Spiritual Advice and Guidance Blog: Urantia Book

Q: How to cope with big disappointments in life and related pain and sorrow? Is there an experience here on earth that I must absolutely do because I will not be able to do it after my physical death?

A: You are not alone in asking this question regarding pain and sorrow - these kinds of experiences are part of the human condition, and affect all of us at one time or another. Sometimes, the pain is great, and we wonder "why," or, "why me?" Well, we might also ask "why?" when we are blessed with good experiences...and I am sure you have had those, also. Of course, the pain really gets our attention...

The Urantia Book provides a wonderful perspective on the inevitable changes that we humans go through in this life. Among the nine points of sage advice given, is this:

Is pleasure-the satisfaction of happiness-desirable? Then must man live in a world where the alternative of pain and the likelihood of suffering are ever-present experiential possibilities.(3:5.14)

And there is this:

The greatest affliction of the cosmos is never to have been afflicted. Mortals only learn wisdom by experiencing tribulation.(48:7.14)
You cannot perceive spiritual truth until you feelingly experience it, and many truths are not really felt except in adversity.(48:7.18)

This is taken from a section of The Urantia Book listing "twenty-eight statements of human philosophy" that are used in teaching new arrivals to the Mansion Worlds. You will find many of these very comforting and illuminating.

Sorrowful experiences can make us or break us. On a world that is filled with free-willed beings, error and its resulting pain and sorrow are simply a part of life. At the same time, as free-willed beings, we have the opportunity to use these experiences for our growth, rather than a reason to just give up. It is important to remember that nothing stays the same in this life. All is subject to change. Only God is changeless. It is our job to learn to establish and nurture a relationship with God so that when the hard times come, we are able to weather the changes, knowing that no matter what, we are assured of inevitable victory over all matters of the world on which we live through our free-will identification with our highest Self. The Urantia Book reveals to us a loving heavenly Father, a good God who knows all about our sorrows and pain because he experiences all of it with us. We have an intimate and ever-present friend in the Father. His Spirit actually dwells within our minds. Take heart:

It is literally true: "in all your afflictions he is afflicted." "In all your triumphs he triumphs in and with you."(1:5.16)

A study of the life of Jesus is quite helpful in hard times as well, as Jesus experienced just about the worst times that ever were heaped onto a human being. He emerged victorious over many of the sorrowful times in his life, and even over death, and he showed us how we can do the same, no matter our lot in life.

The experience that we have must have here in our earthly lives is the experience of life itself, and its associated joys, sorrows, spiritual progress and growth. Once we are translated into our next life - our eternal life - we will experience a whole different kind of existence - one in which the earthly kinds of experiences will no longer be possible. There's nothing we experience here that can't be augmented or improved upon in the mansion world experience but nevertheless, the angels are envious of the mortal lives we live so there's a quality to this life that's hard if not impossible to compensate for. While we are here, we have important work to do:

From The Urantia Book:

Very important is the work of preparation for the next higher sphere, but nothing equals the importance of the work of the world in which you are actually living. (48:6.26)

Your short sojourn on Urantia, on this sphere of mortal infancy, is only a single link, the very first in the long chain that is to stretch across universes and through the eternal ages. It is not so much what you learn in this first life; it is the experience of living this life that is important. Even the work of this world, paramount though it is, is not nearly so important as the way in which you do this work. There is no material reward for righteous living, but there is profound satisfaction - consciousness of achievement - and this transcends any conceivable material reward.(39:4.13)

The overcoming of adversity can be seen as a certain source of this "profound satisfaction."

Jesus taught:

"It is the Father's will that mortal man should work persistently and consistently toward the betterment of his estate on earth. Intelligent application would enable man to overcome much of his earthly misery." (148:5.3)

I do hope that this reply has been of some help and comfort to you.

Labels: affliction, disappointment, experience, Jesus, life, pain, Sorrow, The Urantia Book

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Monday, April 27, 2009

Why is life running so fast?

Q: Why is life running so fast? please can you tell something comforting?

A: Why is life running so fast? I'm sure it would be more comforting to us all if the pace of life slowed down. There have been periods of hundreds of thousands of years in human history where there was little if any personal, cultural, or societal change and today we experience more of those changes in just one year than most of humanity ever experienced in a lifetime.

Perhaps these extracts from The Urantia Book will provide some clarity:

Nature is a resultant of two cosmic factors: first, the immutability, perfection, and rectitude of Paradise Deity, and second, the experimental plans, executive blunders, insurrectionary errors, incompleteness of development, and imperfection of wisdom of creatures, from the highest to the lowest. Nature therefore carries a uniform, unchanging, majestic, and marvelous thread of perfection from the circle of eternity; but on each planet, and in each individual life, this nature is modified, qualified, and perchance marred by the acts, the mistakes, and the disloyalties of creatures; and therefore must nature ever be of a changing mood, whimsical withal, though stable underneath. (4:2.3)

Human life is an endless change unified by the stability of the unchanging personality. (112:5.20 )

When men pray for providential intervention in the circumstances of life, many times the answer to their prayer is their own changed attitudes toward life. (118:10.21)

Remember that the order of progressive evolution is subjected to sudden and unexpected periodical changes in both the material and the spiritual worlds. (170:4.4)

In terms of material and spiritual progress we have a long way to go in order to enter that more enlightened age that's destined to evolve. The accelerated pace of change that we're experiencing is an indication that that evolution is underway and even at this rapid rate our arrival at that state of relative peace and calm will be far into the distant future. As the quote above indicates, prayer is the best action for helping us accept the circumstances of life and for finding happiness during our fast-paced and tumultuous lives.

Finally, here is another reference that may be of help to you, as well as an inspiration for weathering these changes of modern life- Religion and Social Reconstruction.

Among other things in this section, we learn that "Mankind is on the march toward a new and unrevealed planetary destiny."

Thank you for the question...

Labels: change, life, personality, prayer, progress, The Urantia Book

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Monday, April 07, 2008

Music and Life - Alan Watts

Music And Life

a short animated video illustrating a great spiritual truth - the journey IS the destination

URL: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ERbvKrH-GC4

Labels: achievement, Alan Watts, life, music, video

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Tuesday, January 10, 2006

What happens to a person who commits suicide?

A: What happens to a person who commits suicide?

B: God's plan is that we live a full, productive, and meaningful life here in the flesh. Suicide would be an individual's free will choice not to participate.

The Urantia Book's definition for suicide is "fleeing from the realities of mortal existence". Other than that there's no real discussion about the spiritual consequences of suicide in the book. My studies lead me to believe that suicide indicates not only a weakness of character but a high degree of selfishness and disregard for friends, relatives, and loved ones. The value of this one life in the flesh is emphasized continually throughout the book so to treat a precious opportunity with such disregard surely reaps consequences in the next life to come. Presumably a person arriving on the mansion worlds from a suicide doesn't encounter circumstances much different from those a person arriving because of natural death would but there will be more for them to learn in compensation for their weakness of character and lack of compassion.

Since our perspective of the meaning of life is so limited here it must be that no matter what difficult life situations we encounter it is important to meet them head on to the best of our ability.

The Urantia Book stresses that God the Father is forgiving - God gives second chances until they're no longer acknowledged by the recipient, until we decide we don't want another chance. I suspect then that the effects of suicide have a stronger effect upon the loved ones left behind than they do on the one who has departed.

Labels: free will, God, life, suicide, The Urantia Book

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