Spiritual Advice and Guidance Blog: Urantia Book

Q: Is God the darkness we see in the universe? And is that the darkness inside of every human when they close their eyes?

A: My first thought is that the darkness (and light) that we can see with our physical eyes is a purely physical perception. Even when we close our eyes, the darkness that we "see" is simply due to the fact that we have shuttered our eyes to the outside world.

When we view the sky in daytime, we see plenty of light, as our perception is that the sky is lighted up - and it is, because of the sunshine's reflection off of the earth's atmosphere. But when we see images from space - for example, from the Hubble Telescope, we see islands of lighted galaxies surrounded by large areas of darkness. This can be a confusing perception if we are aiming to "see" God. One might think that if God is everywhere, that the areas of darkness must be God as well; and that is true, in a sense.

We know from Urantia Book teachings that God, as the Infinite Spirit, Third Person of the Trinity - pervades all space.

(9:0.5) "The Infinite Spirit pervades all space; he indwells the circle of eternity; and the Spirit, like the Father and the Son, is perfect and changelessâ€”absolute."

(2:1.1) " 'Touching the Infinite, we cannot find him out. The divine footsteps are not known.' The blinding light of the Father's presence is such that to his lowly creatures he apparently 'dwells in the thick darkness.'"

But...

(4:1.6) " 'The Father unceasingly pours forth energy, light, and life. The work of God is literal as well as spiritual. 'He stretches out the north over the empty space and hangs the earth upon nothing.' "

All of the space bodies that we can see are apparently suspended in darkness, and so I can see why one might think that the darkness IS God. But, so are all the areas of light. However, we need to use our mind and our spirit to resolve this issue:

(103:6.4) "When man analytically inspects the universe through the material endowments of his physical senses and associated mind perception, the cosmos appears to be mechanical and energy-material. Such a technique of studying reality consists in turning the universe inside out.

"A logical and consistent philosophic concept of the universe cannot be built up on the postulations of either materialism or spiritism, for both of these systems of thinking, when universally applied, are compelled to view the cosmos in distortion, the former contacting with a universe turned inside out, the latter realizing the nature of a universe turned outside in. Never, then, can either science or religion, in and of themselves, standing alone, hope to gain an adequate understanding of universal truths and relationships without the guidance of human philosophy and the illumination of divine revelation.

"Always must man's inner spirit depend for its expression and self-realization upon the mechanism and technique of the mind. Likewise must man's outer experience of material reality be predicated on the mind consciousness of the experiencing personality. Therefore are the spiritual and the material, the inner and the outer, human experiences always correlated with the mind function and conditioned, as to their conscious realization, by the mind activity. Man experiences matter in his mind; he experiences spiritual reality in the soul but becomes conscious of this experience in his mind. The intellect is the harmonizer and the ever-present conditioner and qualifier of the sum total of mortal experience. Both energy-things and spirit values are colored by their interpretation through the mind media of consciousness."

And so, while we see one thing through our physical senses, the actual truth of what we are seeing has to be modified through the ministry of Spirit and revelation before we can get the whole picture. We need more than our physical senses to understand the truth of God.

Please consider this passage from The Urantia Book:

(102:0.1) "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.

"This saving faith has its birth in the human heart when the moral consciousness of man realizes that human values may be translated in mortal experience from the material to the spiritual, from the human to the divine, from time to eternity."

It is by FAITH that we see beyond our physical perceptions and come to know the "Father of lights." The darkness that we perceive when we close our eyes or view the night sky is deceptive, if this perception is as far as we go in looking for evidence of God in our experience. There dwells within every mortal a "light" that can only be perceived through the ministry of spirit:

(1:3.3) "The spiritual luminosity of the Father's personal presence is a "light which no mortal man can approach; which no material creature has seen or can see." But it is not necessary to see God with the eyes of the flesh in order to discern him by the faith-vision of the spiritualized mind."

(107:4.5) "There is a characteristic light, a spirit luminosity, which accompanies this divine presence, and which has become generally associated with Thought Adjusters. In the universe of Nebadon this Paradise luminosity is widespreadly known as the "pilot light"; on Uversa it is called the "light of life." On Urantia this phenomenon has sometimes been referred to as that 'true light which lights every man who comes into the world.'"

So, I would say that while God certainly does pervade that darkness that we see with our physical eyes, he cannot be defined as that darkness alone; he is also a luminous presence - within AND without - that can only be "seen" with the anointed eyes of faith.

Thanks for this most interesting question.

Labels: darkness, faith, God, light, physical senses, The Urantia Book, universe

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Saturday, April 04, 2009

Does TUB discuss any hitherto unknown human senses or abilities?

Q: Does The Urantia Book discuss any hitherto unknown human senses or abilities?

A: The authors of The Urantia Book tell us that our average sense endowment numbers twelve. Now, I am only aware of the usual five sense - sight, smell, taste, feeling, and hearing, so, it gets one to thinking... They call these twelve sense "physical-sense endowments," and I wonder if at least one of them could be connected to the legacy of animal fear that we have inherited. Fear can be a very visceral reaction. I also wonder if one of our senses could be connected to discernment of the passage of time or our ability to discern the presence of another personality - or non-personality. Additionally, our bodies possess an innate ability to heal themselves. Perhaps memory is considered a "sense." And then, there's always the "sense of humor and the "sense of fairness," or the "sense of right and wrong." Or, it could just be that our senses simply fall below what is considered "average" when taken in total against all humans in the cosmos. It is an interesting subject to think about, right?

Here is a quote:

The average special physical-sense endowment of human beings is twelve, though the special senses of the three-brained mortals are extended slightly beyond those of the one- and two-brained types; they can see and hear considerably more than the Urantia races. p564:5(49:4.3)

I find it interesting to conjecture whether we would have developed keener senses had Adam and Eve not defaulted, and we had had the benefit of their superior life plasm. Consider this quote:

Both the physical and spiritual visions of Adam and Eve were far superior to those of the present-day peoples. Their special senses were much more acute, and they were able to see the midwayers and the angelic hosts, the Melchizedeks, and the fallen Prince Caligastia, who several times came to confer with his noble successor. They retained the ability to see these celestial beings for over one hundred years after the default. These special senses were not so acutely present in their children and tended to diminish with each succeeding generation. p851:3(76:4.5)

I say it is a pity, for I would love to be able to see our friends in the spiritual realms.

We can look forward to some extra- and enhanced senses once we pass through the portals of death and assume our morontia existence, as in this quote:

The morontia senses are seventy, and the higher spiritual orders of reaction response vary in different types of beings from seventy to two hundred and ten.p154:5(14:2.3)

And to give you an idea of how inadequate our physical senses are in discerning spiritual reality, consider this quote about the central universe and Havona:

None of the physical beings of the central universe would be visible to Urantians. Neither would any of the physical stimuli of those faraway worlds excite a reaction in your gross sense organs. If a Urantia mortal could be transported to Havona, he would there be deaf, blind, and utterly lacking in all other sense reactions; he could only function as a limited self-conscious being deprived of all environmental stimuli and all reactions thereto. p154:6(14:2.4)

Finally, as to special abilities, I think that mortals are variously gifted with many different abilities - in art, music, writing, mathmatics, science, etc. Some people have amazing abilities that no one even understands - like savants in math or music or memory who are otherwise seemingly mentally retarded. Some of these folks are an endless source of wonder for us all.

Here's a quote that helps illuminate some of this for us:

There are three possible sources of special human ability: At the bottom always there exists the natural or inherent aptitude. Special ability is never an arbitrary gift of the Gods; there is always an ancestral foundation for every outstanding talent. In addition to this natural ability, or rather supplemental thereto, there may be contributed the leadings of the Thought Adjuster in those individuals whose indwelling Adjusters may have had actual and bona fide experiences along such lines on other worlds and in other mortal creatures. In those cases where both the human mind and the indwelling Adjuster are unusually skillful, the spirit artisans may be delegated to act as harmonizers of these talents and otherwise to assist and inspire these mortals to seek for ever-perfecting ideals and to attempt their enhanced portrayal for the edification of the realm. p507:7 (44:8.2)

Labels: abilities, morontia, physical senses, Thought Adjuster

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