2003-03-25-Evolution, Mind, & War

Session

Opening

Daniel (Bill): The merkaba is present. Let the energy flow through your hands. Feel the tingling of its movement. It is moving counter-clockwise and spiraling-up to form a conical structure through the ceiling of the house, and through your soul's energy there are connecting lines going from your head to the top of the conical structure. And so you see, my friends, you are the base of a temple of spiritual energy. You are inseparable from each other, not just because you hold each other's hands, but because you hold your hearts in each others keeping. I am Daniel. Let us pray.

Great and wonderful Creator Father, Michael of Nebadon, Jesus of Nazareth, one personality: we are Your sons and daughters and we are Your friends. You have commissioned us to preach the Gospel, i.e. to share the Good News of our sonship and daughtership to the First Source and Center, the Universal Father. This is my little nuclear family now in the course of my ascension. I stand with them in awe of Your great and wonderful plan of ascension to Your presence. I know with confidence that we shall all stand there one day and embrace You, eons away perhaps, but that embrace we have already experienced in partial reality within our own souls. May tonight's meeting exalt You. May the criticism which dwells in the human heart be washed away by the gracious flow of mercy from Your ever-present Spirit within us. And may this energy of the merkaba persist for the rest of the evening as each one is now connected. May this connection sustain us all, the connection of Your love. So be it. Amen.

I am Daniel, your teacher, your guide, your friend, and your brother. Indeed, let us continue on the theme of cosmic family, as it is deficient, to say the least, in your planetary experience.

Lesson

Human Condition

There have been noble attempts to assemble the human race together on appeals to your common biological humanity, on the basis of you being one species of the highest level of primates. It has been lamented that homo sapiens are the only highly evolved species which goes to war against itself. The reasons for this have been difficult to understand when you think along these biological lines. Primarily the problem seems to be that in nature it is common for species to war with each other, but not among themselves. This inter-species warfare can be conceived of as a food chain, so that there is the violence of conquest when one animal takes down another, or animals consume vegetable-matter. Nevertheless, the whole process seems quite normal and makes sense. But when we come to trying to explain why one human being will not recognize someone from a different part of the world as their brother or sister, as one who is in the company of another of the same species, then there is confusion and disagreement as to the cause.

I would suggest to you that one of the reasons is the evolved human mind.

There is such a high level of thinking ability that what is different about another person stands out in glaring contrast to other people. Even the highest primates do not have the self-transcendence which makes it possible for the human being to stand apart from his own self and view himself or herself and other people; and with that viewing and that contrasting, see such obvious contrasts. Other species sense their kinship. But they do not have the mental ability to discern, to any great extent and in no matter in a self-transcendent way, their differences. Your ability to be self-transcendent is due to your intellectual capacity and your encircuitment in the seven Adjutant Spirits, the circuits of Mother Nebadonia, the Divine Minister of Nebadon.

The recognition of spiritual brotherhood and sisterhood is the result of social evolution as well as biological evolution. This planet reached its biological evolutionary apex 35,000 years ago, signaling the arrival of Adam and Eve to began the up-stepping of the races. You are familiar with this story. But this planet is uniquely faulted by the planetary rebellion, and the Adamic default, so that the structure of teaching which would have been the societal womb to promote the values of brotherhood and sisterhood, was aborted. True, Machiventa did much to prepare the way for the arrival of our Creator Son, known to you as Jesus of Nazareth. Yet on normal worlds a Bestowal Son is welcomed by a friendly administration which has prepared the ground well for the planting of new truth.

Christianity

The gospel of our Bestowal Son, Jesus, was that we are sons and daughters of God, and, therefore, brothers and sisters. This teaching has not been preserved in any of the world's religions, even the one that bears the name of Christ. Too often Christians see themselves as the "chosen people", as God's family, with the rest of the world outside. The Gospel has been misunderstood to be a teaching about Jesus, His person and work, and presented in such a way as to picture God's love as subservient to His justice. The teaching of atonement, with the death of Christ as the final sacrifice so that God's love could operate toward humanity, the penalty of sin having been satisfied by this sacrificial act on the part of Jesus, has been considered the Good News. In Christianity, therefore, sonship with God is not an inherent birthright. It is an adoption process whereby the true son of God, Jesus, shares his sonship with the rest who then become the adopted sons of God. That's why I say that Jesus' Gospel has been distorted. You, who have read the Urantia Book know that the Gospel that Jesus' preached was not about himself primarily, although he clearly claimed to be a Creator Son of God and the ruler of this universe upon the completion of his death and resurrection, upon the completion, really, of his doing the will of God. Jesus' Gospel, the Good News that he spread, was that all are people are sons and daughters of God; and our job as his apostles and disciples, is to share that reality. Then, when people believe the Gospel they experience the new birth of Spirit-recognition of their sonship, of their daughtership, as children of one loving Father.

Christianity's problem is that it regards itself as superior to the other world's religions, and I would agree that it is, in most regards. But it also holds to the "chosen people" doctrine rather than recognizing that all human beings are brothers and sisters, not because they are the same species, but because they are of the same spiritual species, if you will, the children of God. In terms of accomplishing this ideal goal that every person should know that they are a son or a daughter of the God of heaven, of the ultimate Source of all that is, this realization will be an evolutionary process. The Fifth Epochal Revelation is here to correct deficiencies in the understanding of the Fourth, the life and teachings of Jesus.

I am sure it is difficult for you who have been raised in the Christian tradition to present a larger view without hurting the feelings of your friends and neighbors. Or at least it is difficult for you to do it because of your fear of hurting the feelings of others. If my words have caused discomfort to anyone here I recommend that the questions of atonement be rethought after your have read that part of the Urantia Book that explains this. Then you will come to see that it is a far superior view of the love of God; that rather than diminishing the value of Jesus' death as a result of voluntarily following the will of God as it was worked out in his life circumstances, the cross is the highest form and demonstration of love that is known on this planet. "Greater love has no man," he said, "than to lay down his life for his friends."

To understand that all people are brothers and sisters because they are equally children of God tears down the wall of separation, not only between religions, but between cultures. It says that you can love everyone, for you are related. You each have within you a piece of God, that Fragment of God, that Thought Adjuster, that is working in your minds to up-lift it. Each of you are spiritually equal, although you are not culturally, intellectually, environmentally equal.

This profoundly important fact that we are all children of God underlies all our relationships with each other. So, in your nuclear families, fathers and mothers are also brothers and sisters to their own children. Your children are of equal dignity status with you. Because we are brothers and sisters this means in marriage the partners are equal, not one up and one down. Because you are all brothers and sisters, conflicts and disagreement do not have to result in violence.

I realize at this point in your planetary evolution your consciousness of one brotherhood and sisterhood under one Creator God is not understood. I realize that during wartime there is a perception that the enemy is not the same humanity, that they are objects to be killed, and for some this is easy to maintain. Well, I shouldn't say easy, but it can be done. The heart knows that killing in war is somehow a violation; and so it's very damaging to not only the one who is killed, but to the one who has to execute another human being in close contact. It is much easier at a distance and in an impersonal fashion.

Jesus said it was good news that we're brothers and sisters because we are sons and daughters of God; not adopted sons and daughters, not maybe sons and daughters, not sons and daughters if we do a certain thing and act in a certain way or belong to the right religion, we are sons and daughters by birth-right. You are part of the Cosmic Family of all the created beings whose relation to the Creator is most perfectly reflected in the notion of parent to child, and therefore, children as brothers and sisters.

Well now, my friends, this has been kind of a review of fundamental things; but learning is a review of fundamental things. So I have completed my remarks. Are there questions of comments you would like to make?

Dialogue

Virginia: Daniel, one of the difficult things that I had to work through was the realization that God did not require that Jesus be crucified for me, and this was long before I ever saw the Urantia Book. I felt incredibly vulnerable because of my own past belief system. As a mother, I looked at my two children and I could not decide which one I would have killed so that the other could have life. My, that was incredibly difficult. I gave up the atonement doctrine, maybe 18 years ago, because I could not reconcile my human thoughts being greater than the love I felt coming from the Creator Father. So when the Urantia Book came into our life, it was so beautifully stated, it was an affirmation of the greater God I was looking for and was coming to believe in. I certainly did not know the philosophical outlook of the book. It was just a gut feeling. So I thank you for those comments. It is a very difficult thing, and it's very difficult to know that there are no chosen people. Thank you very much for your comments.

Daniel (Bill): Thank you, Virginia, for your words. I would like to comment on them briefly. It is very instructive to know that from your own experience as a parent the doctrine of atonement no longer made sense to you. Jesus also had this experience when, as a 12 year old, he observed the slaughter of the animals in the temple at Jerusalem. He could not imagine that his heavenly Father was such a wrathful Being that He required the sacrifice of these animals, their blood, to wash away sin. And he told his father, Joseph, "You would not treat me in such a wrathful manner. I cannot believe that the God who made you and me (these are not his exact words) is a lesser Being ethically, morally. It cannot be so, father". Joseph could not reply to the wisdom of his son, Jesus. So you have had the same experience.

I am responding to the anxiety on the part of my TR that I need to soften my words, as he sees it, against Christianity, and so I will add these comments. The doctrine of atonement as taught by Paul, and put forth in the New Testament, was certainly an advance over the primitive idea of animal sacrifice. It was also an attempt on the part of Paul to connect his understanding of Jesus, the Christ, with his heritage as a Jew, as a Hebrew of the Hebrews, and to persuade his fellows, within the understanding of their minds, that an absolute perfect sacrifice had been accomplished so that they did not need to persist in the legalistic sacrificial procedures. At the same time that Paul believed these things he experienced his own sonship with God. Since he was an intelligent man, one who could not simply abandon the theology of his up-bringing, he attempted to explain how the chosen people were to be expanded, beyond the Jews, to include all believers in Jesus. Remember that Paul was not one of the Apostles who walked on the dusty roads of Palestine with the Master. He was one who knew him in Spirit after he was confronted on the road to Damascus. The teachings that Jesus gave, which are represented in the Gospels of the New Testament, were clearly those that I have already alluded to. Scholars say that any words that were attributed to Jesus speaking of himself as a sacrifice were clearly the early church's interpretation fed back into the words of Jesus. So, I am saying that Christianity was an evolutionary improvement over the highest understanding of God that existed at the time, which was the Hebrew understanding of Isaiah, but, in a sense, it is unfortunate that the Gospel of Jesus, as he preached it, sonship with God and our brotherhood and sisterhood, was confined to the social circle of the Jesus fellowship, later named, the Christians. Now, this is the time when this Gospel, as Jesus preached it, shall be preached as it was preached; shall be understood. It is time to get past the unbrotherhood of man, and be transformed by our understanding of our place in the family of God.

Thank you again, Virginia, for offering your experience with your own faith development. Others?

LaReen: I have a comment, Daniel. I want to welcome Ken back to the group. He has been playing hooky. It's good just to have him back, both him and Pat

Daniel (Bill): The circle was broken, and now is unbroken. I agree.

Ken: Thank you.

Daniel (Bill): I also want to welcome you, Bobbie, back to our fellowship. I am glad to see that your physical mobility and strength has returned to you, at least in some measure. You are a precious daughter, and I know you struggle with some of these ideas.

Bobbie: Thank you, Daniel. (Long period of silence)

Daniel (Bill): Have my words left you dumb-struck?

Ken: Not dumb-struck, just awe-struck.

Daniel (Bill): Well, sometimes a meal requires a great deal of chewing before it can be digested, so I take this silence to mean that you are meditating on it. If you do have questions, we can, at later meetings, refer back to previous teachings. So I suggest that we conclude, and once again stand for prayer. Klarixiska desires to close our meeting.

Closing

Klarixiska (Virginia) Creator Father, Mother, Christ Michael: we would pray that the difficult look at each of our belief systems might be strengthened toward your reality, as they do so. We thank You for the insight that comes, so slowly sometimes, to cause change. We thank You, Father, that change is possible. We thank You that, with Your love indwelling us, that we do not have to be afraid of that change. Help us to recognize, that, with change, each must recognize the place where forgiveness of self is necessary, because with the movement of change comes also the admission of error. We would pray that each one of us, the seen and the unseen, might be able to take an honest look at our lives, and find that small step that You would have us take next. We do thank You for the Cosmic Family of God, cosmic in the sense that You have made many worlds out there full of intelligent people that are choosing to do Your will. Help this people on this planet to recognize the family of God. Go with each one of us this week. Give us peace. Give us self-awareness. Give us honest choices that will help us to move forward toward Your reality. Amen.