The creation is exquisitely designed. God does not simply create us, throw us into a world, and let us sink or swim. Provision is made for supporting us in various ways, including divine ministry to our mind. The human mind is a tapestry made of threads of ordinary wool interwoven with threads of gold and silver. The mind is a mountain traversed by lodes of precious metal, veins that are glorious to recognize understandingly. In the Bible we find a nice beginning. “The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord” (Isaiah 11.1-2).
If we are interested in the details, we can study the Urantia Book’s teachings on mind. If we creatively apply these teachings to cultivate our minds, our thinking improves, we begin to understand the purpose of mind, we discover the mind’s primary functions (clusters of functions), and we accept the awesome privilege of cooperating with cosmic mind through enhanced identification with the ministries of the seven adjutant mind-spirits (36:5/402-03). According to its Latin root, “adjutant” means one who helps or supports. Human mind owes so much to the adjutant mind-spirits that it is sometimes called “adjutant mind.”
This study of the adjutants aims to illuminate mind function in the wider context indicated in the following passage, which portrays the evolving alignment of different levels of being according to their beautiful design.
In the evolutionary superuniverses energy-matter is dominant except in personality, where spirit through the mediation of mind is struggling for the mastery. The goal of the evolutionary universes is the subjugation of energy-matter by mind, the co-ordination of mind with spirit, and all of this by virtue of the creative and unifying presence of personality. Thus, in relation to personality, do physical systems become subordinate; mind systems, co-ordinate; and spirit systems, directive. (116:6.1/1275.1)
In 2002, I was taken for a visit with Moussa N’Diaye, Professor of Social Psychology in the University of Dakar in Senegal, and he gave me a week-long seminar on the adjutants. Moussa and his advanced students did most of their teaching on the adjutants in seminars for beginners, making no reference to The Urantia Book; only well into the series of dozens of seminars would individuals be introduced to the book; teachers would introduce one adjutant per weekly session and have the individual practice with that during the week. But the approach I was taught then differs considerably from what I present now.
Beginning with my visit to Senegal, I devoted 2-3 years during which my primary focus during my morning communion time was on developing attunement to these ministries of our local universe Mother Spirit. I compare the process of identifying with each of these adjutants to when I would go camping and blow up the ribs of my air mattress. I also compare it to brushing the teeth of the mind. My work with the adjutants led to such an enhancement of my spiritual life that I became convinced that such attunement could bring about healing for the clashes of mind and wars of opinions that mar relationships and group functioning.
Before going into certain meetings or starting certain tasks, I would think of which adjutants were particularly relevant, and I would open my mind to become more permeable to their ministry, just as a cell membrane can become more permeable to molecules in its immediate environment. As a result, for example, I would gain more courage or a finer quality of courage, which would last throughout the time of the event.
Once, when an unruly teen sitting next to me was acting up during a talk at a conference, I sat calmly and peacefully for a while, but then my patience faltered, and my soul burst out in a silent but mighty call for the relevant adjutants—and this beloved brother immediately calmed down.
When I engage in faith-encouragement to facilitate healing (148:2.1/1658.4), one of the things I do is to pray for the enhanced function of the adjutants in that person’s mind. My practice is based on the image of the mind resting gently on its physical base, with the spirit right above the mind; and my hypothesis is that the life in the spirit can most readily reach through to touch the life in the cells when the mind is filled with faith. I reverse the standard sequence and begin with the spirit of wisdom, then work down, one-by-one, to the spirit of intuition, the one most intimately involved with the body. I pray for the fullness of faith to pervade each function/cluster of functions (I often call them “gears of the mind”) to which the adjutants minister. When working with students of The Urantia Book, I take them through a 30-45 time of reflection during which I have the privilege of conversation, taking the adjutants one at a time, reading the paragraph that characterizes the adjutant, facilitating the other person’s recognition of the present functioning of that adjutant in the person’s mind, and then giving some time of silence to allow the person to align more fully with the mind-spirit.
Every time I go through this process with someone, I learn something new. Sometimes I turn first to Mother and enjoy her pervading presence as the environment within which to focus on the mind-spirits. Exploring the adjutants in conversation with a particular person or group in a specific context gives the opportunity to examine the words and phrases used to name and describe the mind-spirit. In this process, new questions arise; and new interpretations come to mind.
From absolute mind through cosmic mind
Behold the unfolding of the revelation of mind! A simple sentence contains a subject and a predicate; for our mind to operate, we need difference. But there is no such difference requiring the unifying function of mind in the Infinite Spirit. Absolute mind is one in a way that is beyond our comprehension; and it is the source of cosmic mind, which we can understand.
Cosmic force responds to mind even as cosmic mind responds to spirit. Spirit is divine purpose, and spirit mind is divine purpose in action. Energy is thing, mind is meaning, spirit is value.
Mind transmutes the values of spirit into the meanings of intellect; volition has power to bring the meanings of mind to fruit in both the material and spiritual domains. (9:4.5 and 6/104.4–5)
Cosmic mind is three-fold, and it becomes seven-fold as it comes to us through our local universe Mother Spirit (35:5/401–03).
The mind circuits . . . represent the cosmic arena of creature choice. Mind is the flexible reality which creatures and Creators can so readily manipulate; it is the vital link connecting matter and spirit. (116:3.2/1270.13)
To understand the seven adjutants, we need to see them as unfolding the three functions of cosmic mind.
1. Causation — the reality domain of the physical senses, the scientific realms of logical uniformity, the differentiation of the factual and the nonfactual, reflective conclusions based on cosmic response. This is the mathematical form of the cosmic discrimination.
2. Duty — the reality domain of morals in the philosophic realm, the arena of reason, the recognition of relative right and wrong. This is the judicial form of the cosmic discrimination.
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. (16:6.6-8/192.2–4)
Cooperation with the adjutant mind-spirits
What do the adjutant mind-spirits provide? Mental functions, urges, tendencies, and endowments or gifts which enable mind to function excellently. These categories are not mutually exclusive; for example, they may all be classified as gifts. But an urge is directly experienced, and it may explain a tendency, but a tendency is observed over time. Thus an urge is a different kind of thing from a tendency. And an endowment may be a storehouse of potentials, in contrast with an actual experience.
We cooperate by wisely cherishing these functions, going with these urges, working out these tendencies, and drawing on these endowments. We further cultivate our responsiveness to the ministry of the mind-spirits as we study, raise questions about, and discuss interpretations of relevant passages from The Urantia Book (and other sources in psychology and philosophy), which help us discover fruitful ways to experience and reflect. Thus we grow in the ability to recognize the adjutant ministries; and with enhanced receptivity to them, we can align the whole of the mind with the best of the mind which we experience through their ministries.
There is teamwork among the adjutants, but here we will simply consider them one by one.
1. The spirit of intuition—quick perception, the primitive physical and inherent reflex instincts, the directional and other self-preservative endowments of all mind creations; the only one of the adjutants to function so largely in the lower orders of animal life and the only one to make extensive functional contact with the nonteachable levels of mechanical mind.
“Intuition” here means quick perception, plus the associated instincts and endowments. Note that the meaning of the word here partially illustrates, but is not equivalent to, its use in the discussion of the intuitions of cosmic mind. Different types of situation call for corresponding types of perceptual awareness. This adjutant helps us rise to the occasion.
Mind is classified as non-teachable or teachable (a difference that I do not identify with the distinction between unconscious and conscious mind). Non-teachable mind is termed mechanical mind, and it is the closest approach of mind to the body; it is incapable of learning from experience. Of all the adjutants, the spirit of intuition makes the most extensive contact with non-teachable mind, and this mind-spirit also ministers to teachable mind. Note however, that inherent reflex instincts, in the domain of the spirit of intuition, are the least teachable phase of adjutant mind.
An effective philosophy of living is formed by a combination of cosmic insight and the total of one’s emotional reactions to the social and economic environment. Remember: While inherited urges cannot be fundamentally modified, emotional responses to such urges can be changed; therefore the moral nature can be modified, character can be improved. In the strong character emotional responses are integrated and co-ordinated, and thus is produced a unified personality. (140:4.8/1572.8)
An amoeba will surround and take into itself a morsel of food placed close to it, and will recoil from even a gentle pin prick. But humans can turn down tasty morsels and accept pain.
Self-preservative endowments include fear and the fight-or-flight reaction. When we suffer from excess, we can rest assured that Mother gives us just the supply that we need, say, of “the fear stimulus of attention” (100:1.5/1094.7); and we can redirect any excess energies into channels of reflection, action, and laughter.
Perception anchors our understanding of physical fact; and it plays a key role in our capacity to recognize “the beauty of physical harmony,” one phase of the Supreme.
2. The spirit of understanding — the impulse of co-ordination, the spontaneous and apparently automatic association of ideas. This is the gift of the co-ordination of acquired knowledge, the phenomenon of quick reasoning, rapid judgment, and prompt decision.
We understand sentences by spontaneously associating ideas linked to the words. When driving and noticing the stoplight ahead turn yellow, we readily associate ideas, reason quickly, judge rapidly whether or not we need to put on the brakes, and decide promptly.
Most animals could not survive without some version of the functions named here, and neither can we. A soldier’s brief struggle and success provided the occasion for research to discover something of the operation of the spirit of understanding. The soldier had the job of monitoring blips on a radar screen in order to identify incoming each aircraft as friend or foe. He had only a few seconds to determine whether or not to push the button to release a rocket that would destroy the aircraft. On a particularly harrowing occasion, he went ahead and pushed the destruct button based on a vague sense that he had no way consciously to confirm. He turned out to have been correct, but only later investigation discovered the subtlety of his acquired skill. His backlog of previous experience enabled him to intuit correctly, even though the cues that he had learned were unconscious.
If we are ever troubled by a mind that is racing or by a compulsive thought that we cannot get out of our mind, we may be sure that this is not the ministry of the mind-spirit of understanding. We can take time to open ourselves to the presence of this mind spirit.
How could we progress in the living the truth in divine spontaneity without implicitly trusting this gift! Nevertheless, the spirit of understanding does not remove errors from our web of ideas. It is up to us to provision it with good, strong, updated, reliable, correct facts, wise concepts, and divine truth. The more the mind is enlightened by facts (thanks to the spirit of knowledge) and inspired by truth (thanks to the spirits of worship and wisdom), the more our quick reasoning, rapid judgments, and prompt decisions will enable us to live in effective spontaneity.
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.
As this endowment is actualized, fidelity becomes a virtue, a trustworthy habit, which we acquire and sustain through the force and constancy of our decisions. Fidelity—loyalty, faithfulness—may attach to a persons, human and divine, groups and organizations, and ideals and causes. One of the virtues in Jesus’ concept of group solidarity was loyalty to one’s highest convictions of truth and righteousness. In the division of labor among the adjutants, it is not the job of courage to determine the factual accuracy of the beliefs or the truthfulness of the values to which we may choose to be faithful. But once we make a commitment, it takes courage to follow through. Courage is the heart of strong character.
4. The spirit of knowledge — the curiosity-mother of adventure and discovery, the scientific spirit; the guide and faithful associate of the spirits of courage and counsel; the urge to direct the endowments of courage into useful and progressive paths of growth.
As I interpret the grammar here, this adjutant is the mother of human curiosity as directed toward adventure and discovery.
One Saturday morning when my wife and son were at the local Japanese language school and I had the house to myself, I was totally plunged into one of my long-time questions: What is scientific living? Pacing back and forth along the short hardwood corridor from the living room to the bedroom area, I was suddenly caught up in a jet stream of mind far above the Earth. In this unchallengeable consciousness of cosmic reality, however difficult to put into words, the implicit dominance of mind over the material realm was self-evident.
The spirit of knowledge most prominently represents the cosmic mind function involving causation:
· responding to and recognizing response from the reality domain of the physical senses and the scientific realms of logical and mathematical uniformity; matter vanishes when pursued to its ultimate analysis in equations which no longer describe anything that we perceive
· differentiating the factual from the nonfactual
· forming reflective conclusions based on cosmic response—learning by experience and experiment
In the section on the cosmic mind (16:6/191–92), we find the term “apriori,” a word which comes from Kant, who used it to refer to the deepest structures of the human mind. Kant recognized causation and duty as inherent in human reason; in other words, the human mind is intrinsically structured to interpret space-time phenomena in terms of causation, and inherently structured to recognize the principle of duty as governing how rational beings treat themselves and others.
5. The spirit of counsel — the social urge, the endowment of species co-operation; the ability of will creatures to harmonize with their fellows; the origin of the gregarious instinct among the more lowly creatures.
The first five adjutants bridge from the animal level of functioning (where we, too, begin) to fully human, integrated functioning. Sometimes animals do better than we do; but “one of the purposes of the morontia career is to effect the permanent eradication from the mortal survivors of such animal vestigial traits as procrastination, equivocation, insincerity, problem avoidance, unfairness, and ease seeking” (48:5.8/551.3).
Our social life bridges from being quite conventional to the high level of seeking out opportunities to get to know and learn to love newly discovered sibings; to, harmonize with others as we reasonably can; and to cooperate in ways that seek and heed wise counsel.
6. The spirit of worship — the religious impulse, the first differential urge separating mind creatures into the two basic classes of mortal existence. The spirit of worship forever distinguishes the animal of its association from the soulless creatures of mind endowment. Worship is the badge of spiritual-ascension candidacy.
We observe the religious impulse in primitive religion, evolving under the guidance of the spirit of wisdom, to orient us toward increasingly adequate concepts of God.
In search of more content to describe this adjutant, we can draw on the phrases used to characterize worship in the discussion of the cosmic mind.
1. the spiritual domain of the reality of religious experience
2. the personal realization of divine fellowship
3. the recognition of spirit values
4. the assurance of eternal survival
5. the ascent from the status of servants of God to the joy and liberty of the sons of God. (16:6, 192.4)
I interpret “the spiritual domain of the reality of religious experience” as implying that our religious experience may be colored by biological, psychological, anthropological, sociological, and historical factors. But when faith is sincere, even though we may tend to interpret our religious experience in the light of peripheral beliefs which color the experience, such experience always has a spiritual core, a spiritual reality. Items 2–4 illustrate particular spiritual experiences, which lead us in our ascent.
36:5.12 (402.9) 7. The spirit of wisdom — the inherent tendency of all moral creatures towards orderly and progressive evolutionary advancement. This is the highest of the adjutants, the spirit co-ordinator and articulator of the work of all the others. This spirit is the secret of that inborn urge of mind creatures which initiates and maintains the practical and effective program of the ascending scale of existence; that gift of living things which accounts for their inexplicable ability to survive and, in survival, to utilize the co-ordination of all their past experience and present opportunities for the acquisition of all of everything that all of the other six mental ministers can mobilize in the mind of the organism concerned. Wisdom is the acme of intellectual performance. Wisdom is the goal of a purely mental and moral existence.
This description mentions:
· a tendency, more or less strong in ourselves, “towards orderly and progressive evolutionary advancement.” We can recognize and align with this tendency and promote it in others as well.
· the secret of an urge “which initiates and maintains the practical and effective program of the ascending scale of existence.” The adjutant is the secret, a key factor in the urge which is required for it to be effective.
· a gift which accounts for an ability to “utilize the co-ordination of all [our] past experience and present opportunities for the acquisition of all of everything that all of the other six mental ministers can mobilize in the mind . . . .” Here philosophy’s classic aim to integrate the full spectrum of human experience, past and present, is fulfilled.
· a definition: “the spirit co-ordinator and articulator of all the work of the others.” Spirit coordination and articulation is distinct from the coordination and articulation done by the ordinary human mind. Nevertheless, in this matter of coordinating and articulating the full spectrum of the human mind, the study of human philosophical sources, especially if undertaken from a perspective gleaned from the study of The Urantia Book, and the effort to apply one’s findings can help us strike step with the spirit of wisdom. In addition, I propose, a human being can grow to discern the operation of the spirit of wisdom as a phenomenon that is distinct from the philosophical coordination and articulation performed by the ordinary human mind.
Among the adjutants, the spirit of wisdom most directly represents the cosmic mind function of duty—“the reality domain of morals in the philosophic realm, the arena of reason, the recognition of relative right and wrong. This is the judicial form of the cosmic discrimination.” A replete recognition of duty involves integrating the other two functions of cosmic mind: a good decision is based on a knowledge of the relevant facts (causation) and an appreciation of the relevant values (worship). “The satisfying joy of high duty is the eclipsing emotion of spiritual beings” (25:1.6/274.3).
The wider context: mind, soul, and spirit
In the exquisite weave of relationships between different levels of being, the seventh adjutant, the spirit of wisdom, has a special relation to the soul, since moral self-consciousness constitutes the foundation of the soul (133:6/1478.4). To speak of mind with insight requires a perspective that transcends mind (112:2/1228.7), a perspective that is available to us because we can transfer our seat of identity (our functional sense of who we really are) from the mind to the soul (our higher base of operations). We experience spiritual reality in the soul, and become conscious of this experience in the mind (103:6.6/1136.1).
The spirit gift of the Father’s presence, the Thought Adjuster, cannot arrive until the mind has been prepared by the mind-spirits. And once that spirit fragment begins to function, the adjutants continue in their essential intermediary role. The adjutant mind-spirits to assist us in achieving good decisions which Adjuster can counterpart in our soul.
You as a personal creature have mind and will. The Adjuster as a prepersonal creature has premind and prewill. If you so fully conform to the Adjuster’s mind that you see eye to eye, then your minds become one, and you receive the reinforcement of the Adjuster’s mind. Subsequently, if your will orders and enforces the execution of the decisions of this new or combined mind, the Adjuster’s prepersonal will attains to personality expression through your decision, and as far as that particular project is concerned, you and the Adjuster are one. Your mind has attained to divinity attunement, and the Adjuster’s will has achieved personality expression. (110:2.5/1205.3)
Mother’s adjutant mind-spirits help our mind to see eye to eye with the mind of the Adjuster. Best wishes in the cosmic adventure of mind-cultivation!