I hear many people say they are on their own path and that they are not “joiners.” Though they may share some similar ideas, ideals, dreams, and goals with others and pontificate a lot about their path, they do not really unite with others to make something happen, and in that manner they are loners.
What does it mean when one says he or she is on his or her own path? I can understand the uniqueness of each individual and that we each have our own way of thinking and processing, of experiencing God and life. But I also know many individuals who are their own person and yet have united with others to accomplish something of higher service to the betterment of our world. I also know persons who have united for lower, even hate-motivated and destructive causes. Then there are the ones who claim to be spiritually motivated and walk their own path, claiming to listen to “spirit” guide them and yet do not really unite with others for any higher cause than for superficial socialization.
It seems to me that much of the consciousness of persons on our planet, especially in the more “developed” and wealthy nations, belong to loners who walk their own path, talking a good talk, looking out for their own interests, and joining a group of others only if it promotes their own selfish pursuits. Thus their loyalty is only to themselves and not to a higher cause, which promotes a level of sacrifice and sense of brotherhood/sisterhood, resulting in more health and happiness for all involved.
We have to ask the questions as to why today there continues to be large percentages of unhappy people (regardless of their financial status) who are starving—physically as well as psychospiritually. Why so many shattered marriages and other hurtful, dysfunctional relationships? Why so much ungodly governmental control over people and their lives all across the planet? Why so much physical and mental illness in supposedly wealthy and progressive countries? Why so many wars, and so many conflicts on all levels—personal as well as religious and national—all over the planet? Why the frightening types of weapons in an era of supposed enlightenment? Why do so many people feel unfulfilled and empty, even though some of these persons may be very comfortable and secure materially? Why isn't “everyone-walking-their-own-paths” working?
Perhaps you, like so many others walking their own path, have accepted your life as being “normal.” You are just little ol' you, content in your normality. You squelch all of your dreams for a more meaningful life, all of your desires for accomplishing higher goals. You squelch your inner longings from your higher self because you think you are not supposed to be a voice to the world, a voice of light, a voice of the Creator of all. What difference can you make in the world? What great change can you bring about?
And so you do not take the first step, which is the biggest and often the most difficult step to take. For those of you who do take that big leap and travel the path of higher thinking that leads to wiser decisions and nobler actions, you have to continue on this path, with the walk sometimes seeming like a trudge or a crawl, sometimes like a skip, sometimes like a long-distance run, and other times like a sprint. Always, whether crawling or sprinting, travel on this path can be a dance, a dance with the earth and with the cosmos, a dance with God.
Those who do take this path must have great courage and spiritual stamina, for many on this path are shunned, feared, ridiculed, misunderstood, hated, and even murdered. Those who take this path are called radicals by the “normal” ones and by the ones who say they are walking their own path but are loners.
Often radicals are cut off from the mainstream of society. They do not fit into the ways of “the system” that is full of fallacies and falsehoods.
When a great leader comes to speak for those who took the first great step out of the ugly system that had entrapped them, they flock to this leader with all of the hope and dreams that surely their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and friends will eventually come and hear the teachings of this great leader and also leap out of the system that entraps them. Approximately two thousand years ago those who had leaped out of the system were horrified to see their great leader, Jesus, crucified by those very ones who were enslaved within their own paths that they claimed to follow.
Even for many of those loners who think they have left the way of normality to follow their own path, it is not really their own path; it is still a path of compromise—as are the paths of the joiners and followers—for those paths are still within the system.
If you truly look inside yourself and ask the God within and around you to show you His path, you will know that this is not the path of Christianity or any other established religion. Though it may embrace many of the truths in the various religions of the world, it is the path of a new spirituality that demands you to ever move towards the likeness of God. It is a path that requires embracing epochal revelation that will bring clarity as to who God really is and what Jesus really taught.
Getting to the Root of Radical Unity
By my late 30s, I had already taken a few leaps and bounds that all built up to the great leap into what is my current work, and for more than 30 years I have stayed on the “path less traveled.” It has not always been easy, and I continue to have challenges that I must meet with unselfish steadfastness and courage, with faith in something much larger than I. It has been a radical life for me.
The word radical has some very interesting definitions, a lot more levels of meaning than I had before realized. Try to wrap your minds around these definitions, thinking how they apply to a radical unity that needs to spread planet-wide in order for this world to move into the first stage of light and life.
These are the first definitions that are presented in Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary for “radical”: “Of, relating to, or proceeding from a root.” (Root can refer to the root of a plant, a linguistical root, a concept being the root, or a mathematical root.) Similar to that definition are these: “a root part, a basic principle, a foundation” and “of or relating to origin, fundamental.”
The radical unity that I am referring to requires that any unity, any coming together that is truly radical, must have as its foundation the Original, the Root of all, the First Source and Center—God, the Universal Father. I am not talking about the God of Hinduism, or of Judaism, or of Buddhism, or of Christianity, or of Islam, or of any other “ism.” Though God is indeed understood at some level in all of these evolutionary religions, God is also greatly misunderstood and misrepresented in all of these religions.
The planet is a mess, and one of the reasons it is a mess is because all of these religions have—generation after generation—perpetrated falsehoods, superstitions, prejudice, fear, and even hatred—and all in the name of God! That God is not the God of radical unity!
Again I want to clarify that God is indeed present in these religions and in the people of these religions in their correct and righteous ideas, values, and actions that are reflective of the Universal Father. Wonderful events have happened and continue to happen as a result of these evolutionary religions. It is a mixed bag, just as most groups, organizations, and governments are a mixed bag—full of individual human beings who are themselves a mixed bag. There is the presence of good residing alongside evil in all of this.
Now I realize that this may seem radical to some of you, but I think that all of these wrong perceptions and ideas about reality—whether on a material, mindal, or spiritual level—must be corrected through the understanding of the epochal revelation found in The URANTIA Book and Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation presented in The Cosmic Family volumes.
In order to take the path of radical unity, one must get right with the Root and Foundation of all universal reality and life, the Universal Father of all. Then one must get out of the detours and decoys that claim to be religious, spiritual, and revelatory and embrace the Fifth Epochal Revelation that has been gifted to this world in order to help all of us get right in our minds, hearts, and souls.
Radical unity involves implementing ethics, morality, and principles within divine pattern in our personal lives as well as in all other areas of life including social, educational, medical, political, agricultural, architectural, artistic, and so on. Epochal revelation provides for us clarity of what truly is divine pattern.
Radically Removing Disease and Error
I want to refer back to the definitions of radical. This really impacted me—radical also means: “designed to remove the root of a disease or all diseased tissue.”
We know that this world is diseased—diseased ecologically, economically, politically, religiously, socially, and in many other areas. The world is in such a state due to generation upon generation of people making wrong choices and doing wrong things as a result of error, sin, and iniquity. The lust for power and greed rule many people. Selfishness motivates the majority of individuals' decisions. The foundation of so many people's paths that they are walking is based on wrong perceptions of reality and a lack of understanding of basic cosmic and spiritual truths of eternal value.
Radical unity demands that each individual be willing to remove the root of his or her disease, of his or her evil, that which is out of divine pattern. Radical unity also means that each aspect of civilization—whether in the political, economic, religious, educational, literary, entertainment, medical, and other realms—get to the root of their disease and remove anything out of divine pattern.
Departing the Status Quo. Now That's Radical
Here are probably the definitions of radical with which we are more familiar: “Marked by a considerable departure from the usual or traditional, extreme;” “tending or disposed to make extreme changes in existing views, habits, conditions, or institutions;” “of, relating to, or constituting a political group associated with views, practices, and policies of extreme change;” “advocating extreme measures to retain or restore a political state of affairs.”
In order for most people to get onto the path of radical unity—out of selfish, materialistic, and mechanistic thinking, feeling, and doing into a less selfish, more spiritual, and expanded way of living—we must go through extreme changes, tremendous upheavals, and many divorces—divorces from particular lifestyles, particular thinking, particular habits, particular people, particular jobs, particular places, particular affiliations.
There's Unity and Then There's Unity
The concept of unity is very appealing to most of us human beings, but following through in being united with others in some endeavor that hopefully will ultimately benefit all of humankind is a challenge that too many are unwilling to do. Practicing radical unity as I have defined it is even more difficult, for it involves taking a road less traveled, being disapproved of by the mainstream, making extreme life changes, getting shook up over and over, and living uncomfortably at times.
The URANTIA Book presents “evolution” versus “revolution.” Evolution involves more gradual unfoldment, growth, and progress for individuals and for all of humankind on all three levels of universe reality—material, mindal, and spiritual—which results in a gradual change in the cultures, governments, and institutions of civilization. But throughout all of evolution—whether biological or social—psychologists, theologians, biologists, anthropologists, historians, and sociologists have noted that in the evolution of an individual person or a group of persons or in life in general, there have always been quantum leaps, “suddenly's,” radical shifts that catapult life, a person, a group of persons, or an entire civilization into a much higher state of being. Those “suddenly's,” those thrusts and leaps, are revolutions, for sometimes progress needs to have a drastic encounter, a “shoot-from-the-hip” method, a seemingly merciless happening in order to save something (or someone) from dying out and disappearing, for those celestial personalities in divine overcontrol want to save them.
If we look at our own growth and healing processes, we see that we have often proceeded gradually and reasonably, but we have also seen the upheavals that have thrust us more radically forward. In these days of the adjudication of the Bright and Morning Star versus Lucifer, we are in both evolution and revolution with a new twist, for Celestial Overcontrol is more present than ever with a group of people who are radically united in implementing divine administration principles. They are the vanguard of a SpiritualutionSM1 that is beginning to happen amidst the chaos and corruption that is so prevalent in the dominant cultures and governments of all nations. I bid you come, join the Spiritualution, and become a part of the solution . . . radical unity.
1Spiritualution happens within individuals as well as within a group of individuals unified in a common purpose, both gradually and sometimes instantaneously, as a combination of evolution and revolution, spiritualized by epochal revelation. Those aligned with Global Community Communications Alliance/Divine Administration are the pioneers of this Spiritualution.