"As Jesus was starting on his way, a young man ran up, knelt before him, and asked him, 'Good Master, what must I do to receive eternal life?' 'Why do you call me good?' Jesus asked of him, 'No one is good except God alone.'" (Mark, 10:17,18)

These words are repeated in The Urantia Book."Why do you call me good? None is good but God." (2091) There are similar statements scattered throughout the book. "Greatness is synonymous with divinity. God is supremely great and good. Greatness and goodness cannot be divorced. They are forever made one in God." (317) "All goodness takes its origin in the Father." (381) "God is the source and destiny of all that is good and beautiful and true." (1431)

On the Damascus road, the apostle Paul had an incredible conversion experience. "Suddenly a light from the sky flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, 'Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?' 'Who are you, Lord?' he asked. 'I am Jesus, whom you persecute. Get you up and go into the city where you will be told what you must do.'"(Acts 9:3-5) Paul was blind for three days.

Many people have dramatic experiences of a religious or spiritual nature that have a profound effect upon their lives. Often such experiences are the turning point in their lives and form the foundation upon which they build their faith. Others, and I suspect the vast majority, never, in all their lives, experience anything of a spiritual or religious nature that they can truthfully say is out of the ordinary. I number myself among this silent majority.

About 15 years ago, quite a few of my church-going friends became caught up in the charismatic movement that swept through mainstream Christian Churches of all denominations. During the worship sessions in which songs of praise played a big part in stirring up emotions, many people did experience something out of the ordinary. Often this led to them proclaiming themselves as born again Christians. Being baptized by the Spirit, slain by the Spirit, speaking in tongues, interpreting the tongues language, being healed by the Spirit from long standing afflictions, all these were common phenomena that occurred when people gathered together to indulge in the format of charismatic worship. In actuality, to have such experiences was the badge of membership, not to have them was often taken to indicate that something was wrong with a person, possibly the presence of unforgiven secret sin.

I remember trying hard to speak in tongues. The minister of my church, which was orthodox Episcopalian (Anglican), told me he had the same problem but learned to do it by just opening his mouth and letting out whatever non-sensical sounds came into his mind. He said he did this mainly when driving his car and found it tremendously uplifting, a form of uninhibited worship by which he praised God unreservedly. He said it takes a bit of practice but if I would stick with it, it would happen. Feeling 'out of it', I decided to give it a go and soon accumulated a vocabulary of non-sensical sounds that were pretty impressive. Was I really speaking in tongues? I did not really feel uplifted and was unsure about it being uninhibited worship. So I recorded one of my sessions. Listening to a playback, I heard the words 'shonkina, shonkina, shonshon kina kina,' non-sensical enough undoubtedly, but which I recognised as from the war cry of my school football team of some sixty or more years previously. Flunked again!

I read The Urantia Book for several years before ever contacting another reader. As I got to know more and more fellow readers, I again found that I was often the odd man out, not having had any remarkable experiences associated with my acceptance of the book as revelatory and its teachings as the guiding principle of my life. As a Christian of many, many years standing, and also a student of the spoken word of Jesus as found in the synoptic gospels, I was familiar with those introductory words I have quoted from the gospel of Mark. Their import did not really register until I found them repeated in several different ways in The Urantia Book. The one that really awakened me to their profundity was, "All goodness takes its origin in the Father."

I have often thought about a statement that occurs on the book's very last page, "The great challenge to modern man is to achieve better communication with the divine Monitor that dwells within the human mind. Man's greatest adventure in the flesh consists in the well balanced and sane effort to advance the borders of self-consciousness out through the dim realms of embryonic soul-consciousness--contact with the divine presence. Such an experience constitutes God-consciousness...." What could I, a failed charismatic, one who had never heard voices, never had a vision, never been healed, not even a single, out-of-the-ordinary experience, what could I do to answer this challenge. Then it struck me. Maybe I was not a failure after all. If all goodness takes its origin in God and the spirit of God dwells within my mind, then every good thought I have ever had was a direct communication from the divine Monitor! Each such thought was a personal revelation from God to me!

This theme is developed in a most full and extraordinary way in the closing four pages of The Urantia Book. It cites evidence that the mind of mankind is not wholly material, that it really is host to an indwelling spirit presence. This is what lifts them above the confinement of behavior patterns emanating from the heritage of the electro-chemical animal vehicle in which their mind resides. Three separate evidences are cited that this is so (2094):

1. Humanitarian fellowship--love. The purely animal mind may be gregarious for self-protection, but only the spirit-indwelt intellect is unselfishly altruistic and unconditionally loving.

Having had extensive experience working with animals, I've long felt it valid to conclude that instances of apparent altruistic behavior in animals are always comprehensible in terms of pure instinct. In contrast, it seems totally impossible to account for altruistic human behavior in this way.

2. Interpretation of the universe--wisdom. Only the spirit-indwelt mind can comprehend that the universe is friendly to the individual.

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It requires a lot of hard thinking to agree unconditionally with this conclusion. I believe that we can only do so when we learn to think as Jesus did. Ganid was to ponder upon this problem when Jesus told him: "Ganid, I have absolute confidence in my heavenly Father's overcare; I am  consecrated to doing the will of my Father in heaven. I do not believe that real harm can befall me; I do not believe that my lifework can really be jeopardized by anything my enemies might wish to visit upon me, and surely we have no violence to fear from our friends. I am absolutely assured that the entire universe is friendly to me--this all-powerful truth I insist on believing with a wholehearted trust in spite of all appearances to the contrary." (1469)

It does not appear to be an over-statement to say that only a spirit-indwelt mind can comprehend that the universe is that friendly. When I finally learned this, I felt that maybe I had not entirely flunked life's course in religious experience.

3. Spiritual evaluation of life--worship. Only the spirit-indwelt man can realize the divine presence and seek to attain a fuller experience in and with this foretaste of divinity.

The recognition of good in ourselves provides self-substantiating evidence for the divine presence within. How then do we attain a fuller experience with this foretaste of divinity. We are reminded that "morality is the ESSENTIAL pre-existent soil of personal God-consciousness." (2096) Take note of the word "essential." Without morality we are hamstrung, we cannot progress, we cannot attain that better communication with the divine Monitor that we seek. What is it that defiles a man, wrecks his morality? Questioned about this, Jesus said: "But hearken while I tell you the truth concerning those things which morally defile and spiritually contaminate men. I declare it is not that which enters the body by the mouth or gains access to the mind through the eyes and ears, that defiles the man. Man is only defiled by that evil which may originate within the heart, and which finds expression in the words and deeds of such unholy persons. Do you not know it is from the heart that there come forth evil thoughts, wicked projects of murder, theft, and adulteries, together with jealousy, pride, anger, revenge, railings, and false witness? And it is just such things that defile men, and not that they eat bread with ceremonially unclean hands." (1712)

The book tells us that the moral nature is superanimal but sub-spiritual, that the moral zone intervenes between the animal and human types of mind as morontia functions between the material and spiritual spheres of personality attainment. (2096) So, though we humans are only just out of the trees, it appears that we do have special attributes. In fact, it is our capacity for self-consciousness that differentiates us from the animal kingdom (1479), but we need more than just self-consciousness. We need to be open to the whisperings of the Adjutant Mind Spirits who prepare us for that first moral choice that signals our readiness for the arrival of the divine Monitor. (1186) Without this presence, we cannot unselfishly and spiritually love, we cannot properly appraise moral values, we cannot recognize spiritual meanings, and we have difficulty in discerning that which is truly good or truly evil. The book even says our very survival is in great measure dependent on consecrating our will to accepting the guidance of our indwelling spirit-value sorter. (2094/5) No wonder then that we are exhorted to achieve better communication with this gift from God.

This last Paper, "The Faith of Jesus," is one of the most profound in the whole of The Urantia Book. In it, I discovered a revelation that helps to make my relationship with the divine Monitor more real, more intense, more personal. Only in this Paper is the Thought Adjuster referred to as my divine lover, my interpreter, and my value-sorter. But it goes a lot further. It says that this divine Monitor is "the child of the Center and Source of all absolute values of divine and eternal reality." (2094)

Describing my Thought Adjuster as a child adds a new dimension to our relationship, for all children are learners. I, too, am a child of the Universal Father. Hence, my Thought Adjuster and I have a relationship that is a sharing partnership of "learning togetherness." In it, I learn to participate in the nature of God, while my Thought Adjuster learns to participate in the nature of man. That sounds like a bad deal for my Thought Adjuster, but if that was really true, then it would not be happening. And, in discussing Michael's mission to Urantia, incarnated as Jesus of Nazareth, did not Immanuel say:

"...exhibit in your short life in the flesh, as it has never been seen in all Nebadon, the transcendent possibilities attainable by a God-knowing human during the short career of human existence...the achievement of God seeking man and finding him and the phenomenon of man seeking God and finding him...." (1329)

Regardless of the reality, having my Thought Adjuster described as a child of God makes it somehow closer, more friendly, nearer to my level--or, at least, to my potential level. Of course I should have already  known this for, at the beginning of the book, I was told, "Man goes forth searching for a friend while that very friend lives within his own heart." (45) Some of these things take time to sink in.

Ken Glasziou, Maleny, Australia.