Chapter 7 – New Day Dawning
Reality
The sun of a new day of spiritual awakening is still below the horizon but light is beginning to appear. In these dark times of political, economic, environmental, and social conflict this may not appear to be the case; many signs are ominous and threatening. In spite of this, light is truly appearing, there are gaps in the clouds of dismay; a new day is indeed dawning.
Before we can appreciate this emerging new day, we need a fuller comprehension of reality. Our secular society ignores spiritual reality to its detriment, but there is far more to reality than most can imagine. The secularist and the materialist are so grounded in physical reality they wrongly think there is nothing else; they miss the wider picture.
We see several rays of hope promising to bring about a better world order. There are more small movements aimed at bringing about a better society than we can discuss; these include new economy movements, environmental groups, and human rights efforts. These rays of promise are peeking over the horizon even today.
Our revelation tells us there are three types of energy: physical, mindal, and spiritual.[1] This means the entire creation we can sense by any means such as by seeing, touching, or observing by other means is far less than total creation. The physical energy system we see and experience every moment of our lives, is not all there is. There is also an energy system for intelligence, called mindal, that we will not discuss here. The third energy continuum is the spiritual energy system. We will discuss this in a moment, but since we live and have our awareness in physical reality, we examine this first.
The materialist is grounded in the material world but an examination of our material surroundings from a broader perspective is needed because there is something missing from our everyday perception of what is around us.
There is a dichotomy to reality most of us are unaware of. There certainly is material reality, what we see and feel and touch; our everyday experiences. Material reality deals with facts and can be investigated using scientific techniques. An object has a certain size and color and weight; every speck of matter surrounding us is basically empty space. Matter is made up of atoms arranged into molecules of various kinds. The nucleus of an atom is its core where the mass of the atom resides; if this atom is expanded so it becomes the size of your thumbnail, the nucleus would be no bigger than a cuticle cell in that thumbnail.[2] That means that the vast majority of the atom is empty space; in fact the empty space portion of an atom is approximately 99.9999999999996%.[3]
While we may think of our material surroundings as being substantial that is not the case. Indeed, matter is but the shadow of enduring spirit reality.[4]
Why then do we feel solid matter? We feel it because of the fields of energy each atom is comprised of; when we touch something we are not actually feeling anything solid because there is very little solid there. What we experience is the interaction of the atomic fields in our hands, or whatever, with the corresponding fields of the object we are touching. Our material reality is built up from a complex web of atomic fields; from this viewpoint “reality” becomes a hodgepodge of energy fields. The materialist is then pinning his eternal hopes upon the interactions of evanescent waveforms.
The matter surrounding us appears to be real because we are composed of similar matter, our physical portion at any rate, and our entire being is attuned to this portion of reality. This world of matter is our present reality and we would do well to strive to become the best we can in this reality simply because it is our present reality. How can we expect to be productive in our future endeavors if we are not productive in our current surroundings?
We might knock on the door of our friend’s house but the spirit beings around us might not even be aware of any house at all. Spirit beings may not be attuned to material reality and may not perceive our material edifices.[5] We should not be excessively proud of any material things or constructs we may accumulate because in spiritual reality they may not even exist.
In addition to the physical realm we also exist in a spiritual reality which is more subtle yet more vital. The power of love gives a slight indication of the power spiritual reality may have. Modern materialistic society has ignored spiritual reality at its peril. A lasting social system without a morality predicated on spiritual realities can no more be maintained than could the solar system without gravity.[6] Our “modern” society appears to have little morality, for which there is ample evidence in current events; this society therefore cannot be maintained.
It may not be possible to describe spiritual reality using language based upon material thoughts. The best we can do is to give broad characterizations. Spiritual values and spirit forces are real. From the viewpoint of personality, spirit is the soul of creation; matter is the shadowy physical body.[7] God who created all things is spirit; therefore spirit is of a more real and higher level than matter. The spirit is the creative reality; the physical counterpart is the time-space reflection of the spirit reality, the physical repercussion of the creative action of spirit-mind.[8] It is difficult for us to recognize the total reality we are aware of is something other than completely substantial, less than total reality. The spiritual component of our world, of our being, needs to be reckoned with and nurtured.
We cannot see spirit beings because our awareness, our vision, is limited to the electro-magnetic spectrum, which is to say, physical reality. Spirit beings are invisible because they exist in a different energy continuum, the spiritual realm. It is not so much that they can walk through our walls; rather to them our physical walls do not even exist. Perhaps Shakespeare had some idea of this when he wrote “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”[9] Spirit beings can exist alongside us without our knowing it because they are spirit, not physical.
We can get some of idea of the difference between physical reality and spiritual reality when we consider our emotions. Our physical emotions are concrete, easily recognizable; some of these are pain, heat, lust, cold, hunger, and such. Spiritual emotions are more subtle and can be more powerful. These include love, empathy, brotherhood and spiritual yearning. Our physical emotions reside only in the physical realm while our spiritual emotions are in the spiritual realm and lead us closer to God who is spirit. Spiritual emotions lead us Godward while physical emotions drag us deeper into physical reality, away from God.
Perhaps the best we can hope for is to recognize spiritual reality is a vital component of our existence even though for now we may only glimpse it through faith. Spiritual values are those leading us Godward and anything leading us away from God has no spiritual value.
Another component of reality is natural law; this refers to the laws of nature as distinct from laws enacted by society to regulate itself. Natural laws such as gravity are inherent in creation and are changeless while social laws evolve as the society and its members evolve.
Law is life itself and not the rules of its conduct. Evil is a transgression of law, not a violation of the rules of conduct pertaining to life, which is the law. Falsehood is not a matter of narration technique but something premeditated as a perversion of truth…. The shadow of a hair’s turning, premeditated for an untrue purpose, the slightest twisting or perversion of that which is principle — these constitute falseness. But the fetish of factualized truth, fossilized truth, the iron band of so-called unchanging truth, holds one blindly in a closed circle of cold fact. One can be technically right as to fact and everlastingly wrong in the truth.[10]
“Law is life itself;” the right of every creature to fulfill its greatest potential is paramount. Anything or anybody abridging this fulfillment is evil. Every time the wealthy and powerful use their position to disenfranchise the poor, to limit their rights in any way, they are transgressing the law of life itself. Every time any person looks down upon any other person because of race, social status, poverty, ethnicity, sexual preference, education level, religion or any other excuse for bigotry they are transgressing the law of life itself. Certainly each individual has definite intellectual, moral and spiritual responsibilities as a human being to strive to become the best they can be, but nobody has the right to trample on any mortal’s God given right of self-expression, to life.
“Not the rules of its conduct.” If we live totally by the letter of the law, we are ignoring the law that is life. Lawyers and other slick thinkers can always find some loophole in written laws, the rules of life’s conduct. They seek to get around the law that is life by some sort of narration technique, by some premeditated perversion of the truth that law is life. Since God knows what is in our hearts, any narration technique in these circumstances has no meaning whatsoever. Truth matters.
“The fetish of factualized truth, fossilized truth:” Many of us who see some great truth, written in a book or whatever, view it as something engraved in stone. It is as if anything that once was true will therefore be true for all time. There was a time when many people sincerely believed that Earth was flat and that if one went too far into unknown lands or seas terrible things would happen; that was truth for them but today we know otherwise. In a similar fashion, truths we hold dear may someday be ridiculed. Beware of the iron band of fossilized truth.
Many individuals seek the easy way past written laws, the rules of life’s conduct. They fancy themselves as clever at finding ways around these legalisms but the final sentence puts them in their place. “One can be technically right as to fact and everlastingly wrong in the truth.” Which will you seek: fact or truth?
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All references are to The Urantia Book unless noted otherwise. The number refers to the single column version in the format page.paragraph, 140.10 ↑
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http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/just-ask-what-would-a-baseball-sized-atom-look-like/, retrieved 6/7/19 ↑
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http://education.jlab.org/qa/how-much-of-an-atom-is-empty-space.html, retrieved 6/7/19 ↑
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141.1 ↑
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498.7 ↑
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2075.12 ↑
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82.2 ↑
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484.2 ↑
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Hamlet, Act 1, scene 5 ↑
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555.1 ↑