Spiritual Advice and Guidance Blog: Urantia Book

Q: If I take the Urantia Book as "the" source on God's will, will I tell the Adjuster "I don't need you," And rebel?

A: I am not sure that I understand your question fully...but I will answer with some ideas that may be helpful to you.

Accepting any source as "the" authority on the will of God runs counter to the teachings in The Urantia Book - especially the teachings of Jesus. While The Urantia Book is a marvelous revelation, and a sure guide as to the value of seeking and finding God's will, it is not, and does not claim to be, an "authority," and any attempt to capture those teachings and create a religion of authority out of them means to me that you maybe need to read and study further.

There is only one authority when it comes God's will, and that is the authority that comes through your inner experience with God, who dwells within your mind as the Adjuster, and who helps to "adjust" your thinking to correspond with God's will. When we make the decision that declares "It is my will do do your will," we are then on the right track. The decision to do God's will does not include rebellion against that will. Although that is certainly a possibility, it is never a good choice, as can be easily seen from our planet's unfortunate history...for example, the default of Adam and Eve, and the Lucifer rebellion.

There is no force that can go against your freewill decision. It is solely yours to make. Likewise, it is solely your decision to reject the leadings of your Adjuster, if that is what you want. I have no way of knowing what your future decisions may be, but I suspect you do not want that...

The Urantia Book is a revelation - it is a sort of roadmap that helps us to see the big picture - to discover our place in the universe, our place in God's family, our origins and destiny as human beings. Your acceptance of the teachings should not bring fear of losing your freewill. God himself will not interfere with your free will.

Rebellion against God's will is now, and has always been, a matter of individual choice. In the same way, choosing to do God's will is also a personal choice; freewill choices are made in the mind, and expressed in action. They may be influenced by outside factors, but free will choices are not pre-ordained according to outside factors. The responsibility for each choice lies with each individual.

Adopting and living the teachings of The Urantia Book should help, not hinder, the living of a life dedicated to the seeking and finding of God's will. If you continue to sincerely study and explore the Urantia Book, you will easily see that your fears are totally unfounded.

For more information on these topics, please see our study on God's Will HERE, and also our study on Free Will HERE. It also may be helpful for you to understand better the nature of Revelation, including the revelation that is The Urantia Book

I hope this answer has been helpful to you...if I have not addressed your question fully, please write back with more information.

Labels: authority, free will, God's Will, spiritual experience, The Urantia Book, Thought Adjuster

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Sunday, September 27, 2009

How can I know Urantia book is not a temptation from the devil...?

Q: How can I know Urantia book is not a temptation from the devil or some evil forces? I am a Catholic I was told this is the only religion.

A: Thanks for your note to Truthbook, a site dedicated to the teachings of The Urantia Book.

When we hold the beliefs of some particular religion, we can become frightened into thinking that any deviation from that theology is dangerous; it is then natural that we look upon anything new as suspect - even evil - and to be avoided. This can be true even though our inner spirit may testify to us that we have found something quite wonderful. Fear can hold us back from embracing new truth.

How do we know that The Urantia Book is not of the devil or from other "evil forces?"

Knowledge is power - one of the best features of The Urantia Book is a complete and factual exploration of Lucifer, Satan, and various other evil personalities who have so negatively impacted our planet. The expose is anything but favorable for them. If The Urantia Book was meant to tempt someone into sympathy for these beings, it could be considered a failure in that regard...

However, the overwhelming teachings of The Urantia Book surround the fact that man is a child of God and is a valued member of the family of this loving Father-God. In addition, one of the cornerstone teachings of The Urantia Book is that you carry a part of God himself within your mind, which forever ennobles you as a being of eternal status whose destiny is to one day reunite with that Source of all goodness on Paradise. One of the functions of this Divine fragment is to guide you into a knowledge of God's will, and to help you to develop an immortal soul. This concept can hardly be considered a temptation of the devil, for the devil does not lead men to God.

Your question might have been sent from any number of people who have been told that their religion is "the only religion." Reason tells us that not all of these claims can be correct.

Is there only one true religion? The Urantia Book states:

(143:7.2) "True religion is the act of an individual soul in its self-conscious relations with the Creator; organized religion is man's attempt to socialize the worship of individual religionists."

Now, if that was the extent of organized religion's attempts to reach the truth-seeker, there would be no conflict, but often, the organization also teaches retribution of some sort if the faithful person should question or abandon this teaching. This retribution is usually in the form of eternal damnation. This could be the source of your uneasiness about any other teaching being of a possibly "evil" source.

Any serious study of The Urantia Book will deliver you from these kinds of fears. You harbor within yourself an unerring guide for discerning truth. It is the Spirit that Jesus sent when he left the earth - the promised helper and Comforter. To be safe, always approach any study of a religious text with a prayer for discernment, asking that Jesus be your guide. In this way, you can't ever be "tempted" into a false belief, for Jesus will ever be faithful to your trust in him. Fear not..." Divine truth is best known by its spiritual flavor."

While the teachings of The Urantia Book do not promote any particular church as superior to any other, an affiliation with a God-centered church is entirely compatible with a belief in Urantia Book concepts. Many Urantia Book readers are practicing Catholics; however, the truthseeker must know that the only "true" religion is in the realm of personal spiritual experience, and this is the only religion that Jesus ever taught.

I suggest that you read Jesus' Discourses on True Religion HERE

In this section we learn that:

"Jesus made it clear that the great difference between the religion of the mind and the religion of the spirit is that, while the former is upheld by ecclesiastical authority, the latter is wholly based on human experience."

The Catholic Church, along with many other organized and institutionalized religions, constitutes a religion of the mind - a religion of authority. From this information, and after reading the above Discourses of Jesus, you should be able to form a personally meaningful resolution to the issue regarding the exclusive truth claimed by the Catholic Church.

You may remember that Jesus himself was accused of being in league with the devil during his ministry by people who were desperate to discredit him. His ideas were so revolutionary because they threatened the authority of the religious institutions of his time - so much so, that they eventually murdered him for espousing these liberating ideas to the people. Why? Because the religion of the spirit - true religion - forever leaves the individual religionist free to embrace the truth wherever s/he may find it;

"...true religion is delivered from the custody of priests and all sacred classes and finds its real manifestation in the individual souls of men."

Jesus' teachings are revolutionary today, too. The religion of Jesus still threatens the religions of authority, and sometimes people dismiss it out of fear of some imagined retribution because of what they have been told. The only real proof that you will ever be able to find about any truth is to use your own discernment to separate fact from fantasy. If you can suspend your fears and open your mind, you will find your sincere search for truth rewarded.

Finally, I leave you with this encouraging passage regarding God, and religion:

(2:6.1) "In the physical universe we may see the divine beauty, in the intellectual world we may discern eternal truth, but the goodness of God is found only in the spiritual world of personal religious experience. In its true essence, religion is a faith-trust in the goodness of God. God could be great and absolute, somehow even intelligent and personal, in philosophy, but in religion God must also be moral; he must be good. Man might fear a great God, but he trusts and loves only a good God. This goodness of God is a part of the personality of God, and its full revelation appears only in the personal religious experience of the believing sons of God."

Thanks again for writing. I hope this answer has been of help to you.

Labels: Catholicism, God, Jesus, organized religion, religion, spiritual experience, the devil, The Urantia Book

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Saturday, January 19, 2008

Why is there so much addiction in the world? Does God give us an answer?

Q: Why is there so much addiction in the world? Does God give us an answer?

A: Since The Urantia Book offers no specific information regarding the word "addiction," I turned to an online dictionary to gain a starting point for our discussion:

The American Heritage Science Dictionary :
A physical or psychological need for a habit-forming substance, such as a drug or alcohol. In physical addiction, the body adapts to the substance being used and gradually requires increased amounts to reproduce the effects originally produced by smaller doses. See more at withdrawal.
A habitual or compulsive involvement in an activity, such as gambling.

I agree with you that addiction is running rampant in our world today. It seems important to discover just why people become addicted before we can discern whether God has an answer for us.

I have a bit of experience with this subject, as I spent many years in 12-Step programs. My overwhelming addiction was to food, and at one time, I weighed nearly 250 pounds as a result. I could not stop eating. Today, I understand that my overarching need for great quantities of food was a direct result of my feeling of emptiness inside. I tried in vain to feed that emptiness with food. It did help in the short term, but of course, it was a dangerous and ineffective fix. Others feed their particular emptiness (the "hole in the soul") with alcohol, drugs, gambling, shopping, rage, sex, or something else that ultimately proves to be a futile, and damaging, material answer to what I believe to be a spiritual problem. That empty feeling is evidence of the mortal creature's need for awareness of their connection to God.

Jesus said: p1766:4 159:3.8 The world is filled with hungry souls who famish in the very presence of the bread of life; men die searching for the very God who lives within them. Men seek for the treasures of the kingdom with yearning hearts and weary feet when they are all within the immediate grasp of living faith. Faith is to religion what sails are to a ship; it is an addition of power, not an added burden of life. There is but one struggle for those who enter the kingdom, and that is to fight the good fight of faith. The believer has only one battle, and that is against doubtâ€”unbelief.

In our modern world, there are countless ways in which one can divert oneself, and one's feelings of existential emptiness. But at the end of the day, no material substance can ever satisfy that hunger the way that God can - the way that religion can.

Many of our problems are a result of low self-esteem, childhood abuse issues, or just plain ingorance of the spiritual world, and the comfort and solace that can be found there. When one is in these states, one is not always able to see reason, and oftentimes, one relies heavily on one's own misdirected will to handle life's problems (the self-will run rampant). This is pretty normal, but not particularly sane - certainly not effective, if one is relying on one's limited understanding, which may be tainted by the above issues.

Unfortunately, it is only when the addict begins to understand that s/he is out of control, and begins to suffer more from the addiction than from the underlying problem, that healing can occur. This is one reason that 12-Step programs are so helpful, for the number one step is an admission of one's powerlessness over the addiction. After that, one learns to accept the possibility that there is a power greater than oneself, who can retore our sanity. And the third step is that leap of faith that says "I believe."

The Urantia Book is clear about this point -
p43:4 2:7.11 Health, sanity, and happiness are integrations of truth, beauty, and goodness as they are blended in human experience.

And what is true, good and beautiful? Only God, and the things of God, fit this description. And the integration of these qualities, found only in the spiritual experience of finding God, is the secret for treating, and ending, addiction. It is the secret to a happy life.

I am not here to tout the advantages of the 12-Step program - only to share with you my personal experience with it. Any mind-set which produces the spiritual experience will be effective - that mind-set that surrenders one's need to know all the answers into the hands of one's spiritual Parent. When once the addicted individual begins to recognize, and accept, the Presence of God in their own experience, unhealthy addiction of any sort can be healed. The hole in the soul is filled, self-esteem and sanity are restored, and the person can begin to rebuild their life on a solid foundation.

Thanks again for this important question.

Labels: 12-Step Program, Addiction, faith, God, spiritual experience, The Urantia Book

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