Global Change Teachings for the New Millennium

Presented by Gabriel of Urantia and Niánn Emerson Chase

to members and guests of Global Community Communications Church at a World-Wide Sunday Service

(Also available in the book,Global Change Teachings for the New Millennium, Series Three)

If you would like to listen to this Global Change Teaching in streaming audio, click the play button to begin.

Teaching by Niánn Emerson Chase

The December 31, 1999 issue of Time magazine shows Albert Einstein as their selected person of the century with Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Mohandas Gandhi as runners up. Many other individuals who had great influence in the twentieth century were considered, such as Martin Luther King Jr., Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, and Adolph Hitler, just to name a few. The articles in Time about these individual men are how they have impacted others to move into a leadership position in their fields and how they affected the world. According to Time, Einstein’s theories not only altered the consciousness of the scientific world, they reverberated beyond science influencing modern culture. His theory of relativity indirectly paved the way for a new relativism in morality, arts, and politics. And the theory of relativity had its affect on religion also. There was less faith in absolutes, not only of time and space but also of truth and morality. It allowed individuals to pull away from traditionalism and explore other ways to look at reality. Many writers, painters, scientists, mathematicians, and theologians arose with products of ideas that deviated from the status quo and thus, minds were expanded.

Time’s criteria for selecting the person of the century had to do with three great themes that the twentieth century will be remembered for. These are the three themes:

1. The ability of courageous individuals to resist authority in order to secure their civil rights.
2. The grand struggle between totalitarianism and democracy.
3. The explosion of scientific and technical knowledge that unveils the mysteries of the universe that helped secure the triumph of freedom by unleashing the power of free minds in free markets.

The individuals considered for person of the century were influential in one of these three areas. When you look at these three themes of the century, they are all about freedom and democracy in relation to capitalism as it is practiced, mainly in the United States and Britain. Even the explosion of scientific and technical knowledge is looked at as helping individuals move into free minds and free markets. The reality though is that the majority of people on this planet are not yet free to profit from the democracy and capitalism that has been established. That so-called freedom is for a select few in relation to the six billion people presently resident on Urantia. In fact, most who profit from the capitalism on Urantia do so at the expense of other people and the ecological well-being of our planet.

What I noticed about the consideration of Mohandas Gandhi is his political aspirations, resisting authority in order to secure civil rights. It is true that he was more the political leader than a religious one, but it was his religious convictions that guided his political life. Only part of Gandhi’s goals were accomplished. India did gain independence from Britain, but not as a result of an entirely nonviolent resistance. Many violent eruptions ensued in the process of India gaining independence, and Gandhi was grieved by this. He stated, “Everybody is eager to garland my photos, but nobody wants to follow my advice.” And there was no peaceful union of the two major religions in India, Hinduism and Islam. As a result, Pakistan was formed as a separate country for Muslims, and today, over fifty years later, there is a precarious nuclear situation between India and Pakistan.

Einstein experienced similar disappointments and discouragement as Gandhi did. The atom bomb and nuclear weapons are a result of Einstein’s theory of relativity, even though Einstein was an ardent activist for peace, and he admired Gandhi. What both of these great individuals discovered was that no matter how wonderful an example they were in their lives as to living their ideals, no matter how much they were admired and looked up to, their life’s work did not accomplish the goals that they wanted, for the spiritual consciousness of most people had not really changed.

Why did such an iniquitous man as Adolph Hitler have such an influence in our century that he would even be considered by Time magazine as man of the century? Why did the majority of people in his country allow his power to take over? Why did even the German churches take a stance of support for Hitler, preaching from pulpits that had the swastika hanging from them? Why was Joseph Stalin considered? This is a man who was responsible for at least six million deaths of his own Russian people.

It says something of the consciousness of the twentieth century and the state of the planet when men such as Hitler and Stalin go down in history as having such an important impact and influence in our century. It says something of the twentieth century when more people were murdered in conflicts in those hundred years than in the totality of the previous 499,900 years. Reading about the twentieth century is like reading about the Lucifer rebellion in The URANTIA Book, in spite of all the scientific and technical progress that was made. Those great individuals such as Einstein, Roosevelt, Gandhi, Luther, Churchill, as well as many others, did contribute to the progress of Urantia. But every single one of them struggled with their disappointments in what they considered the smallness of their impact. The individuals who comprised the masses did not follow through with carrying out the ideals of these men. Their own selfishness and erroneous ways prevented the full implementation of these great men’s goals. The July/August 1999 issue of the Utne Reader has on its cover “Changing the World is Hard, Why Bother?” It contains articles by various activists who share their own frustrations and discouragement in trying to change the world for the better. Jesus said in one of his sermons, “Do you not realize that the hope of a better nation—or a better world—is bound up in the progress and enlightenment of the individual?” 1630:04 of The URANTIA Book indicates that true progress and enlightenment of a person involves psychic-circle attainment, the progress of the intellectual and spiritual aspects of an individual. The URANTIA Book also indicates that moving forward in the psychic circles requires revelation, epochal and personal.

Epochal revelation is for the masses of a planet. Today the epochal revelation is The URANTIA Book and Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation. Epochal revelation today deals with absolutes of God and spiritual and cosmic facts. Personal revelation is messages from the living spiritual forces who assist individuals in their personal unfoldment and ascension. Jesus was the Fourth Epochal Revelation and He did present God’s absolutes. But He also was a personal revelation in how He lived His life, making the highest choices moment to moment in God’s perfect will. He ministered to individuals dealing with their unique situations. In fact, the individual is always valued over the masses. On page 1875 in The URANTIA Book we are told that “Jesus was always ready and willing to stop a sermon or detain a multitude while He ministered to the needs of a single person, even to a little child.” Jesus taught that each individual was so valued by God that the angels rejoice together over just one person who repents of their error, their sin, and their iniquity. Over and over again The URANTIA Book states how important each individual personality is and how much energy is put into each person to bring them into enlightenment. Part of the Lucifer manifesto that was put forth 200,000 years ago denied that. Lucifer stated that so much energy being put into individual mortal personalities was totally unnecessary. Besides the many orders of celestial spirit beings concerned with the welfare of humankind (individuals as well as groups) that The URANTIA Book reveals to us, we each have a fragment of the Universal Father, the Eternal Son, and the Infinite Mother within us. We call that the threefold spirit. In spite of the help we get from these living spiritual forces, we humans continue to struggle to listen to and follow the counsel of these living spiritual forces.

In the section, “Religion and the Individual” on pages 1130 through 1132 of The URANTIA Book we are told that: “Every human being, very early experiences something of a conflict between his [or her] self-seeking and his [or her] altruistic impulses, and many times the first experience of God consciousness may be attained as the result of seeking for superhuman help in the task of resolving such moral conflicts.” Again in that section: “Moral choosing is usually accompanied by more or less moral conflict.” There is indeed “a struggle between the higher and lower natures” of individuals. It is this inner struggle that most individuals do not want to deal with. They don’t want to deal with it in their own selves, and they certainly don’t want to deal with it in others. And that is why the activists’ work of changing the consciousness of individuals is so difficult, whether it be in the political, social, environmental, or religious arena.

It requires much effort for an individual to change his or her ideas about anything, especially the spiritual. On page 1097 of The URANTIA Book under the section “Problems of Growth,” we are told that there can be no growth without “psychic conflict and spiritual agitation;” that we will experience tremendous “commotion” in our minds when shifting. “Loyalties are not exercised in behalf of the great, the good, the true, and the noble without a struggle . . . . And the human intellect protests against being weaned from subsisting upon the nonspiritual energies of temporal existence. The slothful animal mind rebels at the effort required to wrestle with cosmic problem solving.”

We all know how difficult it is to deal with our own selves in our growth process. What a battle it can be. We also know how difficult it can be to minister to another individual who is struggling in their own process. How much energy and time it takes of us to move on in our consciousness. So of course to work with the mass consciousness is more difficult. Thank goodness for the individuals throughout history who have persevered in changing themselves and then working to enlighten others. It is because of those extraordinary individuals that Urantia has progressed to where it is. And we have progressed. Each one of us destiny reservists in Divine Administration is being called by God to become extraordinary and make a great spiritual impact on the twenty-first century. We can do it, and as more individuals shift into a higher spiritual consciousness, they too can have an impact on others, who thus influence others, and so on. Each individual who has moved into the expanded consciousness of revelation then makes higher decisions of ethical responsibility in the political, business, social, scientific, and environmental arenas. That is global change.

I want to share very briefly my own personal process that I’m going through. In our ministry over the many years, we have always had people who have come against us with gossip, false accusations, and so on, and it has always been painful. But we realize that every single individual or group who is trying to make a change for the better, who is trying to shift in consciousness themselves as well as encouraging others to shift, do come up against these types of things because they are coming against the status quo. They are coming against the “slothful animal mind,” the fundamentalist mind, as well as pride and fear. In the last six weeks or so I have felt a very intensified grief over how many people see us here at Aquarian Concepts Community. It is a grief that I can’t even express, but it is so big and so heavy. I realize how difficult this job is that we have, and I also realize how precious and how important the epochal revelation of The URANTIA Book and Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation is, how every individual on this planet needs to embrace the concepts of that revelation in order to shift in their consciousness.

Gandhi was a beautiful man who was such a wonderful example for his followers and disciples in nonviolent resistance, and yet many of his followers resorted to violence. That is why he was so heartbroken, and in the end, he felt like he really hadn’t accomplished that much. India gained its independence from Britain, but in a violent manner. Then disunity and conflict among the Indian people continued. The fifty years of Indian independence have been a very, very bloody half a century, with so much civil strife among the people. It is heartbreaking, and I’m sure that Gandhi, if he is in the mansion worlds, is looking with great grief over his beloved country. The same thing happened with Jesus and with many, many people over the last two thousand years who have tried to bring through Jesus’ teachings. It is so difficult to really follow through and be consistent in your activism. And I think it’s even more difficult today, for we have so many tantalizing things that pull people away and distract them. So it is a challenge, a definite challenge. I would presume that each one of you at some time in your walk, if you have not yet, will suffer the grief of having people so misunderstand this ministry and not really realize the beauty of what is going on here. As we have said over and over, the most important thing that is going on here in the community of Aquarian Concepts is the transition that is happening within each individual. The most important thing is the movement forward and the ascension within individuals. Whether we are here in Global Community Communications or whether we are living somewhere else pursuing another avenue of life, life is not easy on this planet. It is a struggle. And for anyone who is a compassionate person, who is a sensitive person, who is a person who thinks, there is no way that you could be walking around in bliss one hundred percent of the time.

Remember, I talked about how you can have the peace of God that passes all understanding. You can have that joy and yet still experience frustration and grief because we are tapestries, and each thread is interwoven with others. You can have joy and peace interwoven with grief, sadness, frustration. So we do need to move forward, and let’s definitely make a difference in the twenty-first century.
Teaching by Gabriel of Urantia

We are talking about the very difficult goal of changing consciousness on a fallen world. When you are six years old, you don’t think about being a change agent. You usually say that you will be a policeman or a fireman or a real estate agent or a teacher or whatever, but you don’t think about being a change agent trying to change the world.

Tomorrow is the celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. day. What does that mean to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. day? Arizona voted it down the first time it was on the ballot. They had to go through another voting process, and finally, after enough teaching, changing the consciousness of the people, the state voted it in. But many had to go out there on the streets with signs, with their articles, and had to change the consciousness of those who were too narrow-minded to even begin to understand what Martin Luther King Jr. was all about. Who was he? Why should we have a Martin Luther King Jr. day?

In my personal opinion, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. or Nelson Mandela should have received the man of the century award. Not that Albert Einstein wasn’t a great man, but he didn’t have to face the kinds of things that Nelson Mandela and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had to face. Coming together with equations, wonderful as they were, was not the kind of courage that it took to pursue God’s perfect will in the calling of the two men that I mentioned. Even Einstein himself said, when he was awarded humanitarian awards, “I don’t deserve these awards. Mahatma Gandhi does.” He knew. Having courage and faith in the face of persecution and death and a passive resistance approach to social and political change is an every day moment-to-moment battle. It isn’t just one battle. It’s continual battle after battle after battle, day after day after day for mostly all of Nelson Mandela’s and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life. And if Martin Luther King, Jr. would have lived, he would still be battling to change the consciousness of the world.

I’m sure that Martin Luther King, Jr., named partly after Martin Luther of the Reformation, had no idea when he became a Baptist minister, that God would call him to be a change agent, to be a mover and shaker of world events. He didn’t have any idea of that then. Maybe his parents thought he would be just an ordinary preacher and have a peaceful life with a family and children, a peaceful congregation in the Baptist tradition, just like his father, Martin Luther King, Sr. If any of them had any idea of what would happen with Martin Luther King Jr., they may have not been able to meet the moment-to-moment challenge they all met when those moments came.

In the beginning struggle against apartheid in South Africa, Nelson Mandela didn’t think he would one day become President. That wasn’t on his mind. He just wanted to bring the change, bring the true freedom to his people. I think at the time he probably would have thought someone else would have made a better President than he. During all the years that he suffered in prison, he kept the faith of freedom for his people. He did not become bitter or angry. He kept the love, not only for the persecutors who were tormenting him, but for all of those in the world who persecuted others. He prayed for his enemies as Christ asked him to do. As I have said, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s family and Nelson Mandela’s family met their daily responsibilities before God every moment of the day. Not that they didn’t miss a few moments, but they must have kept many more of those moments in God’s perfect will, for look what happened to their sons. The will of God led these two men to dream this; they too are Mahatmas, great souls. All that they had to do was to make one decision at a time for God. One decision at a time for God.

You have to make enough right decisions for God in order to stay in that destiny wheel of your personal actualization in God. One soul in the perfect will of God can help change the consciousness of the world—one soul. That soul who has found his or her place moment to moment in God’s perfect will has also found the power within oneself, a dignity of purpose that you cannot get any other way, and not just by becoming a king or queen, or an executive of a corporation. If you became a billionaire, you would never find that destiny purpose unless you are in God’s perfect will and did what God wanted you to do in God’s “now,” for God has greatness in store for all of his ascending sons and daughters in God’s time. But it will come in God’s time and after you have paid the price. What price is that? Well, there are a lot of demands. Before you can be put into the responsibility of a high level of leadership in Divine Administration, you have to be the leader for real. You have to be willing to take on the cross of suffering as Jesus told His apostles two thousand years ago.

The soul in every walk of life who walks in the perfect will of God, that one soul is worth ten thousand souls in the permissive will of God. That soul is chosen by God to become a destiny reservist. All those who become permanent members of Divine Administration are chosen by God to become destiny reservists. Each one of you who has chosen to accept that call then have to continue to choose to remain a destiny reservist day by day until you too are put into a position of leadership over hundreds, thousands, perhaps millions and billions one day. That is your goal. Can you meet the mark?

Nelson Mandela could have become very angry in prison; he could have become hateful. He remained outside of the prison in his soul. For in the prison of the walls, he was an eagle in God’s world. He was an eagle in the spirit, and he did more for his country in prison behind bars than many who wrote books on so-called freedom and became successful and famous. Nelson Mandela was far more the man. Reverend King, when insulted, when called a communist, could have given up under the tide of prejudice, hate, and misunderstanding against him as a man of God. He had to know that he was a man of God. He had to believe in himself. He had to believe in his calling. He had to know that he was a good man. He had to have a sense of pride and dignity and integrity. Yes, he knew that he wasn’t perfect, but he knew that he was in the perfect will of God. Both of these men had to keep their vision alive within themselves and have a sense of purpose for the people of their country and the world for which they were fighting. It wasn’t about themselves. Both of them knew that or they would not have become those great men in God as they have become. Both men had a dream. Martin Luther King Jr. said it over and over again, “I have a dream to free the peoples of the world to pursue their God-given destinies.”

In order to become successful in the world, you have to compromise with God’s will. A tug of war goes on all the time. I know, for I have been tested over and over again in this life. According to the world, I am a failure. According to God, I am very successful in the perfect will of God. I do have the Mandate of the Bright and Morning Star. I have been able to become an Audio Fusion Material Complement to bring Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation to the world and to continue to write beautiful, music of eternal value.

Both Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr., like me, know and knew that freedom meant to pursue one’s God-given roles, to pursue one’s God-given destiny without obstruction from those in power or from those millions unknowingly led by the puppet masters of corporate or political control. Knowing your enemy is a tough one. My father told me that before he hit the beaches as a Marine in the Second World War, he wanted more information and asked intelligence where the machine guns and the mortars were, where the heavy guns were, and where the Japanese troops were positioned. He wanted to know every detail because he thought it would help him to stay alive if he knew. He made it through a few first-landing beach attacks against the Japanese. He wanted to know the enemy.

You have to be aware constantly of the Lucifer rebellion and the adjudication of the Bright and Morning Star versus Lucifer. Knowing the enemy—knowing what the Lucifer rebellion is, what it did, what it has done, and what it is doing to the souls and minds of human beings—is necessary in Divine Administration. That is the enemy. The battle that lasted for seven years between the Bright and Morning Star and Lucifer was not a battle of nuclear weapons or hand-to-hand combat. It was a battle of concepts, a battle of terms, a battle of opinions. God’s opinion was held by the Bright and Morning Star, and Lucifer’s opinion was held by himself. That was a tremendous battle involving souls of freewill choice among all orders of beings: Melchizedeks, Vorondadeks, Lanonandek Sons, angels, seraphim, sanobim, cherubim, and so on. They had to choose sides and they did. Thus, we had the rebellion, the rebellion of concepts.

Jesus had to deal with those in His own family and friends that He grew up with. Most of His nuclear family, who themselves chose not to see Jesus’ larger mission, expected Him to be just a good Rabbi. That is all they wanted Him to be. I wonder how many family and friends Reverend King and Mandela lost on their path in God’s perfect will. Mandela even lost his wife, for she could not make enough right choices to remain with this unique and superb human being. She lost him. What a loss!!!

Last week I spoke about being in God’s “now,” not your “now.” You cannot succumb to your friends or family of lower consciousness. Do you lead them or do they lead you? Do you succumb to their lower consciousness or do you elevate them to your higher consciousness? Jesus many times had to walk away from His family and friends at the moment when He could not raise their consciousness, and He would not drop down to theirs. He walked away with His higher consciousness, and they wondered why He did that. They knew that He loved them. They knew deep within their souls that He was superb to them. They were angry that He walked away, but He would not bring Himself down to their lower consciousness. I’m sure that many finally understood why He walked away, but some would never admit that His course was higher than theirs. Some did, and some became true believers, but many were too prideful to admit that He had a higher way. They would not walk out of some of their old traditions and walk into the new gospel of truth, light, and beauty and the Fatherhood of God and the brother/sisterhood of humankind. They wanted for Him to remain in that lower consciousness too, just as with many of you in this room, your families wanted you to stay where you were. It was difficult because Jesus loved His family. He probably loved them a lot more than we have loved our parents. He was not only the Son, He was the Father of them all. He created them.

If you choose that path to greatness as a change agent, you will find that this path will first be met with tremendous insult to your own personal character and your right as a human being to have a freewill choice other than your parents, friends, or whomever, the right of the freewill choice to be all that you can be in God, all that God has called you to be. Many will be mad at you and insult you because you have chosen this path of higher calling. If your path in God is too easy, then you most likely have decided to remain lukewarm in God. It is one thing about having difficulties happen around you because you are experiencing basically what is to live in the world and having to deal with keeping a roof over your head and surviving the problems of a complex society. It is another thing when you are being lukewarm in God, being double-minded, having one foot in God and one foot in the world and having things crumble around you. That is a different thing, because God’s law does not provide for Him to be able to help you in your double-mindedness. God cannot help you through your choices of error or sin, or iniquity. Very few people are iniquitous; they are just in error or continued sin in little things that they feel that they can get away with, thinking God is going to forgive them, and He does. But you bring upon your own suffering through the laws of cause and effect.

It is written that without faith it is impossible to please God. Faith, wow, what a word! Who are you trying to please? That is what you need to think about. Who are you trying to please? Because if it is anyone or anything other than God, then you are in a “catch 22″ situation. You are in that double-minded thing again because you should only be trying to please God. Then, when you have finally made up your mind that you are going to only try to please God, you will think that you have many detours—stop signs on the road of your destiny—because you are going to want to do this and God is going to say, “Do this,” and there goes God’s “now” instead of your “now,” detour after detour after detour sometimes. Not that God wants you to throw the ultimate goal away, whatever that is, if you have been able to realize that destiny purpose deep within your heart, but God wants you to be the true image of Him in that destiny at the end of that goal. That is the only way you are going to meet it in God’s will. Outside of God’s will, you can meet that destiny by becoming rich, famous, prestigious, manipulating to get there, but once you are there, it is not going to be the same because your influence will not be the influence of God; it will be the influence of self and of Caligastia. You would have the power of Caligastia, not the power of God. That is a hard one to understand.

In this life for me, God has sure put me in a position of patience. I have not lost my determination nor have I lost my vision, and although there are times, there are days that I have lost it, I regain it. I have to regain it for the sake of all of you and the world. For if I do not meet my destiny, you will not meet yours. That may sound like a statement of ego, but you have to understand that many go before each other. I, who have the Mandate of the Bright and Morning Star, go before all of you who have a lesser mandate within the Mandate of the Bright and Morning Star in Divine Administration.

My enemies would say that all I am about is wanting to produce music and become a star. How ridiculous that is! For if I wanted to do that, I could have possibly done that twenty years ago when I was offered contracts that I turned down. My enemies do not understand, but those in Divine Administration need to understand what I am saying. God intends for me to become a spiritual prophet to the world, not just Gabriel of Urantia, but Gabriel of Urantia. I will sing and manifest my spiritual music in front of the millions, in front of the hundreds of thousands live and on stage, and I will do sacred concerts. Through the music God will heal the souls and physical bodies of thousands, perhaps millions of people in this lifetime. When I get out there, I will be the spiritual leader that God has prepared me to be, not just a musician. I am a spiritual leader first and foremost, and the music is just something I do.

God wants you to please Him before anyone or anything else. So I have tried to please God every day. In pleasing God, like a little kid, I found out that it is so hard sometimes. Did you ever try to tell your kids to do something that they do not want to do? Boy, they do not get it. They complain. They moan, but it is something that they should do, and the father and the mother are asking them to do it. That is what God does to me every day. It is not what I want to do. You see, I wanted to be out there singing before the masses when I was six years old. It has been in my heart all of this time. So every day, getting up and doing what God has put before me has never been quite what I wanted it to be. I have had days of exhilaration, and I have had days of disappointment.

If the whole world made the right decisions and stood up to falseness and corruption as Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, Jr. did, the world would change. As your consciousness rises, so does your psychic circle. When you begin to see the brightness of a “vahseen” mind, a mind that sees things a thousand different ways, and when you see your developing soul’s greatness in God, then you will dare to dream that your efforts to change the consciousness of the world can happen because you are changed. You are happening, and because you can see a change in yourself, then you know that you can help lead the way for others who need to take those first baby steps. You have taken the baby steps, and you have made changes. Then you can take the next giant steps. You are becoming; you are changing. You look in the mirror, and you see a different person. That is good. You see the “God self” rising.

I would like to close with something from Nelson Mandela’s short but powerful 1994 inaugural speech:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. You playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us, it is in every one. As we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Be that presence, destiny reservists. Thank you.

January 16, 2000