The Urantia Book’s Teachings on True Worship

 “Be you perfect, even as I am perfect,” as says a Divine Counselor in The Urantia Book page 22:1, is the first duty, and should be the highest ambition, of all creatures of the God of perfection.  In addition, a Perfector of Wisdom says in the Paper 27, page 303:5: “Worship is the highest privilege and the first duty of all created intelligences.”

When we summarize both teachings, it becomes apparent that the way to attain the divine perfection is to worship God. In this article, we study why the true worship is our first duty, and the instructions given to us by the revelators to perform the true worshipful communion, one of the most important revelations of The Urantia Book to our personal spiritual growth, which affords us “lasting joy, peace which passes all understanding.” ^{(1097.7) 100:4.3}

A Melchizedek of Nebadon teaches us that man’s comprehension of the Universal Father is a personal experience, an experiential worshipful concept. ^{(1153.3) 105:1.6} The Urantia Book defines worship as contemplation of the spiritual, ^{(1616.5) 143:7.3},  the conscious and joyous act of recognizing and acknowledging the truth and fact of the intimate and personal relationships of the Creators with their creatures. ^{303.5) 27:7.1} 

The Urantia Book makes clear the great importance of the true worship for the soul development and the acquisition of real spiritual discernment. The quality of worship is determined by the depth of creature perception; and as the knowledge of the infinite character of the Gods progresses, the act of worship becomes increasingly all-encompassing until it eventually attains the glory of the highest experiential delight and the most exquisite pleasure known to created beings. ^{(303.5) 27:7.1} 

It is clear that the worship is an act, it is a specific moment totally dedicated to our communion with God.

Jesus always recommended to his followers to seek first the kingdom of heaven, because he knew that all the spirit values are found in the kingdom of God. Jesus also frequently said that the kingdom is God within us. The essence of Jesus’ teachings was love and service: loving voluntary worship to God and freewill service to our brethren. ^{(1008.1) 92:4.8} 

Jesus said that religion is an exclusively spiritual experience of the evolving immortal soul of the god-knowing man. Those who know God have experienced the fact of his presence. ^{(24.6) 1:2.8}  God who is spirit can be known only as a spiritual experience. ^{(1857.4) 169:4.13} Therefore, to know God it is necessary the personal experience of his presence within us.  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 the Infinite. ^{1641.1) 146:2.17}

 ^{(2084.1) 195:10.1} Religion is only an exalted humanism until it is made divine by the discovery of the reality of the presence of God in personal experience.

The worship illuminates our life with new spiritual significances. The measure of our worship to God is the measure of our soul’s detachment from the material universe and its simultaneous and secure attachment to the spiritual realities of all creation. ^{(1616. 143:7.6} 

Through the loving worshipful communion with God, we attain a gradual identification with the Father, receiving the soul nutriment and spiritual discernment. Man’s realization of the reality of the worship experience is chiefly determined by the developmental status of his evolving immortal soul. ^{(66.3) 5:3.7} The true worship is a personal communion with God in our own superconsciousness, it is a living experience in which we contact the presence of God and live the experience of knowing him gradually.

Jesus said to the boy fruit vendor at Messina: “…after you have fed the body learn how also to feed the soul.”   ^{(1434.2) 130:4.3} The highest level to which a finite creature can progress is the recognition of the Universal Father and the knowing of the Supreme. And even then such beings of finality destiny go on experiencing change in the motions of the physical world and in its material phenomena. Likewise do they remain aware of selfhood progression in their continuing ascension of the spiritual universe and of growing consciousness in their deepening appreciation of, and response to, the intellectual cosmos. Only in the perfection, harmony, and unanimity of will can the creature become as one with the Creator; and such a state of divinity is attained and maintained only by the creature’s continuing to live in time and eternity by consistently conforming his finite personal will to the divine will of the Creator. Always must the desire to do the Father’s will be supreme in the soul and dominant over the mind of an ascending son of God.

^{(2075.11) 195:5.8} Religion is designed to find those values in the universe which call forth faith, trust, and assurance; religion culminates in worship. Religion discovers for the soul those supreme values which are in contrast with the relative values discovered by the mind. Such superhuman insight can be had only through genuine religious experience.

The true worship is the way to attain the likeness with God; through the worshipful communion, God transforms us, spiritualizing our mind and soul, giving the divine gifts that produce the spiritual fruits in our lives and the loving service to our siblings. Man does not have to go farther than his own inner experience of the soul’s contemplation of this spiritual-reality presence to find God and attempt communion with him.

^{(1739.7) 156:5.} Believers must increasingly learn how to step aside from the rush of life — escape the harassments of material existence — while they refresh the soul, inspire the mind, and renew the spirit by worshipful communion.

Paper 1, page 30.4 Even to approach the knowing of a divine personality, all of man’s personality endowments must be wholly consecrated to the effort; halfhearted, partial devotion will be unavailing.

^{(66.3) 5:3.7} Sincere worship connotes the mobilization of all the powers of the human personality under the dominance of the evolving soul and subject to the divine directionization of the associated Thought Adjuster. The mind of material limitations can never become highly conscious of the real significance of true worship. Man’s realization of the reality of the worship experience is chiefly determined by the developmental status of his evolving immortal soul. The spiritual growth of the soul takes place wholly independently of the intellectual self-consciousness.

^{(1124.3) 102:6.1} The worship may be compared to the act of tuning in the soul to catch the universe broadcasts of the infinite spirit of the Universal Father.

The highest levels of self-realization are attained by worship and service. ^{(1572.6) 140:4.6}

The Urantia Book describes a worship technique very similar to the known meditation techniques; the great difference between the meditation practices that induce a mode of consciousness, and the spiritual worship meditation, is to where it is headed the attention, to one’s own mind or to God. In true worship we do not pursue any mode of consciousness or predetermined result, nor cultivate any emotion. The true worship consists in to render ourselves to the will of God through an attitude of silent receptiveness, in a well-balanced and sane effort to advance the borders of self-consciousness out through the dim realms of embryonic soul-consciousness in a wholehearted effort to reach the borderland of spirit-consciousness — contact with the divine presence. Such an experience constitutes God-consciousness, an experience mightily confirmative of the pre-existent truth of the religious experience of knowing God.  ^{(2097.2) 196:3.34} 

The true worship technique of The Urantia Book consists in the following:

1- Unselfish, believing, sincere, intelligent and trustful pray will lead the mortals of earth up to the communion of true worship. The soul’s spiritual capacity for receptivity determines the quantity of heavenly blessings which can be personally appropriated and consciously realized as an answer to prayer. ^{(1621.3) 144:4.4} 

2- Detachment from the daily routine of life, from the monotonous grind of material existence, to step aside the rush of life — escape the harassments of material existence.   ^{(1739.7) 156:5.} Prayer and its associated worship is a technique of detachment from the daily routine of life, from the monotonous grind of material existence. It is an avenue of approach to spiritualized self-realization and individuality of intellectual and religious attainment. ^{1621.4) 144:4.5} This means we should take a daily break, isolating ourselves each day to worship.

 3- Self-forgetting – superthinking.  ^{(1616.9) 143:7.7} 

4- Effortless attention, centered in the presence of God in our superconsciousness. ^{(1616.9) 143:7.7}

5- Restfulness, relaxation.  Relaxation determines the capacity for spiritual receptivity. ^{(1616.5) 143:7.3; (1774.4) 160:1.12}

6- Expect nothing. When we expect something, we hinder the Adjuster’s action. ^{(65.5) 5:3.3}

7- Ask nothing. The Father knows what we need. ^{(65.5) 5:3.3}

8- The inner self must be intent upon God.

9- Silent receptivity. This Jesus’ words are descriptive of the right attitude before the Father. Experiential spiritual presence is in accordance with the underlying conditions or states of spiritual receptivity inherent in the individual minds of the realms. ^{(150.2) 13:4.3}

 ^{(192.4) 16:6.8} 3. Worship — the spiritual domain of the reality of religious experience, the personal realization of divine fellowship, the recognition of spirit values, the assurance of eternal survival, the ascent from the status of servants of God to the joy and liberty of the sons of God. This is the highest insight of the cosmic mind, the reverential and worshipful form of the cosmic discrimination.

Worship is the key to our spiritual growth. When we worship God, he transforms our soul and mind, giving us a progressive God-consciousness. During the worship, if we maintain our mind focused in thinking about different matters, we will stay on the conscious level of the mind, and then we cannot elevate ourselves to the inner communion with the Father.

Worship God is firsthand religion, the direct contact with God within us. The revealed religion is a matter of inner personal experience with God; this is the reason why the UB places great emphasis on the true worship. When we worship God, we contact him through our soul, in the superconscious level of our mind, the level over the human mind consciousness. There is where the Adjuster and the soul are located.

Rodan’s statement “Meditation makes the contact of mind with spirit” does not refer to thoughtful reflection. The superconscious level is the ascending mental activity because there is where our soul contact the Adjuster, and then is when the worshipful communion happens. It is our soul who worship God, when our mind consent in it and maintains the attention focused in God.

To complete this study, lets us analyze the revelators’ warnings about mysticism, mystic experiences (psychic speculations) and spiritualism or mediumship (channeling, for instance). Some Urantia Book readers seems to be afraid of worship because of these revelator’s warnings. It should be clear to them that these revelator’s warnings do not refer in any way to the true worship; these warnings are about dangerous practices as mystic experiences and channeling, which are the doing of the human will.

If, as some UB readers believe, the daily pause to the worshipful communion or spiritual meditation is mysticism or daydreaming, why the revelators talk so much about the worship, and emphasize the need of it? Let us analyze the meanings of daydreaming and mysticism:

daydream

-a pleasant dreamlike fantasy indulged in while awake; idle reverie

-a pleasant scheme or wish that is unlikely to be fulfilled; pipe dream

mysticism

-belief in or experience of a reality surpassing normal human understanding or experience, esp a reality perceived as essential to the nature of life

-a system of contemplative prayer and spirituality aimed at achieving direct intuitive experience of the divine

-obscure or confused belief or thought

It is important to understand the differences between true worship and mysticism.

If we follow the instructions given by the revelators in The Urantia Book for the true worship, maintaining a healthful attitude of loyalty to the will of the Father, we are certainly in the right path.

Worshipful meditation needs mental silence, but this not means empty mind. It means to focus our attention in God, hearing him, with love and devotion, avoiding the attempt to attain any level, any specific mental state. Jesus did not teach us to maintain our mind thinking, he taught relaxation and attention focused on God. If we maintain our mind thinking all the time, we cannot give God a chance to work with our mind and soul. Superthinking means beyond thinking.

This is the meaning of “mysticism” in the UB: “Under no circumstances should the trancelike state of visionary consciousness be cultivated as a religious experience.” The true worship, or worshipful communion with God, does not mean any altered state of consciousness. The visionary consciousness is the pursuit of visions, mental creations.  The consciousness of the presence of God must be developed in a natural way, because it is God who gives it to us.

To allow the soul initiate the worship, the mind must be consecrate to this task; this is the reason for the silent receptivity, the attention focused in God, when the inner self (the mind-soul-personality) is intent upon God.

Fraternal greetings to everyone.

Your sister,

Jeannie.