INTO ACTION, p. 83  We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.

UB - 156:5.8  Be not downcast by your failure wholly to forget some of your regrettable experiences. The mistakes which you fail to forget in time will be forgotten in eternity. Lighten your burdens of soul by speedily acquiring a long-distance view of your destiny, a universe expansion of your career.

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QUOTATION: God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

ATTRIBUTION: Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971), Originally part of a sermon in 1943 and later used by Alcoholics Anonymous, quoted by June Bingham Courage to Change Scribner’s 61.

BB - INTO ACTION, p. 83,84  We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.

UB - 100:4.3  Of health and sanity man understands much, but of happiness he has truly realized very little. The highest happiness is indissolubly linked with spiritual progress. Spiritual growth yields lasting joy, peace which passes all understanding.

UB - 100:6.6  One of the most amazing earmarks of religious living is that dynamic and sublime peace, that peace which passes all human understanding, that cosmic poise which betokens the absence of all doubt and turmoil. Such levels of spiritual stability are immune to disappointment.

UB - 143:2.6  When you know that you are saved by faith, you have real peace with God. And all who follow in the way of this heavenly peace are destined to be sanctified to the eternal service of the ever-advancing sons of the eternal God.

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QUOTATION: A prodigal returned is worth more than gold.

ATTRIBUTION: Chinese proverb.

BB - INTO ACTION, p. 84  No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.

UB - 48:7.15  Stars are best discerned from the lonely isolation of experiential depths, not from the illuminated and ecstatic mountain tops.

UB - 169:1.10  "And then, after the happy father had led the footsore and weary lad into the house, he called to his servants: `Bring on the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry, for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' And they all gathered about the father to rejoice with him over the restoration of his son.

UB - 178:1.11  Let all mankind benefit from the overflow of your loving spiritual ministry, enlightening intellectual communion, and uplifting social service.

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QUOTATION: Self-pity in its early stage is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.

ATTRIBUTION: Maya Angelou (b. 1928), U.S. author. Gather Together in My Name, vol. 2, ch. 6 (1974).

BB - INTO ACTION, p. 84  That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.

UB - 159:3.11  Teach all believers to avoid leaning upon the insecure props of false sympathy. You cannot develop strong characters out of the indulgence of self-pity; honestly endeavor to avoid the deceptive influence of mere fellowship in misery. Extend sympathy to the brave and courageous while you withhold overmuch pity from those cowardly souls who only halfheartedly stand up before the trials of living. Offer not consolation to those who lie down before their troubles without a struggle. Sympathize not with your fellows merely that they may sympathize with you in return.

UB - 171:7.3  Jesus really understood men; therefore could he manifest genuine sympathy and show sincere compassion. But he seldom indulged in pity. While his compassion was boundless, his sympathy was practical, personal, and constructive. Never did his familiarity with suffering breed indifference, and he was able to minister to distressed souls without increasing their self-pity.

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QUOTATION: Love’s way of dealing with us is different from conscience’s way. Conscience commands; love inspires. What we do out of love, we do because we want to do it. Love is, indeed, one kind of desire; but it is a kind that takes us out of ourselves and carries us beyond ourselves, in contrast to the kind that is self-seeking.

ATTRIBUTION: A.J. (Arnold Joseph) Toynbee (1889–1975), British historian. Experiences, pt. 1, ch. 9.

BB - INTO ACTION, P. 84  We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away.

UB - 47:6.3  And it is indeed a new experience for evolutionary creatures to participate in social activities which are predicated neither on personal aggrandizement nor on self-seeking conquest.

UB - 155:3.4  Increasingly they learned from Jesus to look upon human personalities in terms of their possibilities in time and in eternity. They learned that many souls can best be led to love the unseen God by being first taught to love their brethren whom they can see. And it was in this connection that new meaning became attached to the Master's pronouncement concerning unselfish service for one's fellows: "Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of my brethren, you did it to me."

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QUOTATION: When we come to study the phenomenon of conversion or religious regeneration, we shall see that a not infrequent consequence of the change operated in the subject is a transfiguration of the face of nature in his eyes. A new heaven seems to shine upon a new earth.

ATTRIBUTION: William James (1842-1910), The Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 131-132.

BB - INTO ACTION, p. 84  Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.

UB - 143:2.3  In the Father's kingdom you are to become new creatures; old things are to pass away; behold I show you how all things are to become new. And by your love for one another you are to convince the world that you have passed from bondage to liberty, from death into life everlasting.

UB - 195:9.6  Modern men and women of intelligence evade the religion of Jesus because of their fears of what it will do to them--and with them. And all such fears are well founded. The religion of Jesus does, indeed, dominate and transform its believers, demanding that men dedicate their lives to seeking for a knowledge of the will of the Father in heaven and requiring that the energies of living be consecrated to the unselfish service of the brotherhood of man.

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QUOTATION: The final test of religious faith … is whether it will enable men to endure insecurity without complacency or despair, whether it can so interpret the ancient verities that they will not become mere escape hatches from responsibilities but instruments of insights into what civilization means.

ATTRIBUTION: Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971), Saturday Evening Post 23 Jul 60.

BB - INTO ACTION, p. 84  Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.

UB - 100:2.7  Jesus portrayed the profound surety of the God-knowing mortal when he said: "To a God-knowing kingdom believer, what does it matter if all things earthly crash?" Temporal securities are vulnerable, but spiritual sureties are impregnable. When the flood tides of human adversity, selfishness, cruelty, hate, malice, and jealousy beat about the mortal soul, you may rest in the assurance that there is one inner bastion, the citadel of the spirit, which is absolutely unassailable; at least this is true of every human being who has dedicated the keeping of his soul to the indwelling spirit of the eternal God.

UB - 130:6.3  And then, forthwith, will this faith vanquish fear of men by the compelling presence of that new and all-dominating love of your fellows which will so soon fill your soul to overflowing because of the consciousness which has been born in your heart that you are a child of God.

UB - 165:3.3  Fear not those who, although they may be able to kill the body, after that have no more power over you. I admonish you to fear none, in heaven or on earth, but to rejoice in the knowledge of Him who has power to deliver you from all unrighteousness and to present you blameless before the judgment seat of a universe.

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QUOTATION: And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.

ATTRIBUTION:  Bible, Isaiah 30:21.

BB - INTO ACTION, p. 84  We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

UB - 3:2.2  Within the bounds of that which is consistent with the divine nature, it is literally true that "with God all things are possible."

UB - 34:7.8  Having started out on the way of life everlasting, having accepted the assignment and received your orders to advance, do not fear the dangers of human forgetfulness and mortal inconstancy, do not be troubled with doubts of failure or by perplexing confusion, do not falter and question your status and standing, for in every dark hour, at every crossroad in the forward struggle, the Spirit of Truth will always speak, saying, "This is the way."

UB - 140:9.3  And when they lead you to judgment, be not anxious about what you shall say, for the spirit of my Father indwells you and will at such a time speak through you.

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QUOTATION: A worthwhile person seeks not the easy life, for the easy life does not make a worthwhile person. ATTRIBUTION: Chinese proverb.

BB - INTO ACTION, p. 85  It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels.  We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe.

UB - 178:1.10  Tempt not the angels of your supervision to lead you in troublous ways as a loving discipline designed to save your ease-drifting souls.

UB - 113:4.3  To accept the guidance of a seraphim rarely means attaining a life of ease.  In following this leading you are sure to encounter, and if you have the courage, to traverse, the rugged hills of moral choosing and spiritual progress.

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QUOTATION: Day by day, dear Lord, of thee three things I pray:
                          to see thee more clearly,
                          love thee more dearly,
                          follow thee more nearly,
                          day by day.

ATTRIBUTION: Richard Of Chichester (1197–1253), Published in The Hymnal (1982). “Day by Day,” l. 1-5.

BB - INTO ACTION, p. 85  What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all of our activities. "How can I best serve Thee, Thy will (not mine) be done." These are thoughts which must go with us constantly.

UB - 158:7.5  If any man would come after me, let him disregard himself, take up his responsibilities daily, and follow me. For whosoever would save his life selfishly, shall lose it, but whosoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's, shall save it.

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QUOTATION: Prayer is not an old woman’s idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action.

ATTRIBUTION: Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948), Non-Violence in Peace and War, vol. 2, ch. 77 (1948).

BB - INTO ACTION, p. 85-86  We shouldn't be shy on this matter of prayer.  Better men than we are using it constantly.  It works, if we have the proper attitude and work at it.

UB - 91:3.3  And thus does prayer function as the most potent agency of religion in the conservation of the highest values and ideals of those who pray.

UB - 91:8.11  God answers man's prayer by giving him an increased revelation of truth, an enhanced appreciation of beauty, and an augmented concept of goodness. Prayer is a subjective gesture, but it contacts with mighty objective realities on the spiritual levels of human experience; it is a meaningful reach by the human for superhuman values. It is the most potent spiritual-growth stimulus.

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QUOTATION: Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

ATTRIBUTION: Bible, Philippians 4:6.

BB - INTO ACTION, p. 86  But we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse or morbid reflection, for that would diminish our usefulness to others.

UB - 91:1.6  With those mortals who have not been delivered from the primitive bondage of fear, there is a real danger that all prayer may lead to a morbid sense of sin, unjustified convictions of guilt, real or fancied.

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QUOTATION: When you pray for anyone you tend to modify your personal attitude toward him. You lift the relationship thereby to a higher level. The best in the other person begins to flow out toward you as your best flows toward him. In the meeting of the best in each a higher unity of understanding is established.

ATTRIBUTION: Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993), The Power of Positive Thinking Prentice-Hall 52.

BB - INTO ACTION, p. 87  We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends. Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn't work. You can easily see why.

UB - 91:4.1  No prayer can be ethical when the petitioner seeks for selfish advantage over his fellows. Selfish and materialistic praying is incompatible with the ethical religions which are predicated on unselfish and divine love. All such unethical praying reverts to the primitive levels of pseudo magic and is unworthy of advancing civilizations and enlightened religions. Selfish praying transgresses the spirit of all ethics founded on loving justice.

UB - 91:4.4  While the nonselfish type of prayer is strengthening and comforting, materialistic praying is destined to bring disappointment and disillusionment as advancing scientific discoveries demonstrate that man lives in a physical universe of law and order.

UB - 144:3.8-9  Jesus taught that effective prayer must be:

1. Unselfish--not alone for oneself.

2. Believing--according to faith.

3. Sincere--honest of heart.

4. Intelligent--according to light.

5. Trustful--in submission to the Father's all-wise will.

When Jesus spent whole nights on the mountain in prayer, it was mainly for his disciples, particularly for the twelve. The Master prayed very little for himself, although he engaged in much worship of the nature of understanding communion with his Paradise Father.

UB - 146:2.10  Guard against the great danger of becoming self-centered in your prayers. Avoid praying much for yourself; pray more for the spiritual progress of your brethren. Avoid materialistic praying; pray in the spirit and for the abundance of the gifts of the spirit.

UB - 163:4.10   Consecrated devotion. To pray always for more laborers to be sent forth into the gospel harvest. He explained that, when one so prays, he will the more likely say, "Here am I; send me." He admonished them to neglect not their daily worship.

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QUOTATION: Group prayer not only completes private prayer in the joy of togetherness, but saves togetherness from its own internal strains.

ATTRIBUTION: George A Buttrick (1892-1979), Prayer, p. 278.

BB - INTO ACTION, p. 87  If circumstances warrant, we ask our wives or friends to join us in morning meditation.

UB - 91:5.2  But prayer need not always be individual. Group or congregational praying is very effective in that it is highly socializing in its repercussions. When a group engages in community prayer for moral enhancement and spiritual uplift, such devotions are reactive upon the individuals composing the group; they are all made better because of participation.

UB - 91:7.6  When prayer becomes overmuch aesthetic, when it consists almost exclusively in beautiful and blissful contemplation of paradisiacal divinity, it loses much of its socializing influence and tends toward mysticism and the isolation of its devotees. There is a certain danger associated with overmuch private praying which is corrected and prevented by group praying, community devotions.

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QUOTATION: And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt.

ATTRIBUTION: Bible, Matthew 26:39.

BB - INTO ACTION, p. 87-88  As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action. We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day "Thy will be done."

UB - 118:8.11  Man's great universe adventure consists in the transit of his mortal mind from the stability of mechanical statics to the divinity of spiritual dynamics, and he achieves this transformation by the force and constancy of his own personality decisions, in each of life's situations declaring, "It is my will that your will be done."

UB - 146:2.12  There is but one form of prayer which is appropriate for all God's children, and that is: "Nevertheless, your will be done."

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QUOTATION: And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil:

ATTRIBUTION: Bible, Matthew, 6:12.

BB - WORKING WITH OTHERS, p. 101  In our belief any scheme of combating alcoholism which proposes to shield the sick man from temptation is doomed to failure.

BB - TO WIVES, p. 120  We never, never try to arrange a man's life so as to shield him from temptation.

UB - 144:3.3  Save us in temptation, deliver us from evil,

UB - 156:5.5  But let me warn you against the folly of undertaking to surmount temptation by the effort of supplanting one desire by another and supposedly superior desire through the mere force of the human will.

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QUOTATION: It is more blessed to give than to receive.

ATTRIBUTION: Bible, Acts 20.35.

BB - WORKING WITH OTHERS, p. 102  Do not think of what you will get out of the occasion.  Think of what you can bring to it.

UB - 28:6.18  All of this magnificent creation, including yourself, was not made just for you. This is not an egocentric universe. The Gods have decreed, "It is more blessed to give than to receive," and said your Master Son, "He who would be greatest among you let him be server of all."

UB - 94:6.6  And of the true religionist he (Lao-tse) said, in expressing the truth that it is more blessed to give than to receive: "The good man seeks not to retain truth for himself but rather attempts to bestow these riches upon his fellows, for that is the realization of truth."

UB - 100:7.10  The Master was always generous. He never grew weary of saying, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." Said he, "Freely you have received, freely give."

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QUOTATION: Alcoholism isn't a spectator sport. Eventually the whole family gets to play.

ATTRIBUTION: Joyce Rebeta-Burditt, The Cracker Factory, (1977).

BB - TO WIVES, p. 104  But for every man who drinks others are involved -- the wife who trembles in fear of the next debauch; the mother and father who see their son wasting away.

UB - 67:7.2  The impersonal (centrifugal) consequences of embraced sin are both inevitable and collective, being of concern to every creature functioning within the affect-range of such events.

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QUOTATION: A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.

ATTRIBUTION: Bible, Proverbs, 15:1.

BB - TO WIVES, p. 111  The first principle of success is that you should never be angry. Even though your husband becomes unbearable and you have to leave him temporarily, you should, if you can, go without rancor. Patience and good temper are most necessary.

UB - 48:7.20  Impatience is a spirit poison; anger is like a stone hurled into a hornet's nest.

UB - 140:5.6  Fear and anger weaken character and destroy happiness.

UB - 149:4.2  Anger is a material manifestation which represents, in a general way, the measure of the failure of the spiritual nature to gain control of the combined intellectual and physical natures. Anger indicates your lack of tolerant brotherly love plus your lack of self-respect and self-control. Anger depletes the health, debases the mind, and handicaps the spirit teacher of man's soul.

UB - 149:4.2  Let your hearts be so dominated by love that your spirit guide will have little trouble in delivering you from the tendency to give vent to those outbursts of animal anger inconsistent with the status of divine sonship.

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QUOTATION: Alcohol postpones anxiety, then multiplies it. A free spirit must be able to surmount anxiety time after time.

ATTRIBUTION: Mason Cooley (b. 1927), U.S. aphorist. City Aphorisms, Eighth Selection, New York (1991).

BB - TO WIVES, p. 116  There is another paralyzing fear. You may be afraid your husband will lose his position; you are thinking of the disgrace and hard times which will befall you and the children.

UB - 48:7.21  Anxiety must be abandoned. The disappointments hardest to bear are those which never come.

UB - 113:2.5  The angels really find it hard to understand why you will so persistently allow your higher intellectual powers, even your religious faith, to be so dominated by fear, so thoroughly demoralized by the thoughtless panic of dread and anxiety.

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QUOTATION: Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements, and doubts. We tend to forget the past difficulties, the many false starts, and the painful groping. We see our past achievements as the end result of a clean forward thrust, and our present difficulties as signs of decline and decay.

ATTRIBUTION: Eric Hoffer (1902–1983), U.S. philosopher. Reflections on the Human Condition, aph. 157.

BB - THE FAMILY AFTERWARD, p. 123-124  The family may be possessed by the idea that future happiness can be based only upon forgetfulness of the past. We think that such a view is self-centered and in direct conflict with the new way of living.

UB - 155:1.3  You are hardly worthy of the kingdom when your service consists so largely in an attitude of regretting the past, whining over the present, and vainly hoping for the future. Why do the heathen rage? Because they know not the truth. Why do you languish in futile yearning? Because you obey not the truth. Cease your useless yearning and go forth bravely doing that which concerns the establishment of the kingdom.

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QUOTATION: If a person is capable of rectifying his erroneous judgments in the light of new evidence he is not prejudiced. Prejudgments become prejudices only if they are reversible when exposed to new knowledge. A prejudice, unlike a simple misconception, is actively resistant to all evidence that would unseat it. We tend to grow emotional when a prejudice is threatened with contradiction. Thus the difference between ordinary prejudgments and prejudice is that one can discuss and rectify a prejudgment without emotional resistance.

ATTRIBUTION: Gordon W. Allport (1897–1967), U.S. psychologist, educator. The Nature of Prejudice, ch. 1.

BB - THE FAMILY AFTERWARD, p. 124  We grow by our willingness to face and rectify errors and convert them into assets.

UB - 26:5.3  That, then, is the primary or elementary course which confronts the faith-tested and much-traveled pilgrims of space. But long before reaching Havona, these ascendant children of time have learned to feast upon uncertainty, to fatten upon disappointment, to enthuse over apparent defeat, to invigorate in the presence of difficulties, to exhibit indomitable courage in the face of immensity, and to exercise unconquerable faith when confronted with the challenge of the inexplicable. Long since, the battle cry of these pilgrims became: "In liaison with God, nothing--absolutely nothing--is impossible."

UB - 48:6.25  Even as mortals, so have these angels been father to many disappointments, and they will point out that sometimes your most disappointing disappointments have become your greatest blessings. Sometimes the planting of a seed necessitates its death, the death of your fondest hopes, before it can be reborn to bear the fruits of new life and new opportunity.

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QUOTATION: Oh! mystery of man, from what a depth
                          Proceed thy honours. I am lost, but see
                          In simple childhood something of the base
                          On which thy greatness stands; but this I feel,
                          That from thyself it comes, that thou must give,
                          Else never canst receive. 

ATTRIBUTION: William Wordsworth (1770–1850), British poet. The Prelude; XII. Imagination and Taste (l. 272–280).

BB - THE FAMILY AFTERWARD, p.128  Giving, rather than getting, will become the guiding principle.

UB - 28:6.18  This is not an egocentric universe. The Gods have decreed, "It is more blessed to give than to receive," and said your Master Son, "He who would be greatest among you let him be server of all."

UB - 100:7.10  The Master was always generous. He never grew weary of saying, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."

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QUOTATION: What is he buzzing in my ears?
                         ‘Now that I come to die,
                          Do I view the world as a vale of tears?’
                          Ah, reverend sir, not I!

ATTRIBUTION: Robert Browning (1812–1889), British poet. Confessions (l. 1–4).

BB - THE FAMILY AFTERWARD, p. 133  We are sure God wants us to be happy, joyous, and free. We cannot subscribe to the belief that his life is a vale of tears, though it once was just that for many of us.

UB - 40:7.5  Do you comprehend the grandeur of the heights of eternal achievement which are spread out before you?--even you who now trudge on in the lowly path of life through your so-called "vale of tears"?

UB - 149:5.5  Jesus hardly regarded this world as a "vale of tears." He rather looked upon it as the birth sphere of the eternal and immortal spirits of Paradise ascension, the "vale of soul making."

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QUOTATION: Medication alone is not to be relied on. In one half the cases medicine is not needed, or is worse than useless. Obedience to spiritual and physical laws—hygiene [sic] of the body, and hygiene of the spirit—is the surest warrant for health and happiness.

ATTRIBUTION: Harriot K. Hunt (1805–1875), U.S. physician. Glances and Glimpses, ch. 11 (1856).

BB - THE FAMILY AFTERWARD, p. 128  We are convinced that a spiritual mode of living is a most powerful health restorative.

UB - 91:6.2  Prayer is not a technique for curing real and organic diseases, but it has contributed enormously to the enjoyment of abundant health and to the cure of numerous mental, emotional, and nervous ailments. And even in actual bacterial disease, prayer has many times added to the efficacy of other remedial procedures. Prayer has turned many an irritable and complaining invalid into a paragon of patience and made him an inspiration to all other human sufferers.

UB - 132:4.5  He [Jesus] visited at dinner with a Greek physician, telling him that his patients had minds and souls as well as bodies, and thus led this able doctor to attempt a more far-reaching ministry to his fellow men.

UB - 194:3.19  The joy of this outpoured spirit, when it is consciously experienced in human life, is a tonic for health, a stimulus for mind, and an unfailing energy for the soul.

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QUOTATION:  The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.

ATTRIBUTION:  Mark Twain (1835-1910).

BB - BILL'S STORY, p. 16  There is, however, a vast amount of fun about it all.  I suppose some would be shocked at our seeming worldliness and levity.

BB - THE FAMILY AFTERWARD, p. 132  But we aren't a glum lot.  If newcomers could see no joy or fun in our existence, they wouldn't want it.  We absolutely insist on enjoying life.

BB - THE FAMILY AFTERWARD, p. 132  So, we think cheerfulness and laughter make for usefulness. Outsiders are sometimes shocked when we burst into merriment over a seemingly tragic experience out of the past. But, why shouldn't we laugh? We have recovered, and have been given the power to help others.

UB - 48:4.15  When we are tempted to magnify our self-importance, if we stop to contemplate the infinity of the greatness and grandeur of our Makers, our own self-glorification becomes sublimely ridiculous, even verging on the humorous. One of the functions of humor is to help all of us take ourselves less seriously. Humor is the divine antidote for exaltation of ego.

UB - 48:4.19  While the humor of Urantia is exceedingly crude and most inartistic, it does serve a valuable purpose both as a health insurance and as a liberator of emotional pressure, thus preventing injurious nervous tension and overserious self-contemplation.

UB - 48:4.20  And so you will enjoy the celestial equivalents of your earthly humor all the way up through your long morontia, and then increasingly spiritual, careers. And that part of God (the Adjuster) which becomes an eternal part of the personality of an ascendant mortal contributes the overtones of divinity to the joyous expressions, even spiritual laughter, of the ascending creatures of time and space.

UB - 159:3.10  You shall not portray your teacher as a man of sorrows. Future generations shall know also the radiance of our joy, the buoyance of our good will, and the inspiration of our good humor.

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QUOTATION:  To avoid falling into confusion over the names these defects should be called, let's take a universally recognized list of major human failings—the Seven Deadly Sins of pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth.

ATTRIBUTION:  William G. Wilson (1895-1971), Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 48.

BB - TO EMPLOYERS, p. 145  The greatest enemies of us alcoholics are resentment, jealousy, envy, frustration, and fear.

UB - 143:2.5  How easy for you to become self-deceived and thereby fall into foolish fears, divers lusts, enslaving pleasures, malice, envy, and even vengeful hatred!

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QUOTATION:  Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am the Lord.

ATTRIBUTION: Bible, Leviticus 19:18.

BB - A VISION FOR YOU, p. 153  You will be bound to them with new and wonderful ties, for you will escape disaster together and you will commence shoulder to shoulder your common journey. Then you will know what it means to give of yourself that others may survive and rediscover life. You will learn the full meaning of "Love thy neighbor as thyself."

UB - 142:4.2  And this duty of man is expressed in two great privileges: sincere worship of the infinite Creator, the Paradise Father, and loving service bestowed upon one's fellow men. If you love your neighbor as you love yourself, you really know that you are a son of God.

UB - 180:1.1 You well know the commandment which directs that you love one another; that you love your neighbor even as yourself. But I am not wholly satisfied with even that sincere devotion on the part of my children. I would have you perform still greater acts of love in the kingdom of the believing brotherhood. And so I give you this new commandment: That you love one another even as I have loved you. And by this will all men know that you are my disciples if you thus love one another.

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QUOTATION: The majesty that from man’s soul looks through his eager eyes.

ATTRIBUTION: William Morris (1834–1896), Life and Death of Jason. Book xiii.

BB - A VISION FOR YOU, p. 160  The expression on the faces of the women, that indefinable something in the eyes of the men,

UB - 42:12.5  On a material world you think of a body as having a spirit, but we regard the spirit as having a body. The material eyes are truly the windows of the spirit-born soul.

UB - 76:2.8  Fear, and some remorse, led him (Cain) to repent. Cain had never been indwelt by an Adjuster, had always been defiant of the family discipline and disdainful of his father's religion. But he now went to Eve, his mother, and asked for spiritual help and guidance, and when he honestly sought divine assistance, an Adjuster indwelt him. And this Adjuster, dwelling within and looking out, gave Cain a distinct advantage of superiority which classed him with the greatly feared tribe of Adam.

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QUOTATION:  There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof  against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting  ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation.
ATTRIBUTION:  Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)

(Also in The Big Book, Appendix II, Spiritual Experience, p. 570)

UB - 153:2.11  Let us be patient; the truth never suffers from honest examination.