Urantia Book Commentary and Articles

This video is the result of interviews conducted with various Urantia Book readers, who explain in their own words what The Urantia Book is. In heartfelt and inspiring fashion, "What Is The Urantia Book?" helps others understand why this Revelation is such an important source of truth, beauty and goodness, and how it has impacted some of those whose lives it has touched.

Labels: God, interviews, readers, searching, The Urantia Book, truth, video

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Tuesday, June 26, 2007

An Introduction to The Urantia Book for Conservative Christians

Meredith J. Sprunger5/7/82

This document examines the nature of Divine revelation as related to the Bible and draws parallels to the spiritual experience of readers of The Urantia Book.

Contents:How We Got Our Bible
Recognizing New Revelation
The New Fulfills and Enhances the Old
The Human and the Divine
An Enlarged Spiritual Universe
Saviour of Mankind
On Approaching New Truth

Many devout Christians of conservative or fundamentalistic background have read sections of The Urantia Book and recognized the superb quality of its spiritual insights but have been troubled by the revelatory claim of the book or positions taken which differ from some of the literalistic doctrines of fundamentalism. These people over the years have written to ask questions, express perplexity, seek help, or challenge statements.

This paper seeks to speak with constructive understanding to these questions and spiritual anxieties. In many ways it has been the Christian fundamentalists who have maintained the vibrant spiritual emphasis of religion in America. Our intent is not to contend with fundamentalistic beliefs but, rather, to set these spiritual truths in a larger frame of reference which, hopefully, will enable those who hold to a conservative theology to more adequately understand that we subscribe to the same spiritual realities and are brothers in Christ.

Most people who accept the Bible as revelation do not do so because some one demanded obedience to this belief. They accept the Bible as the word of God because they recognize its spiritual truths. Your approach to The Urantia Book should be made the same way. Before you read The Urantia Book you should not regard it as revelation. Only after you have read it are you in a position to begin to consider whether or not it may have been inspired by God. Faith and conviction must come from honest and sincere inner leading and not from external authoritarian claim or demand.

How We Got Our Bible

In thinking about the entire question of revelation it may be helpful to know how we got our Bible. Theological schools devote entire courses to this question and dozens of books are available on the subject. But you can get a short; synoptic knowledge of the Bible's origin by going to the Public Library reference shelf and getting a copy of Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. Look up the term "canon," which means "officially accepted standards or books" and read about how we got our Bible.

You will find the Old Testament evolved in three main stages over thousands of years of history. It was edited periodically by many scholars. The entire canon of the Old Testament was not decided until around 90 A.D. at the famous Council of Jamnia where Hebrew scholars finally determined which books should be included in the "official" scriptures of Judaism. The process and the conclusions are much more complex and extensive than this brief description might lead you to believe.

The New Testament began in the early Christian Church as a series of papers and letters written by numerous people. These papers were circulated among believers, edited, combined, and added to by many early scholars and church leaders. The names of apostles were often attached to the better papers so that they would have more authority for church members.

From around 144 A.D. to 367 A.D. various scholars and bishops drew up their own lists of books which they thought should be canonical or officially recognized books. Finally, Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, wrote an Easter letter to the churches of his diocese in the year 367 in which he discusses the books which he considered canonical. This is the first list which includes all of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament as we now have it. His list, however, was in a different sequence than our current New Testament. At various church councils in the years that followed, Athanasius' list was widely adopted and in this way we got our New Testament.

In Athanasius' pastoral letter he wrote with all of the authority of a bishop, "let no one add to them (his list) or take away aught of them." Such authoritarian exhortations were considered necessary to protect the purity of revelatory teachings; and statements like the admonition in Rev. 22:18-19 "I warn every one who hears the words of the prophecy of this book..." were common. In the same way the revelatory commission of The Urantia Book requested that the book be published under international copyright protection so that the purity of these teachings could be safeguarded. These precautions are not meant to imply that God ceases to enlarge the revelation of himself and spiritual truth to succeeding generations. The history of the Bible shows that God does progressively reveal larger truths to a developing world. Early religious leaders used authoritarian warnings and admonitions frequently to protect the latest prophetic messages.

Once you understand how the content of the Bible was accumulated, edited, adopted, and officially approved, you realize that revelation is validated by centuries of experience. Many people recognize revelation immediately because the indwelling spirit of Got confirms what they hear or read but it takes many people over a long period of time to establish a social tradition of revelation such as the Bible. This tradition along with the authority and prestige of the institutional church results in a cultural conditioning which largely determines how the average person thinks and acts.

Recognizing New Revelation

The Urantia Book being very new must be evaluated by the indwelling spirit of God working in the mind and heart-of each individual. You should accept nothing in The Urantia Book or any other book unless it passes this inner test of truth. I am confident that a thousand years hence, we will have a solid social tradition witnessing to the revelatory quality of The Urantia Book.

Revelation is always the product of the action of God in the life of man. God has an infinite number of ways to do this. In Jesus of Nazareth he used both genetic-physical and spiritual means to bring revelation to us in the form of a person. In the writings of Paul he used spiritual inspiration in the mind of Paul to bring us revelation in the form of brief letters to churches. In John's book of Revelation he used a vision to the mind of John to bring us revelation. In The Urantia Book he used high spirit personalities to bring revelation in the form of a book. God could use an infinite number of channels and manifestations to bring revelation to his mortal children. It is God's wisdom which determines the time, place, method, and form of revelation. We might speculate on why God uses certain channels and forms but this would only be an educated guess.

The spirit of God is always active in the world and in this sense revelation is continuous - usually through inner guidance to individuals who share these prophetic insights with their society. Periodically epochal revelations occur - such as the coming of Jesus. Epochal revelations naturally have a much greater effect on our world than the continuous forms of evolutionary revelation. A study of these epochal revelations show that each succeeding one enlarges and enhances the earlier spiritual understanding.

Revelation must always be given in the language, forms of knowledge, and philosophical concepts which are meaningful to the people given this revelation at the time in which it is given. As human knowledge expands revelation uses these more advanced concepts to convey its spiritual message. This is a never ending process.

The New Fulfills and Enhances the Old

Just as the New Testament fulfills and upsteps the Old Testament, The Urantia Book confirms and enlarges the truths of the Bible. Most people have a much greater appreciation of the Bible after reading The Urantia Book. The Bible and The Urantia Book are companion volumes. Not to recognize this close supportive relationship is to repeat an ancient error. Early in the Christian Church a wealthy ship-owner by the name of Marcion headed a movement to eliminate the Old Testament from Christian literature. The church wisely rejected his views. Any reader of The Urantia Book who took this same attitude toward the Bible, in my judgment, would be making this same mistake. There are many people, in fact, who have not been interested in the Bible until after they have read The Urantia Book.

Because of the natural suspicion conservative religionists have toward any claim of new revelation, a rather common reaction which well meaning fundamentalists have toward The Urantia Book is that it could be a work of Satan. This is an understandable attitude of people who do not have a scholarly background in religion and who have been taught to zealously defend the Bible. It is also interesting to recall that this was the same possibility raised in connection with the message of Jesus. Jesus' response to this accusation, I think, is as good as can be made. He said he should be judged by the fruits of his life - "How can Satan cast out Satan?" The Urantia Book should be judged in the same way. You will find it supports the mission and message of Jesus and refutes the intentions and message of Satan. Epochal revelation will probably always meet the same reception given the message of Jesus. The leaders of traditional religious institutions are likely to oppose it; but, in time, the common people will receive it gladly.

The Human and the Divine

A careful study of the life and teachings of Jesus reveals there is no contradiction between the spiritual teachings regarding Jesus found in The Urantia Book and the Bible. Certain physical and cosmological facts or assumptions are corrected and Jesus' entire life and teachings are enlarged by The Urantia Book; but the essential spiritual truths do not change.

For instance Christian theologians generally affirm that Jesus was both a human and a divine personality but the majority of scholars in mainline churches have long recognized that the story of the immaculate conception and virgin birth were added by the early church to make his divine nature more believable for the church members of those times. An interesting observation is that today, except for the most unlettered people, this story is generally a stumbling block to belief in the authenticity of the Biblical record of the divinity of Jesus. If the virgin birth is a historical fact, the reverse argument is a much sounder philosophical position. That is, since God could have used any method he desired to incarnate his son, the fact of the divinity of Jesus makes the virgin birth a possible option of the divine plan.

The reason most mainline church theologians do not accept the virgin birth story is that only two of the four gospels record it and no where else in the New Testament is it referred to The earliest gospel, Mark, and the latest gospel, John, do not mention it. Such an important event one would expect all of the gospel writers to highlight. Secondly, there are many instances of supernatural conception and virgin birth recorded in the annals of religious history. It was the characteristic method by which ancient peoples designated the divine origin of their prophets and leaders. Paradoxically, the Biblical account traces the lineage of Jesus back to David through the ancestry of Joseph, not Mary. Finally, modern Christian scholars reject the virgin birth story because it is observed that God usually uses the natural laws of his creation to work his purposes in the world.

The spiritual truth regarding the nature of Jesus is that he was both human and divine. This The Urantia Book strongly affirms. The book does not even mention the immaculate conception and virgin birth doctrines. It is assumed that the Father could incarnate his son as a mortal on our world through the natural process of conception and birth. The ancient legend is quietly ignored while the spiritual truths regarding the nature of Jesus are substantiated and enhanced.

An Enlarged Spiritual Universe

The writers of the various books of the Bible had a comparatively simplistic universe cosmology. They visualized a flat earth in the center of creation encompassed by the vault or "firmament" of heaven. This limited astronomical knowledge naturally conditioned their interpretation of spiritual realities and personalities. Basic spiritual truth, therefore, had to be revealed to the Biblical authors in prescientific frames of reference.

The revelators of The Urantia Book present a cosmology which, while in essential agreement with our present astronomical knowledge, goes far beyond our contemporary science. They also clarify our knowledge of the Paradise Trinity, the prebestowal personality and universe status of Jesus, and the functional relationships of spiritual beings in general. Although the Bible does not speak of the Trinity per se, Christian thinkers have developed the doctrine of the Trinity and naturally assumed, without specific Biblical confirmation, that the preincarnate Christ was the second person of the Trinity. The fact that the prologue of John speaks of him as the actual creator of our universe was more or less regarded as a poetic "Logos" doctrine since theologians regarded God the Father as the creator. The authors of The Urantia Book, however, tell us this Biblical description (also stated in Col. 1:16 and Heb. 1:2) of the pre-existent Christ is literally true. He is both the creator and saviour of our universe.

Each Creator Son of a local universe is a unique creation of the Universal Father and the Eternal Son and is known as "the only begotten son" in his universe and all who go to the Father in this universe go through the ministry and means established by this Creator-Savior Son. Even though Jesus is not the second person of the Paradise Trinity, his presence and power are exactly the same as that of the Eternal Son, the second person of the Trinity, if he were acting in the place of Christ in our universe. After Jesus' bestowal on our confused planet, the Father, as recorded in Matthew, placed "all authority in heaven and earth" in his hands; and he has promised one day to return to this world of his crucifixion experience. Here, again, we see The Urantia Book, while correcting assumptions made due to our very limited universe knowledge, confirms and reinforces the basic spiritual truths of the Bible.

Saviour of Mankind

All Christians look to Jesus as the mediator between man and God and regard him as the saviour of mankind. It is in the explanation of this salvation that they differ. Theologians of mainline Christian churches see salvation as the gift of God through faith in Jesus emphasizing God's love for humanity and full acceptance of them as his mortal sons and daughters. The theologians of Christian fundamentalism regard salvation as the gift of God through faith in Jesus because he offered himself as a blood sacrifice demanded by God the Father as the price for forgiving the sins of mankind. This is known as the blood atonement doctrine in which Jesus is seen as the redeemer of humanity from the condemnation of a just and holy God.

The only Christian belief which the authors of The Urantia Book vigorously criticize is the blood atonement theory. They do so because this doctrine distorts and slanders the great love which the Universal Father has for his mortal sons and daughters. It is completely incompatible with Jesus' teachings about the nature of God the Father. God's love is not subordinate to his righteousness or holiness. Love is the Universal Father's primary attitude toward all persons. Jesus is, indeed, the saviour of mankind but not a redeemer.

The blood atonement theory has its origin in the conceptual language of Paul. Coming out of the Jewish tradition and writing with Jewish people in mind, Paul used the symbolic idea of Jesus as the "final sacrifice" in their sacrificial system as a missionary approach which made sense to those with a Jewish background. New Testament scholars today recognize that Paul did not hold a God concept which would be compatible with a literal blood atonement doctrine. He used this sacrificial language because it was the only frame of reference which would be acceptable to the Jews of his day. It was a missionary attempt to relate to the thought patterns of the Jews.

Most ministers in mainline Christian churches have long since abandoned this retributive concept of God. The Bible commentary most widely used in America today is The Interpreter's Bible published by Abingdon Press. In volume VIII, p. 510-11, the writer in commenting on John 3:16 says, "Some of the past explanations of the gospel are not overhelpful to us now. Most of us are not at home in the Jewish sacrificial system; and metaphors drawn from it can be confusing rather than illuminating. And some of the interpretations, popular in the Middle Ages, are to us incredible, and even monstrous. So do many, with the Gospels in their hands, appear to see in them a lesser God giving himself to save us from the implacable fury and resentment of the great God, slow and hard to be appeased, and demanding his pound of flesh from someone. That is hideous heresy; and the blasphemy of blasphemies. It was in the eternal plan of God the Father that Jesus Christ lived out in fact: 'God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself' (II Cor. 5:19), not standing sullenly aside, and needing himself to be reconciled.

We should recognize that most of those who still accept a literal blood atonement theory in our day probably do so out of misunderstanding and with no intent to deny the loving nature of God. To believe that God the Father cannot or will not love man until his innocent son is brutally executed is a cruel distortion of the loving nature of the Heavenly Father Jesus revealed to man. But The Urantia Book does affirm the positive spiritual values associated with the crucifixion and man's salvation which are important to fundamentalists as well as other Christians.

It was the Father's will that Jesus allow the Jewish leaders to dispose of him as they desired. God does not arbitrarily interfere with the premeditated intentions of man. Jesus' death on the cross demonstrates the profound love he and the Father have for man even when they were torturing and executing him. He refuses to use divine power to save himself or punish these misguided evil doers. This great love is the most powerful saving act the Father and the Son could bestow on self-willed man in this situation to eventually deliver him from his ignorance, evil, and sin and cause man to recognize God's transcendent love and accept sonship. Salvation is something which God in Christ makes possible for man. Finite man cannot save himself but through faith he may accept this gift of eternal life. Christ is the way by which all mortals in our universe go to the Father.

On Approaching New Truth

New truth is always challenging and often threatening to traditionalists. This is both natural and good. The tried and true values of historical experience cannot and should not be easily replaced by the new and untested. But these historic truths are periodically upstepped by prophetic vision. Such growth is usually a traumatic experience for individuals, the church, and society.

Every prophet in the history of the Old and New Testaments has met with unbelief and opposition. The priests of society have regularly stoned its prophets. Then their sons of another century build monuments to honor the prophets persecuted by their fathers. It: is good to be cautious and critical; it is helpful to doubt and carefully evaluate. But we need to be open and objective enough to allow the spirit to lead us to larger truth. Jesus told his apostles that he would send the Spirit of Truth through which he would lead them to greater truths in the future. We must be sensitive to this Spirit of Truth. We need to learn to recognize truth in its many forms and varying appearances.

You will find that The Urantia Book will stand the test of critical examination. It is rooted solidly in the traditional spiritual verities of the Christian faith which have endured for centuries. Reading and studying The Urantia Book will give you a deeper and larger vision of this saving faith and help you become a part of a spiritual renaissance which is dawning on our world.

A Service ofThe Urantia Book Fellowship

Labels: Bible, Christians, conservative, divinity, fundamental, God, humanity, Jesus, Meredith Sprunger, Revelation, The Urantia Book, tradition, truth

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Tuesday, January 30, 2007

The Urantia Book from a Jewish Perspective

By Martin Greenhut
Reader of the Urantia Book since 1970

I am a graduate of Talmudical Academy High School and of Yeshiva College in New York City. I also attended the Hebrew Teachers Institute at Yeshiva for six years. For my entire youth I was intensely active in Jewish life and was a practicing orthodox Yeshiva student until my senior year in college when I chose to give up my orthodoxy and its consequent segregation from the rest of the world. I became what is known in Israel today as "a secular Jew". It simply means that I gave up my orthodox involvements and practices and lived as an agnostic... although not hostile to religion... just not able to relate to the various sectarian doctrines. I believed that If God existed he didn't love any people on earth any better than the others and certainly wouldn't exclude anyone from eternal salvation just because they were born into the wrong religion.

As a Jew, the obstacle to relating to Christianity was my resentment for the anti-semetic confrontations that were thrust upon me by Christians. I grew up during WWII and as a teenager I saw the first filmed evidence of the Nazi Holocost that was presented as evidence at the Nuremberg trials. Whenever I heard quotations from "The New Testament" I regarded them as teachings hostile to the Jews and consequently would not read it.

I lived a life dedicated to improving the world and it brought me into contact with all kinds of people. When working with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s movement in the civil rights struggle I often found myself in churches of the blacks and that is where I was first introduced to the love of Jesus.

I was not satisfied that things were as we were taught. I always lived in hope and never left the "Kriat Shema" behind. "Hear o' Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord, your God with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your might." I just knew that He was out there, but I didn't know where.
As it turned out, my search for truth brought the Urantia Book into my hands and since that day I have been taken up with its study and in the practice of its teachings.

Getting into the Urantia Book meant that I had to be open to new truth and this process has meant an ongoing expansion of my understanding of life and of the problems that we are facing in this world. It brought me to the doors of faith which are opened as I knock.

The greatest problem that I had as a Jew were in the teachings about the Paradise Trinity but a careful reading of Book One of the Urantia Book dispelled these doubts with no problem. As for Jesus, the Urantia Book gave me an opportunity to meet him as a Gallilean Jew. I didn't ever have to become a "Christian". If anybody asks me to this day what my religion is I unhesitatingly tell them that I am a Jew.

Knowing Jesus as a jew is an unspeakable blessing. The Urantia Book reveals Jesus' Jewish upbringing, education and racial outlook in such a way as to allow me to identify with him as a Jew. He had the same kind of home and schooling as did I, went to the synagogue as did I, and lived in a jewish culture which has not significantly changed to this day. The prayers and biblical passages that he quoted were the same ones that I used, he attended seders and read from the Torah, had a Bar Mitzvah and his teacher was a chazan. His apostles were Gallilean Jews and his earliest followers were also jews.

The distortions that Pauline Christianity imposeed on the Teachings of Jesus along with the mistakes of his apostles who preached a religion about Jesus rather than the religion of Jesus compromised the Gospel Message. I find Christianity's doctrines of the virgin birth and the doctrine of atonement by the shedding of blood (the crucifixion of Jesus as a sacrificial offering for the sins of man) both alienating and degrading of the wondrous bestowal and the life of truth that Jesus lived here among us. The Revelation of God's love in the human life of the Son of Man will continue to enrich us spiritually in all eternity.

As for the rest of the Urantia Book, its revelations are both challenging and eddifying, inspiring and supreme.

In my opinion, any Jew who gets into the Urantia book will not only gain a profound understanding of our religion but also has a head start in understanding the teachings of our Lord and Creator who lived here as one of us and revealed the Father in Heaven as he lived a human life among us.

There is some especially interesting Jewish Lore that relates to the Urantia revelation which has significance to me.

Pentecost is the Jewish Festival of Shevuoth. It is the Hag HaBikkurim... The festival of the First Fruits. It is also called Z'man Ma-tahn Torateinu... the time of the giving of our Torah.

The day of Pentecost on Which Jesus poured His Spirit of Truth upon all flesh is the same day celebrated by Jews for the giving of the Torah to the world through Moses.

Labels: Christianity, civil rights, Jesus, Jewish, Jewish lore, Martin Greenhut, orthodoxy, Paradise Trinity, The Urantia Book, truth

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Friday, January 26, 2007

The Urantia Book and the Coming Transformation of Civilization

by Stan Hartman

The most important event of the twentieth century is the most important event of the past twenty centuries and most of the world still knows nothing about it.

For those unfamiliar with the huge, strange text that appeared on earth sixty-five years ago, what I have to say here may seem like science-fiction, but it is not. The truth, it turns out, is stranger even than science fiction. We've grown used to the discoveries of science being strange, but this truth, though in part scientific, goes much deeper than science, even into the incredible core of the human mind itself, the center of which is directly connected with the core of the universe. With that statement, I know I've already lost some readers, but I intend to begin here as openly as possible, to save the time of those who will find this story too much to believe. The appearance of The Urantia Book, though it's still largely unknown, will mark this century throughout all future generations, eclipsing even the splitting of the atom. The knowledge this book has brought us is destined to make nuclear power seem trivial, and rather than breeding the dread that atomic energy has bred, will illuminate the deepest, most ancient human ignorance, and make fear an anachronism.

This is the story of a book unlike any ever written, promoted for the most part by word of mouth for the past decades, quietly circulating throughout the world and changing the lives of those who understand what it means for more than forty years now, though it and the phenomenon that gave rise to it began even earlier, in the second decade of the century. The crisis I'll describe that's unfolding around it presently is both tragic and transforming, challenging the best in human nature to once again stand up against its shadows, command them to get behind, and move on into the incredible light ahead.

Those enslaved by tradition will find the book a threat unlike any they have ever faced, though it comes not to destroy but to reveal and clarify, to paraphrase a message from many centuries ago whose significance it illuminates as it has never been illuminated. Likewise, those caught up in the distractions and aimless frivolities of a materialistic culture will find the text, if not a threat, an irrelevant fantasy, too complex and weighty to be amusing.

For the generations to come, though, and for many living now whose life experience has prepared them to recognize it for exactly what it says it is, The Urantia Book marks a turning point in world history that there is no turning back from. Its true students will always seek to serve rather than battle the forces of fear and ignorance that are even now trying to invalidate and destroy the book, though sometimes their deep service may not be recognized as such and may hardly be what the bookâ€™s enemies want. For those who don't know what I'm speaking of, let me expand a little on the story I've been alluding to and have barely begun to tell, though even before I can I need to say more about what the book is.

Only very recently, in historical terms, has the consciousness of most of humankind evolved to the point where it is willing and even eager to embrace the idea that we are not alone in the universe. There are many religions, and the religion some make of science, that resist such an idea, but the mass of humanity has shown itself in the last decades to be prepared for and excited by the possibility of meeting beings from beyond the planet. True scientists, who refuse to confuse what they know with what they surmise, and who have willingly or unwillingly been placed in positions of leadership in the march of human thought, have asserted for many years now that we must not be alone, though they have found no way to understand how the vast distances they assume must separate us from other intelligent worlds can be traversed in a reasonable time by material beings.

Philosophers, however, whose study and expertise are not limited to material facts but also embrace values and meanings, have long understood that we ourselves are more than material beings. And psychologists open-minded enough to realize that the mind can't be explained by brain physiology alone have added to the philosopher's palette the new colors of intuition, insight, and so-called paranormal abilities, which seem to be attributes of mind itself, some of them evident in animals even more than in humans. All of this investigation has led to a revolution in human thinking, making it at times so open to new ideas that it's in danger of falling into delusion and fanaticism, against which scientific thinkers struggle to maintain order and some more fearful religionists become hysterically reactionary. For many centuries before our era, religion was a tyranny in human thought, finally crumbling before the successes and eventually new tyranny of the pseudo-scientific religion of scientism, which asserts that all relevant phenomena can be explained rationally and eventually measured and controlled. It's against this betrayal of the true scientific method, which would never make such claims, that the present uncentered and ungrounded openness of much human thinking has reacted.

In the midst of this century's growing turmoil of ideas, opinions, rigidifying fundamentalisms, wild speculations, actual breakthroughs, catastrophic wars, technology addiction, information explosion, raping of natural resources, ridicule of traditions, and general collapse of order, The Urantia Papers appeared in the following way to a prominent student of Freud who was famous for his work in exposing fraudulent or deluded psychic phenomena.

Here is Dr. William S. Sadler, writing in 1929, in the appendix to his work, The Mind at Mischief, before the text of The Urantia Papers itself began to arrive, and before he understood the true significance of what was happening:

"I have promised not to publish this case during the lifetime of the individual. I hope sometime to secure a modification of that promise and to be able to report this case more fully because of its interesting features. I was brought in contact with it, in the summer of 1911, and I have had it under my observation more or less ever since, having been present at probably 250 of the night sessions, many of which have been attended by a stenographer who made voluminous notes.

"A thorough study of this case has convinced me that it is not one of ordinary trance. While the sleep seems to be quite of a natural order, it is very profound, and so far we have never been able to awaken the subject when in this state; but the body is never rigid, and the heart action is never modified, tho respiration is sometimes markedly interfered with. This man is utterly unconscious, wholly oblivious to what takes place, and, unless told about it subsequently, never knows that he has been used as a sort of clearing house for the coming and going of alleged extra-planetary personalities. In fact, he is more or less indifferent to the whole proceeding, and shows a surprising lack of interest in these affairs as they occur from time to time.

"In no way are these night visitations like the sÃ©ances associated with spiritualism. At no time during the period of eighteen years' observation has there been a communication from any source that claimed to be the spirit of a deceased human being. The communications which have been written, or which we have had the opportunity to hear spoken, are made by a vast order of alleged beings who claim to come from other planets to visit this world, to stop here as student visitors for study and observation when they are en route from one universe to another or from one planet to another. These communications further arise in alleged spiritual beings who purport to have been assigned to this planet for duties of various sorts.

"Eighteen years of study and careful investigation have failed to reveal the psychic origin of these messages. I find myself at the present time just where I was when I started. Psychoanalysis, hypnotism, intensive comparison, fail to show that the written or spoken messages of this individual have origin in his own mind. Much of the material secured through this subject is quite contrary to his habits of thought, to the way in which he has been taught, and to his entire philosophy. In fact, of much that we have secured, we have failed to find anything of its nature in existence. Its philosophic content is quite new, and we are unable to find where very much of it has ever found human expression.

"Much as I would like to report details of this case, I am not in a position to do so at present. I can only say that I have found in these years of observation that all the information imparted through this source has proved to be consistent within itself. While there is considerable difference in the quality of the communications, this seems to be reasonably explained by a difference in state of development and order of the personalities making the communications. Its philosophy is consistent . . . . In fact, the case is so unusual and extraordinary that it establishes itself immediately, as far as my experience goes, in a class by itself, one which has thus far resisted all my efforts to prove it to be of auto-psychic origin. Our investigations are being continued and, as I have intimated, I hope some time in the near future to secure permission for the more complete reporting of the phenomena connected with this interesting case."

Instead, even this appendix was removed from later editions, as a veil of secrecy was drawn down over the proceedings until the one hundred and ninety-six papers that were delivered and recorded in 1934 and 1935 were compiled into the text called The Urantia Book and published in 1955. By then, Sadler had realized, skeptic though he was almost by profession, that the information was what it said it was, and he was as humbled and amazed as everyone else by what it meant.

The information the book presents is transforming the consciousness of all those who are open to it, many of whom feel that they were waiting for it to come to them but didn't know it until it did, as if something inside them had prepared them for its appearance in their lives. Public figures who are familiar with it - and there are many - usually make no public acknowledgment of it, perhaps because those who understand it know that it's the most important book in human history, leaving them uncertain at first about how to present that fact to others without sounding fanatical or seeming to undercut others' beliefs. They know the book marks the beginning of a new epoch unlike any that has come before it, an age which will focus not merely on itself or even on this world alone, but on our planet's place in the universe and the universal destiny of each individual.

It is a book which both diminishes and infinitely enlarges humanity's view of its own importance, promoting a deeper humility but at the same time a deeper dignity, and challenging many of the assumptions of both traditional religion and science. It has vital things to teach more than simply those now living, as parts of it are meant for the minds of generations yet to come, who will be better prepared to understand. It gives people on this world a view of human nature, history, and destiny which has never been presented before, perhaps because human consciousness has only recently evolved to the point where it can be expected to deal with what the book presents without losing its balance, falling into either slavish devotion and fetishism, or fear that would seek to destroy the book and all who openly value it. In fact, both extremes are still very possible and even in evidence already on this world. For the most part, though, those who find the book are freed by it in a way they had never imagined they could be freed, and overwhelmed with gratitude for that freedom, if also somewhat confused by the responsibility they know is inherent in it.

It is a book which reveals to us our true home, where our minds and hearts know they really belong. It opens our eyes to a love, security, and infinite adventure which we can't help feeling we were designed to live, if we recognize the book's greater-than-human integrity, consistency, and authority, which is never condescending, if sometimes uncompromisingly truthful. There is humor in it as well as the most profound gravity. One of its most insistent statements is that all the universe is mobilized to help humanity overcome its fears, both collectively and individually. Though it describes us as the lowest form of creature who can be given will and recognize the existence of God, it also clearly emphasizes that there is no apparent limit to our destiny.

It simply rings true, to those who approach it without fear, and its message of hope, forgiveness, love, and the universality of family - how the family of humanity is not limited to this world alone, and the family of personality is not limited even by space and time - will transform human civilization here as it has never been transformed, and inspire it to become what it was designed from its very beginnings to become, before the tragedy happened that sent us spinning off on our own without apparent guidance.

It shows us that we are not really alone and never have been, as individuals and as a species of self-conscious personalities trying to understand their place in reality. It shows us that the ageless yearnings and sufferings of humanity, infinitely far from being futile, have a value beyond imagination.

It is a book which is literally from beyond this world, as the true origins of life here are as well, as scientists have only recently begun to suspect. It is a message that we are one inhabited world in a teeming, peopled universe. Though we are on the edge - at the wilderness frontier, in a way - of the expanding civilization among the stars, the story it presents of our history is one of unending, invisible watchcare by those who have been with us from the beginning, guiding our evolution, though limited by our own decisions, toward the dynamic peace and perfection, both individual and cultural, that all inhabited worlds aspire to and one day attain, no matter what tragedies of ignorance and barbarism they endure.

With respect to such tragedies and the suffering they bring, the book also makes clear that there is a darker aspect of our relationship with the larger universe civilization that has watched us and invisibly cared for us, a tragedy beyond our world which we had no part in instigating but had to suffer the consequences of, as all members of a family suffer when one of its members goes astray. It is a tragedy which is only now coming to an end, it may be, and the end of which is being prepared for on this world by the book itself. This crime on the part of those who were supposed to teach and guide us has kept us in relative spiritual darkness for two hundred thousand years, though not all the darkness of this world can be blamed on it, and the suffering it has caused has given those who keep their faith despite it a strength that is far more valuable than the tragedy itself was destructive.

All those with open minds must know there is life beyond this world, but the abundance of that life, and its good will, have never been revealed to humanity at large until this book revealed it. Reading it, it is certainly not unreasonable to hope that one of its purposes is to prepare the way for even more direct communication, in the not-far-distant future, with our family, both human and transhuman, beyond this planet. Such communication has in reality been taking place far longer than our current ideas of history acknowledge there has been a human civilization, from as much as five hundred millennia ago, and the traces of that communication can be found in many sacred texts and other writings from the remotest antiquity. Clues to even more evidence of this are presented throughout the book, as are scientific facts and cosmology which humanity is incapable of discovering on its own, though the authors were not permitted to reveal all that we can discover on our own in the future and deprive us of the adventure and joy of such discoveries.

There may be a question in the minds of many, reading here, especially when aware of the fact that the book has been in existence for over sixty years, as to why its arrival has not been proclaimed from the rooftops. Why do we not see discussions of its implications on the evening news?

The answer to that involves in part the nature of the book itself, but also another tragedy of fear and duplicity that has already occurred in connection with its appearance.

The first great tragedy on this world, that I referred to above, involved a betrayal of trust on the part of some of the transhuman caretakers of the very beginnings of civilization. The present tragedy, though, is one of a betrayal of trust on the part of those all-too-human caretakers of the book itself.

In the beginning, those to whom the book was entrusted were naturally very concerned with its safety, for more reasons than are obvious, that can't be enumerated here. They went to great lengths to protect it and to keep the text inviolate. Fortunately, they also took what has proven to be the most protective action of all, publishing thousands of copies of it and distributing them.

If this were all they had done, they would have done well, but it was not. Failing to study the book itself deeply enough and read its warnings, the desire to protect it slowly evolved in the minds of these people into a desire to possess and control it, and they became a menace to its safety and the spread of its message to the world. They lied to obtain a copyright on it, stopped distributing it, and threatened those who challenged their policies. They appointed themselves its guardians for life, chose as some of their leaders men who are unbalanced if not psychopathic, and sought to destroy all organizations of its readers and believers who were not controlled by them. This is a drama unfolding on this world even at the present time, and one of the reasons why the book is not more prominent than it is, though the nature of the text itself can of course be threatening to many before they truly understand it.

These supposed caretakers of the book obtained and keep a fraudulent copyright on it, by going so far as to say that their predecessors were its authors (predecessors who would be aghast at such an assertion), and have been successful so far in convincing the courts of their claims because the unfortunate personality at their head has abundant resources to spend on legal stratagems, and because the courts have refused to take the real nature of the book seriously.

All in all, it has resulted in a pitiful spectacle, but one the like of which is unfortunately not rare on our planet and points to how barely ready for such a gift we are.

As with all such crises, though, it also presents an opportunity to those who refuse to be ruled by fear. Without an atmosphere of fear, all evil is impotent. To those who truly know and understand the book's teachings, the group that claims to own it now has made itself irrelevant, ridiculous, and unworthy of serious consideration. They deserve help, but not the kind they imagine. There are those, of course, who need some kind of human authority to guide them, who will, out of genuine but naive trust, or laziness, or fear, unthinkingly follow those who want to control them.

Most serious students of the text, though, who rely on the book itself for their guidance rather than their own inner fears or ignorant ambitions, know they have a responsibility to what they have been given, a responsibility to create a worthy foundation for the book's revelations to the world. This foundation is not so much a social and organizational matter, though that can be part of it, but a spiritual one, a challenge to live as the book shows in its final section that all of us can live, aware of a destiny much greater than ever imagined in recorded history. It is in essence the challenge to realize - to make literally real - the kind of human family all our evolution has been designed to achieve. It is a responsibility to create relationships that acknowledge and devote themselves to the kinship all of us share, not only with our human brothers and sisters on this world, but with all the personalities throughout the inhabited cosmos who care for us despite our childish barbarism and the distortions of our culture that have resulted from our isolation and ignorance. We have a responsibility to this greater family as well, those who gave us the gift of the book and now watch us to see what we will do with it.

The history of our world is in a way like Lord of the Flies. We have been left to our own resources on our little island long enough, and though the book is not the first appearance to us of adult authority, it is the latest and most important for our time, as is obvious to all who open it with openness. It doesn't seek to supplant all other systems of human thought or to disparage the evolutionary beliefs and truths we have struggled so hard to attain and maintain. It states very clearly that, though it is a revelation, it is not inspired. Its purpose is to awaken us to what we can't know except with help from beyond the reach of our understanding and imagination, and to help us integrate that new information with the uniquely human perspective we have evolved in such relative isolation.

It points us to our own inner depths as individuals at least as much as to outer, cosmic vistas. In the end, such inner and outer depths are connected, and work together to help us toward an indescribable destiny in this world and beyond, the awareness of which will transform our planet as surely as it transforms the individual minds that share such awareness.

In its depiction of our history and destiny, The Urantia Book focuses mostly on the ancient past and far-distant future, but it also says of our present time that we are "quivering on the brink" of one of our "most amazing and enthralling epochs."

Perhaps if people from all the nations of the world would unite enough to organize into a democratic world government that represented all humanity, we could authorize such a government to broadcast to the universe watching us a few small, sincere words, such as "Thank you. Forgive us. Please help us." - or some other first prayer of collective humanity. Perhaps because this request came as the duly-elected voice of all mankind, we would receive an answer that was not only invisible but also visible. Perhaps we would be freed from the quarantine that has isolated us for so long, and find ourselves connected, in ways our science has so far not dreamed of, with neighbors in space who may not be as distant as many believe.

Until we unite as one world under God, perhaps this will not happen. Is it so strange, though, or naive, to believe it can? In the light of The Urantia Book, it most certainly will happen, one day. If enough people sincerely desire it, what can prevent us from making that day our own?

Labels: destiny, Dr Willam Sadler, extraterrestrials, family, God, history, humanity, Mind at Mischief, religion, responsibility, Stan Hartman, the universe, The Urantia Book, tradition, tragedy, truth

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Thursday, February 02, 2006

The Parable Of The Sower

The Urantia Book-- Part IV. The Life And Teachings Of Jesus
PAPER 151: Section 1.

P1688:3, 151:1.1 About this time Jesus first began to employ the parable method of teaching the multitudes that so frequently gathered about him. Since Jesus had talked with the apostles and others long into the night, on this Sunday morning very few of the group were up for breakfast; so he went out by the seaside and sat alone in the boat, the old fishing boat of Andrew and Peter, which was always kept at his disposal, and meditated on the next move to be made in the work of extending the kingdom. But the Master was not to be alone for long. Very soon the people from Capernaum and near-by villages began to arrive, and by ten o'clock that morning almost one thousand were assembled on shore near Jesus' boat and were clamoring for attention. Peter was now up and, making his way to the boat, said to Jesus, "Master, shall I talk to them?" But Jesus answered, "No, Peter, I will tell them a story." And then Jesus began the recital of the parable of the sower, one of the first of a long series of such parables which he taught the throngs that followed after him. This boat had an elevated seat on which he sat (for it was the custom to sit when teaching) while he talked to the crowd assembled along the shore. After Peter had spoken a few words, Jesus said:

P1688:4, 151:1.2 "A sower went forth to sow, and it came to pass as he sowed that some seed fell by the wayside to be trodden underfoot and devoured by the birds of heaven. Other seed fell upon the rocky places where there was little earth, and immediately it sprang up because there was no depth to the soil, but as soon as the sun shone, it withered because it had no root whereby to secure moisture. Other seed fell among the thorns, and as the thorns grew up, it was choked so that it yielded no grain. Still other seed fell upon good ground and, growing, yielded, some thirtyfold, some sixtyfold, and some a hundredfold." And when he had finished speaking this parable, he said to the multitude, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

P1689:1, 151:1.3 The apostles and those who were with them, when they heard Jesus teach the people in this manner, were greatly perplexed; and after much talking among themselves, that evening in the Zebedee garden Matthew said to Jesus: "Master, what is the meaning of the dark sayings which you present to the multitude? Why do you speak in parables to those who seek the truth?" And Jesus answered:

P1689:2, 151:1.4 "In patience have I instructed you all this time. To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to the undiscerning multitudes and to those who seek our destruction, from now on, the mysteries of the kingdom shall be presented in parables. And this we will do so that those who really desire to enter the kingdom may discern the meaning of the teaching and thus find salvation, while those who listen only to ensnare us may be the more confounded in that they will see without seeing and will hear without hearing. My children, do you not perceive the law of the spirit which decrees that to him who has shall be given so that he shall have an abundance; but from him who has not shall be taken away even that which he has. Therefore will I henceforth speak to the people much in parables to the end that our friends and those who desire to know the truth may find that which they seek, while our enemies and those who love not the truth may hear without understanding. Many of these people follow not in the way of the truth. The prophet did, indeed, describe all such undiscerning souls when he said: `For this people's heart has waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed lest they should discern the truth and understand it in their hearts.'"

P1689:3, 151:1.5 The apostles did not fully comprehend the significance of the Master's words. As Andrew and Thomas talked further with Jesus, Peter and the other apostles withdrew to another portion of the garden where they engaged in earnest and prolonged discussion.

Labels: Jesus, Kingdom of God, parables, seed, sower, truth

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Tuesday, October 18, 2005

The Urantia Book â€“ A Personal View

The Urantia Book, the fifth epochal revelation and a restatement of the life of Jesus, the fourth epochal revelation, is an extensive, profound and complex work. Its complexity challenges any earnest student to find his understanding of the true message of the revelation and then determine his personal approach thereto. This is my view:

The Urantia Book, the 50th anniversary of whose first printing we are celebrating today, is a revelation of truth; but this statement needs to be qualified with another statement of what it is not. Even if a revelation of truth, The Urantia Book is not a revelation of absolute truth. [N]o revelation short of the attainment of the Universal Father can ever be complete. [1008:2]. Jesus said: "I am the way, the truth, and the life." [242:3]. He did not say that the holy books of this or that religion are the truth, or that The Urantia Book or any creeds and dogmas are the truth. Existence and reality are only partially in time and space. We are time-bound and space-conditioned beings. This means that we are incapable of fathoming existence in its entirety and immensity. Consequently, any revelation of what existence is has to be only partial and laden with paradoxes.

This 50-year-old book is a revelation of truth. Jesus said: â€œYou shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.â€� [1594:0; 1796:4] (1112:6). Freedom is joyous; it is imbued with joy and delight. This book then is a joyful and delightful work, a book about the joy of life; the joy of existence. It is a book about the joy of learning answers to the question, what the purpose of life is; questions about our origin and the reasons for our existence; the joy of finding God and ultimately becoming like him. The joy of learning the liberating truths that God is great, that he is not a petty, old and wily man whose fatherly heart in all its austere coldness and hardness was so untouched by the misfortunes and sorrows of his creatures that his tender mercies were not forthcoming until he saw his blameless Son bleeding and dying upon the cross of Calvary [60:5]. The joy of the realisation that the Universal Father is not a narrow-minded, cruel and punishing god decreeing arbitrary rules and laws and then making damaging entries in his books about those who fail to live up to his rules, and then, in due time pushing me and other sinners into an everlastingly burning hell.

This revelation is the story of existence. Existence is God, the I AM. â€œIn Him we live and move and have our being." [35:4, 29:6] (139:1, 1155:4, 1283:1). The I AM â€“ God â€“ is personal, and much more than that. He is the Original, he is the Absolute, he is the Ultimate, he is the Supreme, he is God the Sevenfold, he is the Thought Adjuster. He is both existential and experiential. The Original, the I AM, has diversified existence, his existence. He has caused the myriads of divine and celestial beings to be; has caused time and space to be; he has caused supertime and transcended space to be; he has caused the diversification of existence into absolute, absonite and finite; into material, mindal and spiritual; into imperfect, perfecting and perfect. Finally, he has caused the human being to be and created a universe path for his mortal creatures to follow, so to find him and become like him: â€œBe you perfect, even as I am perfect.â€� [21:3, 22:3, 86:1, 290:2, 295:1, 449:2, 637:1] (86:2, 297:1, 348:3, 411:1, 1574:8)

His is a nature of absolute truth, perfect beauty, eternal goodness and everlasting love. It is his will that all of his mortal beings have a free will, and that nobody is forced to be or to do anything against his will. It is Godâ€™s will that mortals make a free-will choice to do his will and accept the ministry extended to them by myriads of celestial beings and become like him and continue to exist eternally; that no one would choose to become non-existent. It is his will that all human beings view him as their Heavenly Father and that they relate to their fellow mortals as children of this same Father, as their brothers and sisters; and that they treat their fellow men with the same love as the Father bestows upon them. We are to understand that it is a joy to do the Fatherâ€™s will, to become, by faith, a faith-son of the Father and to join the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Urantia Book reveals the nature of true and genuine religion. And it is a matter of rejoicing to realise that true religion is always personal; genuine religion is a grateful and worshipful personal relationship with the Father. True religion is free from creeds, dogma, doctrines, traditions, rituals and standardisation. Instead its fruits are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance [381:7]. It is a joy to do the Fatherâ€™s will. It is not an obligation. Jesus said: â€œwhen the Father's will is your law, you are hardly in the kingdom. But when the Father's will becomes truly your will, then are you in very truth in the kingdom ... When God's will is your law, you are noble slave subjects; but when you believe in this new gospel of divine sonship, my Father's will becomes your will, and you are elevated to the high position of the free children of God, liberated sons of the kingdom." [1589:0].

It is a matter of much reassurance, relief and joy to learn that evil in the world is only relative, is not God-created, is a transient feature in our imperfect, but perfecting, existence. What, instead, is true is progress and growth. Can you not advance in your concept of God's dealing with man to that level where you recognize that the watchword of the universe is progress? [Divine Counsellor 54:5]. What is true is goodness and love, the desire to do good to others [648:4]. Jesus was not anxiously bothered by the evil in the world [1594:5]. But it is comforting to learn that at a moment of anxiety over the evil in the world, [w]hen 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 [1096:4].

We who so believe and are united in our desire to love the Father, to do the Fatherâ€™s will, to be the faith-sons of God, to love and to serve our brothers and sisters have already begun to discern the lights of eternal life as they glimmer on the faraway shores of another world [381:7].

SEPPO KANERVA
16 October 2005

Labels: God, Jesus, progress, religion, Revelation, Seppo Kanerva, spiritual growth, The Urantia Book, truth