The Training of Teachers And Leaders, According to the Teachings of The Urantia Book.
By Jaime Díaz Page
(Mexico)
A Melchizedek of Nebadon teaches us “There must be perfection hunger in man’s heart to insure capacity for comprehending the faith paths to supreme attainment.” (Paper 102, page 1118:4)
This is an essential precondition to become an Urantia Book leader-teacher or study group host. These teachers and hosts should know as much as possible the Urantia Book teachings and train spiritually themselves as taught by Jesus and the revelators, as a condition to disseminate successfully the teachings and attain the acceptance of the revelation in our world.
The Master outlined the principles that should guide and impel those who teach the divine truth. An instructor of the revelation must be trained through the spiritualization of the soul, the enlightenment of the mind, the acquirement of wisdom and spiritual discernment. It is not enough to study the revelation to attain these goals; it is necessary the spiritual preparation as the ideal support for the revelation knowledge. The regular preparation in the intimate and spiritual worshipful communion with God, with all our heart, gradually brings us spiritual insight and everything we need to serve God and his revelation. The service to the humanity will be enhanced by the ennobling association of the human mind and the indwelling spirit, the Thought Adjuster. (Paper 178, page 1931:4) This is the religion of the spirit, in which the man communes with God, receiving both the water and bread of the divine life.
The Book must be brought to the truth-seekers through the example of appropriately qualified persons who show in their lives the spiritual fruits described in the revelation, so when the truth-seekers hear them, they trust and believe them, consequently dedicating themselves to the study and practice of the spiritual teachings designed to attain the soul development and survival.
Jesus endeavored to make clear that he desired his disciples, having tasted of the good spirit realities of the kingdom, so to live in the world that men, by seeing their lives, would become kingdom conscious and hence be led to inquire of believers concerning the ways of the kingdom. All such sincere seekers for the truth are always glad to hear the glad tidings of the faith gift which insures admission to the kingdom with its eternal and divine spirit realities. (Paper 141, page 1593:4)
Jesus teaches us that the hunger and thirst for rectitude of the souls who discern the truth drives them to do the Father’s will, to find God and to become like him. Regular and sincere communion with God will produce human beings adequately qualified, trained and coordinated with God the Father. Those who aspire to take their fellows by the hand, to teach them the truths of the spirit, must be guide by their own indwelling Spirit. They must seek to experience the divinity within themselves and be inspired by their Thought Adjusters, gradually incorporating the teachings of Jesus and the revelators, so this Spirit can manifest himself through their human personality, yielding the fruits of the spirit in their lives.
The service to the people who search God must be the result of the sublime and superior transformation that occurs in the hearts of the spirit-born men, with the help of the Spirit of Truth and the living faith, through the communion with God. To the successful of this truth-seeking ministry to humankind, this service must be anchored on God and must be carried out in his name and for the welfare and happiness of His creatures. The potential instructors who want engage themselves in the spread of the divine truth should be filled with “loving service, unselfish devotion, courageous loyalty, sincere fairness, enlightened honesty, undying hope, confiding trust, merciful ministry, unfailing goodness, forgiving tolerance, and enduring peace.” (2054.3) 193:2.2 They must be sincere, always humble; their spirit fruits and their example must inspire and motivate those who seek the divine truth.
Let us consider this teaching: The pursuit of mere knowledge, without the attendant interpretation of wisdom and the spiritual insight of religious experience, eventually leads to pessimism and human despair. (Paper 195, page 2076:8) The potential instructor of the truth should live the religion of Jesus in his daily life, because it demands living and spiritual experience, not mere traditional beliefs, emotional feelings or philosophic concepts, the true religion of the spirit requires that men attain actual levels of real spirit progression. (Paper 160, page 1782:3)
It is valid to say that “the religion of Jesus” and “doing the will of God” is the same thing. The worship of God and the service of man is the sum and substance of the religion of Jesus. We are taught that the highest levels of self-realization are attained by worship and service, that true religion is the act of an individual soul in its self-conscious relations with the Creator. Jesus exhorted his followers to exercise experiential faith and admonished them not to depend on mere intellectual assent and credulity.
Our world discovers in the Master’ life a new and higher type of religion, a religion based on personal spiritual relations with the Universal Father and wholly validated by the supreme authority of genuine personal experience. (Paper 196, page 2087:4)
Jesus said that The will of God is the way of God, partnership with the choice of God in the face of any potential alternative. To do the will of God, therefore, is the progressive experience of becoming more and more like God. (Paper 130, page 1431:2) And the revelators tell us that to do the will of God is man’s willingness to share his inner life with God, the indwelling Adjuster. Meditation makes the contact of mind with spirit; relaxation determines the capacity for spiritual receptivity. (Paper 160, page 1772:2) He who is full of faith worships truly when his inner self is intent upon God. (Paper 131, page 1448:4)
Jesus founded the religion of personal experience in doing the will of God and serving the human brotherhood. Worship, taught Jesus, makes one increasingly like the being who is worshiped. Worship is a transforming experience whereby the finite gradually approaches and ultimately attains the presence of God, the Infinite. Paper 146, page 1641:1) Conclusion: if we worship God, we will become like him through the divine qualities that arise in our soul.
Jesus said: “By daily living the will of the Father in heaven, we can reveal him to our fellow men” We cannot do spiritual work in the absence of spiritual power. And you can do neither of these, even when their potential is present, without the existence of that third and essential human factor, the personal experience of the possession of living faith. (Paper 158, page 1758:5)
Jesus teaches us that if the blind lead the blind, they both shall fall into the pit; that if you would guide others into kingdom of the Father, the guide himself must walk in the clear light of living truth. This implies knowing and living the divine truth, associating ourselves with the indwelling Adjuster. Jesus taught us that we should let our light so shine that our fellows will be guided into new and godly paths of enhanced life. Our light should not shine to draw attention to self. Jesus tells us that we can use our vocation as an effective “reflector” for the dissemination of this light of life.
We are told that religion does need new leaders, spiritual men and women who will dare to depend solely on Jesus and his incomparable teachings, that these new instructors will be exclusively devoted to the spiritual regeneration of man. We can do this applying wholeheartedly the teachings of Jesus in ourselves, finding God, being born from the spirit and being led by the inner Spirit, through our own effort, in union with God. These instructors are forged walking the spiritual path shown by Jesus of Nazareth.
Those who feel the call in their heart trust in the Lord, and he will do the work with them.
Kahlil Gibran makes a similar statement of these facts in his poems.
I Tell you that the children of yesteryear are walking in the funeral of the era which they created for themselves.
They are pulling a rotting rope that may break soon and cause them to drop into a forgotten abyss. I say that they are living in homes with weak foundations. As the storm blows - and it is about to blow - their homes will fall upon their heads and thus become their tombs. I say that all their thoughts, their sayings, their quarrels, their compositions, their books and all their works are nothing but chains dragging them because they are too weak to pull the load.
But the children of tomorrow are the ones called by life, and they follow it with steady steps and heads high. They are the dawn of the new frontiers; no smoke will veil their eyes and no jingle of chains will drown out their voices. They are few in number but the difference is as between a grain of wheat and a stack of hay. No one knows them but they know each other. They are like the summits, which can see and hear each other - not like caves, which cannot hear or see. They are the seed dropped by the hand of God in the field, breaking through its pod and waving its sapling leaves before the face of the sun. It shall grow into a mighty tree; its roots in the heart of the Earth and its branches high in the sky.