Presented by Niánn Emerson Chase

In December 2005, President and Mrs. Bush came under much criticism from certain conservative Christians who were unhappy with the wording on the card sent from the White House. These critics complained that since the Bush’s are Christians and Christmas is a Christian holiday, they should have used the word Christmas on the card rather than holidays.

Many of us understand the political reasons for the White House wishing others happy holidays rather than a merry Christmas. This is a season that other religions enjoy their particular traditions as well, and the citizenry of the United States is comprised of people of many religions, nationalities, and subcultures. Regardless of religious and cultural leanings, most people in this country celebrate this season, for almost every aspect of society is permeated with utilizing the “holiday season” that starts around Thanksgiving and ends after New Year’s Day.

It seems that, whether from a religious perspective or a secular, “the holidays” are filled with anticipation for some kind of magic outside of the daily mundane routine to happen. I think that during these times people are looking for a more meaningful expression of love, and almost every facet of the dominant culture in this country is tinseled with this anticipation. Every advertisement, in trying to get you to buy something, attempts to cleverly connect the dream of something great and good with the product that is being sold. All of the celebrations, parties, dinners, music, sales, trips, holiday-related movies—whether secular or spirit-oriented—are in some manner trying to grasp at something that transcends the cold, spiritless, mechanical materialism of a world gone awry.

This is the season where people grasp for hope, for healing, for transformation into something more meaningful, even those who don’t understand that is what they are desperately seeking as they frantically shop and rush around getting ready for the holidays. I think that even within those “Scrooges” who claim to hate this season (for whatever reason) there is a glimmer of desire for some form of miracle, some kind of renewal for themselves and for the world.

———

Innate within every human being is a desire to reach for and find the magical “spirit of Christmas.” What is that spirit of Christmas and its awesome power to transform hearts and lives during the holiday season? Since I am a person who loves language, who understands the power of words—written, sung, signed, and spoken—I want to look at the words and their meaning within the concept: the spirit of Christmas.

The word spirit of course indicates that we go beyond the material level of living. The Fifth Epochal Revelation found in The URANTIA Book and The Cosmic Family volumes states over and over that there are three levels of reality throughout the grand universe: material, mindal, and spiritual. Within divine pattern, spirit dominates the material and mindal.

Here on our world that is broken and confused, due to the Lucifer Rebellion that deviated from divine pattern and procedure, the spirit circuitry from Paradise is continually present, but each of us individual ascending sons and daughters of God must discover that for ourselves. So, we human beings have within us the potential for encircuiting with the circuitry of God, the Universal Father. We have within us the Threefold Spirit that calls to us to realize, embrace, and live in the magical spirit of Christmas every day, every moment of our lives.

In order to begin to grasp the spirit of Christmas at a deeper level, we have to go beyond the shopping, beyond the eating and drinking, beyond the frantic searching for reassurance that we are O.K. and cool. We have to begin to move beyond material mindsets into a realization that love is more than buying and receiving gifts. Those who share their time, their skills, their money and possessions with others less fortunate are realizing at a level the true spirit of Christmas.

Whenever any human being begins to wake up to the fact that he or she is more than just a physical body and that love is more than just getting what you want from another person, that individual is beginning to be awakened. If a human being continues to allow him- or herself to unfold into discovering more facets of his or her being, then eventually that person will respond to the leadings of the Threefold Spirit circuitry within all of us—the Fragment of the Father, the Ministry of the Mother, and the Spirit of Truth. That human being begins to realize that he or she has spirit also. That discovery in itself can seem like a miracle! In order for any of us to begin to truly experience the spirit of Christmas, we must bring spirit into our thinking, feeling, and doing.

Christmas originally was two words: Christ Mass. According to Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, the word mass means: “coming together to celebrate the Eucharist.” The term Eucharist is always capitalized and is derived from a Greek word meaning “grateful, having gratitude, being in a state of grace.” I think that the capitalization rule is an implication of divinity being present in the denotations and connotations of Eucharist. Today the term Eucharist denotes “spiritual communion with God.” What I get from the semantics of Eucharist is that in order to spiritually commune with God you have to be in a state of grace, and a state of grace is a being in a mindal state of gratitude, of gratefulness.

So, Mass (coming together to celebrate the Eucharist) and Eucharist (a spiritual communion with God) means that Christ Mass is not done entirely alone, that there is a coming together of people to celebrate life in gratitude. And God is not left out of it. In fact, God is the source of Christ Mass; we are continually growing in our experiences of God’s presence and circuitry within us and each other. Christ Mass is a celebration with each other and with God.

The word Christ originates from the Greek word that means anointed and today is associated with “Messiah” and “Jesus.” The term Christ also connotes “an ideal type of humanity, the ideal truth that comes as a manifestation of God to destroy incarnate error.” Wow! That’s in good old Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.

The URANTIA Book expands upon the very limited Christian understanding of who Jesus was, who the Christ was. Indeed, most Christians, Muslims, Urantia Book readers, even Buddhists and those in the New Age movement would agree that the word Christ does connote “an ideal type of humanity.” When anyone aspires to be in the “Christ consciousness,” they are indeed reaching for a higher, nobler expression of being a human being.

For Christians, most Muslims, and us in Global Community Communications Alliance Church, Christ also connotes a person who actually existed on this world almost 2,000 years ago, who was a great spiritual teacher and prophet who lived an exemplary life that is meant to be an inspiration for all of us humans who want to live a life of compassion and God-consciousness.

For most Christians and Urantia Book readers, Christ also connotes that Jesus was anointed, that Jesus was the anointed one. To be anointed means to be chosen by divine election. Jesus was chosen by God, the Universal Father, to bestow upon this world in human form, to be born as a babe and live a life as a mortal, reflecting the truth, beauty, and goodness of God in His human life. Jesus was indeed the God Child who came to this world. He indeed was the Son of God (with the mind and emotions of divinity) as well as the Son of Man (with a human mind and human emotions). He was, and still is, a Mystery, a Miracle, to us human beings as well as to the myriads of celestial beings.

Also for most Christians and Urantia Book readers, Christ was indeed “the ideal truth that comes as a manifestation of God to destroy incarnate error.” Here’s where Christians and Urantia Book readers differ: how is the error to be destroyed? Most Christians believe that Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, incarnated on this earth to teach and live the truth of God, but that Jesus had to be a sacrifice and actually die for our sins, our errors.

Along with that belief is the belief that in order for anyone to reach God, they have to be “Christian” and all that that encompasses. In that more fundamental context, Christmas is indeed a “Christian” holiday and excludes those who are not of that faith when coming from a religious perspective.

The URANTIA Book says that Jesus did not die for our sins, that His sacrifice was not a requirement in order for us humans to get right with the Universal Father God. Jesus was murdered within the so-called justice system of the day, legally, but He did not have to die in order for any of us to be saved from our selfish and sordid ways.

I say that Christ Mass is different than Christmas. Christ Mass does include every soul, every ascending son and daughter of God, even if a soul does not acknowledge God or Jesus or Christ. Christ Mass is for even the Scrooges, the tyrants, the murderers, the robbers, the men in silk suits who have so much power over others and cause so much suffering on this world. (Note that word mass also is defined: “the great body of people as contrasted with the elite; including the whole people, the aggregate.”)

From the time Jesus was a little child, He lived a life of human perfection; He lived a life of love that goes beyond what we humans understand to be love. He did correct error and eradicate it through His own goodness, through His expressions of divine love, through His teachings that challenged and corrected wrong thinking, wrong ideas, and wrong ways of doing things. Jesus’ entire life was, and continues to be, a challenge to all of us humans who are full of error and messiness. His life was, and is, a gift to each of us ascending sons and daughters.

———

When we broken ones receive the gift of Christ Mass, we become unbroken, more whole and healed. When we selfish ones receive the blessings of the Cosmic Gift Child, we become more grateful, more selfless, and more loving. But we have to receive the gift of the God Child every day, not just during “the holidays.” We have to embrace and live the spirit of Christ Mass every day.

The spirit of Christ Mass is destined to be in the hearts and minds of every soul on this planet, regardless of whether they have a religion or not, whether they are considered good or bad or both. Actually the spirit of Christ Mass is for every personality in the universe of Nebadon, actually for every person in all 700,000 universes (in potential) within the grand universe.

We here on Urantia (Earth) can have a cosmic perspective of Jesus being the Christ not only for this world but for all of the worlds in the universe of Nebadon. We can have a cosmic perspective of realizing that the man Jesus who lived about thirty-six years on this world was more than just the inspiration and motivation for a religious movement that resulted in the Christian religion that is full of both beauty and beastliness and reflects only a fragment of what He was about. We can have a cosmic perspective that Jesus actually is a divine Creator Son, Christ Michael who is Sovereign of His universe of Nebadon. We can have a cosmic perspective of the Christ belonging not only to all of this world’s people of every generation but to all of the people of every other world in the universe of Nebadon.

We can have those cosmic perspectives, but if we do not practice the spirit of Christ Mass within our own being, within our daily lives, none of the cosmic perspectives and knowledge has any Deo (godly) power. If we do not have our hearts broken over and over by God, by the Christ, then we are mere clanging cymbals. If we are not gardens bringing forth the fruits of the spirit that Christ presented to us, then we are but empty vessels that talk a good talk but don’t do the walk.

In closing, I would like to share a poem by Rumi, the popular ancient Sufi poet from the Muslim religion:

How should spring bring forth
a garden on hard stone?

Become earth, that you may
grow flowers of many colors.
For you have been heart-breaking rock.

Once, for the sake of experiment,
be earth!

Presented by Gabriel of Urantia & Niánn Emerson Chase

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

Teaching by Niánn Emerson Chase

The Disease of Self¹

The conclusion that individuals with spiritized (not necessarily religious) minds come to is that most problems in our world come from selfishness, on a personal level as well as on all societal levels. I realize that sounds too simple for a multi-layered, complex, highly technical dominant society, but sometimes, in order to get to the root of those numerous, overwhelming problems, going to the very basic foundation of what something is built upon is the beginning of moving towards real, deep problem-solving. Let’s face it, we live in a profit-motivated, selfish civilization that, frankly, strongly influences the rest of the world, and, in reality, controls most of what goes on in the world. Yes, yes, there are individuals, groups, organizations, and facets of government whose motives are less selfish and based more on service for the betterment of all of humankind, but they don’t seem to rule the world, not yet anyway. And of course there are businesses and corporations that contribute much to the well-being of individuals and civilization, and there are those who indeed use money as a tool for improving the lives of others. But, as long as laws are formed and implemented that protect people in “high places” of power from having to be morally and socially responsible, personal and societal corruption will just become more entrenched in the consciousness of most people, for selfishness (with all of its manifestations) will be the accepted norm.

The United States of America was founded on certain “inalienable rights,” including the right for individuals to pursue happiness. Unfortunately, without spiritized values that align with divine pattern, the perusal of happiness can become selfish-absorbed with self, not balanced with a sense of responsibility and service towards others. Michael Nagler, Professor Emeritus at the University of California at Berkley and author of The Search for a Nonviolent Future, has this to say about U.S. society:

American culture, overwhelmingly that of the commercial mass media, creates in millions of people a self-centered, materialistic worldview, which in turn strongly supports a totalitarian politics. Egocentric politicians appeal to the egotism in each of us. When that egotism is inflated, narcissistic “leaders” (they are really more like mass followers) come strongly to power.²

The URANTIA Book indicates that most problems that plague individuals and groups of people stem from not distinguishing between true and false liberty. “True liberty is the associate of genuine self-respect; false liberty is the consort of self-admiration.“3 Having self-respect is very different from self-admiration (being self-absorbed and selfish). One comes from the spirit within and the other comes from the ego; one takes into consideration the well-being of others and the other is only concerned for one’s own comfort and satisfaction, regardless of the impact on others.

In that section about true and false liberty in The URANTIA Book we are strongly admonished:

There is no error greater than that species of self-deception which leads intelligent beings to crave the exercise of power over other beings for the purpose of depriving these persons of their natural liberties. The golden rule of human fairness cries out against all such fraud, unfairness, selfishness, and unrighteousness. Only true and genuine liberty is compatible with the reign of love and the ministry of mercy.⁴

Gregg Krech, author, therapist, and cofounder of the ToDo Institute, states:

If you look at the conflicts in the world today from a Naikan perspective [a form of Japanese spiritual reflection]—specifically the conflicts where the United States is involved—you would begin to understand why people in other countries would have the attitude they do toward the U.S. When we begin to ask, “What troubles and difficulties have we caused others?” there’s an opening for compassion toward people who hate us, who are fighting against us. The answers for our global situation are the same as the answers for our personal situations. We have to be able to get beyond this intense self-absorption and self-focus….Do we really want 290 million self-absorbed people preoccupied with personal happiness? Can we really build a healthy society based on everybody being self-focused?⁵

Various Thoughts on Selfishness

What is selfishness? How is it manifested in our daily personal lives? How is it manifested in your thought processes? [The following comments are from different individuals in the audience.]

• “I think from a celestial perspective, most of us human beings—no matter how accomplished we may be in certain areas, how gifted, how rich—we seem like children to them. We haven’t grown up. We haven’t grown out of our selfishness. When we are children we are bound to be selfish, for that is the nature of children, but if we fail to mature into more responsibility we continue to be selfish. My own self-absorption is really within immaturity, failure to become spiritually mature.”

• “In our society in general we are taught to be independent, and along with that our selfishness becomes automatic. In places of tribal cultures there is an attitude that it takes a village to raise a child, a whole different concept than in our society. So I think part of our selfishness is societal—what we grew up with and what we [in Global Community Communications] are all trying to get over.”

• “For me in my daily life when something comes up that interrupts my routine, my first thought will be ‘How will it impact me?’ whether it is one of the kids crying or a friend asking for help in something. My reaction often is: ‘I want to rest, do I have to do that now?’ or ‘Well, I don’t feel like doing that now.’ I get so concerned with how I am being personally impacted rather than being concerned with serving or helping somebody else.”

• “I see my selfishness projected in resentment and ingratitude.”

• “Envy and jealousy is what I was thinking of with my selfishness. I see selfish thoughts in my mind pop up: ‘So and so got that and why didn’t I get that?’ ‘Nobody recognizes me’.”

• “I think, speaking personally, of self-assertion that raises its ugly head, when very often I make decisions that I think are going to serve myself best (and hopefully everybody else), but am actually looking towards myself and my own comfort in that as well.”

A lot of these selfish thoughts, reactions, and responses are very human, very natural. Yet we humans are being asked to ascend out of that lower humanness into a higher humanness, and that higher humanness is the destiny for every single one of us evolutionary mortals if we choose to embrace it.

The Impact of the Lucifer Manifesto

Most of us here in this room are students of The URANTIA Book, and we have been looking at how the Lucifer manifesto has manifested in ourselves in the 21st century and how it is manifested in the world and in the society we live in—the dominant culture of Western civilization. Aspects of the Lucifer Manifesto permeate every little nook and cranny of the dominant culture. One of the main concepts Lucifer taught was self-assertion, which stems basically from pride. Pride was Lucifer’s downfall, and pride is a very “normal” natural thing in us human beings, at least on this planet.

Lucifer wasn’t a human being; he was a Primary Lanonandek Son, but he had a terrible case of pride, just as many evolutionary mortals do. From my understanding as a student of The URANTIA Book, lower emotions, such as arrogance and selfish pride, do not seem to be evident in personalities higher than Primary Lanonandek Sons. For example, Melchizedeks and beings above their order do not manifest that kind of pride, but it can be a problem with Primary Lanonandek Sons and increasingly in the lower orders of personalities. We humans, being on the very bottom rung of personalities ascending towards perfection, have acute displays of lower emotions, which are considered normal and natural, and yet God is asking us to move out of that level of normality into a higher circle of consciousness that is considered normal on higher worlds.

The whole life of Jesus, when Michael of Nebadon bestowed here on Urantia [Earth], was to show us how, as human beings on this fallen world, we can live a life of perfection and selflessness on that level. (You see, there are degrees of perfection within divine pattern, and what is acceptable within divine pattern on our earthly world may not be acceptable on a seventh mansion world of morontia reality, and what is appropriate on a seventh mansion world may not be on a higher constellation world, and what is considered perfection on a constellation world may be very imperfect on the much higher spirit levels of the Havona worlds.)

With Lucifer’s self-assertion comes the aversion to submitting to those in eldership and leadership within divine pattern. We should not submit to any kind of leadership that is infantile or downright stupid or unethical. Leadership in divine pattern is something that we do need to submit to, and when we don’t it is a form of selfishness. Selfishness and self-assertion is what Lucifer taught in his manifesto and that is why he then, deviated from the rule and the leadership of Michael of Nebadon, denying the existence of the Universal Father, and accusing the corps of finaliters who were working closely at the time in Divine Administration of being misleading liars. (Understanding the ramifications of the Lucifer Rebellion takes many years of study.)

Spiritized Therapies

Western psychology is filled with therapies based on narcissism. Think of all of the self-help books that you have read that are based on you getting your selfish wants and desires fulfilled, on you being happy. I’ve met many people who have spent years, even decades, in therapy and are still just as miserable and unhappy now as they were when they first started their therapy. What happened to the healing?

Gregg Krech (who I referred to earlier) is a therapist who uses a higher, more spiritized therapy that is based on getting out of your selfishness and into compassion. He uses as his foundation a spiritual practice based upon a Japanese tradition called Naikan which is a form of self-reflection.⁶ Naikan translates into “inside-looking/ inner observation, seeing one’s self through the mind’s eye.” Here in Divine Administration we refer to it as looking at one’s self through the divine mind’s eye, and we are in the Melchizedek Schools of self evaluation, with us cooperating with the Threefold Spirit within us.

Naikan is structured to focus our attention on our own conduct in relationship with our parents, siblings, friends, partners, co-workers, neighbors, and anyone else with whom we interact. The URANTIA Book indicates that ascension is all about relationships—how we relate to God, to the spiritual living forces, and to each other. The focus of the morontia training on the system and constellation worlds for us evolutionary mortals is learning how to relate in a higher way with other personalities, how to cooperate, how to coordinate, how to minister, how to love in a more divine way.

Naikan encourages us to accept life’s events rather than become mired in our feelings about what has happened to us. Instead of being the victim, we grow up and focus upon the world around us and the other persons in that world. In order for us to heal and ascend we must recognize the aspects of the selfish parts in us, the facets of the Lucifer Manifesto with us, and then do something about it! No whining and sniveling allowed for those who are truly trying to heal, to grow up, to ascend.

Rather than selfishly moaning and groaning about what life has done to us, how others have hurt and betrayed us, morontia counseling here in Divine Administration (and on the mansion worlds) leads us out of expressing anger and blaming others to experiencing self-examination and gratitude. If we cooperate with the Threefold Spirit of God in us and with the program set up for each of us here in Divine Administration, we will ascend healing, selflessness, gratitude, service, and compassion. And we will increasingly experience happiness and inner peace more than unhappiness, frustration, resentment, and fear.

We have to do some research on our lives, which can be initially terrifying since we’ve been programmed by the third dimensional culture to frantically run away from self-contemplation, from experiencing the dark night of the soul. We have to reprogram ourselves by collecting data, analyzing the data, and coming to some conclusions—using the standards of Fifth Epochal Revelation and Continuing to do this rather than the third dimensional foundation of pride, selfishness, and egotisim. We have to see the Luciferic lie of narcissism that the third dimensional society is permeated with.

Michael Nagler, Professor Emeritus at the University of California at Berkley and author of the book The Search for a Nonviolent Future states:

Narcissism is based on a lie about human nature and the nature of life, teaching us that we don’t care about each other and we can find fulfillment alone. Anyone who does not dare succumb to despair believes, and we are right to believe, that there must be a way to mobilize the truth against such slander. The lie that we’re addressing has a metaphysical foundation. It rests, in the last analysis, on the regressive idea that human beings, and the world in general, consist of matter and are therefore built up out of parts that are disconnected from each other and from any final meaning.⁷

Mr. Nagler goes on to say that this dreary worldview renders us misfits at best in a sterile universe, and infantile monsters who wreak havoc and destruction at worst.⁸ We in Global Community Communications know, from embracing epochal revelation and from our own personal experiences, that we indeed are much more than material, that we are mind and spirit, that our destiny is to live eternally, traversing universes teeming with life and circuitry, with adventure and discovery, with truth, beauty, and goodness.

If we continue to be faithful in cooperating with the program that has been set up for us by Celestial Overcontrol and human eldership in Divine Administration, we will discover that we have received more than we gave—to individuals, to groups, to the world. We are in debt, and once we recognize we are in debt, God’s mercy and compassion become real for us rather than just interesting ideas to think about.

We experience grace. My name, Niánn, means “cosmic woman of grace.” What is grace? It is a feeling of being grateful for the many gifts bestowed upon you by God, by life, by other persons. It is a consciousness of gratitude and joy, of feeling blessed in so many ways. Grace comes from an examination of your life in which you realize that you don’t deserve what you’re getting, yet you’re getting it anyway. It’s the difference between seeing life as an entitlement and life as a gift. Grace is growing in compassion day to day.

What is compassion? It is getting out of your own perceptions and ideas, and trying to understand someone else’s position. Think of at least one person that you resent, who you feel betrayed by, who you think has hurt you. Contemplate about that person (or persons) you feel so negatively about. Answer these questions, which can help you see this person with compassion: WHAT HAVE YOU RECEIVED FROM THIS PERSON? WHAT HAVE YOU GIVEN HIM OR HER? WHAT DIFFICULTIES HAVE YOU CAUSED FOR HIM OR HER? I think you will discover that you are in debt to that person just as much as you think they are in debt to you.

If you continue to daily participate in the Melchizedek Schools of Self Evaluation, I think that your attention upon yourself will begin to shift to others outside of yourself. I think you will become less self absorbed and more absorbed in the world around you. Consider any activity that pulls you outside of yourself as rejuvenating and healthy. When you are focused outside of yourself and engaged with the world around you and the people around you, you will discover that you are not so miserable, so depressed, so unhappy. And you probably won’t feel so lonely.

Teaching by Gabriel of Urantia

The Doctrine of Greed

In the first book of the Bible, Genesis, it says in the ninth verse of the fourth chapter: “Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Where is Abel, your brother?’ and Cain said, ‘I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper’?” Well, the answer to that is, “Yes, we are. We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keeper.” However, we are taught very early in our educational system that we are to look out for ourselves. We are told to make profit for ourselves and our immediate family and conduct our lives as “looking out for number one.” We are even taught that greed is good. In the movie Wall Street the powerful financial expert (played by Michael Douglas) taught all his employees that greed is good, and people believe it in the world, not just in the movie.

The doctrine of greed says to get what you can no matter how you get it and get a lot of it, then you can give some of it back. You can get a lot of it, and you can give a little bit of it back, but first get a lot for yourself. The problem is that you usually never can get enough for yourself. You rarely think you’ve gotten enough for yourself. You always want more—a luxurious house, more expensive clothes, a better and faster car, a different color car, and so on. You want the extras in life, whatever those extras are, and all the gadgets to go with them. The Great American Dream—you want vacations to exotic places.

Saki [H.H. Munro], a Scottish author said:

When people grow gradually rich their requirements and standard of living expand in proportion, while their present-giving instincts often remain in the undeveloped condition of their earlier days. Something showy and not-too-expensive in a shop is their only conception of the ideal gift. [Eleanor in “Fur”, Beasts and Super-Beasts]

James Baldwin, the United States author said:

It is rare indeed that people give. Most people guard and keep; they suppose that it is they themselves and what they identify with themselves that they are guarding and keeping, whereas what they are actually guarding and keeping is their system of reality and what they assume themselves to be. [”Letter from a Region in My Mind,” New Yorker, Nov. 17, 1962.]

It’s like hanging onto something that isn’t real, trying to get things that aren’t real, struggling to get them, and not caring who you hurt to get what isn’t really real in the first place. None of these kinds of pursuits will help you make peace with yourself. Are you what you have or are you what you are inside? Some lines from one of my songs are [sings]: “It’s not what you have but who you are inside. It’s not what you do but why you do. It’s not what you have, those things cannot make you glad inside.”

Why do some doctors choose to practice medicine for high profits and others choose to serve the poor and indigent? How many Albert Schweitzers are there? Why do some people choose careers in social work or ministry and others choose business fields or the stock market? In Divine Administration what are the true jobs, the true careers, and the true ways to manifest?

There are personalities who exist behind the scenes, in other dimensions, who are trying to encourage you to make the right decisions, and when you make the right decisions that give for the benefit of others, the universe seems to gift you with that which eases your life struggles to do good for others. When you make a right decision, it brings an angel into your reality; the next right decision brings another one, and the next right decision might bring a finaliter. Keep on making those right decisions and you have God’s army on your side. I know. I speak from experience. Everything that I have has been given to me.

When you begin to serve other people everything good in the universe wants to serve you, everything. As you serve others, the universe that God has created and the laws of God serve you. This isn’t something we are taught in our educational system when we are little. We are taught, “Get into real estate.” “Become a lawyer.” “Become a doctor, and make money,” not “Become a doctor in order to help others heal.” But the first thing that people need to learn to fix is the soul—the soul.

What Motivates You?

We are not taught the right kinds of motivation in our educational systems on this planet, on this fallen world. Many of us have come to the bottom of ourselves before we began to open up to the higher things of life. Thank God if you do, because many of you in this room have had to come to that place of “I don’t want that world out there. I don’t want anything of it. I don’t want to be a part of that system.” When you begin to have those thoughts, Hallelujah! Hallelujah! The angels start singing. They start dancing because you are finally getting it. The kingdom of God: that’s what you are getting, the kingdom of God. Jesus ran away from deals of money. Oh, they tempted him. They said, “We’ll give you the world! We’ll make you king of Jerusalem.” “We’ll make you the president of IBM.” “We’ll make you the president of the Satellite Company.”

Are you, Mr. Image Man? Are you Ms Image Woman? Better to shovel manure for God’s kingdom than make those kinds of decisions on your own, thinking you are serving others. Lucifer, the System Sovereign, fell. He was in charge of 619 planets in the System of Satania at the time of his fall. He fell because he was full of it, full of himself.

When you are ready to become president of the Divine Administration Satellite Kingdom, God will give it to you. When you are ready for whatever, God will give it to you. You don’t have to rub hands with the Devil to get it. You have to learn that now. You’re going to have to learn that someday because your life will be miserable until you do, until you get the right perspective.

There are two ways to manifest material things; the selfish way and God’s way. Oh, it’s OK to have things. It’s OK to have wealth, but how do you get it? That’s the trick, but what do you do with it when you’ve got it? Jesus said, “It’s harder for a rich man to go through the eye of a needle than it is for him to get into the kingdom of heaven.” Why? Because if you haven’t learned from the beginning that the only way to do that is to be a servant to all. Once you get it, you think you’re something. You think how great you are, how smart you are, how intelligent you are, how clever you are, how wonderful you are.

What if there is a God with a vast celestial corporation of soul guardians who watch over you, who manifest something wonderful for you for every unselfish decision you make. You say, “Well, I haven’t gotten it yet. I don’t have my complement. I don’t have whatever, I ain’t got it yet.” That’s because you haven’t made enough right decisions yet in that area, the area of wants and desires. Don’t be mad at God because you ain’t got it. Be mad at yourself. Don’t be the victim. You are your own worst enemy.

The universe is created to work for you once you become like God. If you are not like God in those areas of your life in which you should be, then you’re trying to get it yourself. Man, that’s hard to do because if you did it you find out it’s the wrong complement, it’s the wrong job, it’s the wrong career, and those millions of dollars are never going to make you happy. Then you take drugs, you take this, you take that because you are still trying to get it, but you aren’t getting it the right way. Why do rich people commit suicide? Money obviously isn’t the answer. Better to live in a tipi or a yurt or a shack with your right complement rather than in a mansion with the wrong one.

You could, on the surface, by making wrong decisions seem very rich and very successful and yet, below the surface, be miserable. I know what that is like. I’ve been to Hollywood and seen the falseness of it all, the Hollywood delusion. One of the richest men in the world, Howard Hughes, suffered from deep depression and crazed delusions. Money sure didn’t do it for him did it? Michael Jackson isn’t doing very well either is he? Money and popularity didn’t do it for him. Those are just two examples; I could go on, for there are many famous, rich people who are miserable with their wealth and success, miserable. Yet, you turn on the TV and look at “Lives of the Rich and Famous.” They’ve got the music; they’ve got the looks; they’ve got the good looking guys, the sexy girls. They’ve got it all according to the dreams of materialism, but those are false dreams that trip you up. And the media perpetuates those false dreams.

Who is in control of the media? Greed. Who is the giver of greed? The fallen forces. It’s the fallen mindset that is behind the spread of false values in the media—the movies, the television shows, the sensationalized news, the advertising. All of that from the fallen mindset which has been here for thousands of years, and that fallen mindset will trip you up. Getting tripped up is like living in hell. The only hell there is is on this world, created by us tripped-up humans.

Oh, yes, there is a beautiful side to life, but I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the hell side of Earth. We are on a fallen world. Some of us have fallen from higher worlds so we have an inkling of what an unfallen world is like. Some of you have never lived on a higher world. It doesn’t matter if you lived on one once before or if you are on one for the first time, or second time, we all suffer on a fallen world. We can also experience happiness and some fulfillment on this world, but we have to be more in the will of God and divine pattern in order to have deeper and longer lasting happiness.

Many seemingly normal Americans who have obtained the Great American Dream have suffered tremendously from being in codependent relationships with their own family members. They worked hard all their lives and all they have to show for it is their house and the material things in it, but inside themselves they are miserable. I know that my family did the same thing, in a way. Depending upon your choices, will be the life that you live with God and humanity. Many become addicted to prescription drugs or illegal drugs and alcohol.

The Tale of Scotty

When I was in Tucson, Arizona I met Scotty from Scotland who was playing the guitar on 4th Avenue. There were street people sitting around, all smoking marijuana, including Scotty. Scotty had on the side of his guitar case, “Jesus is Lord.” I looked at that in surprise because Scotty looked kind of gruff himself; he had a big scar on his face. I went up to him and said, “Does what is written on your guitar case mean anything to you, or is that just on there for decoration?” He said, “It means something to me, man.” I said, “Do you want to talk? Tell me what it means. My name is Reverend Tony Delevan [my name at that time]; let’s talk.”

He eventually came to live with me as one of my counselors for street people. He had been all around the world: Tibet, India, Amsterdam, on the hippie trail. He learned to play the slide guitar in the Appalachian Mountains of the United States. He had been in prison, and that’s when he got his big cut and scar. Then he met a rich girl whose father owned one of the airlines. She fell in love with Scotty, married him, and her family tried to make an executive out of him. They put him in a suit and put him in an office in a sky scraper. He flew around the world, a part of the jet set.

One day Scotty went up to his wife with his guitar in his hands and said, “I’m back to my guitar. I’m going back on the hippie trail. If you want to come with me, fine. If not, goodbye.” He left her. He left all the wealth. He left the jet set. He said to his wife, “Come and follow Jesus with me.” Those were his words. She couldn’t do it. He could because he had experienced both worlds. He knew he was happier and more at peace when he had next to nothing and was basically following his heart and serving people.

He left working with me after a couple of years, and I didn’t hear from him for a few years. It was difficult because I loved him very much. One day I got a phone call from him in Hollywood, and he said, “Guess who I met, man?” I answered, “I don’t know. Who did you meet? He said, “Guess who I’m playing with, man.” I asked, “You’ve been playing in a band?” “Yes, guess who?” I took a couple of guesses and was wrong. Scotty said, “There you go, man. Bob Dylan.” I said, “Bob Dylan! You’re playing with Bob Dylan?” He says, “Yeah, man, I’m going on his next tour. Get the Newsweek magazine [or one of those other big magazines]. My guitar is on the front cover with him, you’ll see it.”

And it was. Bob Dylan was playing Scotty’s slide guitar on the cover of a large magazine, all because Scotty was willing to follow God’s will and miracles began to happen.

Living in the Delusion

Many Americans become obese and suffer from eating disorders and all kinds of emotional disorders, all because they were trying to live the great delusion and are constantly dissatisfied. I’ll call it the Hollywood delusion because it’s Hollywood and the corporate-controlled media that encourage us to believe these things are true and to strive for things that don’t mean anything. We are told in advertising that we need to have a lot of material things to be successful and happy. We’re told that in order for women to be beautiful they must be so slim that they look like they’re almost starving, thus the eating disorders of dyslexia and bulimia.

The URANTIA Book has many references to money and wealth. One of the best lines in both the Bible and The URANTIA Book is Jesus saying, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” That’s quite a statement. A lot of people have different ideas of what that means, but once you begin to really tune into selfish versus unselfish, ungodly versus godly, you begin to learn what that means. Wow! It is quite a lesson, and I’m still learning. I still ask at times, “Am I rendering to Caesar or am I rendering to God in this situation, Lord?” Just asking the question is good. If you forget to ask the question then you will probably be rendering to the wrong god.

There was a wonderful teaching by Jesus about wealth. If you want to write this down it’s on pages 1462-1465 in The URANTIA Book. Here is an excerpt from that teaching:

A certain rich man, a Roman citizen and a Stoic, became greatly interested in Jesus’ teaching having been introduced by Angamon. After many intimate conferences this wealthy citizen asked Jesus what He would do with wealth if he had it. And Jesus answered him: “I would bestow material wealth for the enhancement of material life, even as I would minister knowledge, wisdom, and spiritual service for the enhancement of the intellectual life, the ennoblement of the social life and the advancement of the spiritual life. I would minister material wealth as a wise and effective trustee of the resources of one generation for the benefit and ennoblement of the next and succeeding generations.

Basically Jesus teaches and taught the apostles and disciples and all who could hear Him that the most important thing to manifest is not money. He never taught one of His apostles to manifest money, not once, not ever. He might have said, “OK, deacons, you go and collect what you can”, but He never taught them to manifest money. He taught them to manifest the fruits of the Spirit of God—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, self-control, putting the other person’s needs before your own. Boy, that’s a revolutionary idea, isn’t it? Jesus did not teach the greed of spirit. He did not teach the way of greed.

It’s not the greed of the spirit, it’s the fruit of the spirit, and many of you can become so blind. Some of you aspire to make all this money and give it to God; you are going to make all this money and give it to Divine Administration. Guess what? You’re not going to make doodely boo as long as you think that the way to serve God is to make money. The way to serve is through love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, long suffering, considering the needs of others rather than your needs, praying for wisdom, obeying and listening to your elders; that is the way that the universe will give back to you. Then you can give it to Divine Administration. Don’t put the cart before the horse. You will never get it that way, and if you do, there is always going to be someone, something that is going to want it from you, and you will have a divided mind and say, “Well, I’ll give part of it to Divine Administration. I’ve got to have this much here so that I can make more for Divine Administration over here.

How do I know this? I know because I have lived it, not just in this life, but in many lives. Maybe it took many lives to learn it as a human man, but I guess I learned enough of it to manifest what has manifested here in Divine Administration. And, to top it off, if every property that we owned as Divine Administration was covered in the waters of floods, and we lost every material thing, it doesn’t matter. What is important is your souls and the love we cosmic family have for God, for each other, and for the rest of humankind.

Capitalism and socialism and any of the governmental isms don’t really compare with divine administration. None of them really work for humankind to the fullest that they could if they were less selfish and more godly. During the revolution in Spain a lot of great thinkers and poets got together, asking the question: “If we win this revolution, what form of government are we going to set up?” They didn’t know, because enough of them had already lived in many systems and none of them worked the way they should have. That’s one of the reasons why the resistance lost; they didn’t know what the heck they were going to set up next. They had no idea. They just knew that what existed had to go. These well-meaning people didn’t have the concept then of divine administration. Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation wasn’t there for them yet.

Divine Administration—Is the World Ready?

Is the world ready for the implementation of divine administration now? Few are. That is why Christ Michael is first calling forth destiny reservists. Those who answer the call initially have to get ready first so that they can teach and implement these principles for the rest of the world. You destiny reservists have to live it and become it before the rest of humankind can get it. The administrators, the executives of Divine Administration have to function at the highest levels before Christ can come back, before the first stage of light and life can come. The first stage of light and life cannot come until higher consciousness can be received on this planet by the millions and billions of souls on it, else they will remain in lower evolutionary religions, not able to manifest the real things of life that they need to manifest in their own lives.

Don’t make those selfish decisions; make the unselfish ones, the hard ones, so hard to make that you think, “If I make this decision, I’m going to have my wife mad at me. My ex-wife is going to hate me for the rest of my life. My ex-husband, if I make this decision, I might not ever see my son or daughter again.” Jesus stated, “If you love wife, husband, son, daughter, brother, sister, more than Me you are not worthy of the kingdom of heaven.” Don’t think that it doesn’t apply to you. It applies to all humankind, and all humankind one day will have to pass that very test.

Look next to you. That is your brother. That is your sister. That is your father. That is your mother. That is your cousin. Look around you. That is your family. Wherever you are in time and space right now, those around you are your family. “But I’m not biologically related to them.” Jesus taught the brother-/sisterhood of humankind, that all humans are our brothers and sisters, that we are a planetary family. And of course, those individuals who share our ideals, who are united with us in some way, who seem like kindred spirits—those people will seem even more like family, whether they are biologically related to us or not. It is beautiful when our biological family members can be kindred spirits also; that is what God wants, but there is so much ugliness in the world, and part of that ugliness is biological families separating because they do not understand each other or support each others’ dreams to serve God in the highest way, to be in God’s perfect will. The beauty found on the planet is where people come together in love and humility, encouraging each other and helping each other live lives of goodness and service. Divine Administration is trying to build a culture where these principles can be lived every day, where people relate to each other as loving family, living the teachings of Jesus.

Thanks to all on this planet who are trying to create lives of service to their fellow brothers and sisters. God bless all of you.

1 See the Feb./Mar. 2005 issue of the Alternative Voice.

2 “Hope in Really Dark Times” by Michael Nagler. Tikkun, Nov./Dec. 2004, p. 48.
3 The URANTIA Book, p. 614.
4 Ibid.
5 “Many Thanks. Gregg Krech on the Revolutionary Practice of Gratitude” by Angela Winter. The Sun, Issue 348, December 2004, pp. 12-13.
6 All references to the spiritual practice of Naikan is inspired by the article in endnote #5
7 “Hope in Really Dark Times” by Michael Nagler. Tikkun, Nov./Dec. 2004
8 Ibid.

January 2, 2006

Presented by Gabriel of Urantia & Niánn Emerson Chase

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

Teaching by Niánn Emerson Chase

Some Thoughts on Personal Responsibility

This morning, I didn’t want to get up. I wanted to crawl up in a little ball and try to go back to sleep. Sometimes, when those responsibilities come up we just want to pull the blanket over our heads, and that happened to me this morning, briefly, but then my sense of duty and love of my work plummeted me out of bed.

________

The word responsibility, what does that mean? What are your responsibilities? I want you to think a moment about what you see your responsibilities are right now. Would anyone like to just share very briefly what they see their responsibility as being? [Niánn addressed this question to the group present at CosmoService, and the following are answers from members of Global Community Communications.]

O’Breean said the first thing that came into her head is the responsibility of being the best ascending daughter that she could be.
VahSeen said the first thing that came to his mind was, “I am my brother’s and sister’s keeper.”
Ionia thought of the responsibility of upholding the Mandate of the Bright and Morning Star.
Lah-May was thinking of the logistics, the nuts and bolts, of sharing epochal revelation through the Internet, through our website as well as just the tremendous job of getting the Alternative Voice out.
Beyana said that the first thing that came into her mind was the word minister, being a minister and allowing the light of Christ to come through her.
Keea is speaking of reliability, knowing that you can be relied upon to do what others have asked you to do.
MasSaSeen feels that God wants him to be the highest servant that he can be to the people around him and to love others as Jesus loved others.
LaTaYea heard two words, response and ability. What is her response, how would God want her to respond to every situation that comes up within her abilities to do so?
Plairen (who is twenty-one) feels the burden of the responsibility of being a good example to those who are younger than him-to teens and children, not only in this community but in the world.
BenDameean believes that he has a responsibility to be open to correction and also then to be able to correct others when God would want him to.
Sauyney has a call to be loyal to the song of the Threefold Spirit within her art.
Asai feels a responsibility to take on more responsibility so that others can move into higher functions.
Clistine feels a sense of responsibility for our children and developing fourth-dimensional ideas—how to give that to the children and how to be able to teach them how to express those ideas in appropriate ways.
VesBein says to be fully and completely in the moment, to be focused, and to be able to give whatever you have in that moment to your functions and your responsibilities, and being open to the leading of the spirit.
Menelik feels a sense of being responsible not only as a brother but as a father to the members of the cosmic family.
Arlin feels the responsibility to see the vision of the Mandate of the Bright and Morning Star and then to carry that out in his own life.
Ah’Nuit—being one of the soul watchers in the Page Springs home—has a responsibility to take the ministry of the Bright and Morning Star and implement it in his home with the family there, and also to be able to take that ministry to others in the world. He thinks his ministry is a local, very personal thing within our homes but also an outreach to our family on the planet.
DeAsUnJa feels a responsibility to protect the goats—and also (at first I thought he said to help them grow spiritually [laughter], but then I realized it’s for him,) he feels a responsibility for himself to grow spiritually, and to engage in whatever God asks of him.
Blue Evening Star feels a responsibility to grow as a global change musician. She said that may not be a main one, but it’s one of hers that she’s feeling.
Sistianna feels a responsibility to be a balanced mother for all of the children in the community and to grow in her understanding of what a fourth-dimensional family is.
Mycenay thinks that her main and foremost responsibility as a fourth-order starseed is to heal her relationship with God and to re-connect her circuitry and to be a better vessel for God in service to this world.
Kazarian feels a responsibility to expand in his consciousness about reality not just on this planet, but on other worlds. He thinks that the work we’re doing here in Divine Administration is not just for us here in Global Community Communications or just for the people of this planet, but for the common good of all in the system of Satania, and even beyond that into the universe, and on, and on.
As you can see, the term responsibility has many usages and implications. Other words that are connected to responsibility are: accountability, duty, commission, trustworthiness, dependability, reliability, faithworthiness.

Responsibility in Divine Pattern

From study of The URANTIA Book (the Fifth Epochal Revelation) and The Cosmic Family volumes (the Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation), we can see that being responsible for others is part of divine pattern. Being accountable for our righteousness and our evil is also in divine pattern. From Paradise outward into the universes of time and space, trustworthiness and faithworthiness are considered high virtues. Each personality (spirit, morontia, or material)—within the principles of divine administration—feels a sense of cosmic duty, has a commission to fulfill, and is able to answer for his/her conduct and obligation.
The First Source and Center (the Universal Father) has given Himself responsibility to care for all of His creation and to aid all creatures of imperfection to attain divine perfection. The Second and Third Sources and Centers (the Eternal Son and Infinite Spirit) share in these responsibilities, as do those personalities under them, on all levels of divine administration—from Paradise to Havona and outward through each of the seven superuniverses and their respective 100,000 universes on down to the constellations, systems, and evolutionary planets of those 700,000 local universes.
From Paradise outward to the billions of worlds in time and space, responsibility within divine pattern is given to “persons” to oversee, maintain, and steward on the material level, and to minister to on the mindal and spirit levels. The URANTIA Book outlines the multitude of areas of responsibility given to a multitude of personalities on many levels throughout the grand universe. The Cosmic Family volumes inform us humans of our responsibilities, which are on personal and group levels, as well as on the levels of material, mind, and spirit.
We each must take responsibility for our own health and well-being—physical, psychological, and spiritual. We must take responsibility as parents for our children, for the rest of our family—our brothers and sisters who ideally encompass not only our biological relatives but our planetary family, and even our cosmic family. Jesus gave a powerful teaching to His apostles about loving others as a parent rather than as a brother or sister, to feel a sense of responsibility for other human beings as the Universal Father does for all of His creatures, as a Creator Son does for those in His local universe. [For further study, see “5. Fatherly and Brotherly Love” on pp. 1573-1575 in The URANTIA Book.]

Jesus’ Sense of Responsibility

When the Creator Son of Nebadon bestowed on Urantia as Jesus, His life—from childhood to death—reflected how He walked this world in perfection within divine pattern, carrying out the many responsibilities He had as a human being, including His ministry as the Son of Man and the Son of God.
As a child, Jesus carried out His responsibilities as son, elder brother, family member, friend, neighbor, and student. There are many instances given in the Fifth Epochal Revelation where Jesus responds to situations and persons with the highest dependability and trustworthiness as a child (as well as an adult). Between the ages of twelve through fourteen Jesus:

…suffered great mental distress as the result of his constant effort to adjust his personal views of religious practices and social amenities to the established beliefs of his parents. He was distraught by the conflict between the urge to be loyal to his own convictions and the conscientious admonition of dutiful submission to his parents; his supreme conflict was between two great commands which were uppermost in his youthful mind. The one was: “Be loyal to the dictates of your highest convictions of truth and righteousness.” The other was: “Honor your father mother, for they have given you life and the nurture thereof.” (The URANTIA Book, pp. 1372:06-1373:00)

In spite of this conflict Jesus:

…never shirked the responsibility of making the necessary daily adjustments between the realms of loyalty to one’s personal convictions and duty toward one’s family, and he achieved the satisfaction of effecting an increasingly harmonious blending of personal convictions and family obligations into a masterful concept of group solidarity based upon loyalty, fairness, tolerance, and love. (Ibid., p. 1373:00)

At fourteen, Jesus assumed the responsibility for the support and direction of his large family (eight other children and mother) when His father, Joseph, tragically died in a work-related accident. We are told:

…Jesus had a larger and longer experience rearing this family than was accorded to Joseph, his father; and he did measure up to the standard which he subsequently set for himself: to become a wise, patient, understanding, and effective teacher and eldest brother to this family—his family—so suddenly sorrow-stricken and so unexpectedly bereaved. (Ibid., pp. 1373:06 - 1374:00)

By the age of twenty, Jesus was not just a young man but rapidly becoming an adult, by divine-administration standards.

…[Jesus] has learned well to bear responsibility. He knows how to carry on in the face of disappointment. He bears up bravely when his plans are thwarted and his purposes temporarily defeated. He has learned how to be fair and just even in the face of injustice. He is learning how to adjust his ideals of spiritual living to the practical demands of earthly existence. He is learning how to plan for the achievement of a higher and distant goal of idealism while he toils earnestly for the attainment of a nearer and immediate goal of necessity. He is steadily acquiring the art of adjusting his aspirations to the commonplace demands of the human occasion. He has very nearly mastered the technique of utilizing the energy of the spiritual drive to turn the mechanism of material achievement. He is slowly learning how to live the heavenly life while he continues on with the earthly existence. More and more he depends upon the ultimate guidance of his heavenly Father while he assumes the fatherly role of guiding and directing the children of his earth family. He is becoming experienced in the skillful wresting of victory from the very jaws of defeat; he is learning how to transform the difficulties of time into the triumphs of eternity.
And so, as the years pass, this young man of Nazareth continues to experience life as it is lived in mortal flesh on the worlds of time and space. He lives a full, representative, and replete life on Urantia. He left this world ripe in the experience which his creatures pass through during the short and strenuous years of their first life, the life in the flesh. And all this human experience is an eternal possession of the Universe Sovereign. He is our understanding brother, sympathetic friend, experienced sovereign, and merciful father. (Ibid., p. 1405:04-05)

As Jesus unfolded more into the divine mind of a Michael Son, He began to add to His human responsibilities the responsibilities of a sovereign of a universe. But that is another story for another time.

The Plight of Pilate

Let’s look at accountability. What exactly does that mean? Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary refers to moral, legal, and mental accountability. Let’s look at one of the characters who plays a part in the suffering and death of Jesus—Pilate, the Roman procurator who governed the province.
Pilate faced a potentially volatile situation. Standing before him was Joshua Ben Joseph, Jesus, the religious leader of an emerging new fringe cult who had been arrested by some of the most powerful leaders of the dominant culture Pilate was overseeing—a culture with a strange religion that encompassed beliefs and traditions that were alien to Pilate, who saw these people as primitive and backward. But Pilate was responsible for keeping them in line; that was his job as Roman ruler of this province. So, when the leaders of the conquered race seemed to be passing on their problem to Pilate, he was vexed. This man Jesus seemed to be a peaceful and harmless fellow. He hadn’t broken any Roman laws; so, what was all this racket about? This Jesus problem wasn’t really Pilate’s responsibility; this was the responsibility of the religious leaders who were claiming that Jesus was a heretic.
Several times Pilate tried to put the responsibility back on the Pharisees and Sadducees who were demanding that he be the one to punish Jesus. And then there was that obnoxious, animalistic crowd! What was Pilate going to do with them? He certainly was legally responsible for keeping the rabble-rousing crowd under control, and he wasn’t having any luck in trying to reason with these barbarians. Pilate knew that Jesus was innocent of any wrongdoing, but when Pilate’s own political position of power was threatened by the Pharisees who told him they would take a complaint to his supervisor, he buckled under.
As an individual ascending son, Pilate was morally responsible to liberate Jesus from His accusers. But Pilate washed his hands of the higher moral responsibility and claimed legal responsibility to keep crowd control. As The URANTIA Book indicates, Pontius Pilate was a “fairly good administrator,” but he was a “moral coward.” Though Pilate was not accountable before his human supervisors or the people he ruled, he was accountable before God, and in Paper 185 we’re told that Pilate “never fully recovered from the regretful condemnation of having consented to the crucifixion of Jesus.” He eventually committed suicide. [For further study, see Paper 185 “The Trial Before Pilate” in The URANTIA Book.]

Moral Responsibility

The URANTIA Book tells us of other administrators who were brilliant, or at least adequate, in carrying out their responsibilities within their job functions on the material and political level, but who failed in their moral and spiritual responsibilities. Within the system of Satania there were the system sovereign Lucifer and his assistant Satan. As a result of their betrayal to their higher responsibilities in Divine Administration, thirty-seven planets within the system fell out of divine pattern and into chaos. [For further study, see: Paper 53 “The Lucifer Rebellion” and Paper 54 “Problems of the Lucifer Rebellion” in The URANTIA Book.] On our planet Urantia, the accomplished and capable leaders Caligastia, Daligastia, and sixty supermortals failed in their higher responsibilities. They were given responsibility for not only the material and cultural welfare of the human beings on this world, but for their spiritual welfare as well. [For further study, see: Paper 66 “The Planetary Prince of Urantia” and Paper 67 “The Planetary Rebellion” in The URANTIA Book.]

A Melchizedek of Nebadon tells us:

In all the administrative work of a local universe no high trust is deemed more sacred than that reposed in a Planetary Prince who assumes responsibility for the welfare and guidance of the evolving mortals on a newly inhabited world. And of all forms of evil, none are more destructive of personality status than betrayal of trust and disloyalty to one’s confiding friends. In committing this deliberate sin, Caligastia so completely distorted his personality that his mind has never since been able fully to regain its equilibrium. (Ibid., p. 754:04)

Today, 200,000 years later, those thirty-seven worlds, including ours, are still suffering the consequences of the Lucifer Rebellion and the manifesto that perpetuates unbridled, false liberty and self assertion-freedom from responsibilities that you don’t want.

Those individuals entrusted with the responsibilities of leadership on a system and planetary level who participated in the Lucifer Rebellion failed in their God-given duties. They proved to be untrustworthy and betrayed their Creator and all of those they were responsible for. Pilate failed in his higher responsibilities before his Creator, and so did those religious leaders who manipulated people and circumstances to bring about the death of Jesus.

What About Mel Gibson?

Since the film The Passion of the Christ is currently a dominant force in American culture, I thought it appropriate to bring up Mel Gibson, the writer, producer, and director of the film. When asked who he thought was responsible for Jesus’ death, Mr. Gibson replied, “We all are, including me.” As an ascending son of God, Mel Gibson takes responsibility for his own errors and sins when he recognizes them. At his level of ascension, he is able to accept accountability for his wrongdoing and try to correct what is incorrect. As an ascending son of God, he is becoming more trustworthy and faithworthy. He is becoming more morally responsible, and thus he is making changes in his life-in his personal life, his social life, and his artistic life.
Hopefully, as he grows in his love for God, Mr. Gibson will also grow in his understanding of the Universal Father and the higher meaning of the life, passion, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. In fact, it is hoped that Mr. Gibson will expand so much that he will outgrow his brand of fundamentalism and begin to understand the cosmic Christ, Michael of Nebadon. Presently I think that Mr. Gibson is ascending and contributing in his own way to the spiritual edification of others through his church, films, and honest outspokenness. It’s obvious that he does feel a responsibility to share his spiritual experiences and understanding with the masses, and he is using the resources that he has to do so.
That is what God asks of all of us. As we ascend, we take on more responsibility.

Responsibility Covers a Lot of Territory

First and foremost, we must take responsibility for our own choices. We must be willing to honestly admit our mistakes and do what we can to make right what is wrong. We must recognize and own the consequences of our own words and actions. And we have the responsibility to forgive ourselves and accept Christ Michael’s forgiveness. On page 2,018 of The URANTIA Book we are told:

…Jesus is truly a savior in the sense that his life and death do win [persons] over to goodness and righteous survival. Jesus loves [people] so much that his love awakens the response of love in the human heart. Love is truly contagious and eternally creative. Jesus’ death on the cross exemplifies a love which is sufficiently strong and divine to forgive sin and swallow up all evil-doing. Jesus disclosed to this world a higher quality of righteousness than justice—mere technical right and wrong. Divine love does not merely forgive wrongs; it absorbs and actually destroys them. The forgiveness of love utterly transcends the forgiveness of mercy. Mercy sets the guilt of evil-doing to one side; but love destroys forever the sin and all weakness resulting therefrom. Jesus brought a new method of living to Urantia. He taught us not to resist evil but to find through him a goodness which effectually destroys evil. The forgiveness of Jesus is not condonation; it is salvation from condemnation. Salvation does not slight wrongs; it makes them right. True love does not compromise nor condone hate; it destroys it.

Listen to this: “The love of Jesus is never satisfied with mere forgiveness. The Master’s love implies rehabilitation…. …The beauty of divine love, once fully admitted to the human heart, forever destroys the charm of sin and the power of evil.” (Ibid., p. 2018:01-02)

It is our responsibility, as Jesusonians, to fully admit Jesus’ love into our hearts. It is our responsibility to be open to constant review. “Lord, show me my hidden sins.” It is our responsibility to “admit our sins one to another.” It is our responsibility to name our wrongdoings and ask forgiveness from those we have hurt. It is our responsibility to stop putting the blame on others, to “take the log out of our own eye before we take the speck out of another’s.”
It is our responsibility to confront not only the wrongdoing in ourselves but in others. It is our responsibility to confront from a place of love and mercy, not from bitterness and from judgment. It is our responsibility to confront lower perceptions by offering higher ones in a compassionate and nonjudgmental manner. There are many ways to confront evil, the most powerful being to choose to do the higher thing, to return good for evil.

________

Once when speaking to the apostle Nathaniel about a spiritual teacher’s responsibility, Jesus said: “…it is our mission to help [individuals] solve their spiritual problems and in this way to quicken their minds so that they may be the better prepared and inspired to go about solving their manifold material problems.” (The URANTIA Book, p. 1662:01) Jesus went on to counsel Nathaniel with these words, “My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction, for whom the Lord loves he corrects, even as the father corrects the son [and daughter] in whom he takes delight.” (Ibid., p. 1662:02)

What is Our Commission in Divine Administration?

It is our responsibility to embrace the program of rehabilitation and reconciliation that is set up here in Aquarian Concepts Community and outgrow our unhealthy coping mechanisms and harmful thought patterns. It is our responsibility to take responsibility for our own health and healing. It is our responsibility to take on the burdens of leadership at whatever level we are given. It is also our responsibility to be students of higher learning.

________

The higher we ascend the more responsibilities we are given, responsibilities for others’ well-being—on physical, mental, and spiritual levels. The higher we ascend the less close supervision we will need, for we will be motivated to fulfill our many duties. We will prove dependable and reliable; in other words, we will carry out our functions in an efficient, cheerful, and thorough way. The higher we ascend the more we can get accomplished in a day without feeling stressed and harried. Remember, Jesus never seemed to be in a hurry, and yet He was the most efficient individual on the planet, within divine pattern.

________

In closing, I would like to quote the thought-provoking writer and lecturer, Joan Didion: “The willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life is the source from which self-respect springs.”

Teaching by Gabriel of Urantia

There are seventy-seven listings with the concept of responsibility in The URANTIA Book. Starting with the shared responsibility of the Eternal Son with the Universal Father all the way down to us mortal creatures, responsibility in all of its awesomeness is a universal fact of eternity. We cannot escape responsibility and all that it means. It is stated on page 316:01 of The URANTIA Book:

On Urantia, you grotesquely essay to read character and to estimate specific abilities, but on Uversa [superuniverse capitol] we actually do these things in perfection. These seconaphim weigh trustworthiness in the living scales of unerring character appraisal, and when they have looked at you, we have only to look at them to know the limitations of your ability to discharge responsibility, execute trust, and fulfill missions. Your assets of trustworthiness are clearly set forth alongside your liabilities of possible default or betrayal.

I wonder what the difference is between default and betrayal. You have to think about that one. The fact is that responsibility is asked of us by God in a million different ways. We are responsible to create, responsible to create. We are responsible to be humble leaders and ministers, to help wherever God needs us to build His spiritual and physical kingdom. We are responsible to help build that spiritual and physical kingdom.
On page 36 of The URANTIA Book it says:

Human limitations, potential evil, are not a part of the divine nature, but mortal experience with evil and all man’s relations thereto are most certainly a part of God’s ever-expanding self-realization in the children of time-creatures of moral responsibility who have been created or evolved by every Creator Son going out from Paradise.

Antoine De Saint-Exupéry, a French writer and aviator wrote:

To be a man is to be responsible. It is to feel shame at the sight of what seems to be unmerited misery. It is to take pride in a victory won by one’s comrades. It is to feel when setting one stone that one is contributing to the building of the whole world. (Wind, Sand, and Stars, Chapter 2, section 2.)

Some of you wish to remain children or forever young and never accept responsibility. Some of you wish to remain in the “Pepsi generation” and never become a mature adult, because somehow you think that by becoming a mature adult you’re not young anymore. That’s a big mistake—a big, big mistake—because you never will become an elder.
If you look at Centria you will see a beautiful woman, but she’s also called “Elder Centria.” Why is that? She’s not perfect, but she certainly is a beautiful woman in her forties who looks much younger, and she also is someone that we can call “Elder Centria.” How is it that she was able to put together those two seeming opposites? That is what you need to grow into.
It states in First Corinthians 13, Verse 11 in the New Testament, “When I was a child I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man [or a woman] I put away the childish things.” Have you put away the childish things yet? Responsibility demands of us maturity—divine maturity. Divine maturity. Maturity demands of us sacrifice. That sacrifice may be our pride, our time, our finances, our hopes and dreams in order to help others fulfill their hopes and dreams. Many wives have put away their desires for careers to help their husbands fulfill their destinies. God sometimes asks us to do that. Here in Divine Administration it’s hoped that both husband and wife can fulfill their destinies in the highest way on this planet, because we’re living in a society where we can do that. But out there in the third dimension [the dominant culture], many a woman has had to put aside her desires to let her husband fulfill his.
On page 316:02 of The URANTIA Book we learn

It is the plan of your superiors to advance you by augmented trusts just as fast as your character is sufficiently developed to gracefully bear these added responsibilities, but to overload the individual only courts disaster and insures disappointment. And the mistake of placing responsibility prematurely upon either man or angel may be avoided by utilizing the ministry of these infallible estimators of the trust capacity of the individuals of time and space. These seconaphim ever accompany Those High in Authority, and never do these executives make assignments until their candidates have been weighed in the secoraphic balances and pronounced “not wanting.”

So often you are not ready for higher responsibilities or to be mandated or to be upstepped in your mandate. You’re not ready yet. You may think you are, but you’re not. And we hope that when you are mandated you’ll find out that “Oooohh, maybe I shouldn’t even have a mandate.” That’s a good thought because it is humbling. That’s a thought of humility when you realize that you’re not really holding up all of the attributes that you should be holding up at your level of mandate. You do sense that at times. So, what you have to do is realize that you are failing, then forgive yourself, and then humble yourselves and ask forgiveness from those you didn’t stand up to in the highest manner.
Now I know you think I’m talking to you. I am. This fits everyone who is mandated. Everyone of you ministers who have a right to be called ministers under the Mandate of the Bright and Morning Star share a very high responsibility of humbling yourselves and saying “I blew it!” Because you will blow it, more so at a Vicegerent Second Assistant level. You will blow it more as a Second Assistant than a Vicegerent First Assistant. You will blow it more as a First Assistant than a Vicegerent Elder. Humble yourself and say “I’m sorry” to those you have not represented yourself as a minister of God to at that level. That is the only way you will get the respect and admiration of those you supervise.
I know you think I’m talking to you. I am. I’m talking to every one of you. It’s a shared reality that all of you share in these mistakes, including me. Do you think that I have not learned and made these same mistakes, over the last fifteen years of being in Divine Administration, of having a finaliter come in and wake me up at four o’clock in the morning and tell me, “TaliasVan, you blew it!”? Do you think I don’t have an elder? I do. In fact, I have several—the Bright and Morning Star, Paladin, Ashtar, Kumatron, and Destin. Believe me, they get to me.
To have a mandate in Divine Administration makes you more responsible before God and before your peers to do the right thing. Once you begin to say to someone, like one of the people you are supervising, “Hey, I’m an elder!”, you’ve already blown it. You’ve already blown it. You shouldn’t have to say anything about that. You are an elder because of the way you behave and the virtues of God and no less. That’s it. Not because you have the degree on the wall or even the recognition by us that you are an elder. Only by your continued humility do you remain mandated, or you should resign your mandate. Down-step yourself if you cannot come back and humble yourself to say “I was wrong.”
Age alone—in one lifetime or many lifetimes of the soul (soul age)—does not necessarily bring responsibility. It should but often your false pride interferes with the execution of you being a divine leader and following divine principles. So age alone does not make you an elder. I don’t care if you’re in your seventies or eighties in this lifetime and you’re ministering to starseed in your thirties and forties. Of course, that does not make you an elder because those starseed are hundreds of centuries older than you. They see right through you. The only way they will respect you is if you can walk in humility. They might not be walking in humility, but they expect you to. That’s what gives you the Deo power over them.
Higher responsibility demands long-suffering. I used to wonder what’s the difference between that words long-suffering and patience. There is no difference. It’s just another way of explaining patience. Patience is long-suffering. It means you can’t give an eye-for-an-eye and a tooth-for-a-tooth. You have to turn away that smart remark with a remark of kindness. “Thank you, brother, for calling me a fool.” “Thank you, brother, for giving me that mean look.” You have to look back and say “Thank you.”
Long-suffering—it’s a challenge, it’s a challenge. But some of the most remarkable men and women I’ve ever met, they had that ability. They were my educators in my young life on this planet, because even though they saw my stink, they responded with, “Thank you very much.” They knew, that I knew, that they knew, that I knew, that they knew, that I knew, that I was a stink-face, and they weren’t. You can’t return stink for stink. You have to be a minister of God.
Pray for patience and you will receive conflict. Conflict with those others I just talked about. Pray for patience and you will receive all those stink-faces, all those smart remarks, all those “I don’t want to do its” from those you supervise. Pray for patience, and that’s what you will get—all those answers to your prayer.
“Patience is that blending of moral courage with physical timidity,” Thomas Hardy, an English novelist said. Let me say that again. “Patience is that blending of moral courage with physical timidity.” Your force will not change anybody. Your strong voice will not change anybody. Your intolerance will not change anybody. Your humility will-only your humility.
Why do you think Jesus let them do to Him what they did? He could have raised His voice. He allowed those stink-faces to do what they did to Him, and then He said, “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” Boy, what a hard lesson for the apostles to learn (and they are still learning it).
Everybody wants to take a short-cut to Paradise—the fast line to spiritual ascension. “Give me a box, maybe I’ll find a coupon inside. It gets me to Paradise quicker. Two for one.” No, that’s not the way ascension works. God provides the rocky roads. And then He wants you to walk on those rocks with no shoes on. God provides the thorns. God provides the mountains to climb. He doesn’t give you any ski lifts. He wants you to climb them step by arduous step—just like I had to walk up a whole lot of steps yesterday in Jerome to get an ice cream. If I didn’t walk up the steps, I couldn’t get the ice cream. So step by step I walked up those steps. When I got to the top I deserved that ice cream; I knew the principle. It took me five minutes to make up my mind if I was going to walk up those steps or not. I wanted the treasure at the top. I wanted the taste of the treasure.
Do you want the taste of ascension? Do you want to experience the flavor of true patience? You too must go through the walk of suffering and patience, true humility, and you will earn the respect of others. Turn the other cheek, ministers of God. That’s what you are expected to do. You are the mandated ministers. And you who want to be mandated, you’re going to have to apply these principles to your future.
Life on a fallen world is both ecstasy (not the drug) and agony. Ecstasy and agony—this is the life on a fallen world. This is the life here. Sometimes, some of you, the only thing you want is the ecstasy. You forget the song that even says,

[Gabriel sings]:

I beg your pardon,
I never promised you a rose garden.

God doesn’t promise you a rose garden.
It says in The URANTIA Book on page 1000:04:

Religious ecstasy is permissible when resulting from sane antecedents, but such experiences are more often the outgrowth of purely emotional influences than a manifestation of deep spiritual character. Religious persons must not regard every vivid psychologic presentiment and every intense emotional experience as a divine revelation or a spiritual communication. Genuine spiritual ecstasy is usually associated with great outward calmness and almost perfect emotional control. [emphasis mine]

Did you get that one? Perfect emotional control. So when you start shaking, when you start getting mad, when you start whatever you do, you lost it! Whatever that coping mechanism is that makes you unbalanced, you’ve lost it. Here it says, true “Genuine spiritual ecstasy is usually associated with great outward calmness and almost perfect emotional control.” Let that reign in your minds forever. When some of you have read it before, you missed it. I’m not letting you miss it. I’m here to make you get it. That’s what I do.

But true prophetic vision is a superpsychologic presentiment. Such visitations are not pseudo hallucinations, neither are they trancelike ecstasies. (Ibid., p. 1000:04)

You need to be in control of your lower emotions.
Accepting more responsibility from God makes us all servants to humankind—servants to humankind. That’s what Jesus told His apostles, “You want to be great? You want to sit on the right and left hand of God, James and John? Be a servant to all humankind.” Boy, are we still learning that.
Turning the other cheek. Who does God have in your life to help you to do just that? Do you think people in your lives here are accidents? Do you think who you’re living with, who you’re working with; do you think all of that is not part of the divine plan of destiny reservists? Do you think that each and every one of you here are here by accident? Do you think that the people you live with on a daily basis, work with on a daily basis, are not the gifts of God for you to perfect your ascension, and, vice-versa, you to them? All of you will feel the impact of each other.
Again, no one is perfect, but for you who are mandated, you have a higher responsibility to repent and repent faster. Faster! Or else, resign your mandate. But we don’t want you to resign your mandate; we need you mandated, and we need you to be humble.
Who are those significant others? Do you see them? I like that word significant. Who are those significant others who help you to practice the long-suffering? And when you suffer, suffer in silence before God. You don’t have to let anyone know that it’s painful to return a bad remark with a nice remark, a bad gesture with a nice gesture. But then again, that’s what God expects you to do, to return tolerance for intolerance. That’s what God expects you to do. What do you think turning the other cheek is, just a slap for a slap? Don’t slap when someone slaps you. No, it means every day working relationships with other ascending sons and daughters-not just on this planet; oh man, you’ve got a long way to go. So you might as well start practicing it now.
Those who get you angry and impatient are the gifts of God to you to ascend your soul now and forever more. Do you want these people out of your life? “Oh I wish that person would just leave the community,” or “I’m going to leave the community.” What a horrible thing to say either way—you want to leave God’s kingdom?—because when you say either one of those things, you might as well just say, “I want to leave God’s kingdom,” because there isn’t anywhere you can go where you are going to escape responsibility of God. Nowhere can you go, so you might as well get it together right here where you have understanding friends to help you ascend your soul. Understanding elders. We’re all going through this thing together. We’re all in it together.
From my song, “Listen to the Calling,” I’d like to sing you just a few lines:

You will have light if your motives are pure and right.
If you do that which is right such is sheer delight.
You will have light in the night shining so bright.
It’s not by power or might but by the spirit’s light light light light.

By the spirit’s light not by your force, not by your power, not by your anger, but by the spirit’s [sings]:

light light light light light light.

And from the song “Edge City,”

You’re so blind to that scar, deep within your soul.
You justify actions and your self-righteous goal.

And your myth goes on and on blind to the core.
Pointing your finger to the ones you love that don’t even keep the score.

Accept the fact that you are loved the angel’s only tool.
Is your thoughts of security resting in the Surgeon’s school.

Walk gently through the cosmic breeze
Do not bend a reed. Rest in Him, oh Spirit’s child.
Who always knows your need? Move on

Move on ladies and gentlemen. Have a wonderful week, see you next time.

March 28, 2004

Presented by Gabriel of Urantia & Niánn Emerson Chase

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

Teaching by Niánn Emerson Chase

When I started thinking about the topic of overcoming, I realized immediately that I could go in many directions on this. There’s so much that all of us human beings have to overcome in order to have a life of dignity, purpose, fulfillment, and happiness. In many places on the planet millions of people have much to overcome in order to merely stay alive; they don’t even consider the quality of their lives, just that they survive another hour or another day.

In considering my own overcoming processes throughout the years, I have come to the conclusion that the largest blockage to my peace of mind and enjoyment of life has been myself.

The Smeagol-Gollum Syndrome

For you who have watched the last couple of years the Lord of the Rings series of films, I’m sure, like me, you will remember for a long time the creature Gollum who was consumed with getting his “preciousssss” back. When the good and sincere hobbit, Frodo, met Gollum, he recognized something in him. Frodo recognized that at one time Gollum had been a more comely, kinder, lovable personality. In fact, Gollum belonged to a people similar to the gentle hobbits. What happened to Gollum? What circumstances and choices led to Gollum’s monstrous physical appearance and his pitifully devious and deadly ways?

As the story of the battle between good and evil forces unfolds in the Lord of the Rings, we not only observe the rise and fall of well-intentioned persons, but the perseverance and steadfastness in the stronger, more godly ones. We observe the continuous challenges that the characters (heroes or villains) have to face, the choices that they have to continually make—for good or for evil. Individuals have to overcome many temptations that tantalize with the promise of power, glory, fame, riches, beauty, acceptance, ease, and so on. Some are able to overcome the temptations to give in to error, sin, and iniquity, and some buckle under.

A long, long time ago Gollum gave in to his desire for something that belonged to someone else. He folded to covetousness and envy, and with that one choice followed other choices of betrayal and murder that resulted in an isolated and lonely life of continual flight from those who would have what he had. Gollum also spent the rest of his life fleeing from the voice of his higher self. Each time Gollum made a choice for the lower way out of divine pattern, he became a little uglier, inside and out, until he becomes a pitiful, but dangerous, slimy creature, with barely a glimmer of what he had been before his fall.

After years of living in filth (I speak literally as well as metaphorically), Gollum meets Frodo who is able to see that glimmer of what is left of Gollum’s higher self, of what he had been before in a higher world of friendship, meaningful labor, laughter, and beauty.

We viewers of the Lord of the Rings watch Gollum, after encountering and staying with Frodo, fluctuate back and forth between his higher and lower selves. It is a brilliant presentation of a personality’s struggles to reach for something that was lost long, long ago; something good and decent that used to be a part of himself, when his name was Smeagol.

This Smeagol-Gollum syndrome, this struggle between the higher and lower self, is something each one of us experiences on this fallen world. For some it is more intense than for others. For some the Smeagol part is stronger, more dominant; for others it is the Gollum part. Sometimes we may have a week of being Gollum-like, and then regain our higher selves, and Smeagol dominates.

Note that I have put Smeagol first in naming the Smeagol-Gollum syndrome. I do that because, in reality, the higher self is the real identity, the connection to the personality circuitry of the Universal Father. In this adjudication where each of us must realign with that broken circuitry, the good in us that we once had, as well as our potential greatness, is more real than the false identities that we have acquired in our brokenness.

In one of the papers in The Cosmic Family, Volume II, we are told by Celestial Overcontrol, when referring to the rehabilitation and reconciliation process that we humans are going through here in Divine Administration, they prefer to use the term realignment instead of repentance. From my perspective, that change in usage of terminology is huge. Realignment includes repentance, but it also encompasses much, much more, which I am not going to expand upon at this time.

The Importance of Guidance From Eldership in Order to Overcome Gollum

All of us have to overcome the Gollum within us, on a daily basis. I’m sure you are all familiar with the saying, “Your greatest enemy is yourself.” Thank goodness there are the Frodos and Aragons and Gandalfs here in Divine Administration who see the Smeagol in us and—whether in the Mother-, Son-, or Father circuitry—challenge us to overcome the lurking Gollum who would bury Smeagol.

Gollum felt unjustly treated, attacked, and even violated when Frodo gave him an opportunity for a new identity, one that he had before on a higher world—Smeagol. And yet, there were times when the Smeagol in him felt gratitude and a sense of loyalty to the strong love that Frodo extended to him.

Can you too relate to the back and forth of the Smeagol-Gollum syndrome? Like Gollum, you too have much to overcome within yourselves in order to become Smeagol, in order to become your higher identity that is within your personality circuitry.

Like Gollum was with Frodo’s strong stance in being on the side of right, I too have been very angry with my elders, Paladin and TaliasVan of Tora, in their strong stance in truth and shedding light on my own dio (error). Haven’t all of you had similar Gollum-like responses to your elders—human and otherwise?

My feelings of resentment, anger, and hurt have always been very temporary, for I know that the message I am receiving is “right on,” even though I may not like what I’m hearing. As I have grown and ascended, those feelings and attitudes towards my elders have lessened considerably, and the times that I experience them are very brief now, lasting only seconds or moments. With the help of the Threefold Spirit of God within me, I am able to overcome those lower, debilitating emotions, reactions, and attitudes quickly and regain my sense of balance, dignity, compassion, and enjoyment of life.

Admonishment and counsel often feel “bad,” at least initially. Often my own children feel that I am attacking them when I am merely disciplining or giving guidance as a responsible, loving parent.

Experiences With My Elders—Paladin and Gabriel of Urantia—and With the Adjudication Process

We here in Divine Administration have to overcome many misunderstandings and misjudgments of who and what we are, especially the leadership. One of the complaints I hear is that Paladin and Gabriel do not reflect a loving, merciful, forgiving God; they reflect punishment and fear, etc. etc. That’s how Gollum saw sweet, gentle Frodo, but Smeagol saw something quite different.

I have experienced (and continue to experience God) in so many ways, but always divinely loving, merciful, and just—even within the adjudication process. I see Paladin as very loving and gentle, as well as strong and admonishing, and I have benefited tremendously over 16 years from his presence in my life with the audio fusion material complement, TaliasVan of Tora/Gabriel of Urantia.

I recall my first two encounters with Paladin. At the time of these encounters I did not know him as Paladin, the finaliter, etc. etc. He presented himself to me before I even met Gabriel or had seen The URANTIA Book.

The first encounter was a year or two before meeting Gabriel, during a time where I used transcendental meditation techniques that I had adapted to my own personal spiritual life. Daily I spent about 20 minutes in each session—one in the early morning and one after work in the afternoon—sitting in solitude and quiet, emptying my mind of my thoughts so that I could hear from God and divine mind. (I still practice this discipline, just adapted to my current reality.) During one afternoon session I had a “sensing” of a male spirit presence, and suddenly a face appeared in my mind’s eye. It was all so quick, and, frankly, I was shocked. Usually my meditations are very gentle and restful, with realizations and impressions flowing into my mind that enhance my worship and help spiritize my perceptions. Occasionally other experiences would happen, like visual or audio impressions, but this was the first time a personality who seemed more human-like was so present. And though he seemed familiar, as if I knew him, I wasn’t very comfortable with him, for he seemed so strong and so male!

My strong feminist leanings came to the surface, and I bristled. But another part of me felt an attraction to this figure, for I “knew” he was wise and saw much of me that I did not see in myself. Part of me had always wanted to see the worse parts of myself, but part of me feared and resented this personality knowing me, all of me. It was all so brief, seconds, but the intrigue I felt never left.

So, in my second encounter at Red Rock Crossing at the base of Cathedral Rock, in July 1987, five months before I met Gabriel, I recognized this male presence who had appeared previously to me. I have referred much to this second encounter in previous teachings, so I won’t go into detail.

What I do want to share is that I experienced the same mixed feelings and resistance that I did in my first encounter. As you probably can recall from reading The Divine New Order, when Paladin first introduced himself to Gabriel, he presented himself as Sky Hawk. When I first met Sky Hawk through Gabriel, I immediately recognized him as the personality I had encountered twice before in a meditation and in an awake vision at Red Rock Crossing.

In the ensuing weeks and months, I often struggled with Celestial Overcontrol’s information and guidance, for it challenged my own ways of seeing certain things. I recall that the primary midwayers who were our first unseen counselors and teachers telling Gabriel and me that they and other celestial personalities of Overcontrol, who would be working with us, would give us information and guidance that would at times “go against our grain.” (They actually used those words!) I found that immediately to be true, and often I would argue with them, get angry with the human vessel Gabriel, and so on, but I usually would see their perspective if I gave myself some time with the Threefold Spirit of God.

Occasionally I wasn’t able to see or agree with the celestial perspective (or the human Gabriel’s), but I chose to follow through with their guidance anyway or to just give myself even more time. I still do that at times, and these choices I refer to as my choices in faith. Frankly, there have been a few times when I obstinately did it my way rather than the differing celestial way (or human Gabriel’s) and have realized after the fact that I made a mistake. In hindsight, I can see that every choice in faith that I made, in deference to my elders, worked out for the highest good, regardless of my initial struggles and opposing opinions.

Over the years I have come to trust the process, and, as I’ve grown and matured spiritually, I disagree less and less with the celestials, or with the human Gabriel for that matter. With Gabriel I find that he continues to share with me his own perceptions, etc. concerning almost every aspect of our reality, and he usually does not make decisions without consulting with me. We usually agree, though sometimes I submit to his discernment that is different from mine. I have also found that Gabriel usually asks me my opinions about something before crystallizing his own; I have always known his respect and love, though at times in the past, in my less mature self, I have felt angry and resentful when he has confronted me about something.

Since meeting the human Gabriel and our celestial friends, I have been more challenged than I had ever been before. For the first time in my life I met “persons” who saw me in a more complete way; they recognized and acknowledged both my virtues and my shortcomings at a very deep level.

I was used to being around people who loved, respected, and looked up to me. Sure they saw some of my limitations and imperfections, but not to the depth and breadth that those in Celestial Overcontrol did! And Gabriel was the first human being who discerned at the level he did, and sometimes I wanted to squeeze his head for it! In spite of all this, I knew that I had never (in this current life anyway) been loved and valued the way I was with this crew. It was a coming-of-age experience to discover that divine love wasn’t just mushy, sentimental, good-feely stuff.

Of course, growing up in an orderly and harmonious home with loving Christian parents who “practiced what they preached” contributed to my ability to accept the challenges of being aligned with Divine Administration and accepting the adjudication process. When growing up, my father was the strictest parent of all of my peers. Though there were times when I disliked him for his following through with consequences when I disobeyed him or broke certain rules, I never doubted his steady love for me. Though I didn’t always like my father’s stern admonishments over my selfishness, I knew he would always be there for me. So, as any child, I had mixed feelings about my parents. My lower self wanted them to let me slide and get away with my shenanigans, but my higher self (which at that time was often in the background) appreciated my parents’ discipline and tight reign, for I felt protected.

I share all of this with you because we humans, no matter how old (soul-wise) or how accomplished and skilled we are, are but mere children before Grandfather Paladin and the rest of those in Celestial Overcontrol. Remember how pitiful, and at times amusing, Gollum seemed in his shenanigans, in his back and forth routine between his higher and lower selves? I think we probably present similar scenarios to Celestial Overcontrol in our fluctuations between levels of understanding and responding.

I have learned that all of us ascending human beings need time to process difficult realizations, situations, and messages that confront us; for it does feel like confrontation when we encounter something that does not gel with our plans or beliefs or expectations.

We don’t have to choose Gollum’s outcome; our destiny is much greater and nobler. As you give yourselves time to grow into a higher understanding of the counsel of your elders (human and celestial), overcome moment to moment the Gollum-like whinings and snivelings that try to overtake your minds and hearts. Remember who you really are.

Teaching by Gabriel of Urantia

Individuals of true artistic talent in any field on this fallen world must realize that they are in a war, so to speak, and in order to succeed, that is to meet one’s God given-destiny, they need to be overcomers of many obstacles. It is much easier for a unspiritized soul to succeed since the fallen system is set up to complement the materialistic, non-spiritual mind.As spiritual warriors of the light brigade the obstacles for you are many and mighty. You must constantly be:

• Overcoming the wishes of parents for your careers over God’s will for you
• Overcoming the false security of third-dimensional paychecks
• Overcoming marriage to a person who is not a complement to your life’s calling
• Overcoming painful divorces where you feel emotionally and financially crippled, as well as separated from your children
• Overcoming being unable to move geographically to where you may have to go at certain times in your younger years to further your experience and career if necessary
• Overcoming false loyalties
• Overcoming misplaced compassion
• Overcoming having to keep a roof over your head with a low-paying job instead of tying yourself up in a higher-paying, more demanding job that would take more of your time away from your true dream
• Overcoming bacteria and viruses
• Overcoming getting too fat or too skinny
• Overcoming habits that prevent you from staying in good health
• Overcoming mad cow disease and the desire to eat hamburgers
• Overcoming the earth changes i.e. earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, and other natural disasters
• Overcoming terrorist attacks
• Overcoming the winter that makes you want to hibernate
• Overcoming negative films that seem to be all too common
• Overcoming boring and inane television programs
• Overcoming the oldies on the radio that keeps millions of listeners in the past
• Overcoming false friends and acquaintances who wish to keep you small like them
• Overcoming the jealousies of others who will not recognize your talent
• Overcoming your own sense of the fear of being great
• Overcoming lack of discipline in many areas of your life
• Overcoming procrastination
• Overcoming self pity
• Overcoming false pride
• Overcoming the sense of not being understood
• Overcoming all types of rejection
• Overcoming the feeling of getting too old to meet your destiny
• Overcoming misrepresentation by the corporate media (or by anyone else) once your higher message begins to get out there enough to make some difference
• Overcoming the time lag of justice on a fallen world
• Overcoming the lower mass consciousness of the dominate culture

Once you begin to express new thoughts to the commonplace minds, you challenge their belief systems, their way of life. To advance up the ladder of higher consciousness, you must decide that you are going to lose loved ones—family members, friends, and hopeful friends. You must be willing to be misunderstood and misrepresented. The higher you are willing to climb the spiritual steps, the lonelier the search becomes.

February 15, 2004

Repersonalization and the Opening Up of Memory Circuitry in the Upstepping of the Adjudication of the Case of the Bright and Morning Star versus Lucifer since 1989. The Absolute Necessity of the Beginning Establishment of the Cosmic Family to Usher in the First Stage of Light and Life on a Fallen World.

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

Presented by Niánn Emerson Chase

I grew up on Native American reservations, so as a child I experienced wild open spaces of land and black evening skies unhindered by the lights of human civilization. I recall many nights looking up at the vastness of the star-studded heavens and experiencing fear and awe at the bigness and deepness of space. I felt very small and insignificant in the hugeness of what I sensed the heavens were and, at the same time, I felt lovingly enveloped by that same space.

My family and friends could not quite understand what I was feeling and thinking when I tried to express the depth of my emotions and thoughts when I looked into the night sky. It was as if they did not sense the immensity of space to the extent that I did, nor did they understand the paradox of my feelings about space—fear, awe, and being loved. By the time I was ten or eleven I was more at ease with my mixed emotions about space; thus I relaxed and wallowed in the beauty and wonder of the night skies, and did so without needing to share my thoughts and feelings with other humans, for I felt the presence of unseen family and friends and I felt “at home” with seeming solitude.

Often on long, sunny spring and fall days I would come home from school, have a snack, visit briefly with my cheerful and loving mother, and then leave to climb by myself the mesa behind our house. I would spend a couple of hours roaming the flat top, sometimes sitting on the edge of the east side, looking down on the village, observing the Apache children play outside while their mothers prepared supper over an open fire in their outdoor summer kitchens. As I heard the laughter of the children and smelled the smoke from the cooking fires, I would thank God for my own family and my own home that was filled with warmth, laughter, and safety. My love for my family enveloped the Apache families that I watched and heard from my perch on the mesa. I personally knew many of those families; many of the children were my classmates, and some were my close friends who sometimes explored the surrounding desert with me.

Though I grew up with a sense of extended human family, feeling protected and cherished, I yearned for something more. I was brought up in a godly home, experiencing a dynamic religion of the best of Christianity and Native American spirituality, but I wanted more. I wanted to find unknown persons who I considered “missing” in my life. I wanted the potential that I sensed when I contemplated space. I wanted the promise of adventure, exploration, and freedom that I saw when I sat on the western side of the mesa and looked out upon the miles and miles of land, untouched by human beings except for a small dirt road that wound its way through the rolling desert hills. Where did that road end? Did it end? What roads would I take as I grew up and composed a life on my own?

When I left home for college, I never looked back. I embarked on an adventure of meeting new people; exploring different ideologies, philosophies, and religions; and traveling some. Of course, I still spent time with my family, visiting them often, bringing with me new friends who were missing their own families or who had never experienced the richness of a functional family. Always, no matter who I brought, regardless of their race, religion, or appearance, my friends were welcomed by my parents and siblings. Once my mother asked me if it was ever possible that I would visit them alone, without a retinue of friends. But I couldn’t, for after leaving home I realized how blessed I was in having the family I have, and I wanted to share them with others; I wanted my friends to experience the fun and warmth and closeness that I had with my family.

Periodically I got into arguments with my father and uncles over politics or religion, for as I expanded mentally and spiritually, I embraced other values, other ideas that were foreign to most of my family members. My mother once lovingly said to me, “You are always changing on us. We never know what you are going to come up with next.” And some of the things I came up with! But I won’t get into that.

Often in college I would meet individuals who seemed so familiar to me, who I loved immediately, or disliked instantly. Most I felt love for. I recall Kate, who reminded me of a carrot. (Have you ever known someone who resembled a vegetable or fruit? When I was in my early twenties I had a friend who was a perfect strawberry—round in body, red in her passions for artistic endeavors, and very sweet.) When I first saw Kate standing in a hallway talking with someone, I knew she was my sister. I decided that I needed to rekindle our relationship. Remember now, that I had never met Kate before in this life. She and I became almost inseparable for about three years, and then decisions we each had to make about our life paths sent us in different directions, and I have not seen or heard from her since. But I look forward to reuniting with her again some time in our future.

Now, with my expanded understanding of cosmic family and repersonalization due to Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation (CFER), I know that Kate is a cosmic sister of mine, a much younger one, but one I have lived and worked and grown with on another world in another universe. I think I also knew her in a Native American life here on this world called Urantia.

Kate is just one example. I have seen, briefly encountered, and become close with many cosmic family members and acquaintances over the years since I left home to go to college. Before having Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation (CFER), I did not completely understand the relationships, but I knew I had known them before in another life, and I knew that I was meant to have an encounter with them in this life. From my late teens on I have had intense, very close relationships with numerous individuals, men and women of all ages, races, cultures, and religions. We initially felt a strong attraction and jumped quickly into meaningful friendships. I did not jump into bed with the men; they became my best friends…..brothers…..family. We would have these intense relationships of sharing our deepest selves, being there for each other in our ups and downs, and then part, never seeing each other again….in this life any way….so far.

And yet, I continued to yearn, to want something more. I wanted to know more about space, about God, about my unseen friends, about people on this world, about why this world seemed so messed up, about me, why I felt that I had so many layers of experience within me, more than most people I knew. Why was my full and rich life not quite enough? Why did I sometimes feel so lonely, in spite of being surrounded by loyal and loving family and friends? Why did I get so restless? Why did I feel such frustration, and sometimes even rage, at the stupidity of human beings, including the frailty of my own humanness? Why was I dissatisfied with my work, even though I loved it and felt, to a certain extent, that I was fulfilled in it? Why, in spite of thinking that my life was full of purpose, did I strongly sense that I was just biding my time, that I had a bigger mission and purpose? Why did I experience feeling at home on this world, at home in the moment with my work and in relationships, at home with my personal relationship with God, and yet, paradoxically, not at home with any of it? Why did I feel as if I was waiting for something to happen?

Hey, I still experience a lot of this still, especially the frustration and disappointment of seeing the potential and having to deal with the actual circumstantial reality of the moment.

—————

1987 was a year of extreme transition for me. After doing battle with the “Hound of Heaven” and giving in to the strong leadings of the Threefold Spirit that I was hearing within, I had separated from my husband of ten years a few years before. In 1987 I resigned from continuing my teaching profession of fifteen years and made plans to move away from what had been home for some time. At that time, I was dating a variety of men, some interesting and some not so interesting, which, by the way, had nothing to do with the guidance of divine spirit within me. I was a mess!

My control issues were coming up big time, and so were my security addictions—security of being with friends and family, security of having a regular paycheck coming in, etc. I felt as if my life and I were being turned inside out, and it was not comfortable. In fact, half of the time I was miserable and terrified—terrified that in leaving my comfort zone I would be alone and no one would love me, terrified that I would end up on the streets homeless and penniless, terrified that I was making a big mistake, and of course, everyone I knew thought I was. Some even thought I was having a nervous breakdown, and it certainly felt like that to me.

I had no idea where I was going or what I was going to do; I just knew that I had to go, that God was asking me to take a road into the unknown in order to meet those individuals I had been pining for, to do the work that I was sent to do, and to discover truth that I had been languishing to find. From my reasonable self, and I can be quite reasonable, I was being very irresponsible and actually acting crazy. My parents, extended family, and friends agreed with the reasonable part of me. But that other part was more real to me, and I acknowledged and embraced it.

When I finally quit inwardly arguing with my divine inner guidance, and said, “OK, OK. You win. What next?”, I felt a tremendous burden lift. I felt relieved and freed. But the minute I moved from that place of faith into my reasonable self, I panicked and became anxiety-ridden. So psychologically I was on a see-saw.

In July of 1987 I spent some time with my three children on Mingus Mountain. One day I came to Sedona (without my children) and was led to Red Rock Crossing to spend some time. While sitting and trying to tune into what God wanted to say to me, I had a vision of a powerful divine being sitting on Crusader Rock, which I was looking at. I knew he was someone I had known before, an ancient ancestor or elder of some kind. I was not sure, for he seemed to be both divine and human. He looked at me with a piercing look that left me feeling both shriveled and blessed. I heard in my mind a message from him that said he had been with me before as a guide and spiritual grandfather and that he would soon be with me again in a closer way, to rest and have peace, that events would unfold for me on my new path.

About half an hour later I had another vision where I was on the red rock plateau that was behind and above where I was sitting. I knew I was in the not-too-distant future. I was standing in a circle with a group of other people, holding hands. None of the people were familiar in this life, but they were familiar to me anyway, as if I knew them before and was going to be with them again soon. I felt comforted and more at ease.

After those two visions, I looked forward to my future in anticipation, with less fear and anxiety and with more peace and assurance. I knew that God was with me and that my destiny was unfolding before me. I knew that I was surrounded by my unseen friends whose presence I had sensed from the time I considered space as a child.

The following month, August, I came again to Red Rock Crossing to experience what people in the New Age were referring to as the “Harmonic Convergence.” It was my birthday, and I spent the night sleeping by the creek by myself, but not really by myself. I could feel and almost hear many unseen personalities around me. Some time in the early morning hours I awakened and felt the earth shudder slightly and sensed some kind of shift. I looked up at the black silhouette of Cathedral Rock outlined against the silver, moonlit sky and knew I had come home.

In December of that year I met Gabriel and the great adventure really began in full throttle and has not slowed down one iota.

—————

I share some of my personal experiences to show the realness of cosmic family and memory circuits opening up to the fact of repersonalization for some people on this world, and to the fact that there indeed is a regathering of the “goodly company,” of the “wayshowers,” of the “bird tribes,” of the “renaissance makers,” of the “cosmic family,” of the “destiny and cosmic reservists.”

As I grew and developed from childhood on, my memory circuitry was gradually, very gradually being opened. Because I have known the cosmology of the grand universe as a mortal on other evolutionary worlds more progressed in their planetary mortal epochs, I sensed, as a child, the vastness and friendliness of space, the divine pattern that circulates throughout all of the universes. Because I knew and experienced a higher truth on these worlds, I also knew of the numerous celestial personalities who represent the Paradise Deities in some manner. I knew them, even as a child at some level, as family, cosmic family.

The yearning for so much more than I had (and I had a very wonderful and full life) was for a higher reality on all levels—material, mindal, social, and spiritual. I yearned for more beautiful and functional architecture, for silent and more efficient machinery, for more compassionate and ethical governments. I yearned for a broader understanding of the workings of nature, of societies, of human beings. I yearned for even more enriching experiences and relationships than I already had. I yearned for a greater understanding of and closeness to God.

When I begin to see and meet people that I had been acquainted with in other lives, they seemed familiar; some I knew more clearly their relationship to me, like Kate. The draw, the energy that brought me into the places where cosmic acquaintances and family were is called in Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation (CFER) “morontia magnetic force energy.” Morontia magnetic force energy is introduced in The Cosmic Family, Volume II and is defined as: “the divine flow of open circuitry in relation to memory which draws cosmic family members to one another.” In essence, this morontia magnetic force field energy is equivalent to the higher thoughts of cosmic family members, which allows them to recognize apparent strangers upon their initial contact on an evolutionary world such as Urantia (Earth).

—————

None of those people I met and related with before meeting Gabriel of Urantia are here, aligned with Divine Administration. I don’t know where they are, but I believe their highest destiny is to be here in this work, which not only encompasses outreach to all of humankind, but includes the inner work of adjudication and ascension, which includes correction, rehabilitation, healing, and accelerated growth.

Auhter energy is not available to those cosmic family members who are not here at the spiritual planetary headquarters of Urantia—the Dalamatia, the Third Garden, the Salem, the New Jerusalem, the First Planetary Sacred Home of today. Auhter energy is only created among those aligned with Divine Administration. What is auhter energy? It is “the higher force energy synergetic field resultant from cosmic nuclear fusion created by the joining or rejoining of spiritual cosmic families or groups based upon the personality bestowal of the Universal Father and each individual’s acquiescence to His personality, and the group consciousness in relation to Celestial Overcontrol.”

The morontia magnetic field flow is not available to those outside of Divine Administration. Morontia magnetic field flow is “a divine path to system and universe headquarters and above which creates a magnetic power generated by a grid link to the First Planetary Sacred Home and is available to those who know about the activation of thought energy in connection to divine circuitry.”

—————

Why did I, a person who does not go around having visions and so-called mystical experiences, have two back-to-back visions at Red Rock Crossing at a certain time in my life? What did I see? The strong, spirit personality that I encountered was Paladin, the great grandfather finaliter of the First Cosmic Family, one of the main celestial personalities to fuse with Gabriel of Urantia and bring through CFER. Who and what did I see with the circle of people? I saw the regathering of the cosmic family at Planetary Sacred Home, the headquarters for Machiventa Melchizedek, gathered around Cathedral Rock in Sedona, Arizona. What are we to do with Paladin, Machiventa, and company? Create a higher reality here that will eventually spread across the entire planet, bringing Urantia into the first stage of light and life. Are we doing it? Yes, in spite of many seeming setbacks, challenges, and so on.

So, here I am, with many of my family, seen and unseen, still occasionally having little nervous breakdowns when I hold back from making the moves forward that God wants me to, still occasionally getting frustrated and discouraged with how slow and ponderous everything seems to be, and still plugging away on my own imperfections, striving to become more Christ-like. Here I am, so grateful to be here in this very rich and full life that just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I still look up in the night skies, feeling small and big at the same time. I still look off to the horizon, wondering what’s on the other side. I still want to explore those earthly roads that I have not physically traveled on. I still want to roam the hills by myself, and sometimes with a couple of friends. I still want to bring newfound friends into my home and share my family with them, now it is a bigger home with a much bigger family, a cosmic family.
November 30, 2003

Presented by Niánn Emerson Chase

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

Recently I had a conversation with a man and woman who have spent decades in the public school system, giving of their love, energy, and talents. As I conversed with them and listened to their expressions of disappointment, disenchantment, and exhaustion, I was reminded of my own experiences as a highly motivated teacher who gave my creativity and inspiration to the students I loved.

When I graduated from college and returned to the San Carlos Apache reservation to teach, I was full of enthusiasm, hope, and expectations. Like this couple I retained my idealism and optimism for many years, thinking that great changes could happen for my students as long as I inspired them with my great teaching and encouraged them with my genuine love for them. Like this couple I grew exhausted and frustrated.

A friend of mine who just retired after a thirty-year career as a history teacher recently expressed to me his extreme disappointment in the public school system. Though he enjoyed the interaction with his students and was considered one of the more outstanding teachers in the school, he chose to take early retirement because he could no longer work in a system that he believes has become corrupt and defunct.

Though the couple I met are beginning to consider using their talents outside of the public school system, they feel trapped with few options.

After fifteen years of teaching in public schools, I took a leap of faith and simply quit with no concrete plans of what I was going to do.

Even though my friend was struggling for many years, he hung in there until he had thirty years of service so that he could have a decent pension. Most consider his move very practical.

When I just up and resigned, most people considered my move to be impractical and downright irresponsible, for I had three children to take care of.

The couple I recently met are at a crossroads in their lives—should they take a leap in faith and try something outside of the mainstream, or should they be practical and continue as they have for so many years?

——————–

Why I was able to just up and quit my position in mainstream society was because I had faith and hope—faith that God was indeed guiding me to take a “road less traveled,” and hope that I would find my way on that path with no financial security and no practical plan of where I was going to live or what I was going to do for work.

Twenty-five years later here I am—alive and full of gratitude for my lot in life. As I so often express, I believe that I am one of the richest persons alive, and that feeling of prosperity has very little to do with the material aspect of my life, though I am very thankful for my lovely surroundings and my many physical blessings. As I recently told a friend (who belongs to a country club and lives a fairly luxurious life-style), I would feel at spiritual peace and full of thanksgiving if I lived in a shack, for I believe I am walking in my God-given destiny, doing work I love, living with a community of cosmic family in an environment that provides boundless opportunities for growth in virtues and wisdom.

I am saddened by my friend’s lot in life, what she has settled for; even though she appears “successful” by the standards of the dominant culture (what we in Divine Administration refer to as the third dimension). She commented to me that she has had to compromise tremendously in order to remain in the work, lifestyle, and personal relationships she’s in. It is her choice at this time to stay in the life she has composed, even though she is frustrated and disappointed.

——————–

I’ve learned over the years to be realistic in my hope for others. Many years ago when I was still teaching in the public school system, I recall an epiphany I had. I was fervently praying that God would help me with my expectations for my students. I could see their potential; I had great hopes for them, and I poured my heart, mind, and soul into being the best teacher I could be. I worked hard at providing opportunities that would inspire them, expand them, encourage them, turn them on to a life with many doors for them to open. But it seemed that no matter my motives, no matter my plans for them, no matter how hard I worked, not much really happened. Most of my students still seemed shut down, shallow, and disinterested in what I had to offer. During this time of pouring out my discouragement in prayer, after moaning and groaning, mumbling and grumbling about how hard I worked for these kids and not much seemed to happen, I finally quieted down to rest in the Universal Father and listen. I received a very clear message, “Continue in your good work and be not attached to the outcome.”

Be not attached to the outcome. Those words hit me like a sledge hammer. I suddenly realized that I was too attached to my expectations of how things would turn out. From that moment on, I have continued to be challenged with situations where I have to let go of my personal expectations, to be not attached to the outcome, to continue in my day-to-day work in God’s will, letting go of false hopes, being realistic in a spiritized mind.

——————–

I am a naturally optimistic person, and for many years I was falsely hopeful and optimistic in third-dimensional institutions. I learned, in my participation in various religious, political, and social movements to not place so much confidence in them. I actually came to realize through my own experiences this truth stated on page 2082 of The URANTIA Book, “Secular social and political optimism is an illusion. Without God, neither freedom and liberty, nor property and wealth can lead to peace.” (I think the peace referred to here is not only peace between human beings but the inner personal peace of individuals.)

I think that the couple and my two friends I’ve mentioned will not find the inner peace and meaningful work they are looking for as long as they do not have faith in God and hope in His outworkings in their lives. They are all optimistic, hard-working, and well-meaning people, but their realism is still based on secular values. Even though they may be disillusioned, they still have hope in their illusions based on the secular world, what we in Divine Administration refer to as the third dimension.

The URANTIA Book refers to realistic and false hope. What I began to realize in that epiphany I had, when I received the message to have no attachment to the outcome of my endeavors, was to be realistic as well as hopeful from a spiritized perspective. As long as I am doing the best I can in God’s will, good will come out of my endeavors, even if I may not see the manifestation of my work immediately. I remind myself that the act is mine but the consequences are God’s. Jesus had no interest in the outcome of His interactions with people; He just gave of Himself and moved on. So, though I love those I interact with, I am learning to not place false hope in them; I place my hope in the fragment of God within them, for it is the leading of the Spirit of God that empowers any of us to transform ourselves and our lives.

The URANTIA Book indicates that true, realistic hope is only attained through the God fragment within us, and with that hope we harmonize our attitudes and thoughts with this Thought Adjuster’s leadings and can then realize the transforming power of all of the living spiritual forces available to us. It is only through divine hope that we experience transformations of human character. (p. 64:07)

My hope is to attain, at the highest degree possible, the perfection of character that Jesus acquired in His short life on Urantia. I cannot do this without cooperating moment-to-moment with divine spiritual influences. I also hope to attain the practical optimism that Jesus had, His realism, which is founded on faith, hope, and love.

On page 2089 of The URANTIA Book we are told,

In the earthly life of Jesus, religion was a living experience, a direct and personal movement from spiritual reverence to practical righteousness. The faith of Jesus bore the transcendent fruits of the divine spirit. His faith was not immature and credulous like that of a child, but in many ways it did resemble the unsuspecting trust of the child mind. Jesus trusted God much as the child trusts a parent. He had a profound confidence in the universe—just such a trust as the child has in its parental environment. Jesus’ wholehearted faith in the fundamental goodness of the universe very much resembled the child’s trust in the security of its earthly surroundings. He depended on the heavenly Father as a child leans upon its earthly parent, and his fervent faith never for one moment doubted the certainty of the heavenly Father’s overcare. He was not disturbed seriously by fears, doubts, and skepticism. Unbelief did not inhibit the free and original expression of his life. He combined the stalwart and intelligent courage of a full-grown man with the sincere and trusting optimism of a believing child. His faith grew to such heights of trust that it was devoid of fear.

And on page 2093,

Jesus led persons to feel at home in the world; he delivered them from the slavery of taboo and taught them that the world was not fundamentally evil. He did not long to escape from his earthly life; he mastered a technique of acceptably doing the Father’s will while in the flesh. He attained an idealistic religious life in the very midst of a realistic world. Jesus did not share an apostle’s pessimistic view of humankind. The Master looked upon humans as the sons and daughters of God and foresaw a magnificent and eternal future for those who chose survival. He was not a moral skeptic; he viewed people positively, not negatively. He saw most persons as weak rather than wicked, more distraught than depraved. But no matter what their status, they were all God’s children and his brethren.

——————–

In the various teachings on prayer and worship, The URANTIA Book states that prayer is many things, and a very important form of prayer is the expression of thanksgiving. (I highly recommend reading and reflecting on Jesus’ discourse on prayer and worship found on pages 1638 to 1641.)

As I continue to grow spiritually I experience less of the lower human emotions and more of the higher emotions. I experience the most joy and peace with what The URANTIA Book calls the highest human feelings, the worshipful emotions of gratitude, awe, reverence and humility. (p.708:02)

I’m grateful for so much, but what dominates my gratitude is the realness of God’s presence in my life. No matter how discouraged I get, how frustrated, how tired, I know that God is with me and with this world. I cannot remember ever not knowing of the reality of God’s presence. I just continue to experience it more fully, more completely as each day passes. My faith just gets bigger.

Where did my faith come from? The URANTIA Book states that faith, hope, and assurance are all related; as you live in realistic faith in God, you attain hope in real things of eternal value, not in false illusions, not in temporary, fleeting things. With hope in that which is real, you begin to experience assurance—assurance in the presence of God, assurance in the power of truth, beauty, and goodness over evil.

I’m so thankful for the epochal revelation, for even though I have always had faith in God and have experienced His presence in many ways, my mental, emotional, and spiritual progress has been quickened since I have begun to study and experience the truths in The URANTIA Book and Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation (CFER). One of the truths taught is that in order to accelerate our ascension we must use faith and be dependent upon revelation. (p.221:02)

Soon citizens of the United States will celebrate Thanksgiving. Various celebrations of thanksgiving have been practiced through the eras in almost all cultures and religions, for there is innate in human beings a need to express gratitude for that which is good in life. For us here in Divine Administration, our celebration of thanksgiving is daily.

Presented by Niánn Emerson Chase

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

The State of the Planet

This past Friday-Saturday the Coast to Coast radio program hosted by Art Bell focused on various prophecies that predict the end of most life on this earth. The people calling in especially talked about the predictions of a woman who had been a guest on the show earlier in the week. Though I did not hear her speak on the previous show and am unfamiliar with her writings and teachings, it is my understanding that she claims that in 2003 there will be some kind of catastrophe caused by what she calls “Planet X” which is headed towards our earth. According to her predictions, as a result of the close proximity of Planet X, most of life as we know it will be destroyed.

What stood out for me was that throughout the night, as I drifted in and out of sleep, the individuals that I did hear call in seemed to calmly accept this prophecy and indicated that humankind deserved to be wiped out, that the nature of humans was basically evil, that the terrible state of our planet was due to the bad choices of people throughout the history of humankind, that the evil done by human beings over thousands of years had culminated in the predicted destiny of doom for our world.

One woman with a gentle, melodious-sounding voice called in to comment on the brutality and beastiality of men in general. She expressed her belief that when the masses learn of their impending deaths, they will choose to go wild and rape and pillage, that no woman will be safe from men, who she at least once referred to as “animals.” Her opinion of men is that the majority of them are selfish and will force their will on women (as well as other individuals), satiating their momentary physical lusts and lusts for personal power, never taking into consideration the permanent psychological damage they cause to those they rape and use for their personal gain. (And rape comes in many forms of violent abuse.) A poll was mentioned that asked men from all walks of life if they would rape if they knew that they would not get caught and punished for it. According to this caller, most of the men interviewed said they would rape if they were guaranteed safety from being caught, and some even said that they already had someone in mind that they would like to rape. Men who called in after this commentary agreed with the woman’s opinion of men; they also had a very low opinion of their gender. In fact, all of those who called in that I heard seemed to have no faith in human beings at all, nor faith in God or the goodness of the power of God.

I was amazed that those individuals who I heard seemed so nonchalant about the destruction of humankind, that they could so easily discuss these prophecies of hopelessness with no expression of grief or fear. It was as if they have shut down and accepted their fate and the fate of the rest of life on this planet.

It seems that most people who are aware of the very vulnerable state of our planet are also aware that this precarious position has been caused by choices and actions of humans who are motivated by selfishness, ignorance, and evil. A study of human history indicates that this brutality and devastation comes from motives based on greed—greed for power over others, greed for many material things, and so on.

Every time I listen to programs like the Art Bell show where people express their opinions, I become more aware of the ignorance of spiritual truths and the paucity of spiritual depth in individuals. I become more aware of the need for the clarification and correction that epochal revelation can bring to the people of this world.

The Destiny of This World

I disagree with those I heard on the Art Bell show. Like them, I am aware of the evil in the world, of the earth changes that are happening right now and that will increase. But I am also aware of the existence of the First Father of us all, God the Universal Father. I am aware of His nature, of His love. I have experienced His presence and love in my life in so many ways. I know of His spirit presence within me. I know that He is the First Creative Source and Divine Center. I know that He is the Infinite Upholder and the Divine Controller of all that exists that is reality. I know that evil is not reality in that it does not come from the First Father, the Father of Fathers. I know that all that is evil, all that is out of the Father of Lights’ divine pattern is temporary and will pass away, that all that is good, that is of the Universal Center’s divine pattern will not pass away but continue on in some manner for eternity. I know that the First Source and Center is indeed the All-powerful One and that His power, what Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation (CFER) calls “Deo power,” is of eternal value. I also know that the power that comes from selfishness and ignorance and greed is fleeting and will pass away. Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation (CFER) calls the power that has created suffering, devastation, and destruction “dio power.”

I know our planet, that has suffered the terrible consequences of the Lucifer rebellion that begin 200,000 years ago, has a different destiny than what those on the Art Bell show predict. Those individuals who talk of the evils of the world are correct in that area, but when they begin to predict the complete destruction of life on this world, they do not know of the Paradise Father who is the Gift of Life and whose presence is indeed on this world and within each of us human beings, whether we are aware of it or not. They are not aware of the Deo power of having faith in the First Father and ascending in His great love and pattern. They have accepted the Lucifer manifesto that disclaims the existence of the Universal Father and thus also denies the reality of His plan of ascension for His mortal children.

What I know and experience daily is the process of making choices from either my higher or my lower self. My higher self is in attunement with the threefold spirit of the Universal Father, the Paradise Mother, and the Eternal Son, the First Family. I know that it is the destiny of every human being to also ascend into their higher selves, into their circuitry within divine pattern. I know that though humans can act as beasts and monsters, they can also act as angels and become godlike. I know that if an individual does not begin to realize the ascension plan of the First Father on this world, that he or she will be given the opportunity on another world, what The URANTIA Book calls a mansion world.

I know that though we on Urantia (the cosmic name of Earth) must suffer the many and varied consequences of evil, including earth changes, that the destiny of this world is to move into the stages of light and life. I know that the goodness of the Father is so much more powerful than the wrongness that is so evident on this world. I know that the potential for individual human beings to manifest truth, beauty, and goodness is of eternal value and will eventually unfold in the First Father’s plan for ascension. I know that all men are not monsters, that not all men want to rape and ravish the earth and all of life. I know that the destiny of each man, and woman, is to reflect in their own individual way the reality of the Father of Fathers, His love and beauty and goodness.

On this Father’s Day, I can’t help but think of the most important men in my life—my biological father, Leland, and my beloved complement, Gabriel of Sedona. Both of these men have fulfilled their first responsibility within the Father circuitry to me—spending their entire adult lives loving and serving the First Father of All. They both know that Jesus was the Christ and Son of God, a revelation to show us humans the way to God, the First Father of All. Both of these men manifest a balance within the Father circuitry, living and reflecting many of the attributes and characteristics of the Universal Father and Christ Jesus. And both of these men have inspired and encouraged me to look to the First Father through His Son and manifest His power and light into my life.

Both of these men have seen me as someone with a special destiny and great responsibility to serve humankind on this planet. Thus, both of these men have demanded the highest from me in my maturation and ascension process—my father when I was a child and young woman under his protection and responsibility; Gabriel when I came under his protection and responsibility as his complement. Both of these men have been extremely gentle with me, as well as stern and even righteously angry. I have experienced both gratitude and resentment towards these men.

I’ll never forget the gentle love and support my father showed me many times when I felt confused or frustrated in general with life; he was always there for me, as a child and as a young adult. When I needed to rant and rave or cry or when I wanted to hear his words of wise guidance, my dad was always available for me. And I’ll never forget the gentle love and support Gabriel gave me when I grieved two different kinds of death with my father. The first death was an end to relating to my father as his daughter who he needed to guide and protect. I struggled in the transition (and so did my dad) of becoming more of a teacher-daughter as I moved into an expanded understanding of spiritual truths as a result of embracing epochal revelation, which my father did not accept for himself. It was a challenge for both my father and me to adjust to a different kind of relationship when Gabriel became the primary protector and spiritual elder in my life rather than Dad. When my father physically passed on, Gabriel was there to grieve with me, understanding that I would deeply miss the presence of a great and noble man who walked in such gentle humility and love for others, and who had been such an integral part of my whole life. But Gabriel also brought tremendous comfort to me by reminding me of my father’s destiny to live on in the mansion worlds, working for the truth, beauty, and goodness of God on his side as we worked for that divine pattern on our side. My father too is ascending as we on this world unfold within our own God-given personalities. My separation from my father is temporary, for I will meet up with him again.

I’ll always remember (with gratitude now but resentment then) my father’s extreme strictness with me. He often became very angry with me when I showed selfishness and pride and confronted me, giving me stern talks about my responsibility to grow into a humble and righteous woman, always thinking and acting for the good of others. I often felt that he was too demanding of me, and I resented him for that. I now believe that he was in attunement with the Spirit of God enough to, at some level, realize my destiny as a teacher of ideals and spiritual truths and that I would need to live what I was teaching, not just talk it. I think that he felt the weight of the responsibility of being a father.

I’ll always remember with gratitude Gabriel’s continuous confrontations when I am not walking in my higher spirit-led self. At first I would get very angry with him when he pointed out my wrong-doing or incorrect thinking, but as time has passed, my anger is less, though I still feel embarrassed and uncomfortable when light is shed on my own error. I thank God that Gabriel has the discernment and courage to confront me, regardless of my reaction.

We’re taught here in Divine Administration that in order to be a centered and balanced ascending son or daughter of God, we each need the proper coordination of the Father, Son, and Mother circuitry within us. On March 18, 1997 Paladin spoke of cosmic and Urantian reservists. “Knowing who you are and where you came from does not make a reservist; knowing your God does; believing in what this work is does; being willing to deal with your own stuff does.”

My biological father was not a cosmic reservist; he did not embrace The URANTIA Book; in fact, when it came to expanded spiritual truths, he could be quite fundamental in his thinking and very closed. But he knew at some level in his heart and mind that I was destined to be a reservist, and he did all that he could do to bring me up to meet that destiny.

That is what Father circuitry is about—doing everything you can to aid others meet their God-given destiny. That means, first and foremost, knowing who your First Father is and who His Creator Son is, and then embracing those Paradise Persons into your minds and hearts and acting moment-to-moment under their guidance. Father-circuitry means having the discernment to know when someone needs words of praise and encouragement and when they need admonishment and confrontation. It means knowing when to be gentle and when to be stern. It means knowing when to be big and when to be small.

Here in Divine Administration, the responsibility to become coordinated in our Father circuitry lies first with Gabriel and me, then with the Liaison Ministers, then with the other elders, then with the First Assistants and then with the Second Assistants. It is the destiny and responsibility of every person aligned with Divine Administration of Aquarian Concepts to move into his or her individual personality expression of Father circuitry. A very important part of that Father circuitry is to be able to confront. How can individuals change into better persons if they do not know their evil, their error?

I recently heard a comment on a TV program where a person of some discernment said, “Some of the nicest people with good intentions make decisions that cause the greatest harm to the greatest number of people.” One of our best friends and elders, Paladin, stated on November 17, 1997,

How to administer strong Father-circuited authority in God and yet forgive at the same time can be a great strength. You cannot really truly help anyone unless that balance occurs—balance with admonition. Many wish to melt in the Mother circuits but not admonish in the Father circuits. This is not love; this is not balance. To find that balance is a great gift that you can give others….when you invite a dark soul into a dark room and you know where the light is and they don’t, you need to turn the light on….Let’s take an angry soul with 20% goodness and 80% dio (evil). Some of you only focus on his 20% goodness and don’t turn the light on his 80% dio.

Paladin has called elders and other mandated people “soul protectors.” In order to be Divine New Order protectors we must first be the greatest evil detectors and soul surgeons on the planet.

Those individuals who have the responsibility of leadership in the community houses of Global Community Communications are called Household Soul Watchers. They are asked to become more coordinated in their Father circuitry, whether they are men or women.

Just exactly what does a Soul Watcher imply? Does it mean that like my father and like Gabriel, you need to feel the weight of responsibility for those individuals who are living in your household? Does it mean that like my father and Gabriel, you need to have some level of understanding and concern for the destiny of each one of your family members? Does it mean that like my father and Gabriel, you need to feel protective towards your family and home? Does it mean that like my father and Gabriel, you make sure that your home is a safe and sacred environment that provides a haven for reservists? Does it mean that like my father and Gabriel, you know when to be gentle and when to be stern? When to be encouraging and praise and when to be admonishing and confront? When to be big and when to be small?

Ideally all of us should become soul watchers, inspiring those within our realm of influence to strive to be moment-to-moment in our higher selves, open to and receptive of the influence of the living spiritual forces around us and the First Family’s threefold spirit within each of us which encompasses the Fragment of the Father, the Son’s Spirit of Truth, and the Holy Spirit of the Universe Mother Spirit. That Deo power is available for us, but we each have to choose to receive and use it.

On page 2064 of The URANTIA Book we’re told that the bestowal of the Creator Son as Jesus and the gift of His Spirit of Truth “endowed mortals with the power to forgive personal injuries, to keep sweet in the midst of the gravest injustice, to remain unmoved in the face of appalling danger, and to challenge the evils of hate and anger by the fearless acts of love and forbearance.”

I close with expressing my hope that each one of you will move into your future, shedding a brilliant light in the darkness of the chaos and confusion of this planet, being able to express daily the special power of your Father circuitry in balance with the Mother and Son circuits.

June 16, 2002

Presented by Gabriel of Urantia and Niánn Emerson Chase

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

Teaching by Niánn Emerson Chase

In April 2002 many of us enjoyed an inspiring slide show with music, photos, and poetry that focused mainly on the beauty of nature. There were four parts—the first a series of pictures of persons and landscape accompanied by a song that praised the presence of God seen and experienced in so many places in life. The second vignette was composed of photos of Yosemite Park with classical music that enhanced our appreciation of the beauty of divine pattern that can be seen in natural settings as well as heard in the notes of music created by one of nature’s products—human beings. Framing the scenes and music were the words of the great naturalist and environmentalist, John Muir, who with his words painted pictures of the natural world which a blind person could have seen in his or her mind’s eye while we with sight saw it on the screen. The third section was a result of the “9/11″ tragedy and was a plea in music, photos of people in love and in war, and verbal expression for peaceful avenues in solving the problems of terrorism rather than the violent methods presently being used. The fourth was more personal, with photos of the red rocks of Sedona, works of art found at Cathedral Rock Lodge done by Global Community Communications’s CosmoArtists, and pictures of some of the community members. These local scenes on screen were accompanied by the live flute playing of our own Jeru and a poem read that was written by another of our family, Tarenta. The poem spoke of: love for God; a relationship with Him as a divine Father; joyful appreciation for life and destiny He has given us human beings; and the desire to continually grow in compassion and stewardship for all of life, especially other human beings.

It was fitting that the show ended with the reading of this poem that reflected the basic values and attitudes of the individuals who are aligned with Divine Administration. In fact, that entire slide show encompassed what true environmentalism within divine administration principles is about—acknowledgment of the Universal Father as the First Source and Center; appreciation for the beauty of divine pattern as seen in nature and in human personalities; human expression of the many facets of divine pattern through art, music, and literature; and daily acts of love and stewardship for the natural world as well as for human beings and their societies. In other words, an environmentalist in Divine Administration is actively participating in living and expressing the beauty, truth, and goodness of God, the Universal Father.

We refer to God as Father, not just as “First Source” or “Spirit” or “the Universe” or “the Creator” or “Light.” God is all of those and so much more. In the Fifth Epochal Revelation (FER) found in The URANTIA Book, the first five papers have to do with God and Paper 1 is entitled “The Universal Father,” establishing immediately the nature of God as a person, a parent. It is stated in that paper,

The eternal God is infinitely more than reality idealized or the universe personalized. God is not simply the supreme desire of men and women, the mortal quest objectified. Neither is God merely a concept, the power-potential of righteousness. The Universal Father is not a synonym for nature, neither is he natural law personified. God is a transcendent reality, not merely human’s traditional concept of supreme values. God is not a psychological focalization of spiritual meanings, neither is he ‘the noblest work of humankind.’ God may be any or all of these concepts in the minds of men and women, but he is more. He is a saving person and a loving Father to all who enjoy spiritual peace on earth, and who crave to experience personality survival in death. (p. 23:05-24:00)

Though we can see an aspect of God, a faint reflection of His beauty in nature, we cannot find Him completely in the physical world of nature. He is found in all levels of universe reality—the physical, the mindal, and the spiritual—and He is expressed in personality.

The second paper in The URANTIA Book is entitled “The Nature of God,” and on page 35 we are told, “Even your olden prophets understood the eternal, never-beginning, never-ending, circular nature of the Universal Father.” We students of The URANTIA Book know that within that circular nature of God is a complex network of circuitry that has its foundation on the physical circuits of Paradise, the mind circuits of the Paradise Third Source Mother, and the spirit circuits of the Paradise Second Source Son, all unified through the Paradise First Source circuits of personality.

Papers 85 through 92 of The URANTIA Book deal with how religion has evolved on this world through primitive human understanding of reality. Religion starts out as a worship of nature and gradually evolves into a realization that God is not nature, that nature is a creation of God. Eventually, with the help of revelation, religion evolves into a realization that God is a loving personality who does not demand an eye for an eye, or sacrifices, or punishment, or mindless obedience to His law through rote ceremony and ritual.

In Paper 4 entitled “God’s Relation to the Universe,” there is a section called God and Nature which states,

Nature is a time-space resultant of two cosmic factors: first, the immutability, perfection, and rectitude of Paradise Deity, and second, the experimental plans, executive blunders, insurrectionary errors, incompleteness of development, and imperfection of wisdom of the extra-Paradise creatures, from the highest to the lowest. Nature therefore carries a uniform, unchanging, majestic, and marvelous thread of perfection from the circle of eternity; but in each universe, on each planet, and in each individual life, this nature is modified, qualified, and perchance marred by the acts, the mistakes, and the disloyalties of the creatures of the evolutionary systems and universes; and therefore must nature ever be of a changing mood, whimsical withal, though stable underneath, and varied in accordance with the operating procedures of a local universe. (p. 56:06-57:00)

We environmentalists see the beauty of divine pattern in nature, but we also see its harshness and unpredictability. The earth changes are simply the results of the acts and mistakes of humans and spirit beings who have been out of divine pattern for the last 200,000 years as a result of the Lucifer rebellion. So, in these times of world-wide adjudication we recognize the underlying order of divine pattern in nature, but we also see the chaos of evil manifesting in the natural world as humans continue to act in ways that are ungodly, unlike the ways of the Universal Father.

On page 57 we are informed,

God is not personally present in nature or in any of the forces of nature, for the phenomenon of nature is the superimposition of the imperfections of progressive evolution and, sometimes, the consequences of insurrectionary rebellion, upon the Paradise foundations of God’s universal law. As it appears on such a world as Urantia, nature can never be the adequate expression, the true representation, the faithful portrayal, of an all-wise and infinite God.Nature, on your world, is a qualification of the laws of perfection by the evolutionary plans of the local universe. What a travesty to worship nature because it is in a limited, qualified sense pervaded by God; because it is a phase of the universal and, therefore, divine power! Nature also is a manifestation of the unfinished, the incomplete, the imperfect outworkings of the development, growth, and progress of a universe experiment in cosmic evolution.

The apparent defects of the natural world are not indicative of any such corresponding defects in the character of God. Rather are such observed imperfections merely the inevitable stop-moments in the exhibition of the ever-moving reel of infinity picturization. It is these very defect-interruptions of perfection-continuity which make it possible for the finite mind of material man to catch a fleeting glimpse of divine reality in time and space. The material manifestations of divinity appear defective to the evolutionary mind of man only because mortal man persists in viewing the phenomena of nature through natural eyes, human vision unaided by morontia mota or by revelation, its compensatory substitute on the worlds of time.

Nature is marred, her beautiful face is scarred, her features are seared, by the rebellion, the misconduct, the misthinking of the myriads of creatures who are a part of nature, but who have contributed to her disfigurement in time. No, nature is not God.. Nature is not an object of worship.

God is not personally present in nature, though the beauty of His physical pattern is. In Paper 5 “God’s Relation to the Individual” in a section called The Presence of God, we’re told,

The divine presence cannot, however, be discovered anywhere in nature or even in the lives of God-knowing mortals so fully and so certainly as in your attempted communion with the indwelling Mystery Monitor, the Paradise Thought Adjuster [a fragment of God in each of us]. What a mistake to dream of God far off in the skies when the spirit of the Universal Father lives within your own mind. (ibid., p. 64:06)

Papers 100 through 103 explain what true religion is, and in Paper 101 “The Real Nature of Religion” it is stated,

The contemplation of nature can only reveal a God of nature, a God of motion. Nature exhibits only matter, motion, and animation—life. Matter plus energy, and under certain conditions, is manifested in living forms, but while natural life is thus relatively continuous as a phenomenon, it is wholly transient as to individualities. Nature does not afford ground for logical belief in human-personality survival. The religious person who finds God in nature has already and first found this same personal God in his or her own soul. [Emphasis mine.] Faith reveals God in the soul. Revelation, the substitute for morontia insight on an evolutionary world, enables a person to see the same God in nature that faith exhibits in his or her soul. Thus does revelation successfully bridge the gulf between the material and the spiritual, even between the creature and the Creator, between a human being and God. (ibid., p. 1106:09-1107:00)

Further on in that same paper we are told,

Intelligent people know that they are children of nature, a part of the material universe; they likewise discern no survival of individual personality in the motions and tensions of the mathematical level of the energy universe. Nor can persons ever discern spiritual reality through the examination of physical causes and effects. (ibid., p. 1116:02)

Mathematicians and scientists appreciate the order and beauty of a physical pattern that they observe in the dances of the stars in the skies, in the inter-relatedness and harmony in diverse ecosystems on earth, and in the complex particle patterns seen through a microscope. But many do not see intelligence behind that order and out of those who do, many do not acknowledge a personal God, a Universal Father Creator as the source of the beauty. As a result, most mathematicians and scientists are not real environmentalists according to the standards I mentioned previously.Within Divine Administration an environmentalist must first experience God as a personal loving Father and he or she as His child before any long-reaching, wise action in accordance with divine mind and pattern can be taken.

When you experience such a transformation of faith, you are no longer a slavish part of the mathematical cosmos but rather a liberated volitional son or daughter of the Universal Father. No longer is such a liberated son or daughter fighting alone against the inexorable doom of the termination of temporal existence; no longer does he or she combat all nature, with the odds hopelessly against him or her; no longer is he or she staggered by the paralyzing fear that, perchance, he or she has put his or her trust in a hopeless phantasm or pinned his or her faith to a fanciful error….At last all creatures become conscious of the fact that God and all the divine hosts of a well-nigh limitless universe are on their side in the supernal struggle to attain eternity of life and divinity status. Such faith-liberated sons and daughters have certainly enlisted in the struggles of time on the side of the supreme forces and divine personalities of eternity; even the stars in their courses are now doing battle for them; at last they gaze upon the universe from within, from God’s viewpoint, and all is transformed from the uncertainties of material isolation to the sureties of eternal spiritual progression. Even time itself becomes but the shadow of eternity cast by Paradise realities upon the moving panoply of space. (ibid., p. 1117:02-03)

An environmentalist within Divine Administration must see the world and all of life through a spiritized mind, through the eyes of God, understanding His nature, before truly effective action can be taken. We must become cosmic in our world view, thus making it a universe view. How do we discover the nature of God? How do we know how to live within a spiritized mind?In the Paper 2 on the nature of God, we’re told that,

…The nature of God can best be understood by the revelation of the Father which Michael of Nebadon unfolded in his manifold teachings and in his superb mortal life in the flesh. The divine nature can also be better understood by persons if they regard themselves as children of God and look up to the Paradise Creator as a true spiritual father.The nature of God can be studied in a revelation of supreme ideas, the divine character can be envisaged as a portrayal of supernal ideals, but the most enlightening and spiritually edifying of all revelations of the divine nature is to be found in the comprehension of the religious life of Jesus of Nazareth, both before and after his attainment of full consciousness of divinity. If the incarnated life of Michael [of Nebadon, Jesus] is taken as the background of the revelation of God to people, we may attempt to put in human word symbols certain ideas and ideals concerning the divine nature which may possibly contribute to a further illumination and unification of the human concept of the nature and the character of the personality of the Universal Father. (ibid., p. 33:01-02)

In the fourth part of The URANTIA Book, “The Life and Teachings of Jesus” we see how Jesus as a human being with a human mind that is spiritized and in harmony with the divine mind of the Universe Mother Spirit was a true environmentalist within Divine Administration principles of his day. From childhood on he was a naturalist, studying and appreciating nature. As a child he spent much time alone or with his siblings and friends walking in the hills. In fact when, at the age of fourteen he became the father/elder brother of his home as a result of his father’s death, he took his brothers and sisters for nature strolls every Sunday afternoon. He was a great storyteller and told them stories about nature and animals, and as a young man in his twenties taught his spiritual apprentice, Ganid, a seventeen year-old youth from India, about nature and her various moods. From childhood on, Jesus abhorred the use of animals in religious sacrifice because he realized the incongruity of a loving Universal Father requiring sacrifices in order to be appeased, and he was sickened by the slaughter of innocent animals. In his public ministry, he often used nature in parables to teach higher spiritual truths. He taught his apostles to pray amidst the quiet surrounding of nature and often used the solitude of the hills and shores to teach and preach. He himself spent days, weeks, months, by himself in the wilderness to commune with the Universal Father and reflect upon his life here on Urantia (earth).Never did Jesus go against the natural laws that he had set up as Creator Son of this universe Nebadon. Living as a human being on this world for thirty-six years, no law of nature was modified, abrogated, or even transcended. In any seeming miracle, the only abrogation was of time in association with the celestial personalities who aided. He did not try to conquer nature or deplete it. He tread lightly wherever he walked, and he lived simply, never consuming more than his simple physical needs. His lifestyle should inspire us all to, as Mahatma Gandhi said, “Live simply so that others may simply live.” That brief and yet simple statement reflects a lifestyle of stewardship for all of life, human and non-human. It reflects mindful living, making choices moment-to-moment from our higher minds and hearts as children of the Universal Father, taking personal responsibility for our own decisions and actions. It requires that we are not only scientists and artists but compassionate, caring human beings who are true religionists with a cosmic perspective.
Teaching by Gabriel of Urantia

Tomorrow is the official Earth Day according to the World Peace calendar so we thought we would give a teaching this week on our planet, Urantia (Earth). Actually, what Earth Day promotes should be emphasized every day, so that every day is a celebration and implementation of “Earth Day.” The Universal Father, Mother, and Son are the first family of the earth and of the worlds of time and space, the first environmentalists of the master universe, the first “Green Team,” composed of many colors.

In The URANTIA Book there are six hundred and ninety-nine references to the word “earth.” One is,

The Father rules through his Sons; on down through the universe organization there is an unbroken chain of rulers ending with the Planetary Princes, who direct the destinies of the evolutionary spheres of the Father’s vast domains. It is no mere poetic expression that exclaims: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness therof.” “He removes kings and sets up kings.” “The Most Highs rule in the kingdoms of men.” (p. 51:01)

Father/Mother Earth

The first thing that comes into my mind when I hear the word “Earth” is family—one planetary family. As we read The Cosmic Family volumes and study Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation (CFER), we learn concepts of the cosmic family of the interuniversal realities and intrauniversal realities. Cosmic relationships from universe to universe are interuniversal and cosmic relationships within a universe are intrauniversal, and there are millions of inhabited worlds out there all organized on family structures. The Godfather—in God’s higher principles this is a true understanding—and His complements rule. [”Complements” in this context mean any personalities in alignment and complementarity within divine administration principles who are part of the hierarchy of executives and administrators of divine government throughout the master universe.] The highest evolved ascending sons and daughters rule planets and serve in other administrative positions and teams. Even angels have positive-negative, male-female teams, and so do other orders of celestial beings throughout time and space. Many are what we mortals would understand to be male-female teams. A team of Father circuits and Mother circuits is much better than just a Father-circuited ruler or a Mother-circuited ruler.

Here in Divine Administration we have a really complementary team. We teach that the first true channels of the light were complemented—an ascending son and an ascending daughter who were ascending together as a team. The fallen beings were able to channel through individuals who were not complemented, and that’s a long story but a true teaching that can be found in The Cosmic Family volumes.

What does this all have to do with the earth? A lot, because we walk in harmony with that circuitry of God on this earth. With the destruction of the earth comes the destruction of the family and vice versa. It’s not just the breakdown of the environment that is the problem, it is the breakdown of the brother-/sisterhood of common sense relationships. Even if tomorrow every environmental problem on the planet was solved, every single one, the earth still would self-destruct because of the improper relationships between individuals, groups, and even between governments and the people they are supposed to serve. and so forth.

The URANTIA Book says on page 55,

The Universal Father has not withdrawn from the management of the universes; he is not an inactive Deity. If God should retire as the present upholder of our creation, there would immediately occur a universal collapse. [Which, of course, includes the collapse of every inhabited evolutionary planet.] Except for God, there would be no such thing as reality.

So when you say that you are experiencing true reality and that true reality is void of God, then you’re not experiencing reality at all. It’s a false reality because God and reality are synonymous.When I hear the word “Father,” I also connect with the Eternal Son and Infinite Mother Spirit. I know that the Father is not alone. So when I hear the word Father, Mother is right there too. I don’t disconnect Mother from Father; although I believe that we should speak of God in a Father sense to understand that there is a first and primal source, the circuitry and personality of God the Father. When I hear the word “Gaia,” I don’t think of just Mother Earth; I think of Father Earth as well, and so we have to connect them both together; you can’t just have one without the other.

I’d like to expand upon the yin and yang concept. There is the yin and yang, the Mother and Father circuitry, and then there’s the yong, which is the Son circuitry, which needs to be added to the Buddhist thought—yin, yang, and yong—which then incorporates the Paradise Trinity. When I respond, usually I respond in the Father circuits. Sometimes, however, we need to respond in the Mother circuits, the seeming opposite but complementary response to the Father circuitry. And then sometimes we need to respond to individuals in the Son circuits. Learning what that is as ascending creatures who walk upon this earth is indeed a lifelong journey, and for starseed a many lifetimes journey. Usually the ability to discern when and how to respond in balance from either the Father-, Mother-, or Son- circuitry doesn’t happen in just one lifetime. It can, but usually it takes many lifetimes ascending on this planet and other planets, including the mansion worlds, to become balanced in that Father/Son/Mother circuitry. No matter what world you are on, when you get the balance, that world experiences a higher reality because mortals have the indwelling fragment of the Universal Father and the Spirit of Truth of the Creator Son and the Holy Spirit of the Universe Mother Spirit available to them. This spirit indwelling is present for mortals in their minds, hearts, and souls on any planet on any world of time and space. Yet few understand this truth of the closeness of God in the affairs of humankind and family life on this planet, and this closeness of God in the workings of mortals is found on many other worlds, more than most of you can even comprehend.

Earth is called Urantia and is one of the millions of inhabited worlds that do exist in the seven hundred local universes within the master universe. Our planet is number 606 of the system of Satania in the constellation of Norlatiadek in the local universe of Nebadon in the superuniverse of Orvonton. Our planet, Urantia, is registered, numbered, and realized as an evolutionary world that has indeed fallen in the Father/Mother circuits. Remember we’re talking about Earth family, Father/Mother.

Leadership in the Family of God

We have many warrior cultures on this planet that have helped to cause the wars, deaths, and suffering of millions of people throughout its history and currently. Often responses that leaders have to one another should definitely be Mother/Mother responses, but because we’re not taught these principles, because true divine administration teachings are not taught on this planet, we have individuals (usually men) sitting in positions of leadership in governments who are really children and should be in kindergarten rather than directors and leaders of governments over millions of people. They should be in the spiritual schools of kindergarten.

Individuals in America and many parts of Western civilization give their loyalty and commitment to policies of Godless corporations and institutions. God, family, and environment actually should exist in the same circle of family thoughts in your mind. God, family, environment—they are all one. Think about it. Corporations should exist to serve the family and the environment, not exist to serve themselves. The corporate executive officer should be an executive that is a father figure or a mother figure as the CEO, and I’ve come up with a new definition for CEO (Cautious Environmental Obligation). Within divine administration principles a true CEO would operate upon the foundation of “cautious environmental obligation. That’s what he or she should represent. CEO’s should walk in the reality of all these things that I’ve previously talked about as a servant of humanity, as someone who is to give back to others who they serve, not to make profit for themselves or for just a few executives at the top.

Here’s what The URANTIA Book says about corporate administration on page 162,

The Co-ordinate Ministering Daughters. The universe Mother Spirits, cocreators of the local universes, secure their prepersonal training on the worlds of Havona in close association with the Spirits of the Circuits. In the central universe the Spirit Daughters of the local universes were duly trained in the methods of co-operation with the Sons of Paradise, all the while subject to the will of the Father.

We hear a lot today, even here on this fallen world, about women who don’t get pay equal to men for the jobs that they are doing. Well, that’s true, neither do they get equal respect. When I was in a monastery in Pecos, New Mexico, considering being a priest for a while, this particular monastery bragged about how they gave equal rights to the women there, the nuns and the lay women who resided and worked there. One of the nuns who had been there for quite some time came to me and shared that that wasn’t true, and that I would come to see that, and I did after being there for a while. When I mentioned this privately to the abbot, he got really upset, very upset.Here in this Divine Administration ministry we have eight elders and four of them are ascending daughters. And I often, as a leader, look for counsel from all of those ladies, and in particular, Niánn. If I think my insight is not what it should be, I go to an ascending daughter to look for advice because I don’t hear it all the time in the Father circuitry. I need a Mother response. I need to hear the mother’s perspective on that. Then I can make a higher decision. We all have to learn to do that in balance. In reference to what I just said, if only General Electric, Shell Oil, Exxon and other oil companies and corporations could run their organizations in that manner.

In relation to the earth, William Burrows said “After one look at this planet, any visitor from outer space would say, ‘I want to see the manager’.” The profit motive certainly has mismanaged the earth, and any alien could see that. Walt Whitman, the wonderful United States philosopher and poet, said in regard to the earth, “In this broad earth of ours, amid the measureless grossness and the slag, enclosed and safe within its central heart nestles the seed of mother perfection.” How many corporations and workers who work for corporations and institutions—whether banks, title companies, nuclear armament plants, or whatever it might be—how many of those workers have the concepts in their minds every day like we do here in Divine Administration: justice, equality, cooperative thinking, ecology, community, common planetary surplus (a Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation term)? Common planetary surplus—corporations, organizations, and even governments usually don’t think of that.

The Need for Divine Administration and Ecological Balance

Now I don’t have to tell you that most of “the system” stinks. I think most of you have experienced the stinkyness. I’d like to tell you specifically again to remind you just how it stinks in certain areas and what needs to be changed. It’s not going to be changed by thinking about it or just talking about it. Many Harvard graduates, Yale graduates, and graduates of many other colleges in the United States do not truly understand the concept “ecology.” They got it from a book or took a course in ecology, but that doesn’t mean anything unless you live it and practice it. It doesn’t mean anything unless you have it from an experiential understanding. A very, very small percentage of Americans live an ecological lifestyle. Just the opposite, they live in mass consumerism and materialism. Chief Seattle said, “This we know. The earth does not belong to man, but man belongs to the earth. This we all know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family.” There’s that family concept with the earth. “All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life. He is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.” I try to live my life that way consciously. How is this going to affect others, what I do, how I act, what I think, what I say, how I spend, whatever. How is this going to affect my brothers and sisters? And when you have that in mind, if you keep that in mind, it may change what you buy, what you do, where you go, whatever. It really does.

Corporate executives through negative media, try to destroy intentional communities and eco-villages because those people in those intentional communities are not wasteful consumers. The whole capitalistic system is set up so that you are to consume unconsciously, to make more and more money so that you can buy, buy. So, individuals who form ecological communities and spend less money are considered enemies to corporations. Americans need to get that. We are not isolated individual families. We are families connected very closely to each other. We have to get back to the neighborhood concept of life. Here in America today, neighbors don’t even know each other. They could live right next to each other and never talk to each other. That has to change. It’s not going to be easy, particularly in the wealthy segments of society where there are two people living in a house that could be a home for sixteen people. From a cosmic perspective, that is just absolutely insane. That’s not earth-conscious thinking. It’s not earth-conscious building. Contractors need to have higher consciousness. They need to be confronted in the Father circuits. You will all have an opportunity to confront somebody in the near future. I beg you to confront. That’s the only way that change is going to come about. “Oh, but I’ll make this person mad at me.” So what! So what. It’s better to make that person mad at you and God proud of you. That’s how you should think. You do the right thing for the right reason and make God proud of you. If they are doing something for the wrong reason, confront them. That’s the only way the world is going to change, and they are going to change.

Many communities that started out with good intentions had to break up because local city and county government’s codes came against those alternative plans which are trying to form environmentally-friendly spaces and lifestyles that don’t consume as much. Farming has been taken over by corporate interests. The small farmer has become a forgotten American reality. Remember we’re talking about the earth. I think it’s neat to be able to drive around America and see small farms. You don’t see that so much anymore, because it’s all been taken over by corporate entities. Their concern is producing as much as they can produce and making as much money as they can make. Their concern is not in the quality of the food and the organic farming or livestock but in basically putting many chemicals into the chickens and cows so that they can produce more chickens and cows. And we eat them. I mean, we don’t here in this community, but others eat them. We try not to. We try to be as common sense eaters as possible, but often we are at the mercy of the supermarkets. If our livestock runs out, thank God we have goat milk. After you drink a little bit of goat milk you ask yourself, “Why did I ever drink that cow milk?” But everybody doesn’t have goat milk to drink and I understand. But at least you should write letters to whomever and say, “Get these darn chemicals out of my milk!” Raise animals organic. You can do it. Just say “No, I won’t buy it anymore. I’m not going to buy anymore milk.” If inorganic dairies get a few hundred thousand letters, who knows, they might stop injecting the cows with chemicals. But until you speak up, nothing is going to change, nothing. Until you become a pro-active person, nothing is going to change. Tell your friends. When you have your conversations around your family parties and get-togethers, make this a topic of conversation.

The indigenous peoples of the planet struggle for survival more and more every day because the oil companies, cattle ranchers, and other industries are taking their land from them. It’s happening all over the world. To name just a few specifically, the Mayan in Mexico and the Ogoni peoples of Nigeria. This list is actually endless. It goes on and on in every continent. And Americans, they like to just turn the other way thinking “Oh that’s not happening here in America. It’s happening to those poor Ogoni people, you know, or down there in Mexico. It doesn’t really concern me.” You better believe it concerns you. It definitely does. Write letters to your congressmen, to your senators. Tell these oil companies that you’re not going to buy any more gas and oil. I know you’re going to have to buy some. We’re stuck. But say you’re going to walk or car pool. I know you can’t always do it. You have to have the car once in a while to get from place to place but just let them know you’re mad for what they are doing to the earth and to the poor indigenous peoples of the earth. They are taking their land away, taking their life away, their cultural lifestyles away so that you can drive from one place to another in your gas-guzzling automobile. All of us are responsible in some way. So we need to fight back in whatever way we can to voice ourselves for change.

Become A Pro-active Change Agent for the Common Good of All

I, Gabriel of Urantia, call for a worldwide leap of faith by leaving those jobs that support the greedy, fallen system that only serve a few families of the rich in control at the top. Why do you have to work two jobs and your husband or wife has to work two jobs as well? Do you think this is normal? Do you think that God has created you in your destiny so that you need to work two or three jobs to support your family and children? That’s not how it should be. The only way it’s going to change is if you become a change agent. Quit the job that is not beneficial for the world; don’t support that harmful aspect of the system. “Well, how am I going to work; what am I going to do?” Trust God to lead and guide you to the next place of your career or job. Trust God, and God will lead you to work that is meaningful and beneficial for the earth and for other people. Oh, you might say that you are too old for such a change. You are never too old. We have a person here from Germany and she is ninety-three. She came from Germany to join Divine Administration when she was a young eighty-seven. You’re never too old to get it right.

Don’t just pray for the earth. Don’t just go to the Earth Prayer days and pray. That’s not going to change anything. God hears you and God is trying to say, “OK, here’s the answer, now you have to do something.” How many people don’t hear that part of it? Do something, don’t just pray. Be willing to change your life to help change the world. Trust in God to lead you to the job or career that serves not only your family but the whole family of the earth. That’s why Divine Administration was founded by Celestial Overcontrol because we think planetary. We have Planetary Family Services, Planetary Family Exchange. We think planetary, Global Change Music. I think planetary, but I don’t just think about something. I don’t just write a song. I don’t just think planetary, I act, and every motive of my heart is for my child. “My child is your child and your child is mine,” regardless of where you live. That’s the thinking and action that’s going to change this world.

And so I encourage you all to join the Spiritualution™ started by Divine Administration. We are here in Sedona, Arizona to take not just your hand, but to take your heart and walk that way with you. Thank you very much.

Presented by Niánn Emerson Chase

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

The first thing I want you to do is turn to the person sitting next to you so you’ll be facing them. Take both of the hands of the person you are facing; look into each other’s eyes, and each take a turn sharing with the other what you love about him/her that reflects an aspect of God’s personality. [Some time passes as this activity is done.] Now I want each one of you just to think silently for a couple of seconds. How did that experience make you feel? How did you feel as a the receiver? How did you feel as the giver?

What you all just experienced was a form of communion. What does communion mean? According to the tenth edition of Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary communion means:

mutual participation; the act or instance of sharing; intimate fellowship or rapport. A Christian sacrament in which consecrated bread and wine are consumed as symbols for the realization of a spiritual union between Christ and the communicant.

Derivatives of communion are commune, which means “to communicate intimately;” communicate means “to share, to transmit information, thought or feeling, so that it is satisfactorily received or understood. To open into each other; to connect.” And community means “a unified body of individuals; a body of individuals having something in common. A fellowship.”

Jesus communed and communicated with his apostles daily, and He lived in community with them. In this closeness of living with the apostles, Jesus showed them how He lived His life moment to moment in communion with God. In His teaching them, Jesus sought to divert the minds of His apostles from glory and “miracle seeking to the finding of a real and personal experience in the satisfaction and assurance of the indwelling of God’s spirit of love and saving grace.” [The URANTIA Book, p.1545:07] In other words, He taught and lived that the most important thing about an individual’s religion was his or her personal relationship with God and then how we live with and love others.

Communion with each one of the apostles and with them as a group began from the time that Jesus began to live in community with them. We’re told on page 1546 of The URANTIA Book,

Nothing ever seemed so important to Jesus as the individual human who chanced to be in his immediate presence. He was master and teacher, but he was more. He was also a friend and neighbor and understanding comrade.

Comrade means: “an intimate friend or associate. A companion, a fellow soldier.” The URANTIA Book indicates that from the beginning days of the apostles uniting with Jesus, they continued to be disappointed, confused, overwhelmed, frustrated, and puzzled with many of Jesus’ teachings and His decisions, but in spite of this, all apostles except Judas stayed with Him until the end because of their love of Him as a person. In those early days with Jesus, Matthew said about their Master, “The more you understand some people, the less you admire them, but of this man, even the less I comprehend him, the more I love him.” [The URANTIA Book, p. 1545:00] On page, 1546 of The URANTIA Book, we’re told:

With all of their grumblings, doubts, and transient dissatisfactions, the apostles remained true to their vows of devotion and loyalty to the Master. It was their personal association with Jesus during these months of testing that so endeared him to them, that they all, save Judas Iscariot, remained loyal and true to him. Even in the dark hours of the trial and crucifixion, real men simply could not actually desert a revered teacher who had lived so close to them and had been so devoted to them as had Jesus. Through the dark hours of the Master’s death, in the hearts of these apostles, all reason, judgment and logic were set aside in deference to just one extraordinary human emotion, the supreme sentiment of friendship loyalty. These first five months of work with Jesus led these apostles, each one of them, to regard him the best friend he had in all the world. And it was this human sentiment and not his superb teachings or marvelous doings that held them together until after the resurrection and the renewal of the proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom.

Remember Webster’s definition of communion? “A Christian sacrament in which consecrated bread and wine are consumed as symbols for the realization of a spiritual union between Christ and the communicant.” Pages 1941 to 1943 of The URANTIA Book describe this first communion that Jesus introduced at the “last supper” before He was arrested, tormented, tried, and crucified. Also at that last supper Jesus displayed the most beautiful, humbling act when He knelt down at each of the apostles’ feet and washed them, which was the job of a servant. It was a deeply moving experience for those apostles, and it was a tremendous teaching for them.

…now, the Master was instituting a new remembrance supper as a symbol of the new dispensation, wherein the enslaved individual emerges from the bondage of ceremonialism and selfishness into the spiritual joy of the brother-[/sisterhood], and fellowship of the liberated faith sons [and daughters] of the living God. (ibid., p.1942:01)As they brought Jesus the third cup of wine, the cup of blessing, he arose from the couch and, taking the cup in his hands, blessed it, saying, “Take this cup all of you and drink of it. This shall be the cup of my remembrance. This is the cup of the blessing of a new dispensation of grace and truth. This shall be to you, the emblem of the bestowal and ministry of the divine spirit of truth and I will not again drink this cup with you until I drink in new form with you in the Father’s eternal kingdom.” (ibid., p. 1941:06)

When they had finished drinking this new cup of remembrance, the Master took up the bread and after giving thanks, broke it in pieces and directing them to pass it around, said, “Take this bread of remembrance and eat it. I have told you that I am the bread of life. And this bread of life is the united life of the Father and of the Son in one gift. The word of the Father as revealed in the Son is indeed the bread of life.” When they had partaken of the bread of life, the symbol of the living word of truth, incarnated in the likeness of mortal flesh, they all sat down. (ibid., p. 1942:02)

The sacrament of communion is merely a symbolical and artistic reminder that each one of us as individuals can have that intimate and personal communion with Jesus Christ Michael daily, moment to moment. Christ Michael is our daily comrade through His Spirit of Truth that is in each one of us. As a result of that communion with Jesus, we draw closer to the Universal Father through communication and cooperation with our Thought Adjuster, the Fragment of God the Father within each of us. It was Jesus’ communion with His apostles and disciples that enabled them to eventually believe in His resurrection and accept His ministry to them in His morontia forms. It is that daily communion with Christ Michael that enables us to continually be resurrected from our own deaths to our dio (erroneous) patterns, our own disappointments, confusions, and frustrations. It is that communion with Michael that enables us to continue on after our various crucifixions, being resurrected to carry on the ministry today as the apostles and the disciples carried on Jesus’ ministry for the rest of their lives.

This week I want each and every one of you to think of those times of resurrection in your life when in some way God reached out to you. God reaches out in so many ways. He reaches out through nature. He reaches out through other human beings. He reaches out through the living spiritual forces that are on this planet, and of course He reaches out through the three-fold spirit that is within us. I want you to reflect upon the different resurrections that you’ve had in this life, where you have in some way been uplifted by God’s personal ministry to you.

There are a lot of things happening on this planet that are very frightening and discouraging. We’re aware of those signs of the so-called “end times,” but let us not forget the vision and the destiny of this planet and that light and life is being brought here. All of these other things that are happening are simply the labor pains of the transition into this rebirthing of our planet and of each of us as individuals if we choose to resurrect in God’s outreach to us.

Presented by Niánn Emerson Chase

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

Throughout my life I have observed bright and gifted individuals never really manifest much of their potential because they are afraid. I’ve seen people literally fold up into little psychological balls because of their fear. What do they fear? They fear many things: failure, rejection, abandonment, loneliness, ridicule, being wrong, being ostracized, losing their identity, growing old, and dying. Some fear the uncertainty of the unknown or any kind of major change in their lives; they want everything to stay very much the same. The URANTIA Book has much to say about fear, but I want to briefly focus on two fearful people whom Jesus encountered.

Fortune, the Young Man Who Was Afraid

Jesus was twenty-nine years old at the time and had not yet gone into His public ministry. He had spent a couple of years traveling with a father and seventeen-year-old son from India—Gonod and Ganid. This particular day Jesus and young Ganid were walking in some mountains in Crete when they met up with a troubled youth named Fortune who was seeking the solitude of the hills. Fortune was probably near Ganid’s age and was a loner, having difficulty socializing with other people. Words used to describe this teen-ager are: “downcast,” “fearful,” having a sense of “helplessness and inferiority,” experiencing “discouragement” and “despair.”

The URANTIA Book indicates that these states of mind are natural tendencies for human beings on this world, especially if augmented by difficult circumstances. This youth had already encountered his own set of challenges including a troubled home with no father who had died when Fortune was twelve years old. Jesus, in His compassion and discernment, immediately recognized Fortune’s distress and, realizing the youth’s need for counsel and encouragement, struck up a conversation with him. Jesus also discerned the potential for Fortune to make a shift in his fearful mindset because the youth wanted help; he wanted to change, to be rehabilitated, to be reborn. So Jesus first asked Fortune some questions about trails in the area, providing an opportunity for the youth to relax and become comfortable with the situation. After a bit Fortune opened up to Jesus and was receptive to learning from Him. This teen recognized that Jesus was a man of love and wisdom and knelt at His feet “imploring Jesus to help him, to show him the way of escape from his world of personal sorrow and defeat.”

Jesus’ response to Fortune—and to the rest of us when we are wallowing in our own despair and discouragement—was: “My friend, arise! Stand up like a man [or woman]! You may be surrounded with small enemies and be retarded by many obstacles, but the big things and the real things of this world and the universe are on your side.” Right there Jesus put things in their perspective from a cosmic point of view. He asked Fortune to rise up out of his smallness and make his perspective much bigger. Get out of self and into a planetary and universal viewpoint.

Jesus asked Fortune, and all of us, to see those things that we fear as small in the light of universal and cosmic truths. It’s a mind shift, an adjustment of how we think and see reality. It’s a mind expansion.

Where do we get that expanded and cosmic perspective today? I think the highest and most comprehensive perspective is from the Fifth Epochal Revelation (found in The URANTIA Book) and Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation (much of which is found in The Cosmic Family volumes) and from our own personal experiences with the spirit of God. There are, of course, many other sources that can expand our minds and aid us in our understanding of reality and spiritual unfolding, but they are not epochal revelation and do not reveal as much cosmic fact and truth as does epochal revelation. Epochal revelation does not belong to any one religion; it belongs to all people of all religions, races, and cultures and is applicable for many epochs into the future.

Jesus pointed out to Fortune that he was blessed with a good mind and an exceptionally healthy and strong body. He advised him to use his body and mind to solve his problems, to change his situation. He said to Fortune:

You are trying to run away from your unhappy self, but it cannot be done. You and your problems of living are real; you cannot escape them as long as you live . . . . Set your mind at work to solve its problems; teach your intellect to work for you; refuse longer to be dominated by fear like an unthinking animal. Your mind should be your courageous ally in the solution of your life problems rather than your being, as you have been, its abject fear-slave and the bond servant of depression and defeat.

Jesus challenged Fortune to make a major mind shift out of self-pity, fear, and selfishness into a consideration for others, a selflessness. Jesus said: “Sit down with me while I tell you of the service trails and happiness highways which lead from the sorrows of self to the joys of loving activities in the brother-/sisterhood of humans and in the service of the God of heaven.” He brought God in. He brought service to others into that conversation.

Are we willing to sit down with Jesus, Christ Michael, moment to moment, if He calls us to listen to His spirit and move out of our own personal doldrums? Jesus said to Fortune:

This day, my son, you are to be reborn, re-established as a man of faith, courage, and devoted service to others, for God’s sake. And when you become so readjusted to life within yourself, you become likewise readjusted to the universe; you have been born again—born of the spirit—and henceforth will your whole life become one of victorious accomplishment. Trouble will invigorate you; disappointment will spur you on; difficulties will challenge you; and obstacles will stimulate you.

Let us take those words to heart and apply them when in our moments of despair, fear, self-pity, and discouragement. We too can take on that higher mindset. Jesus is not saying that once we get into the program of mind expansion that we’re not going to have difficulties, problems, or troubles. It’s how we respond to them and how we perceive them.

Jesus went on to say to this troubled youth:

Arise, young man! Say farewell to the life of cringing fear and fleeing cowardice. Hasten back to duty and live your life in the flesh as a son of God, a mortal dedicated to the ennobling service of others on earth and destined to the superb and eternal service of God in eternity.

Interestingly, The URANTIA Book often refers to that Fragment of the Father, the spirit of God within us, as the Thought Adjuster. This Fragment of the Father can help adjust our thoughts. Remember, Jesus admonished Fortune to use his mind, his intellect, in a higher way. Thoughts reside within our minds; attitudes are in our intellects, and often it’s what’s in our heads, what’s between our ears, that causes us most of our stress and distress.

By the way, Fortune took to heart Jesus’ counsel and changed, and eventually he became the leader of the Christians in Crete and a powerful change agent for Christ Michael.

Annas, the High Priest Who Was Afraid

Another fearful person Jesus encountered was Annas, a one-time high priest and relative of Zebedee’s wife. Annas had been a friend of Jesus in years prior to His public ministry. Now, full into His public ministry and a very controversial public figure, Jesus, while visiting Jerusalem, went to His former friend’s house for a visit. Annas had been hearing about Jesus’ teachings and was cautious and fearful when Jesus visited him. He’d heard the gossip and negative things said about Jesus and so received Jesus with much reserve and coldness, which Jesus, of course, immediately discerned. As a result, Jesus chose to not spend any time with him, for He knew that Annas was too fearful and prideful, wanting to hang on to his status and his ideas. The Master realized that Annas wouldn’t have the courage and conviction to stand by the controversial figure of Jesus who challenged so much of the status quo. In departing, Jesus said to Annas: “Fear is a person’s chief enslaver and pride his great weakness. Will you betray yourself into bondage to both of these destroyers of joy and liberty?”

I close with this question: When in our fearful states, which one of these two people are we? Are we the one who is humble and childlike (not childish but childlike), realizing that we are an ascending son or daughter of God and open to upliftment from the Thought Adjuster as well as from human spiritual elders, willing to change within us what needs to be changed so that we can rise up out of the muck and mire of our lower minds into the higher self of service and joy? Or are we the one who is so caught up with the smallness of social and political requirements and our own fears and petty pride that we refuse to be reconciled, rehabilitated, and reborn?

January 20, 2002