What is so rewarding as worship? What is so elusive, at times, as worship? Here is one collection of key selections along with questions (and a few comments) designed to help you in this remarkable adventure.
3. True Worship [5:3/65-66]
5:3.1 (65.3) Though the Paradise Deities, from the universe standpoint, are as one, in their spiritual relations with such beings as inhabit Urantia they are also three distinct and separate persons. There is a difference between the Godheads in the matter of personal appeals, communion, and other intimate relations. In the highest sense, we worship the Universal Father and him only. True, we can and do worship the Father as he is manifested in his Creator Sons, but it is the Father, directly or indirectly, who is worshiped and adored.
5:3.2 (65.4) Supplications of all kinds belong to the realm of the Eternal Son and the Son’s spiritual organization. Prayers, all formal communications, everything except adoration and worship of the Universal Father, are matters that concern a local universe; they do not ordinarily proceed out of the realm of the jurisdiction of a Creator Son. But worship is undoubtedly encircuited and dispatched to the person of the Creator by the function of the Father’s personality circuit. We further believe that such registry of the homage of an Adjuster-indwelt creature is facilitated by the Father’s spirit presence. There exists a tremendous amount of evidence to substantiate such a belief, and I know that all orders of Father fragments are empowered to register the bona fide adoration of their subjects acceptably in the presence of the Universal Father. The Adjusters undoubtedly also utilize direct prepersonal channels of communication with God, and they are likewise able to utilize the spirit-gravity circuits of the Eternal Son.
5:3.3 (65.5) Worship is for its own sake; prayer embodies a self- or creature-interest element; that is the great difference between worship and prayer. There is absolutely no self-request or other element of personal interest in true worship; we simply worship God for what we comprehend him to be. Worship asks nothing and expects nothing for the worshiper. We do not worship the Father because of anything we may derive from such veneration; we render such devotion and engage in such worship as a natural and spontaneous reaction to the recognition of the Father’s matchless personality and because of his lovable nature and adorable attributes.
5:3.4 (65.6) The moment the element of self-interest intrudes upon worship, that instant devotion translates from worship to prayer and more appropriately should be directed to the person of the Eternal Son or the Creator Son. But in practical religious experience there exists no reason why prayer should not be addressed to God the Father as a part of true worship.
5:3.5 (66.1) When you deal with the practical affairs of your daily life, you are in the hands of the spirit personalities having origin in the Third Source and Center; you are co-operating with the agencies of the Conjoint Actor. And so it is: You worship God; pray to, and commune with, the Son; and work out the details of your earthly sojourn in connection with the intelligences of the Infinite Spirit operating on your world and throughout your universe.
5:3.6 (66.2) The Creator or Sovereign Sons who preside over the destinies of the local universes stand in the place of both the Universal Father and the Eternal Son of Paradise. These Universe Sons receive, in the name of the Father, the adoration of worship and give ear to the pleas of their petitioning subjects throughout their respective creations. To the children of a local universe a Michael Son is, to all practical intents and purposes, God. He is the local universe personification of the Universal Father and the Eternal Son. The Infinite Spirit maintains personal contact with the children of these realms through the Universe Spirits, the administrative and creative associates of the Paradise Creator Sons.
5:3.7 (66.3) 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.
5:3.8 (66.4) The worship experience consists in the sublime attempt of the betrothed Adjuster to communicate to the divine Father the inexpressible longings and the unutterable aspirations of the human soul — the conjoint creation of the God-seeking mortal mind and the God-revealing immortal Adjuster. Worship is, therefore, the act of the material mind’s assenting to the attempt of its spiritualizing self, under the guidance of the associated spirit, to communicate with God as a faith son of the Universal Father. The mortal mind consents to worship; the immortal soul craves and initiates worship; the divine Adjuster presence conducts such worship in behalf of the mortal mind and the evolving immortal soul. True worship, in the last analysis, becomes an experience realized on four cosmic levels: the intellectual, the morontial, the spiritual, and the personal — the consciousness of mind, soul, and spirit, and their unification in personality.
Questions.
Please reflect on this import of the phrase: “a natural and spontaneous reaction to the recognition of the Father’s matchless personality and because of his lovable nature and adorable attributes.”
What implications for study are contained in this phrase?
How do we recognize the Father’s personality?
Reflect on the import of “a natural and spontaneous reaction.” How is the idea of spontaneous worship becoming experientially meaningful to you?
6. The Cosmic Mind
. . .
The cosmic mind unfailingly responds (recognizes response) on three levels of universe reality. These responses are self-evident to clear-reasoning and deep-thinking minds. These levels of reality are:
16:6.6 (192.2) 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.
16:6.7 (192.3) 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.
16:6.8 (192.4) 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. [16:6/192]
Questions.
What is the reality of religious experience? What is the spiritual domain? Does the reality of religious experience (usually) include factors arising in the human mind and body? If this hypothesis is correct, then is the author suggesting something like the following: when there is a core of spiritual sincerity in the attitude of the experiencer, then that religious experience genuinely enters the spiritual domain, even if there may be unfortunate interpretations associated with that experience and energies arising from the subconscious mind and from the body? Even if most of our religious experiences have some mixture of inputs, the dominant assurance is that our spiritual sincerity is sufficient for us to attain contact with spiritual reality.
Can the term divine fellowship include experiences with our fellow human beings?
What are spirit values? What kinds of example can you think of?
How does the assurance of eternal survival dawn in us?
What is good and proper about being a servant of God? Why does that status precede the joy and liberty of sonship with God?
9. The Reality of Human Consciousness [16:9.14/196.10]
We worship God, first, because he is, then, because he is in us, and last, because we are in him.
7. Conductors of Worship
27:7.1 (303.5) Worship is the highest privilege and the first duty of all created intelligences. Worship is 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.
Questions.
Why is worship said to be our highest privilege? Our first duty?
Why is it important to include “conscious and joyous”?
Why is it important to say “truth and fact”?
How broad is the scope of the term “Creators”?
Does the wording of the last phrase subtly draw attention to a difference between the relationships of the Creators with their creatures different from the relationships of creatures with their Creators? If so, what does that imply for our worship?
9. Existential Infinite Unification
. . .
106:9.11 (1174.7) Sooner or later all universe personalities begin to realize that the final quest of eternity is the endless exploration of infinity, the never-ending voyage of discovery into the absoluteness of the First Source and Center. Sooner or later we all become aware that all creature growth is proportional to Father identification. We arrive at the understanding that living the will of God is the eternal passport to the endless possibility of infinity itself. Mortals will sometime realize that success in the quest of the Infinite is directly proportional to the achievement of Fatherlikeness, and that in this universe age the realities of the Father are revealed within the qualities of divinity. And these qualities of divinity are personally appropriated by universe creatures in the experience of living divinely, and to live divinely means actually to live the will of God.
106:9.12 (1175.1) To material, evolutionary, finite creatures, a life predicated on the living of the Father’s will leads directly to the attainment of spirit supremacy in the personality arena and brings such creatures one step nearer the comprehension of the Father-Infinite. Such a Father life is one predicated on truth, sensitive to beauty, and dominated by goodness. Such a God-knowing person is inwardly illuminated by worship and outwardly devoted to the wholehearted service of the universal brotherhood of all personalities, a service ministry which is filled with mercy and motivated by love, while all these life qualities are unified in the evolving personality on ever-ascending levels of cosmic wisdom, self-realization, God-finding, and Father worship.
Questions.
Does the talk of serving in a manner that is “illuminated” by worship suggest that we can do our daily activities worshipfully? What experience have you had that may be roughly described as worshipful in daily life? Does our life then ideally alternate between times when our primary focus is on the Father and times when we may be actively engaged with practical activities while retaining a sustaining inner illumination all the while?
A life predicated on truth, sensitive to beauty, and dominated by goodness—why are these dimensions important in this context? Why is cosmic wisdom included in this cluster of topics?
What phrase(s) spoke to you as you read? If you want to make that inspiration part of your character and your soul, how can you decide and do something that enables you to become and be that truth?
7. Teachings About Prayer and Worship [143:7/1616]
143:7.1 (1616.3) At the evening conferences on Mount Gerizim, Jesus taught many great truths, and in particular he laid emphasis on the following:
143:7.2 (1616.4) True religion is the act of an individual soul in its self-conscious relations with the Creator; organized religion is man’s attempt to socialize the worship of individual religionists.
143:7.3 (1616.5) Worship — contemplation of the spiritual — must alternate with service, contact with material reality. Work should alternate with play; religion should be balanced by humor. Profound philosophy should be relieved by rhythmic poetry. The strain of living — the time tension of personality — should be relaxed by the restfulness of worship. The feelings of insecurity arising from the fear of personality isolation in the universe should be antidoted by the faith contemplation of the Father and by the attempted realization of the Supreme.
143:7.4 (1616.6) Prayer is designed to make man less thinking but more realizing; it is not designed to increase knowledge but rather to expand insight.
143:7.5 (1616.7) Worship is intended to anticipate the better life ahead and then to reflect these new spiritual significances back onto the life which now is. Prayer is spiritually sustaining, but worship is divinely creative.
143:7.6 (1616.8) Worship is the technique of looking to the One for the inspiration of service to the many. Worship is the yardstick which measures the extent of the soul’s detachment from the material universe and its simultaneous and secure attachment to the spiritual realities of all creation.
143:7.7 (1616.9) Prayer is self-reminding — sublime thinking; worship is self-forgetting — superthinking. Worship is effortless attention, true and ideal soul rest, a form of restful spiritual exertion.
143:7.8 (1616.10) Worship is the act of a part identifying itself with the Whole; the finite with the Infinite; the son with the Father; time in the act of striking step with eternity. Worship is the act of the son’s personal communion with the divine Father, the assumption of refreshing, creative, fraternal, and romantic attitudes by the human soul-spirit.
143:7.9 (1616.11) Although the apostles grasped only a few of his teachings at the camp, other worlds did, and other generations on earth will.
Questions.
After the complexities of some of these teachings on worship, why is it helpful to work with a simple definition, such as “contemplation of the spiritual”?
How do the two following characterizations of worship relate to the highly focused teaching on true worship that we receive in Paper 5? “Worship is intended to anticipate the better life ahead and then to reflect these new spiritual significances back onto the life which now is.” “Worship is the technique of looking to the One for the inspiration of service to the many.” Do these two characterizations simply present additional descriptions of the activity to which we are introduced in 5:3? Or are they additional functions of worship, suggesting new ways for us to direct our devotion? Do they fall into what 5:3 classifies as prayer? But remember: 5:3 welcomes prayer to the Father as a part of true worship.
After encountering the intellectual challenges of some of the teachings about worship, how do you feel to read that worship is self-forgetting and goes beyond thinking, that “worship is effortless attention, true and ideal soul rest?” How does this paragraph help your practice (143:7.7/1616.9)?
In this section, Jesus speaks of many facets of balance. Studying some teachings on worship, we may be tempted to strain to climb some Mt. Everest of worship by intellectual effort. But the intellectual effort that is legitimately required in the study of some of the teachings about worship contrasts with the experience itself.
But this paragraph concludes with one more descriptive phrase: worship is “a form of restful spiritual exertion.” How can we avoid the impression of contradiction here? Restful exertion?
I will offer one possible answer. Exertion implies that worship is not, on the whole, complete and total quiescence, not a mystic absorption. Attention is the exercise of will, even as the attention is so captivated by the Father’s matchless personality, with its lovable nature and adorable attributes, that the experience is effortless, without strain or struggle.
Just two more notes. First, worship involves “the assumption of refreshing, creative, fraternal, and romantic attitudes by the human soul-spirit”; “romantic” refers here to the spirit of adventure rather than to erotic passion.
Finally, “worship is the act of a part identifying itself with the Whole” (notice the capital letter). Compare how the following paragraph bridges between the concept of the Whole to Deity.
56:10.16 (647.7) All insight into the relations of the parts to any given whole requires an understanding grasp of the relation of all parts to that whole; and in the universe this means the relation of created parts to the Creative Whole. Deity thus becomes the transcendental, even the infinite, goal of universal and eternal attainment
Best wishes on your voyage in worship.