5 - The 5th of the 28 Principles in The Urantia Book

the 5th of the 28 principles in the urantia book

The 5th of the 

28 Principles in The Urantia Book

The Great Question Number Two

2. Is altruism—service of one’s fellows—desirable? Then must life experience provide for encountering situations of social inequality.

The Great Goal of Hue-manimal Existence

It is to the mind of perfect poise, housed in a body of clean habits, stabilized neural energies, and balanced chemical function—when the physical, mental, and spiritual powers are in triune harmony of development—that a maximum of light and truth can be imparted with a minimum of temporal danger or risk to the real welfare of such a being. By such a balanced growth does man ascend the circles of planetary progression one by one, from the seventh to the first.

The Urantia Book 110:6.4 

On the Path to Understanding the "Mastery of Self"

It is accurate to say that "understanding" the 28 principles of "high mortal philosophy" found in Paper 48, The Morontia Life required the asking of many questions and not a small amount of meditative thinking on them.

Challenged by Mediocrity and Fear Both within Others and Myself 

I grew up with an alcohol addicted father, who continually smoked cigarettes around me, and was abusively tyrannical in his mind control of me.

Parents divorced at eight years of age, a mother who was not in my life, except periodically, a step-mother who had no prior child-rearing experience, these facts of my early growing years contributed greatly to a person who was socially inept and beset by a self-image of inadequacy.

Thus, as I was growing toward adulthood, my greatest challenges and struggles were consequently with social relationships. 

You may never have stopped to think about the fact that the relationship with parents, grandparents, and siblings, not only involves personal relationships, but social relationships; the family is a social unit. 

• So then, what was so challenging in these personal and social relationships within family?

The first born of five (5) children, I bore the burden of most of the daily chores of feeding the animals held in pens on a small farm; this included daily carrying of five gallon pails of water to fill their watering troughs, periodically cleaning the water troughs, cleaning the manure from many pens, and carrying a lot of bales of straw and scattering the straw evenly for new bedding. 

I also had to learn a great many things, including how to drive tractors, hook up plowing, tilling and other implements, dig ditches, a well, laying pipe, constructing fences.

I also became dad and step-mom's "built-in babysitter."

Up until age 12, I was not allowed to evolve a "social life." Even then, it was tightly controlled until I moved out of the home and entered the military.

Infractions of dad's tyrannical expectations "do as I say, not as

I do," not only influenced deep and questioning observations and conclusions of what constituted "inequality" and "fairness," but came with frequent beatings until fifteen and one-half years of age, sometimes drawing my blood, and leaving more emotional scars than physical ones.

Female relationships were especially challenging; I did not have my first actual date until nineteen (19) years of age.

In my experience these familial social and cultural struggles were transferred into all other social and cultural relationships.

What saved me through these most difficult and challenging experiences was a close relationship with a Cherokee grandmother, whose spirituality influenced me to develop a close relationship with God, along with the freedom to ask any and all questions, when I was alone with her.

Introduction to the Fifth Epochal Revelation

And concomitantly, what saved me after leaving the nest was beginning to read and study The Urantia Book in the Fall of 1970.

Looking back five (5) decades, it seems like a distinguished event, if not a miracle, that I was presented with the opportunity to accept the 5th Epochal Revelation into my life, not once, but twice.

Even with the second presentation by an older man, an experienced reader, I was more likely to have rejected his presentation to me of The Urantia Book than to have accepted it, because I was one most socially inexperienced, ignorant and psychologically confused young man.

And in this state of psychological confusion I would continue to be the "victim" until age 29.

Truth cannot be defined by words, only by living. 

The Urantia Book 132:3.2

Greatly Relating to the 5th of the 28 Principles in The Urantia Book

And so, in view of a personally and socially challenging arena of experiences in which I was lured to question, struggle and strive for greater balance in my life, it was not surprising that I readily related to the 5th of the 28 principles in The Urantia Book.

This principle is stated, as follows:

48:7.7 5. Difficulties may challenge mediocrity and defeat the fearful, but they only stimulate the true children of the Most Highs.

Turning this Principle into a Personal "I am" Declaration

As a true child of the Most Highs, I am ever stimulated by challenges to overcome mediocrity and fear.

Always remember: it is not possible to grow into the "living spiritual value" contained within an intellectual principle typed onto a page; you must "internalize" the principle by converting it into a personal "I am" declaration of the person you desire to become. 

What is "Mediocrity?"

When I think of the word "mediocrity," I refer back to the following passage from The Urantia Book:

111:7.5 “Much of my difficulty was due to the unending conflict between the two natures of my subject: 

• the urge of ambition opposed by animal indolence; 
• the ideals of a superior people crossed by the instincts of an inferior race; 
• the high purposes of a great mind antagonized by the urge of a primitive inheritance; 
• the long-distance view of a far-seeing Monitor counteracted by the nearsightedness of a creature of time;
• the progressive plans of an ascending being modified by the desires and longings of a material nature; 
• the flashes of universe intelligence cancelled by the chemical-energy mandates of the evolving race; 
• the urge of angels opposed by the emotions of an animal; the training of an intellect annulled by the tendencies of instinct; 
• the experience of the individual opposed by the accumulated propensities of the race; 
• the aims of the best overshadowed by the drift of the worst;
• the flight of genius neutralized by the gravity of mediocrity;
• the progress of the good retarded by the inertia of the bad;
• the art of the beautiful besmirched by the presence of evil;
• the buoyancy of health neutralized by the debility of disease; 
• the fountain of faith polluted by the poisons of fear; 
• the spring of joy embittered by the waters of sorrow; 
• the gladness of anticipation disillusioned by the bitterness of realization; 
• the joys of living ever threatened by the sorrows of death. 

The above list represents and defines most of the "character deficiencies," which are the characteristic behavioral patterns of "mediocrity" we all experience as "imperfect mortals." 

The 5th of the 28 principles in The Urantia Book is about "self-correction, the self-correction of one's character deficiencies.

To me, what is clearly implied in this principle is that many, if not most will, when challenged by difficulties, cower in fear and settle for living a mediocre existence of non questioning and self-imprisonment with his and her beLIEf system.

There is nothing either remarkable or great which characterizes such a robotic existence in the iron grip of fear to challenge one's own mediocrity.

Pray for More Self-Mastery

Remember, even if prayer does not change God, it very often effects great and lasting changes in the one who prays in faith and confident expectation. Prayer has been the ancestor of much peace of mind, cheerfulness, calmness, courage, self-mastery, and fair-mindedness in the men and women of the evolving races. ~ The Urantia Book, (91:4.5)

Trust is the crucial test of will creatures. Trustworthiness is the true measure of self-mastery, character. ~ The Urantia Book, (28:6.13)

Circle Attainment and Self-Mastery

In the ministry to so-called normal beings, seraphic assignments are made in accordance with the human attainment of the circles of intellectuality and spirituality. You start out in your mind of mortal investment in the seventh circle and journey inward in the task of self-understanding, self-conquest, and self-mastery; and circle by circle you advance until (if natural death does not terminate your career and transfer your struggles to the mansion worlds) you reach the first or inner circle of relative contact and communion with the indwelling Adjuster. ~ The Urantia Book, (113:1.6)

The 5th of the 28 principles in The Urantia Book correlates to the individual child of God vibrationally responding to the marshalling impulse of the second (2nd) Adjutant Mind spirit of Understanding. The 5th principle is the fifth of the first eight principles, which are the generalized requirements to experientially master the sixth psychic circle of experiential spiritual understanding, also corresponding the 2nd planetary age and the second Mansion Training World educational and socialization equivalency requirements.

The Great Goal of Hue-man Attainment

• I am the mind of perfect poise.
• I am housed in a body of clean habits, and clear and pure thinking.
• I am stabilized in neural energies.
• I am balanced in chemical function.
• I am ever-momentarily transferring all mortal experiential meanings and values into the unifying whole.
• I am ever-momentarily unifying the physical, mental, and spiritual powers with the "I am that I am" personality. 
• I am ever-momentarily giving you, my indwelling divine partner and Thought Controller, my most honest, sincere, and dedicated cooperation in attaining to "supremacy of spirit domination over mind and matter."

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Supplemental Reading

• What are the four cosmic dimensions of personality unification?

1. Body                            1. self-correction 

2. Mind                           2. self-discipline / self-control

3. Soul                             3. self-direction to spirit-leading,

4. Spirit                           4. self-mastery

Personality unity self-realizes supremacy of spirit domination over mind and matter.

What is your definition of religion?

How do you define 'your religion?'

How do you keep your religion...pure...?

Personal religion must be kept uncontaminated by:

1. maintaining a self-corrective philosophy of daily living.

2. maintaining non-involvement and impartiality with regard to all social, economic, and political alliances.

3. seeking out and maintaining creative, comforting, and love-expanding relations with one's fellow beings.

4. enhancing personal progress of spiritual insight and the appreciation of cosmic values.

5. prevention of fanaticism by the compensations of the scientific mental attitude.

What is a character deficiency?

What is self-correction of a character-deficiency?

What are the steps involved in correcting one's own character-deficiencies?

What replaces a character-deficiency?

Does a character-deficiency automatically disappear when one is exercising self-correction, self-control and self-direction?

1. Self-correction.

99:3.7 The great weakness of all this unrecognized and unconscious type of religious activity is that it is unable to profit from open religious criticism and thereby attain to profitable levels of self-correction. It is a fact that religion does not grow unless it is disciplined by constructive criticism, amplified by philosophy, purified by science, and nourished by loyal fellowship.

2. Self-control.

54:1.6 True liberty is the associate of genuine self-respect; false liberty is the consort of self-admiration. True liberty is the fruit of self-control; false liberty, the assumption of self-assertion. Self-control leads to altruistic service; self-admiration tends towards the exploitation of others for the selfish aggrandizement of such a mistaken individual as is willing to sacrifice righteous attainment for the sake of possessing unjust power over his fellow beings.

3. Self-direction.

36:5.8.  3. The spirit of courage—the fidelity endowment—in personal beings, the basis of character acquirement and the intellectual root of moral stamina and spiritual bravery. When enlightened by facts and inspired by truth, this becomes the secret of the urge of evolutionary ascension by the channels of intelligent and conscientious self-direction.

4. Supremacy of spirit domination over mind and matter.

109:3.2 ...comparatively few will elect to ascend the moral heights beyond the hills of self-mastery and character acquirement to attain the higher levels of emerging spirituality.

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