Most human parents shower their children with gifts of love. In a similar way, I believe that our divine parents rain down endless gifts on us, their human children. The Urantia Revelation describes at least four types of such divine gifts, each one corresponding to the differing reality domains of the personalities of the Trinity. (The differentiation of the persons of the Godhead makes possible a richer diversity of endowments for us.) Bear in mind that these teachings about our divine gifting come to us from the authors of The Urantia Book who, after all, gifted us with the text of the revelation itself!
First of all, we are told that we receive at conception a unique “fractal” of God’s personality as the very foundation of our personhood. This astonishing gift from God as “Father” confers the attributes of will, self-consciousness, and relative identity. (See in this connection Paper 112, “Personality Survival.”)
Second is the dramatic event of the incarnation of Jesus. This astounding gift from God as “Son” led directly to the universal pouring out his omnipresent Spirit of Truth at Pentecost, according to Paper 194, “Bestowal of the Spirit of Truth.” This Spirit exerts a subtle but powerful “noetic” influence. It augments our ordinary thinking with a reality sensitivity and philosophic sensibility that “leads us into all truth.”
Third is the gift of angelic watchcare, which is sponsored by our Mother Spirit (God as “Mother,” or the third person of the Trinity). In connection with this highly personal ministrations of our guardian angels, our Divine Mother also encircuits us from birth in her so-called intelligence ministry. This entails her provision to us of the seven most basic capacities of our mind, known in the Urantia text as “mind-spirits.” This early support culminates in a triggering event in the child’s evolving mind at around age six, when her Holy Spirit anoints us with “holiness” (technically, the full activation of all seven mind-spirits which now act holistically). This initiation prepares the child for the reception of ever-higher influences and gifts.
And finally, as the fourth offering, we are also told that we receive a second bestowal directly from God as “Primal Father.” This gift is a literal fragment of himself that indwells our minds. This feature of our inner life is central to any discussion of our psycho-spiritual life because attuning to its influence is our most crucial spiritual mission on earth. It’s called our “greatest challenge”[1] [196:3.34], and we’re told that our degree of attunement to the leadings of the divine indweller determines the very course of our soul evolution. Here then is a summary of these four great gifts in the words of the text itself:
The ministering personality of the guardian seraphim, the God presence of the indwelling [spirit], the encircuited action of the Holy Spirit, and the Son-consciousness of the Spirit of Truth are all divinely correlated into a meaningful unity of spiritual ministry in and to a mortal personality. Though hailing from different sources and different levels, these celestial influences are all [well] integrated … [113:4.6]
All of these gifts and influences are synergetic, but the indwelling “God-entity” acts in the lead of this sublime harmony of influences because of its unique capacity to act from within—dwelling as it does in the heart of the mind. We read: “Mortal man has a spirit nucleus. The mind is a personal-energy system existing around a divine spirit nucleus and functioning in a material environment.” [12.9.6]
And, as we pursue the spiritual path, all these divine gifts keep on giving—eternally.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] “The great challenge to modern man is to achieve better communication with the divine [spirit] that dwells within the human mind. Man’s greatest adventure in the flesh consists in the well-balanced and sane effort to advance the borders of self-consciousness out through the dim realms of embryonic soul-consciousness in a wholehearted effort to reach the borderland of spirit-consciousness — contact with the divine presence.”