Echoes of Eden

Adam was confronted and mightily challenged by the ‘Urantia Problem’, in short, the races though biologically fit, have never been purged of their retarded and defective strains. To this day we are a blend of mixed races the violet race has spread from Mesopotamia to Asia, Africa, Europe and North America. The language barrier, which hindered cultural intermingling in Europe, has been removed in North America, for example, providing the best opportunity since the days of Adam for elevating the cultural level of its citizens.

“The influence of the violet race, though in numbers smaller than planned, has produced an advance in civilization which, since the days of Adam, has far exceeded the progress of mankind throughout its entire previous existence of almost a million years.” [Paper 81:0.2, Page 900.2]

Think on this, had we the benefit of a continuous Edenic culture we would enjoy a more harmonious world than we see today, we would enjoy the benefit of bodies resistant to disease, an upstepped intellectual capacity, and experience a spiritual quickening evidenced in a planetary people reaping the benefits of a world-wide education system communicating in the tongue of the violet people. We know the way to universal peace and cooperation is via the path of a common language.

It would be a great comfort to have a world cultural centre of great antiquity, populated by highly evolved, wise, noble, God loving citizens. A culture that shone like a beacon, that was an inspiration to the world. By its example, a vindication of the evolutionary plan, soul growth and material progress in a friendly universe. The very presence in our midst of immortal sons and daughters, presenting the indispensable link connecting God with man, bridging the almost infinite gulf between the eternal Creator and the lowest finite personalities of time. The passing of centuries of amalgamation with the races of men resulting in the acceptance of Adam and Eve as common ancestors of mankind, the common parents of the now blended descendants of the evolutionary races.

So it would be easy to appreciate Adam as one of the seven fathers we ultimately come to know and love on our paradise journey. The Bible retains a glimmer of the story of Eden but a secular modern world has relegated this to the realm of fairy tales. The truth of the Material Son and Daughter is gaining acceptance in our time within the Urantia Book readership.

How can we be confident that the Most Highs rule in the affairs of mankind? On our quarantined planet we have no Edenic cultural centre because of the Lucifer rebellion.

As a result of double planetary default we are handicapped, a full dispensation behind a normal evolutionary world, but there is compensation. Of the many valuable repercussions of the Lucifer rebellion is our status as agondonters providing the potential of advanced universe careers in roles where unquestioned faith and sublime confidence are essential to achievement. This ability to withstand the sophistries of sin place such mortals in line to become future Mighty Messengers.

It would be easy to bemoan the plight of the world, see the veneer of fear and criticism emanating from our fellows who live life so much in the realm of the senses.

Our Adamic heritage allows us to lay claim to divine parentage, reason admonishes us to look to the benefits.

Ours is the bestowal world of our Creator parent, Michael of Nebadon. Reflect on this. In addition to the spiritual realities which sustained us beforehand we are now encircuited with that universal comforter, the Spirit of Truth. This response to truth hunger represents the last spirit endowment designed to aid in the ascending search for God. [p. 2,062] As a result each one of us is endowed with the capacity to forgive personal injuries, to keep sweet in the midst of the gravest injustice, to remain unmoved in the face of appalling danger, and challenge the evils of hate and anger by the fearless acts of love and forbearance.

The secret of a better civilization is bound up in the master’s teachings of the brotherhood of man, the good will of love and mutual trust. [p. 2,064]  Our yearning for divine contact has been answered, our inner life is richly enhanced allowing truth to resonate within, additionally, we are materially complemented with a source of divine wisdom for ready reference in book form. Once I described the Urantia Book this way, “it’s as if the celestial inhabitants of the universe at large came to visit me in my living room to have a nice little chat about life, the Universe and everything.” Our celestial family continues to enlighten us using every means possible this side of breaking quarantine, such as, arriving in our midst in a space ship. The fact that we have such an obvious message from the universe community at large cannot be overstated. In the absence of an ancient cultural centre we have the story of what happened, why it happened and what’s going to happen to put things right. Being privy to such information carries with it the responsibility that comes with the dawning awareness of universe citizenship.

Enhanced knowledge and enlarged meanings require practise of the Art of Living. There’s even a paper with that topic for reference, whose author is the philosopher Rodan of Alexandria, who surely had a significant violet inheritance. His emphasis is on the importance of communication between people as a social civilizer and cultural enhancer. Remember, “Knowledge is possessed only by sharing; it is safeguarded by wisdom and socialized by love”.

He states that the most effective social grouping is the family from which spring associations of friendship and mutual affection. The family life of Adam and Eve was the wellspring of social evolution. Such associations are socializing and enobling because they facilitate the essential factors of the higher levels of the art of living: Mutual self expression and self understanding. Everyone has a unique story to tell. Some degree of recognition and a certain amount of appreciation are essential to the development of human character. We’ve all come up with our own theories and ideas from time to time, it’s the legacy of having a creative mind. Only when we communicate these notions to our friends and associates can we get an appreciation of their value, whether we’re spouting hot air or profound wisdom. In the reciprocity of interpersonal communication is to be found the reality of any proposition.

Union of Souls—the Mobilization of Wisdom
Wisdom is superknowledge. In the union of wisdom, the social group, small or large, mutually shares all knowledge. So too with we UB readers: we happen to have acquired a commonly agreed conceptual framework reconciling the events of this world with a certain vision of the next, thereby fostering soul growth in this pooling of respective spiritual possessions. This also happens to avoid the ever present tendency to fall victim to distortion of vision, prejudice of viewpoint and narrowness of judgement. Fear, envy and conceit can be prevented only by intimate contact with other minds.

The Enthusiasm for Living
Experience has taught me that isolation exhausts the energy of the soul. Association with one’s fellows is essential to the renewal of the zest for life and is indispensable to the maintenance of the courage to fight those battles consequent upon the ascent to the higher levels of human living. One of the crowning glories of human friendship is this power and possibility of the mutual stimulation of the imagination. Great spiritual power is inherent in the consciousness of wholehearted devotion to a common cause. If we are able to quicken and enlarge the appreciative capacities of our friends, through wise counsel sincerely offered, we may indeed hasten the inevitable spiritual revival.

The Enhanced Defense against All Evil
Personality association and mutual affection is an efficient insurance against evil. There is positive strength in the knowledge that you live for the welfare of others, and that these others likewise live for your welfare and advancement. As I have said already, we languish when in isolation. Difficulties, sorrow, disappointment and defeat are more painful when borne alone. A sympathetic friend surely lessens the sting of such arrows of misfortune.

Rodan emphasises the need for us to socialise our inner life by sharing what we have discovered through artful and wise discourse with our fellows. Ever mindful of the privileged information we’ve had the good fortune to discover, only by sharing can we qualify as possessing any knowledge worth having.

Self control we are told, is the true measure of universe citizenship. Self mastery is the key to universe destiny, and we are beckoned by this lure of maturity to improve ourselves. The ‘Echo of Eden’ is amplified in the knowledge we now have, of origins integrated with the certitude of the divine, that our destiny is brim full of adventure and reward. This knowledge enables each one of us to seek beyond the short-term material pleasure and strive for the greater eternal prize. Just as the child learns patience in place of instant gratification and thereby grows strength of character, we too, as adults, are learning to transfer our seat of identity from the material to the divine.

One of the most significant statements of Jesus remains, “verily, verily, I say to you, he who rules his own self is greater than he who captures a city. Self-mastery is the measure of man’s moral nature and the indicator of his spiritual development.”  There is to be experienced along the path of moral character growth true satisfaction of goal attainment—a breathing spell during which universe horizons stand still, creature status is stationary and the personality tastes the sweetness of goal fulfillment.

Self-mastery, the measure of moral character is indispensable to experiencing opportunities for service which are the rewards of self-mastery, a high universe privilege. The privilege of service immediately follows the discovery of trustworthiness. Nothing can stand between you and the opportunity for increased service except your own untrustworthiness, your lack of capacity for appreciation of the solemnity of trust. Solemnity of trust—that crucial test we will creatures must pass if we are to be deemed trustworthy.

Just as there is a relationship between self-mastery and trustworthiness, another unerring measure of human trustworthiness is faithfulness. He who is faithful in little things is also likely to exhibit faithfulness in everything consistent with his endowments: seek the lesser and the greater will be found therein. There is a direct connection between liberty and self-mastery as both an individual experience and a cultural manifestation. Enduring liberty—true liberty—is the quest of the ages and the reward of evolutionary progress.

Enduring liberty is predicated on the reality of justice, intelligence, fraternity and equity. To enjoy such liberty in society is a demonstration of political wisdom. Political wisdom requires emotional maturity and only emotional maturity will ensure substitution of international techniques of civilised adjudication for the barbarous arbitrament of war.

The true badge of social maturity is the willingness of a people to surrender the right to live peaceably and contentedly under the ease-promoting standards of the lure of established beliefs and conventional ideas, for the disquieting and energy-requiring lure of the pursuit of the unexplored possibilities of the attainment of undiscovered goals of idealistic spiritual realities.

When men and women dare to forsake a life of natural cravings for one of adventurous art and uncertain logic, they must expect to suffer the consequent hazards of emotional casualties—conflicts, unhappiness and uncertainties—at least until a time of their attainment of some degree of intellectual and emotional maturity.

“Discouragement, worry and indolence are positive evidence of moral immaturity. Human society is confronted with two problems: Attainment of the maturity of the individual and attainment of the maturity of the race. The mature individual soon begins to look upon all other mortals with feelings of tenderness and with emotions of tolerance. Mature men and women view immature folks with the love and consideration that parents bear their children.”  [Paper 160:1.6, Page 1773.3]

Requirement for the attainment of maturity is the cooperative adjustment of social groups to an ever-changing environment. The immature individual arouses antagonisms of his fellows; the mature man or woman wins the hearty co-operation of his or her associates, thereby many times multiplying the fruits of his or her life efforts.

We are familiar with the term, ‘lead by example’, our fellows will naturally seek us out when our outer lives mirror the divine values within.

In the absence of a visible divine planetary resident on this world populated by peoples of diverse cultures, races and tongues there is a great task ahead to achieve brotherhood. The fact of Michael’s bestowal 2,000 years ago and the consequent pouring out of the Spirit of Truth has provided all mankind a common spiritual foundation for great achievements in the development of the human race. We are well prepared for realization of a planetary government with its laws, mechanisms, symbols, conventions, and language—all which contribute to establishment of world-wide peace under law and could lead to the dawning of a real age of spiritual striving— threshold to Light and Life