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February 2, 2012
There will come a time, I believe, when Urantians will go forth into the world to proclaim the new and everlasting religion of Jesus, a personal religion that belongs not to a race, nor to a nation, nor to a special group of teachers or preachers.
These Urantian Leaders of the new spiritual renaissance will best express this gospel of love and truth by the lives they live. And those others who have not heard, shall hear, and those who have not seen, shall see this expression of the Master, and they will learn of his life-renewing teachings.
There will come a time, I believe, when Urantians shall love one another with a new and startling affection, even as Jesus loved us when he walked among us. And these new Urantians will serve humankind with a fresh and amazing devotion, even as Jesus served men and women when he lived in the flesh.
And when this hour has come, when a new generation shall see how boldly Urantians lift Jesus up, they will be drawn to him, and want to learn more of his matchless, transforming teachings in the revelation that is called The Urantia Book. And then the new and everlasting religion of Jesus shall at last blaze across the earth in the lives of the men and women who, in partnership with God, will recreate the world of the cross into a beacon of light for the universe, a fitting Shrine of Michael.
Perhaps you are the Urantian who is destined to conceive a new outreach idea that will penetrate deeply into other religions . . .
“The religion of the spirit leaves you forever free to follow the truth wherever the leadings of the spirit may take you. And who can judge—perhaps this spirit may have something to impart to this generation which other generations have refused to hear?”
If not you, then who?
LARRY MULLINS
December 13, 2011
- When in doubt, go the distance. Never give up a project in a mood of fear, discouragement, laziness or self-depreciation.
- If you fail, will you pick up the pieces and begin again? If you succeed, will you accept your success with grace and poise—and continue on to greater challenges—even if you could rest and continue to milk your achievement?
- Vision—optimistic thought pictures—are the keys to motivating growth decisions which are, in turn, the keys to achievement.
- In a contest within the human mind between a growth decision and a safety decision, the decision associated with the most consistently vivid and emotionally charged vision will unfailingly overpower the decision associated with a weaker vision.
- The human will is most effectively employed to create and embellish super-conscious, desirable alternatives to negative, subconscious thought-pictures.
- Begin now to create a gallery of positive thought-pictures. Use this inventory to dispel scenarios of failure, escape reveries, and rehearsed resentments.
- Our mantra shall forever be: “I can do all things through Christ who is in me.”
November 25, 2011
 Dr. Lena Sadler Lena C. Sadler, 1875 – 1939, was a physician, surgeon, obstetrician, lecturer and author, a leader in women’s health issues. Before studying medicine, she was a public school teacher and afterwards a trained nurse. For twenty years Lena and her husband, Dr. William Sadler, worked in rescue mission work for the Seventh-day Adventist Missions in Chicago and San Francisco. Lena concentrated on ministering to women detained in the Chicago jails. Later in life Lena became a leading activist who lectured and diligently worked toward recognizing the contributions of women as professionals in the medical and scientific fields. She was an associate professor of Physiologic Therapeutics in The Post Graduate Medical School of Chicago, an associate director of the Chicago Institute of Physiologic Therapeutics, a fellow of the American Medical Association, and a specialist in diseases of women and children.
Most Urantians know “Dr. Lena” only as the wife of Dr. William Sadler. But she was much more than that. Dr. Lena was a protagonist at virtually every critical turning point in the revelatory process. Many Urantian historians believe she was a destiny reservist who, generally behind the scenes, inspired, drove and motivated her husband and the other humans involved in receiving the revelation. We are told in the Urantia Papers that “… reservists of destiny have seldom been emblazoned on the pages of human history …” on our planet. And so it was with Dr. Lena Sadler.
● It was Dr. Lena Sadler who initiated the first contact. After several sessions with the sleeping subject in which he was unresponsive to physical stimulation. “Lena Sadler noticed the subject was moistening his lips. ‘Perhaps he wants to say something. Perhaps we should ask a question,’ she said. ‘How are you feeling?’ To the great astonishment of everyone, the subject spoke!” [From A History of the Urantia Papers.]
● It was Dr. Lena Sadler who, in 1923, organized the thirty individuals for a Sunday afternoon discussion group which soon became the “Forum.”
● It was Dr. Lena Sadler who took the initial notes regarding the information provided by the pre-Urantia Papers contacts (beginning circa 1906), and read them to the Sunday group in late 1924.
● It was Dr. Lena Sadler who concluded that the phenomenon they were experiencing was authentic, and came to believe in the revelation long before Dr. William Sadler.
● It was Dr. Lena Sadler who urged her husband William to continue with the process after his interest began to decline.
● It was Dr. Lena Sadler who raised the initial $20,000 toward the publication fund of the Urantia Book.
Dr. Lena died in 1939 after a long and courageous battle with breast cancer. The process of receiving the Urantia Papers was nearly completed. For about three decades, she had quietly helped propel the process.
Even avid detractors and critics of Dr. William Sadler acknowledge his wife’s noble character and spiritual fragrance. Some make the bizarre assertion that William Sadler, a successful and renowned medical doctor and psychiatrist, wrote the Urantia Papers. They offer no plausible motive. Surely Lena Sadler, also a successful and esteemed medical doctor, would never collaborate in, or even sanction, an elaborate and senseless charade.
Lena Sadler was a great Urantian. Her significance, like many extraordinary women, has never been adequately acknowledged. For the first forty-five years of her life she could not vote because women had not yet been granted suffrage. She achieved her education and became a medical doctor when it was almost unheard of for females. Dr. Lena served humanity in the shadow of her famous husband, and when he doubted and faltered, she remained steadfast. Perhaps of all the Urantian pioneers, we owe Dr. Lena Sadler the most profound debt of gratitude.
LARRY MULLINS
October 1, 2011
I recently read a book with the intriguing title: “A Second Way of Knowing” by Edmond Blair Bowles. It was a disappointing book, in that it went into great detail about the phenomenon of perception, explaining that there are two general scientific ways to view how we perceive reality, as an objective material situational field “out there” or as a process that takes place purely in the brain. But nowhere in the entire book did it discuss the perceiver. As interesting as trying to understand exactly what perception is and how it takes place (no one seems to know), the far greater mystery is the observer who perceives. Science almost never discusses this.
The yogis believe the observer can actually be discovered and personally experienced. The Urantia Book offers additional clues to the discovery of the observer. The observer is us, of course. But what does that mean?
Psychologist Viktor Frankl suggested in his writings that the observer is an irreducible, personal essence of reality. This would seem to correspond with the personality essence of The Urantia Book. Frankl, like The Urantia Book, suggests that it is this irreducible essence that is the seat of our identity, the enigmatic place where decisions are made and consciousness is set into motion. The place of the observer is also the active agent that creates our inner life experience. Frankl goes on to caution, however, that one cannot be a law unto oneself. He suggests a second irreducible essence, an objective guide to help direct our decisions. Frankl is the only scientist I know of who proposes two indwelling essences of creative transcendence in the human psyche, one personal and one objective. This is precisely what The Urantia Book suggests. Frankl’s work was completed in 1945, in German, and later translated into English.
How do we experience the reality of this observer as the yogis suggest? If we assume that this observer-essence is personality, we may find a way to embrace it as a living reality. The Urantia Book offers a clue to doing this, when it states: “The observer cannot be the thing observed; evaluation demands some degree of transcendence of the thing which is evaluated.”
With this idea in mind, we can begin to seek the observer (us) by defining what the observer is not. It is relatively easy to suggest that we are not our bodies. We live in our bodies, but we can readily imagine ourselves existing independently of our bodies. So it is theoretically possible to set our bodies aside (so to speak), as not being essential to the essence, to the observer. Consider then, our emotions. Again, I find it relatively simple to imagine myself existing without my emotions, and yet me still being “me.” So I can set aside my emotions.
Mind is a more difficult thing to imagine setting aside and yet remaining the essence of ourselves. I can imagine that I have a body yet existing without my body. I can imagine that I have emotions, but I can imagine existing without my emotions. Even so, I must try very hard to imagine being me without thought. People who master meditation tell us of the transcendence of self, a sense of being, yet without specific conscious thoughts. I find I can attain this sense of transcendence for short periods. When I set thought aside, what is left? Only the observer. The observer can observe the body, the emotions, and the mind. But I cannot observe or set aside the observer and examine it. “The observer cannot be the thing observed”.
I can imagine this essence of me traveling through space, through fire and storms with impunity. What I cannot imagine is this essence of me not existing, or being dead. I can imagine observing my dead body, but I am still the observer, I am still alive. The yogis of India insisted that this mind experiment was evidence of eternal being, or eternal life, if you will. Perhaps this is true. For certain I know there is a continuity of consciousness. I am the same Larry who lived many years ago in a much younger body. Every night I surrender consciousness with the assurance that in the morning I will re-consciousize as the same observer who went to sleep.
I am interested in your ideas about the Urantian concept, “The observer cannot be the thing observed; evaluation demands some degree of transcendence of the thing which is evaluated.” [1228] Larry Mullins
September 9, 2011
Forget will power. The human will is not capable of running your life with efficiency and grace. Release the spirit, and it will do everything. That is the secret Jesus revealed to Fortune, the “young man who was afraid.” Jesus first assured Fortune that he had a strong body, but he should use it, and hurry off to where great things are waiting to be done. Then Jesus said: “Your strong body has an intelligent mind to direct it. Set your mind at work to solve its problems; teach your intellect to work for you; refuse longer to be dominated by fear like an unthinking animal. Your mind should be your courageous ally in the solution of your life problems rather than your being, as you have been, its abject fear-slave and the bond-servant of depression and defeat.”
And then Jesus revealed the mighty secret: “But most valuable of all, your potential of real achievement is the spirit which lives within you, and which will stimulate and inspire your mind to control itself and activate the body if you will release it from the fetters of fear and thus enable your spiritual nature to begin your deliverance from the evils of inaction by the power-presence of living faith. And then, forthwith, will this faith vanquish fear of men by the compelling presence of that new and all-dominating love of your fellows which will so soon fill your soul to overflowing because of the consciousness which has been born in your heart that you are a child of God.”
THIS IS THE SECRET! It is the “unsubmissive human will” that keeps the spirit locked away. It is the unsubmissive human will that insists we do what we WANT to do rather than do what we NEED to do. And the conflict between these two motivations burns away energy even though we are indecisive, tentative, and doing nothing. As Rodan stated: “Jesus has taught us that God lives in man; then how can we induce man to release these soul-bound powers of divinity and infinity? How shall we induce men to let go of God that he may spring forth to the refreshment of our own souls while in transit outward and then to serve the purpose of enlightening, uplifting, and blessing countless other souls? How best can I awaken these latent powers for good which lie dormant in your souls?”
We are told in the Urantia Papers: “Few mortals ever dare to draw anything like the sum of personality credits established by the combined ministries of nature and grace. The majority of impoverished souls are truly rich, but they refuse to believe it.”
So, why are people afraid to release the spirit? Because they are afraid it will change them. And, they are right. It’s all about daring to release the spirit within, following directions, and to going along with the program to win friends and influence destiny.
LARRY MULLINS
September 3, 2011
“Most of the spectacular phenomena associated with so-called religious conversions are entirely psychologic in nature, but now and then there do occur experiences which are also spiritual in origin. When the mental mobilization is absolutely total on any level of the psychic upreach toward spirit attainment, when there exists perfection of the human motivation of loyalties to the divine idea, then there very often occurs a sudden down-grasp of the indwelling spirit to synchronize with the concentrated and consecrated purpose of the superconscious mind of the believing mortal. And it is such experiences of unified intellectual and spiritual phenomena that constitute the conversion which consists in factors over and above purely psychologic involvement.” [The Urantia Book, Page 1099]
The Urantia Book goes on to tell us that just such a spectacular religious conversion happened to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus. Saul of Tarsus first appears in the Biblical record as a witness to the stoning of Stephen, the first martyr to the cause of Christ—dying fearlessly and even “consenting” to his death. This experience deeply impressed Saul. Yet he continued on his feverish desire to exterminate the early believers in Jesus from the face of the earth.
Later Saul, carrying arrest warrants for several Christians, left Jerusalem for the ancient city of Damascus, some 140 miles north. As he drew near Damascus, a light “brighter than the noonday sun” engulfed him. A voice demanded: “Saul, Saul, why do you continue to persecute me?” The voice was identified as Jesus of Nazareth! Saul, blinded as a consequence of his experience, was instructed to enter Damascus where he would be informed as to what to do next. Saul was led into the city where he fasted and prayed for three days. Finally, a man named Ananias arrived, restored Saul’s sight and commanded him to “arise, and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on his name.” Saul, the former persecutor became Paul of Tarsus and began a spectacular and influential career proclaiming that Jesus “is the Son of God.”
I must admit that for some it may be quite a leap from Paul of Tarsus to George Foreman. Yet I know of no more spectacular conversion than Mr. Foreman’s. He was an equally unlikely candidate as Paul for conversion. Yet George Foreman’s description of his personal “road to Damascus” experience is, in my judgment, nothing less than a modern day miracle. Foreman encountered Jesus in such a way, and with such vivid power, that the Spirit of Truth permanently transformed him from an especially ferocious prize fighter into a loving servant of God.
I will not attempt to condense Foreman’s experience into this blog. But I highly recommend his book, “God in My Corner … a Spiritual Memoir.” He describes his experience with unforgettable detail and clarity. It is one of my favorite spiritual books.
Some people who know George Foreman only as a boxer and a hawker of grills are unfamiliar with his current commitment to a life of service. Foreman had compiled a record of 37 and 0, nearly all by knockout, before he became heavyweight champion of the world in 1972. He lost his title under questionable circumstances a year and a half later. He was on his way to getting a chance to regain the title when he lost a close decision. It was in his locker room after this fight that George Foreman had his extraordinary encounter with Jesus. Boxing had made George a wealthy man, a multimillionaire. But, because of his experience, he was finished as a prize fighter, or so it seemed. He said that after his experience with Jesus “… my whole world turned upside down. God flushed all the hatred and resentment out of my heart … Because I no longer had hate boiling inside of me, I couldn’t imagine boxing again.”
It was a month before George acquired his first Bible and decided to evangelize his new-found faith. He began contacting celebrities he knew personally to tell them about his religious awakening. Few of the rich and famous were interested.
George Foreman then began to “lift Jesus up” and talk about him with the ordinary folks. first on street corners, then in a very modest little church in Houston. At the age of 28 the great champion retired from boxing and slipped away from public view. In a few years he had been cheated out of all his money and was flat broke. By 1984 he had managed to save enough to open the George Foreman Youth & Community Center. Foreman wanted a safe haven for kids to hang out. I saw a photo of him in Life magazine about that time. He looked nothing like the George Foreman I had known. Head shaven, overweight, and impoverished, he was now a humble preacher sweeping out the modest center for youths he ran in Houston. “Poor guy,” I thought. “Once he had everything and he had let it slip away.”
Barely a year later Foreman’s accountant told him that he would go broke if he continued to use his own money to support the center. Rather than giving up on the youth center or begging for money, George decided to return to boxing. He had been in retirement for ten years and was nearly 40 years old. It took him a year to lose over 100 pounds and begin his second boxing career, ten years after his original retirement. Virtually all the boxing pundits took George’s return as a joke. George fought in a different way than in his pitiless youth. He now prayed for his opponents and dispatched them with the least possible force. Early on he cautiously fought less important, carefully selected boxers for three years for very small purses, avoiding the top contenders. Then, suddenly it seemed, he gained more and more public attention as he began knocking off the important, highly ranked boxers.
George eventually fought Evander Holyfield for the title, not winning but competitively making a good accounting of himself. Then, one final opportunity came at the age of 44. Miraculously, it seemed, Foreman became the oldest man ever to win the heavyweight championship of the world. As the referee counted out his vanquished opponent in the tenth round, George went to a neutral corner. In front of God, the angels, and all the world, he went to his knees and prayed thanksgiving.
From a young mugger and brawler in the streets of Houston, George Foreman is now a successful businessman, minister, and creator of a haven for lost and impoverished youth. He overcame adversity, failure and betrayal and found God. He has lived to serve God, and has lifted Jesus high. George Foreman has helped an untold number of people with his ministry and with the way he quietly walks his spiritual talk in his home city. As I indicated, I highly recommend “God is in my Corner… a Spiritual Memoir.” Check it out.
His website:
http://www.georgeforeman.com/index.php
Larry Mullins
August 30, 2011
Quantum physics is a fascinating subject. The very best book on the subject
(in my opinion) is John Gribbon’s “Shrodinger’s Kittens and the Search for
Reality.” He explains the theory for half the book. Then he goes into a
Chapter titled “Desperate Remedies” explaining the Copenhagen Interpretation
and its flawed premise that mind (we) create(s) reality, and there is no
objective reality. Next he has an awesome chapter on “Thinking about
Thinking” (one we could all discuss for hours), and finally an Epilogue
solution, which he calls “A Myth for our times.”
In this Epilogue he presents a different interpretation of the quantum
mysteries. This solution, by John Craymer, works with the Urantia Book.
In a sense, and very briefly, when we observe quantum realities (in my
opinion) there seems to be no time or space or causation as we know it
because we are looking into the very fringes of the mind of God,
specifically the unqualified absolute (the reservoir of all matter). Matter
seems to emerge from “nothing” (the unqualified absolute) as energy (the
universal absolute) and converts into matter (the qualified absolute).
According to Craymer’s solution, reality in time and space is achieved by
the quantum process of cancelling out the past and present (God is “making”
measurable time and space possible by conditionally surrendering
omnipresence and all knowing and allowing evolutionary realities so he can
escape the “fetters of absoluteness” as the Supreme.)
The Craymer solution discards human mind over matter (which the UB does not embrace). Jesus needed midwayers and angels to accomplish miracles. This process was indeed necessarily congruent with the will of God, but not in the Copenhagen wave collapse manner which scientist-mystic Goswami suggests. If Goswami were correct Jesus would not have needed angels and midwayers to perform seeming miracles. If anyone could know how to collapse the correct possibility wave (the will of God) it would have been Jesus.
The Urantia Book offers a new model of the human being that cannot be fully
understood in linear, left-brained terms, graphics are very useful for this. More later.
Larry Mullins
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