Great minds—from philosophers to spiritual writers to holy persons (like Aristotle, Plato, Confucius, Omar Khayyam, Descartes, Aquinas, and Theresa of Avila of older eras and Kant, Thoreau, Thomas Merton, Krishnamurti, Teilhard de Chardin, Thich Nhat Hanh, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Mary Baker Eddy, and Alice Bailey of more contemporary times)—all have had their slant on what they think true reality is. St. Augustine wrote the City Of God about his understanding of reality and divine nature, but Paul wrote in scripture:
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. (1 Corinthians 13:12)
Just as Paul realized that we are extremely limited in our viewpoints as earthly humans until we expand into spiritualized thinking, Jesus taught his apostles of the materialistic and the spiritual perspective:
Always must you recognize the two viewpoints of all mortal conduct—the human and the divine; the ways of the flesh and the way of the spirit; the estimate of time and the viewpoint of eternity. (The URANTIA Book, Paper 140, Section 6)
Whatever the message in mainstream media today—television, radio, Internet, magazines, newspapers, etc.—depending upon who is giving the message, we usually hear half-truths or, worse yet, only 1% of the truth. Because of materialistic, corporate- and self-serving motives of those behind the message, the true spiritual significance of circumstantial reality is not considered, and so most “truth” is missed.
When it comes to the true essentials of life, Jesus said:
No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. (Matthew 6:24)
In the same vein, in The URANTIA Book Jesus declared:
You know that it has been well said: “No man can serve two masters.” You cannot sincerely worship God and at the same time wholeheartedly serve mammon. Having now enlisted unreservedly in the work of the kingdom, be not anxious for your lives; much less be concerned with what you shall eat or what you shall drink; nor yet for your bodies, what clothing you shall wear. (Paper 140, Section 6)
Teachings from the Quran also address this topic with many verses that contain forceful arguments in support of the principle of unity of God, including that:
Man cannot serve two masters at the same time, and there is no one more beneficent and merciful or more deserving of our love than Allah, on account of His benevolence. Man, therefore, cannot make it the purpose of his life to attain closeness to more than one God. For example, the one who wanders around in search of two different locations at the same time will fail to find his destination, particularly if his real destination is neither of those two locations.
These messages from three different spiritual books all express the same key point that there are essentially two different viewpoints for individuals to choose between—one that is more easily “seen” and prevalent within the world-wide dominant culture of the “material mind” and the other not as easily “seen” but of eternal value and more “real” within the faith walk of the “spiritual mind.” A person can create a personal reality of depending upon one’s self only in pursuing more selfish and materialistic goals, or an individual can create a reality of depending upon God to guide in acquiring the necessities of life’s existence within a circle of interdependency with other persons.
We are not taught in elementary school (or high school or college) the “faith walk” or what the “kingdom of God” means in today’s world. We are guided to learn the principles that are going to make us successful in a life where we have to manifest pretty much by ourselves the material and social necessities of life. A reality without faith in a God who enables us to manifest what is needed for His/Her divine purposes is called by many names in many religions. In the Old Testament that world without God is called “Babylon.” In New Age thinking it is referred to as “the third dimension.” It is also called “the fallen system,” and according to The URANTIA Book, all “reality” of transitory nature is considered “nonreality” from a perspective of eternity.
The problem on planet Earth today, particularly in materialistic Western civilization, is most of what we experience is nonreality or the third dimension, as opposed to the dimension of God-thinking (or individuals being in the divine mind), which would be the beginning of the “fourth dimension.”
The Aquarian Age that we are coming into is also the fourth dimension, and those who are walking into higher consciousness and higher virtues are walking into an age of cooperation and non-competitive thinking with each other, which reflects the nature of God. The URANTIA Book teaches that this new age to come is called the first stage of light and life, and I think that we are now in the pre-stage of the dawn of the new millennium of light and life. There are many teachings from many religions about how this final shift will occur—from the third dimension to the fourth.
The URANTIA Book also teaches about the seven psychic circles. The continuation of The URANTIA Book—The Cosmic Family volumes—expands upon these seven psychic circles—the highest being the first circle, the lowest being the seventh. On every level, from seventh to first, people hear differently from others, understand differently from what they read. Basically, as one progresses to the first circle, one understands God better and “sees” with increasingly more spiritualized eyes.
According to The Cosmic Family, Volume 1, most people on the planet exist, within their understanding of reality, from the fourth to the seventh psychic circles. According to The URANTIA Book, when reaching the third psychic circle a person receives his or her own angel of enlightenment (guardian of destiny) to help one “see, hear, and understand” better all that life is, including the effects on human beings of the Lucifer Rebellion that took place 200,000 years ago and continues to this day.
In the experiment called Divine Administration—in which 117 human beings (men, women, and children) all live mainly on the third-psychic-circle level, and newcomers on the fourth, with the Human-Rights Elders fluctuating from the third, second, and first—there is a unity of understanding within the divine mind of God as to reality, as outworked in the perfect will of God, which all strive harder to be in. In many monasteries—Christian, Buddhist, and others—monks, brothers or sisters, also mostly reside in the fourth psychic circle and hit the third more often than individuals who do not live together in the search for the truths of God. Living in the “permissive” will of God is basically having fourth- to the seventh-psychic-circle vision. A true visionary sees in the second and first psychic circles.
The classes at The University of Ascension Science and the Physics of Rebellion (in Rio Rico, Arizona) train Destiny Reservists to see the will of God in all things and to help people strive to reach third-circle stabilization. When that third level is attained, individuals may not yet be so perfect, but they are changing more quickly into the perfection of God than those on the fourth to the seventh psychic circles, even those other monks, brothers and sisters, in monasteries within evolutionary religions. The third-circlers begin to see true reality as opposed to nonreality. The concepts found in the third dimension actually originated 200,000 years ago during the Lucifer Rebellion that manifested on Earth, and souls who fell into the third dimension fell from the fourth, fifth, sixth, and some even higher dimensions.
If the planet would have truly had a quantum leap in spiritual awareness, as many had hoped for, the majority of the people on the planet would have been walking in third-psychic-circle consciousness. This never took place for these reasons: People are still materialistic, greedy, selfish, prideful, narcissistic, addicted to false gods and narrow views of God in their old evolutionary religions, and competitive instead of cooperative. The Aquarian energies have been gradually emerging since 1989, but unfortunately most people are still living in pre-1989 consciousness.
The Heisenberg Theory suggests that each scientist who looks through a microscope sees the subatomic world differently, and I say that is because each one is on a different psychic circle. This theory applies in all areas of consciousness—whatever level of understanding individuals have, whatever psychic circle they are on, is how they will interpret what they see as reality.
Throughout the centuries great spiritual texts were written by mystics and teachers, who walked mostly on the second and first psychic circles and were called “masters” and “holy men” and treated with great respect. Individuals came from hundreds, even thousands, of miles away to receive their counsel. Today, these holy men are few and far between, for many reasons—mostly the evil powers in high places try to destroy these mahatmas (great souls) or discredit them.
Most of those who become famous in New Age magazines and other media have had to compromise to become famous, thus I consider them false prophets. They live on the fourth to the seventh psychic circles, trying to serve two masters—the materialistic values of the third dimension and the spiritual values of the fourth dimension. The true prophets, who live on the second or first psychic circles, are either unknown or marginalized by the elite and their media smear campaigns. These mahatmas (holy men) do not compromise and live serving one Master. For instance, Jesus Christ, who was a Creator Son, was crucified by the religious leaders of his day, who used “Caesar” (the Roman government’s legal system) to do their dirty deeds.
Just as the divinely inspired teachings of religions have contributed much to the progress of humankind, religions have also been a deterrent to true revelation and spiritual insight. The progress of civilization has been greatly slowed down by religious doctrines that are wrong, and though there is truth in all religions, they also contain much of man’s viewpoints that are of the material mind. What religion needs is God’s viewpoints, and this is what epochal revelation is.
The URANTIA Book describes five epochal revelations to this planet:
1. the First Epochal Revelation—the Planetary Prince and staff of 100 supermortals from different planets
2. the Second Epochal Revelation—Adam and Eve, Material Son and Daughter from the administrative system headquarters of Jerusem
3. the Third Epochal Revelation—Machiventa Melchizedek, a Melchizedek Son who materialized on this planet (not born of a human mother) and taught Abraham for 97 years and started the City of Peace: Salem, which later became Jerusalem
4. the Fourth Epochal Revelation—Jesus (Joshua ben Joseph), a Michael Creator Son—the Creator and Sovereign of His universe of Nebadon—who is now known also as Christ Michael
5. the Fifth Epochal Revelation and Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation—found in The URANTIA Book and The Cosmic Family volumes, each brought through by celestial beings in a chosen human vessel
In all of these epochal revelations, great teachers brought a higher and more truthful perspective of God in order for humankind to better understand their own personal realities on this world, and even more so, to meet their individual destinies within God’s perfected purpose. Each epochal revelation started with the premise of the Father-/Motherhood of God and the brother-/sisterhood of humankind.
Today we have so many divisions in the sects of all religions, killing each other in the name of Allah, Brahma, Buddha, Yahweh, God, and so on. Of course, the later disciples of great prophets twisted what Mohammad, Siddhartha, Amos, Jesus, and others said, so that today great confusion exists on Earth, and people see reality through small and narrow scopes of views and perceptions.
The truths of the scriptures can be spoken by a pure godly person, and much good can be accomplished. But these same scriptures can be quoted and spoken by a false prophet, and much ignorance, fear, hate, racism, and bigotry become the end result. So it is not so much the words themselves but whoever speaks them and how they are interpreted and applied to current circumstances. Great holy men of God are often misunderstood when they speak the truths of the absolutes of God’s (not humans’) love, mercy, and justice to individuals who do not want to hear these truths or make changes in their lives, which would require they apply on a human level divine love, mercy and justice.
The Earth/Urantia, at this present time, is bombarded with information and many thousands of viewpoints and opinions. When people adopt selected viewpoints, they fall into various categories, not only of psychic circles but of consciousness levels that place them in different religious doctrines or reality perceptions that are not considered religious but secular. Often nonreligious people accept certain viewpoints that are actually spiritual in nature, but they are unaware of the basis of the ideas that are often derived from the Ten Commandments (given to Moses on Mt. Sinai) or from other similar teachings on morality from other religions. Without the acceptance of some of these absolutes, civilization would fall into anarchy.
According to the Old Testament of the Bible, after the people of Israel were led out of the bondage of Egypt, they complained that they did not have enough food and water, and even though they lived in squalor in Egypt, many wanted to go back to Egypt because life was too hard for them on the way to “the Promised Land.” In the transition from the third to the fourth dimension, people are tested, just like the Israelites were tested in the desert. Only those on the earth who pass the tests will come into the Promised Land (of the Old Testament), also called the New Millennium or the Age of Aquarius (of New Age teachings), or the first stage of light and life (of The URANTIA Book).
In relationship to finding God and being led by God, the road to self-realization comes through sacrifice, choice by choice, decision by decision. As one begins to make more right choices, his or her perceptions of true reality become heightened, and as one begins to become a servant of others and less selfish, he or she begins to walk more into the kingdom of God on Earth. And that is when true peace can be found and true sight acquired.