When I see an important resource that has a lot to offer, I transplant it into the framework of the Urantia Book. In the case of the 12-step program, I have no particular comments to offer except on step 4. I present my comments in notes that form a commentary on Jesus’ lesson on self-mastery.
The Lesson on Self-Mastery (The Urantia Book, 143:2/1609-10)
The Master was a perfected specimen of human self-control. When he was reviled, he reviled not; when he suffered, he uttered no threats against his tormentors; when he was denounced by his enemies, he simply committed himself to the righteous judgment of the Father in heaven.
143:2.2 (16At one of the evening conferences, Andrew asked Jesus: “Master, are we to practice self-denial as John taught us, or are we to strive for the self-control of your teaching? Wherein does your teaching differ from that of John?” Jesus answered: “John indeed taught you the way of righteousness in accordance with the light and laws of his fathers, and that was the religion of self-examination and self-denial. But I come with a new message of self-forgetfulness and self-control.[1] I show to you the way of life as revealed to me by my Father in heaven.
143:2.3 (16“Verily, verily, I say to you, he who rules his own self is greater than he who captures a city. Self-mastery is the measure of man’s moral nature and the indicator of his spiritual development. In the old order you fasted and prayed; as the new creature of the rebirth of the spirit, you are taught to believe and rejoice.[2] In the Father’s kingdom you are to become new creatures; old things are to pass away; behold I show you how all things are to become new. And by your love for one another you are to convince the world that you have passed from bondage to liberty, from death into life everlasting.
143:2.4 (16“By the old way you seek to suppress, obey, and conform to the rules of living;[3] by the new way you are first transformed by the Spirit of Truth and thereby strengthened in your inner soul by the constant spiritual renewing of your mind, and so are you endowed with the power of the certain and joyous performance of the gracious, acceptable, and perfect will of God.[4] Forget not—it is your personal faith in the exceedingly great and precious promises of God that ensures your becoming partakers of the divine nature.[5] Thus by your faith and the spirit’s transformation, you become in reality the temples of God, and his spirit actually dwells within you. If, then, the spirit dwells within you, you are no longer bondslaves of the flesh but free and liberated sons of the spirit. The new law of the spirit endows you with the liberty of self-mastery in place of the old law of the fear of self-bondage and the slavery of self-denial.
143:2.5 (16“Many times, when you have done evil, you have thought to charge up your acts to the influence of the evil one when in reality you have but been led astray by your own natural tendencies. Did not the Prophet Jeremiah long ago tell you that the human heart is deceitful above all things and sometimes even desperately wicked? How easy for you to become self-deceived and thereby fall into foolish fears, divers lusts, enslaving pleasures, malice, envy, and even vengeful hatred![6]
143:2.6 (16“Salvation is by the regeneration of the spirit and not by the self-righteous deeds of the flesh. You are justified by faith and fellowshipped by grace, not by fear and the self-denial of the flesh, albeit the Father’s children who have been born of the spirit are ever and always masters of the self and all that pertains to the desires of the flesh. When you know that you are saved by faith, you have real peace with God.[7] And all who follow in the way of this heavenly peace are destined to be sanctified to the eternal service of the ever-advancing sons of the eternal God. Henceforth, it is not a duty but rather your exalted privilege to cleanse yourselves from all evils of mind and body while you seek for perfection in the love of God.[8]
143:2.7 (16“Your sonship is grounded in faith, and you are to remain unmoved by fear. Your joy is born of trust in the divine word, and you shall not therefore be led to doubt the reality of the Father’s love and mercy. It is the very goodness of God that leads men into true and genuine repentance. Your secret of the mastery of self is bound up with your faith in the indwelling spirit, which ever works by love.[9] Even this saving faith you have not of yourselves; it also is the gift of God. And if you are the children of this living faith, you are no longer the bondslaves of self but rather the triumphant masters of yourselves, the liberated sons of God.
143:2.8 (16“If, then, my children, you are born of the spirit, you are forever delivered from the self-conscious bondage of a life of self-denial and watchcare over the desires of the flesh, and you are translated into the joyous kingdom of the spirit, whence you spontaneously show forth the fruits of the spirit in your daily lives; and the fruits of the spirit are the essence of the highest type of enjoyable and ennobling self-control, even the heights of terrestrial mortal attainment—true self-mastery.”[10]
[1] 140:8.27 (1583.1) The three apostles were shocked this afternoon when they realized that their Master’s religion made no provision for spiritual self-examination. All religions before and after the times of Jesus, even Christianity, carefully provide for conscientious self-examination. But not so with the religion of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus’ philosophy of life is without religious introspection. The carpenter’s son never taught character building; he taught character growth, declaring that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. But Jesus said nothing which would proscribe self-analysis as a prevention of conceited egotism.
How can someone doing the Step 4, the fearless moral inventory, live Jesus’ message of self-forgetfulness?
[2] Believe and rejoice. This is the simplest summary of the whole process described in this lesson and elaborated elsewhere in the book. This is how faith and trust respond to every new discovery along the path of Step 4.
[3] The old way of seeking to suppress, obey, and conform to the rules of living is ineffective because suppression merely pushes the problem into the unconscious mind, making it very easy for us to become self-deceived. And mere obedience to authorities—be they persons or books—and conformity to rules cannot satisfy duty-consciousness, because the intellect is functioning in a way that is not yet integrated with an understanding of the natural order of cause and effect and not yet integrated with the mind’s capacity for spiritual insight. (16:6/192) The old way fails to place our faith and trust wholly in God. Step 4 cannot flourish without staying in tune with Step 3 faith and trust.
[4] This is the core sentence that summarizes the way of self-mastery. How suddenly can this transformation happen? We have already highlighted the phrase, “believe and rejoice,” which suggests that this transformation can happen quickly, and indeed it can. When we have such an experience of transforming power, we should not interrupt it by doubting our ability to stay on this fine level. Doubt subverts the gift. True, further difficulties may arise, but the transforming presence of the Spirit of Truth represents what God does to keep Step 3 faith and trust fulfilled in our mind.
How do we get back in tune with the Spirit of Truth if we have lost that felt connection? The first beatitude is the gate way to the others. Do you want to enter the kingdom of God, the family of God? Turn to him and hear the welcoming assurance: Happy are the poor in spirit, the humble for theirs is the kingdom of God. On the basis of experiencing that welcoming assurance, your faith is ready to trust the next promise. “Happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
The core sentence makes it clear that it is God, working in the Spirit of Truth, who transforms you. You are strengthened in your inner soul. How does that happen? Through the constant renewing of your mind. How does the constant renewing of the mind strengthen the soul? When you mind is renewed by the Spirit of Truth, you gain the courage to choose the new and better way. And your decisions have the power of a personal and wholehearted moral decision. Such decisions are not mere resolutions about something that you wish to put into action later. A decision launches your action. We could speak of decision-action. These decisions are one way in which we cooperate with the transforming work of God. On the basis of such decisions, the spirit within you can strengthen your soul. The indwelling spirit creates in your soul a counterpart of the good decision-action you have taken. The rewards are many. Not only is your mind renewed and your soul strengthened, but “you are endowed with the power of the certain and joyous performance of the gracious acceptable and perfect will of God.” How awesome!
[5] The core sentence conveys a promise of God—multiple promises if you want to think of it that way. What other promises of God are meaningful to you? Your faith in these promises ensures that you will achieve. So nurturing your faith—repeating the core sentence as an affirmation—refreshing your decision, making it again and again, as often as you need . . . and exercising your faith by acting on the promise in small things and big things . . . guarantees spiritual success.
[6] Here Jesus begins to lay out the spectrum of emotions of the heart that need transforming. This is a fearless inventory, though it is not necessarily complete. Nor is there is any implication that every person must deal with every one of these emotions. But here we see that the process of transformation that begins with such power and simplicity may open up into a longer process.
[7] We are beginning to know the experience of self-mastery. We are developing a strong faith in the promises. On this basis, we experience a deep peace.
[8] On the basis of the continuing, transforming work of the Spirit of Truth we have our role to play. We are to cleanse ourselves from all evils of mind and body. Does this mean that everyone needs to do the 12 steps including a full step 4? No. One possibility is to cleanse evils as they arise. If we choose to do an inventory, it is important to wrap each new evil that we discover in the process of transformation already described. That way the inventory will not be overwhelming and depressing; we will not fall back into the counterproductive methods of the old way; and we will be able to increasingly go from strength to strength.
And our cleansing is not like angry scrubbing of a spot on some pan that we are washing after food got burned on the stove. Our motivation for all this work is love. The process of healing that we are in is leading us to perfection in the love of God. When we have this overarching vision of our lives on earth and beyond as stretching from the imperfections of this material life to perfection with God on high, our struggles for self-mastery are put into perspective. “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” There is a realm where the will of God is done. And an evolving realm where we start imperfect and evolve to perfection. That cosmic perspective is very helpful.
Among the celestial artisans are the life-story tellers—“those who perpetuate the meaning and significance of life experience. The projection of present personal experiences into future attainment values” (44:2.8/501.7).
[9] Again we see faith and love come up. The indwelling spirit of God always works by love . . . and we gradually learn to do the same. We “can know God, receive the divine affection, and love him in return” (1:0.2/21.2). This is the first circuit of love. Here is the great circuit of love.
117:6.10 (1289.3) All true love is from God, and man receives the divine affection as he himself bestows this love upon his fellows. Love is dynamic. It can never be captured; it is alive, free, thrilling, and always moving. Man can never take the love of the Father and imprison it within his heart. The Father’s love can become real to mortal man only by passing through that man’s personality as he in turn bestows this love upon his fellows. The great circuit of love is from the Father, through sons to brothers, and hence to the Supreme. The love of the Father appears in the mortal personality by the ministry of the indwelling Adjuster. Such a God-knowing son reveals this love to his universe brethren, and this fraternal affection is the essence of the love of the Supreme.
[10] “The fruits of the divine spirit which are yielded in the lives of spirit-born and God-knowing mortals are: loving service, unselfish devotion, courageous loyalty, sincere fairness, enlightened honesty, undying hope, confiding trust, merciful ministry, unfailing goodness, forgiving tolerance, and enduring peace.” (193:2.2/2054.3)
