The Origen of Ideals

 

The origin of ideals

103:5.1 (1133.6)The early evolutionary consciousness gives rise to a sense of social duty and moral obligation, stemming primarily from emotional apprehension. The more positive impulse to serve the community and the idealism of altruism come from the direct impulse of the divine spirit dwelling in human consciousness.

103:5.2 (1133.7)This idea-ideal of doing good to others-the impulse to deny the ego something for the benefit of one's neighbor-is at first very limited in scope. Primitive man considers as his neighbor only those who are very close to him, those who also treat him as their neighbor; as religious civilization progresses, the concept of neighbor widens and comes to include the clan, the tribe, and the people. And then Jesus extended the concept of neighbor to all of humanity, to the point that we must love even our enemies. And there is something inside every normal human being that tells him that this teaching is ethical - right. Even those who practice this ideal the least admit that it is correct in theory.

103:5.3 (1134.1)All people recognize the morality of this universal human urge to be unselfish and altruistic. The humanist attributes the origin of this urge to the natural workings of material consciousness; the religious man recognizes that it is more accurate to say that the truly selfless urge in mortal consciousness is a reaction to the inner spiritual directions of the Thought Giver.

103:5.4 (1134.2)Yet 's human interpretation of these initial conflicts between the ego-will and the on-the-other-will is not always reliable. Only a fairly well unified personality can act as arbiter between the multifarious claims of the ego's desires and the burgeoning social consciousness. The self has rights as much as the neighbor. Neither has the exclusive right to the individual's attention and service. When left unresolved, this problem raises the earliest form of human guilt.

103:5.5 (1134.3)Human happiness can be achieved only when the ego desire of the self and the altruistic drive of the higher self (the divine mind) are coordinated and reconciled by the unified will of the integrating, supervising personality. The consciousness of evolutionary man always faces the complicated task of acting as arbiter in the struggle between the natural expansion of his emotional impulses and the moral growth of his altruistic impulses based on spiritual insight - true religious reflection.

103:5.6 (1134.4)The attempt to obtain for oneself as much good as for the greatest possible number of others constitutes a task that cannot always be resolved to full satisfaction in a time-space framework. Starting from an eternal life, such antagonisms can be worked out, but in a single short human life they cannot possibly be resolved. Jesus was alluding to such a paradox when he said, “Whoever will preserve his life will lose it, but whoever will lose his life for the sake of the kingdom will find it.

103:5.7 (1134.5)The pursuit of the ideal - the striving to be like God - is a constant effort, both before death and after. Life after death is no different in essentials from mortal existence. All the good we do in this life contributes directly to the elevation of the life to come. True religion does not breed moral indolence and spiritual laziness by giving man the vain hope that all the virtues of a noble character will be bestowed upon him once he has passed through the gate of natural death. True religion does not belittle man's efforts to make progress during the span of mortal life. Every progress of the mortal is a direct contribution to the enrichment of the first stages of his experience of survival as an immortal.

103:5.8 (1134.6)It is fatal to man's idealism when he is taught that all his altruistic impulses are no other than the development of his natural herd instincts. But he is veined and greatly strengthened when he learns that these higher impulses of his soul emanate from the spiritual forces that dwell in his mortal consciousness.

103:5.9 (1134.7)Man is lifted above himself once he becomes fully aware that something lives and strives within him that is eternal and divine. And so it is that a living belief in the superhuman origin of our ideals validates our belief that we are sons of God, and gives reality to our altruistic convictions, the feelings of the brotherhood of man.

103:5.10 (1134.8)Man does indeed have free will in his spiritual realm. Mortal man is not the helpless slave of the immovable sovereignty of an all-powerful God, nor the victim of the hopeless inevitability of a mechanistic cosmic determinism. Man, in the truest sense, is the architect of his own eternal destiny.

103:5.11 (1135.1)Yet by pressure man is neither saved nor veined. Spiritual growth sprouts from within the developing soul. Pressure may disfigure the personality, but it never stimulates growth. Even pressure applied in education and upbringing is only negatively helpful in the sense that it can help prevent disastrous experiences. Spiritual growth is greatest where all outside pressure is minimal. “Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Man develops best when the forms of pressure from the family, from the community, from the church, and from the state are least. Yet this should not be taken to mean that in a progressive society there would be no place for the family, for social institutions, for a church, or for a state.

103:5.12 (1135.2)When a member of a religious community has fulfilled the requirements of such a group, he should be encouraged to religious freedom in the full expression of his own personal interpretation of the truths of religious faith and the facts of religious experience. The security of a religious group depends on spiritual unity, not theological uniformity. A religious group should be able to enjoy the freedom of free thought without becoming a group of “freethinkers. One should expect the best from any church that glorifies the living God, affirms the brotherhood of men, and dares to abolish all pressure of creeds on its members.

A Thought for Consideration from The Urantia Book

The origin and nature of the Directives of Thought

 

The origin and nature of the Directives of Thought

107:0.1 (1176.1)HOWEVER the Universal Father resides personally on Paradise, right at the center of the universes, he is also actually present on the worlds in space in the consciousness of his countless children in time, for he dwells with them as their Secret Mentor. The Eternal Father is at the same time farthest from, and most intimately connected with, His planetary mortal sons.

107:0.2 (1176.2)The Richters are the actuality of the Father's love incarnated in the soul of man; they are, captured in the mortal's consciousness, the unquestionable promise of man's eternal career. They are the essence of man's perfected personality as perfection, which he can already savor in time as he learns more and more to master the divine technique, through which he can begin to live the will of the Father, step by step, through the ascent from one universe to the next, until he actually reaches the divine presence of his Paradise-Father.

107:0.3 (1176.3)God, who has commanded man to be perfect as He Himself is perfect, has descended as the Richter to become man's experiential partner in the attainment of the heavenly destiny thus set. The fragment of God dwelling in man's consciousness is the absolute, unlimited assurance that man can find the Universal Father, in cooperation with this divine Richter who has gone forth from God to seek man and join him in sonship, even as early as the days of his existence in the flesh.

107:0.4 (1176.4)Every mortal who has seen a Creator-Son has seen the Universal Father, and in every one in whom dwells a divine Richter, dwells the Paradise Father. Every mortal who consciously or unconsciously follows the guidance of the Richter who dwells with him lives in accordance with the will of God. Awareness of the Richter's presence is awareness of the presence of God. The eternal fusion of the Richter with the evolutionary soul of man is the actual experience of eternal union with God as a universe partner of the Godhead.

107:0.5 (1176.5)It is the Richter who creates in man that insatiable yearning and that relentless desire to be like God, to reach Paradise, and to worship there before the real person of Deity the infinite origin of the divine gift. The Richter is the living presence that actually connects the mortal son with his Paradise Father and draws him ever closer to the Father. The Richter is our compensatory equalizer of the enormous universe tension caused by the distance with which man is removed from God, and by his degree of partiality, in contrast to the all-encompassingness of the eternal Father.

107:0.6 (1176.6)The Richter is an absolute essence of an infinite being, trapped in the consciousness of a finite creature, who, depending on the choice of such a mortal, can ultimately bring this temporary union of God and man to completion and truly actualize a being of a new order, serving forever in the universe. The Richter is the divine universe-reality that makes factual the truth that God is the Father of man. The Richter is “man's infallible cosmic compass, which always infallibly points the soul in the direction of God.

107:0.7 (1177.1)On the evolutionary worlds, will-creatures go through three general stages of development of being: from the advent of the Richter until they reach relative maturity, on Urantia at the age of about twenty years, Mentors are sometimes referred to as Thought Changers. From then until reaching the years of discernment, at about forty years of age, the Secretive Mentors are called Thought Makers. From reaching the years of discernment until liberation from the flesh, they are often referred to as Thought Controllers. These three stages in the life of a mortal do not relate to the three stages of progression known to the Richter in the duplication of consciousness and the development of the soul.

1. The Origin of the Directers of Thought.

107:1.1 (1177.2)Since Thought Directers are part of the essence of the original Godhead, no one can afford to speak with authority about their nature and origin: I can only communicate the traditions of Salvington and what we at Uversa believe regarding them. I can only explain to you how we everywhere in the great universe regard these Secret Mentors and the entities associated with them.

107:1.2 (1177.3)Although there are differing opinions as to how the Mind Guides are granted, there is no difference of opinion as to their origin; all agree that they derive directly from the Universal Father, the First Source and Center. They are not created beings: they are entities emitted as fragments that constitute the actual presence of the infinite God. Together with their many unrevealed partners, the Richters are pure, unmixed divinity, unlimited, unaffected parts of the Godhead; they are of God, and as far as we can see, they are God.

107:1.3 (1177.4)As to when they begin their separate existence apart from the absoluteness of the First Source and Center, about this we know nothing, nor do we know their number. As to their career before they arrive on the planets of time and take up residence in the consciousness of human beings, we know little, but from then on we are more or less familiar with their cosmic progress, up to and including the attainment of their triune destiny: the acquisition of personality by fusion with a mortal in ascension, the attainment of personality by decision of the Universal Father, or exemption from the known duties of the Thought-Givers.

107:1.4 (1177.5)Although we do not know, we suppose that Richters are constantly being individuated as the universe expands, and as the candidates for fusion with the Richter increase in number. But it is equally possible that we are mistaken when we attempt to assign numerical greatness to the Richters: like God Himself, these fragments of the unfathomable nature of God may also be existentially infinite.

107:1.5 (1177.6)The technique by which the Directors of Thought come into being is one of the unrevealed functions of the Universal Father. We have every reason to believe that none of the other absolute sharers of the First Source and Center has anything to do with the bringing forth of the Father fragments. Richters are simply and eternally divine gifts; they are of God and from God, and they are like God.

107:1.6 (1177.7)In their relationship to fusion creatures, they reveal a transcendent love and spiritual helpfulness that is a profound affirmation of the statement that God is spirit. But in addition to this transcendent service, much more takes place that has never been revealed to mortals on Urantia. Nor do we fully understand what really happens when the Universal Father gives something of Himself that becomes part of the personality of a creature in time. Nor, as yet, has the continuing ascent of the Paradise Fulfillment unlocked all the possibilities inherent in this exalted partnership of man and God. After all, the Father-fragments must be the gift of the absolute God to those creatures whose final destination includes the possibility that they will reach God at the absolute level.

107:1.7 (1178.1)Just as the Universal Father fragments his pre-personal Godhead, so also the Infinite Spirit grants individuality to parts of his pre-consciousness mind to dwell with, and actually merge with, the evolutionary souls of the survival-coming mortals of the mind-fusion series. However, the nature of the Eternal Son cannot be fragmented in this way: the spirit of the Original Son is either diffuse or distinctly personal. Creatures merged with the Son are united with individualized endowments of the spirit of the Creator-Sons of the Eternal Son.

A Thought for Consideration from The Urantia Book

Lao-Tse and Confucius

 

Lao-Tse and Confucius

94:6.1 (1033.4)About six hundred years before the arrival of Michael, it seemed to Melchizedek, long since departed from the flesh, that the purity of his teaching on earth was being unduly jeopardized by general absorption into the older Urantia beliefs. It appeared for a time that his mission as a forerunner of Michael might be in danger of failing. And in the sixth century before Christ, through an unusual co-ordination of spiritual agencies, not all of which are understood even by the planetary supervisors, Urantia witnessed a most unusual presentation of manifold religious truth. Through the agency of several human teachers the Salem gospel was restated and revitalized, and as it was then presented, much has persisted to the times of this writing.

94:6.2 (1033.5)This unique century of spiritual progress was characterized by great religious, moral, and philosophic teachers all over the civilized world. In China, the two outstanding teachers were Lao-tse and Confucius.

94:6.3 (1033.6)Lao-tse built directly upon the concepts of the Salem traditions when he declared Tao to be the One First Cause of all creation. Lao was a man of great spiritual vision. He taught that man’s eternal destiny was “everlasting union with Tao, Supreme God and Universal King.” His comprehension of ultimate causation was most discerning, for he wrote: “Unity arises out of the Absolute Tao, and from Unity there appears cosmic Duality, and from such Duality, Trinity springs forth into existence, and Trinity is the primal source of all reality.” “All reality is ever in balance between the potentials and the actuals of the cosmos, and these are eternally harmonized by the spirit of divinity.”

94:6.4 (1033.7)Lao-tse also made one of the earliest presentations of the doctrine of returning good for evil: “Goodness begets goodness, but to the one who is truly good, evil also begets goodness.”

94:6.5 (1033.8)He taught the return of the creature to the Creator and pictured life as the emergence of a personality from the cosmic potentials, while death was like the returning home of this creature personality. His concept of true faith was unusual, and he too likened it to the “attitude of a little child.”

94:6.6 (1034.1)His understanding of the eternal purpose of God was clear, for he said: “The Absolute Deity does not strive but is always victorious; he does not coerce mankind but always stands ready to respond to their true desires; the will of God is eternal in patience and eternal in the inevitability of its expression.” And of the true religionist he said, in expressing the truth that it is more blessed to give than to receive: “The good man seeks not to retain truth for himself but rather attempts to bestow these riches upon his fellows, for that is the realization of truth. The will of the Absolute God always benefits, never destroys; the purpose of the true believer is always to act but never to coerce.”

94:6.7 (1034.2)Lao’s teaching of nonresistance and the distinction which he made between action and coercion became later perverted into the beliefs of “seeing, doing, and thinking nothing.” But Lao never taught such error, albeit his presentation of nonresistance has been a factor in the further development of the pacific predilections of the Chinese peoples.

94:6.8 (1034.3)But the popular Taoism of twentieth-century Urantia has very little in common with the lofty sentiments and the cosmic concepts of the old philosopher who taught the truth as he perceived it, which was: That faith in the Absolute God is the source of that divine energy which will remake the world, and by which man ascends to spiritual union with Tao, the Eternal Deity and Creator Absolute of the universes.

94:6.9 (1034.4)Confucius (Kung Fu-tze) was a younger contemporary of Lao in sixth-century China. Confucius based his doctrines upon the better moral traditions of the long history of the yellow race, and he was also somewhat influenced by the lingering traditions of the Salem missionaries. His chief work consisted in the compilation of the wise sayings of ancient philosophers. He was a rejected teacher during his lifetime, but his writings and teachings have ever since exerted a great influence in China and Japan. Confucius set a new pace for the shamans in that he put morality in the place of magic. But he built too well; he made a new fetish out of order and established a respect for ancestral conduct that is still venerated by the Chinese at the time of this writing.

94:6.10 (1034.5)The Confucian preachment of morality was predicated on the theory that the earthly way is the distorted shadow of the heavenly way; that the true pattern of temporal civilization is the mirror reflection of the eternal order of heaven. The potential God concept in Confucianism was almost completely subordinated to the emphasis placed upon the Way of Heaven, the pattern of the cosmos.

94:6.11 (1034.6)The teachings of Lao have been lost to all but a few in the Orient, but the writings of Confucius have ever since constituted the basis of the moral fabric of the culture of almost a third of Urantians. These Confucian precepts, while perpetuating the best of the past, were somewhat inimical to the very Chinese spirit of investigation that had produced those achievements which were so venerated. The influence of these doctrines was unsuccessfully combated both by the imperial efforts of Ch’in Shih Huang Ti and by the teachings of Mo Ti, who proclaimed a brotherhood founded not on ethical duty but on the love of God. He sought to rekindle the ancient quest for new truth, but his teachings failed before the vigorous opposition of the disciples of Confucius.

94:6.12 (1034.7)Like many other spiritual and moral teachers, both Confucius and Lao-tse were eventually deified by their followers in those spiritually dark ages of China which intervened between the decline and perversion of the Taoist faith and the coming of the Buddhist missionaries from India. During these spiritually decadent centuries the religion of the yellow race degenerated into a pitiful theology wherein swarmed devils, dragons, and evil spirits, all betokening the returning fears of the unenlightened mortal mind. And China, once at the head of human society because of an advanced religion, then fell behind because of temporary failure to progress in the true path of the development of that God-consciousness which is indispensable to the true progress, not only of the individual mortal, but also of the intricate and complex civilizations which characterize the advance of culture and society on an evolutionary planet of time and space.

The arena of consciousness of choice

 

The arena of consciousness of choice

111:1.1 (1216.2)Although the work of the Judges is spiritual in nature, they must of necessity perform all their labor on a rational basis. Consciousness is the human ground on which the Mentor-mind, with the cooperation of the personality in whom it dwells, must bring the morontia-soul to development.

111:1.2 (1216.3)There is a cosmic unity in the distinct levels of consciousness of the universe of universes. The rational self arises in the cosmic consciousness, approximately as a mist arises in the cosmic energies in universe-space. At the human (i.e. personal) level of the rational self, with the consent of mortal consciousness, the potential of spirit evolution becomes dominant, because of the spiritual gifts of the human personality as well as the creative presence of an entity point of absolute value within this human self. Yet this spirit-dominance over material consciousness depends on two experiences: this consciousness must have evolved through the service of the seven assistant consciousness spirits, and the material (personal) self must choose to cooperate with the indwelling Richter in creating and nurturing the morontia-self, the evolutionary, potentially immortal soul.

111:1.3 (1216.4)Material consciousness is the arena in which human personalities live, are aware of themselves, make decisions, elect God or forsake him, come to eternal life or destroy themselves.

111:1.4 (1216.5)Material evolution has endowed you with an apparatus of life, your body; the Father Himself has endowed you with the purest spirit-actuality known in the universe, your Thought-giver. But to you, subject to your own decisions, consciousness has been entrusted, and by this consciousness you live or you die. In this consciousness, and with this consciousness, you make those moral decisions which enable you to acquire Richter Equality, and this is God Equality.

111:1.5 (1216.6)Mortal consciousness is a temporary system of mind given to humans for the duration of a material life for their use, and according to their use of this consciousness they accept or reject the potential of an eternal existence. Consciousness is virtually the only universe-reality you possess that is subject to your will, and the soul - the morontia-self - will faithfully display the harvest of the decisions the mortal self makes in time. Man's consciousness rests lightly on the underlying electro-chemical mechanism, and touches lightly on the mind-morontia energy system above it. Of neither of these two systems is man ever fully conscious in his mortal life; therefore, he must work in the consciousness, of which he is conscious. And what secures survival is not so much what the mind understands as what the mind desires to understand; it is not so much what consciousness resembles as what consciousness tries to resemble, which constitutes identification with mind. What culminates ascending through the universe is not so much that man is aware of God as that he craves God. What you are today is not as important as what you become, from day to day and in eternity.

111:1.6 (1217.1)Consciousness is the cosmic instrument on which the human will can play the discords of destruction, and on which this same human will can produce the glorious melodies of identification with God and consequent eternal survival. The Richter granted to man is, after all, inaccessible to evil and incapable of sin, but mortal consciousness can actually be twisted, distorted, and made bad and ugly by the sinful cooperations of a perverse, selfish, human will. Likewise, this consciousness can become noble, clean, true, and good - truly great - in accordance with the spirit-enlightened will of a man who knows God.

111:1.7 (1217.2)Evolutionary consciousness is wholly stable and reliable only when it manifests itself at both extremes of cosmic intellectuality - the wholly mechanical and the wholly spiritualized. Between the intellectual extremes of pure mechanical regulation and true spirit-nature, there is that vast group of evolving and ascending kinds of consciousness whose stability and tranquility depend on the choice of personality and on its identification with spirit.

111:1.8 (1217.3)Yet man does not submit his will idly, slavishly to the Richter. Rather, he chooses actively, positively, and cooperatively to follow the guidance of the Richter when, and while, this guidance consciously differs from the desires and impulses of natural, mortal consciousness. The Richters do manipulate man's consciousness, but never dominate it against his will; for the Richter, human will has supreme authority. And this will they truly consider and respect as they strive to achieve the spiritual ends of directing thought and transforming character in the almost limitless arena of the evolving human mind.

111:1.9 (1217.4)Consciousness is your ship, the Richter is your pilot, the human will is the captain. The captain of the mortal vessel must be wise enough to trust that the divine pilot will guide the ascending soul to the morontia ports of eternal survival. Only from selfishness, sloth and sin can man's will reject the guidance of this loving pilot and ultimately cause the mortal voyage to end in shipwreck on the dangerous, evil cliffs of rejected grace and on the rocks of sin embraced by him. With your consent, this faithful pilot will lead you safely across the barriers of time and over the obstacles of space, to the very origin of divine consciousness, and even further, to the Father of Judges on Paradise.

A Thought for Consideration from The Urantia Book