The Spiritual Teachings of The Urantia Book: Synopsis, Part 10
The Indweller
Contents of this Synopsis
The mind of man can attain high levels of spiritual insight and corresponding spheres of divinity of values because it is not wholly material. There is a spirit nucleus in the mind of man-the indwelling Spirit of God.
Three separate evidences of this Spirit indwelling of the human mind are:
- Humanitarian fellowship-love. Only the spirit-indwelt intellect is unselfishly altruistic and unconditionally loving.
- Interpretation of the universe-wisdom. Only the spirit-indwelt mind can comprehend that the universe is friendly to the individual.
- Spiritual evaluation of life-worship. Only the spirit-indwelt mortal can realize the divine presence and seek to attain a fuller experience with this foretaste of divinity.
The human mind does not create real values; human experience does not yield universe insight. Concerning insight-the recognition of moral values and the discernment of spiritual meanings-all that the human mind can do is to discover, recognize, interpret, and choose.
The moral values of the universe become intellectual possessions by the exercise of three basic judgments or choices of the mortal mind:
- Self-judgment-moral choice.
- Social-judgment-ethical choice.
- God-judgment-religious choice.
Thus it appears that all human progress is effected by a technique of conjoint revelational evolution.
Unless a Divine Lover lived in the mind of man, individuals could not unselfishly and spiritually love. And unless an Interpreter lived in their minds, they could not truly realize the unity of the universe. Also, unless an Evaluator indwelt each mind, that mind could not appraise moral values nor recognize spiritual meanings. This Indwelling Lover hails from the very source of Infinite Love; this Interpreter is part of Universal Unity; this evaluator is of the Center and Source of all absolute values of divine and eternal reality.
Human survival is, in great measure, dependent on consecrating the human will to the choosing of those values selected by this spirit-value sorter-the indwelling interpreter and unifier-our indwelling God-Spirit.
Jesus revealed and exemplified a religion of love-security in the Father's love, with joy in sharing this love in the service of the human brotherhood.
Every time any person makes a reflective moral choice, they immediately experience a new divine invasion of their soul.
Man's contact with the highest objective reality, God, is only through the purely subjective experience of knowing him, worshipping him, and of realizing family membership with him.
Religion is mankind's supreme experience during the mortal nature, and love is the highest motivation that any person may utilize in their universe ascent-but love, divested of truth, beauty, and goodness is only a sentiment.
The religious person can transcend an environment and, in this way, escape the limitations of the world through the insight of divine love. This concept of love generates in the soul of man the super-animal effort to find truth, beauty, and goodness; and when these are found, God is found-and the finder is consumed with the desire to be like him.
Be not discouraged; human evolution is still in progress, and the revelation of God to the world, in and through Jesus shall not fail.
The great challenge to modern man is to achieve better communication with the divine indwelling Spirit of God.
Man's greatest adventure consists in a sane effort to advance the borders of self-consciousness, through the realms of soul-consciousness, in a whole-hearted effort to reach the borderland of spirit-consciousness-contact with the divine presence. Such an experience constitutes God-consciousness, an experience mightily confirmative of the pre-existent truth of the religious experience of knowing God.
Our relationship with God is an experience of faith in that we have reached out to the borderland of spirit consciousness to the point of contact of the divine presence, the God-Spirit within-and so attained that spirit consciousness that is equivalent to knowledge of the actuality of our child-parent relationship with the Father.
The Father is living love and this life of the Father is in his Son. And the Spirit of the Father is in his Son's sons and daughters-mortal man. And when all is said and done, the Father idea is still the highest human concept of God.
Jesus lived his revelatory life amongst a tightly knit group of apostles, disciples, and a women's corps. They all knew him intimately, living almost all of their lives together in personal relationship.
In being required to live our lives as Jesus lived his, we need to recognize that the act we might put on during public teaching or preaching is usually put on to impress-it is not the real self, it is not the self that is revealed during our intimate everyday family living in which our spouse, our children, our closest associates know us as we really are. Acter
It is really only among those who know and love us best that we can live an effective and truly God-revealing life. Elsewhere, most often in our relationships, we are acting. Acting has no spiritual value to the actor.
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The Urantia Book Fellowship
Serving the Readership since 1955