Who Is Your Good Friend? Who Is Your Well-wisher? The Human Dilemma in Everyday Living!

Jesus Christ when he lived on earth as a human being some 2000 years ago, tried to reveal the truths about God and what God expects from people. As he knew the human limitations in understanding greater truths, he tried to make his idea understandable to the common folks by teaching them through small stories or parables. [You may read all the parables of Jesus and meditate about those by clicking this link. Thanks to the people who have compiled it!]

Now we often find it difficult to get a good friend even while we are surrounded by scores of friends and relatives. Unfortunately good Samaritans are difficult to find. While we all have many friends, acquaintances and family relatives, we many not find any good Samaritan among them when you need it most.

The good Samaritan in the parable as told by Jesus was perhaps a non-Jewish man from Sumer regions adjoining the land of the Jews. Jews of that time did not approve of their culture, civilization and religious beliefs and hence it was almost unthinkable for them to imagine to have any thing good from these peoples.

But Jesus purposefully made the good man who helped out the wounded and helpless Jew without expecting any thing in return as a man from Sumeria. A totally unexpected person who would extent all out help to a helpless man in utter need of some help!

There could be occasions when we find such good Samaritans in our lives too. Most often it is not the friends and relatives who extent us the help we badly need at times. In those most difficult times, sometimes the agencies of God come to our aid through such good Samaritans.

When it happens, it is quite human for us to think about all those on whom we have been relying too much, only to find that they had deserted us on the times we needed their support most. Naturally that gives much pains.

I have experienced that. Perhaps those near to me might have experienced such a thing from me even. I might not have been in a position to help some of them during the times they needed it from me most.

Humans have a great weakness. They want to be friends and relatives of those who are better of. If you are somebody countable in the society, people respect you and would be eager to help you, even when you are not in any need for any such help. But the moment your weakness gets exposed, 99 out of 100 would desert you. This weakness of humans has originated from the animal trait of imitation that is within us. Just as a chimp would like to imitate the superior humans around it, inferior humans would try to imitate those humans around them whom they consider as superior. Hero worship in humans is due to this. Knowingly or unknowingly, we get a type of satisfaction when our boss or wealthy neighbor or wealthy acquaintance or a relative holding some influencing power show some friendly gestures. 

On the other hand we get elated and feels like a king when some of those humans whom we consider as inferior show some respectful friendliness towards us. This is due to another peculiar mind trait that is within us. All of us want to be some kind of a king or a boss! 

Humans help each other expecting reciprocation. But such friendships are often based on our complex mind entangled in what is termed as the god-dog syndrome. We help others when we feel as gods to someone or when someone forces us to be like serving dogs or servants. 

Else, we commercialize our services to others. The entire system of trade and business is depended on the unique manner in which humans have learnt and implemented the money system. Money is nothing but the measure of the value of our services to our fellow men!

But when we rise above these and does some selfless service to others, we learn to transcend beyond our human weaknesses and acquire godliness. 

Such gestures too come from us occasionally. Many of us do selfless service to our fellow men and women who are in need. While some of us have ventured in to the task of pooling our selfless efforts and gestures, a greater number of us are cleverly transforming such efforts for our selfish purposes!

A good majority of us fail to do understand the need of others and extent help when they need it most. We are often suspicious of others and their motives and hence fail to recognize reals from fakes. Because we live in a world which is full of deceptions than good. And we are all part and parcel of this world.

I have written some time earlier about our selfishness and pride that prevent us from getting nearer to God.

When I decide to share my problems with some one whom I consider as my well wisher, I am seeking and exploring my god given options of good fellowship from my human brothers and sisters. God wants us to be compassionate to each other. But many often we are failed and pained by the breach of trusts that we face from our near and dear ones. Those of whom we considered as our own fellows who would be of help and support would do such things to ridicule and mock us from behind us taking advantage of our exposed weaknesses!

Even Jesus faced such a betrayal from Judas who had been his trusted disciple for quite some time! Remember, Jesus too faced such a thing when was apparently becoming weak and appearing as helpless. Judas would have never done such a betrayal had Jesus displayed his power and position!

Again we betray others because of ignorance. We want to belittle our friends and gain an edge over them because we have that irresistible desire to become a king for some time. We want that power of the king to display our pride and superiority over others and many of us consider the best place to show off is in front of those who know us well. So a friend or relative asking for a help would immediately gives some ulterior ego satisfaction in many of us. At that time we use to retaliate and show of our kingly nature!

How sad! Is it what God wants us to do? 

Could we find good Samaritans among those around us? Could it be possible for us to be a good Samaritan to others? It is indeed a dilemma that we face in our daily lives. Remember, this dilemma is faced by all regardless of their wealth and position, quite often.

But to realize more about it you need to comprehend it in a much deeper manner. 

If you have not yet comprehended it, read that good Samaritan story that Jesus told and meditate over it. 

But you could do that meditation only when your pride level is conducive for that! 

Value and Character of a Genuine Religion !

A majority of the people of our world are followers of some religion. Religion is their platform or institution to express their devotion or faith to a divine power.

But religious faiths and religions have caused immense hatreds, wars and bloodsheds in this world and that is one of the reasons that make those people with a higher mind capacity to think negatively of religion. That might even force them to abandon their belief in any unseen divine universe power and might turn them into atheists.

If God is one and all humans are children of one true God, then this kind of a situation should not arise.

Indeed some thing has gone wrong some where !

To find out that something which went wrong, we should try to find out the character of a true religion and the value such a genuine religion can have in our lives.

Let us consider some of the following statements from my divine guide book regarding the character of a true religion :

Genuine religion renders the religionist socially fragrant and creates insights into human fellowship. But the formalization of religious groups many times destroys the very values for the promotion of which the group was organized.

Human friendship and divine religion are mutually helpful and significantly illuminating if the growth in each is equalized and harmonized. True religion puts new meaning into all group associations—families, schools, and clubs. It imparts new values to play and exalts all true humor.

True religion is a meaningful way of living dynamically face to face with the commonplace realities of everyday life.

But if religion is to stimulate individual development of character and augment integration of personality, it must not be standardized. If it is to stimulate evaluation of experience and serve as a value-lure, it must not be stereotyped. If religion is to promote supreme loyalties, it must not be formalized.

No matter what upheavals may attend the social and economic growth of civilization, religion is genuine and worth while if it fosters in the individual an experience in which the sovereignty of truth, beauty, and goodness prevails, for such is the true spiritual concept of supreme reality. And through love and worship this becomes meaningful as fellowship with man and sonship with God.

After all, it is what one believes rather than what one knows that determines conduct and dominates personal performances. Purely factual knowledge exerts very little influence upon the average man unless it becomes emotionally activated. But the activation of religion is superemotional, unifying the entire human experience on transcendent levels through contact with, and release of, spiritual energies in the mortal life.

During the psychologically unsettled times of the twentieth century, amid the economic upheavals, the moral crosscurrents, and the sociologic rip tides of the cyclonic transitions of a scientific era, thousands upon thousands of men and women have become humanly dislocated; they are anxious, restless, fearful, uncertain, and unsettled; as never before in the world's history they need the consolation and stabilization of sound religion. In the face of unprecedented scientific achievement and mechanical development there is spiritual stagnation and philosophic chaos.

There is no danger in religion's becoming more and more of a private matter—a personal experience—provided it does not lose its motivation for unselfish and loving social service. Religion has suffered from many secondary influences: sudden mixing of cultures, intermingling of creeds, diminution of ecclesiastical authority, changing of family life, together with urbanization and mechanization.

Religion has always been a conservator of morals and a stabilizer of society. And this is still true, notwithstanding the contrary teaching of many modern socialists and humanists.

Always keep in mind: True religion is to know God as your Father and man as your brother.

Religion is not a slavish belief in threats of punishment or magical promises of future mystical rewards.

Sectarianism is a disease of institutional religion, and dogmatism is an enslavement of the spiritual nature. It is far better to have a religion without a church than a church without religion.

As religion becomes institutionalized, its power for good is curtailed, while the possibilities for evil are greatly multiplied.

Man can never wisely decide temporal issues or transcend the selfishness of personal interests unless he meditates in the presence of the sovereignty of God and reckons with the realities of divine meanings and spiritual values.

If you have read it all, please do some meditation on these in solemn divine presence !

 Share your convictions with your fellow beings !

[View the linked list of all Blogs of the Author Here ! ]

Dangers of being without Friendship and Fellowship !

The title above was what I wrote to start a closed discussion among Urantia Book Readers in the Truthbook website. Living in self centred isolation is something which all of us should avoid. So I thought that this topic could be brought in the public domain in my blog here.

Let me reproduce what I wrote then with minor adaptation to present it here:

In Paper 193, the Urantia Book tells us about the details of interactions Jesus had with many groups before his ascension. This paper also discusses the causes of the fall of Judas.

In the Christian conventional belief, Judas was a 'Satanic' representative who did the 'greatest sin' of betraying Jesus and the betrayal was commonly believed as his act of causing the arrest of Jesus and his subsequent crucifixion.

The Urantia Book, however, explains this betrayal in another manner altogether. The authors explains the reasons of Judas downfall as below:

Judas met defeat in his battles of the earth struggle because of the following factors of personal tendencies and character weakness:

1. He was an isolated type of human being. He was highly individualistic and chose to grow into a    confirmed "shut-in" and unsociable sort of person.

2. As a child, life had been made too easy for him. He bitterly resented thwarting. He always expected to win; he was a very poor loser.

3. He never acquired a philosophic technique for meeting disappointment. Instead of accepting disappointments as a regular and commonplace feature of human existence, he unfailingly resorted to the practice of blaming someone in particular, or his associates as a group, for all his personal difficulties and disappointments.

4. He was given to holding grudges; he was always entertaining the idea of revenge.

5. He did not like to face facts frankly; he was dishonest in his attitude toward life situations.

6. He disliked to discuss his personal problems with his immediate associates; he refused to talk over his difficulties with his real friends and those who truly loved him. In all the years of their association he never once went to the Master with a purely personal problem. 

 7. He never learned that the real rewards for noble living are, after all, spiritual prizes, which are not always distributed during this one short life in the flesh.

As a result of his persistent isolation of personality, his griefs multiplied, his sorrows increased, his anxieties augmented, and his despair deepened almost beyond endurance.

While this self-centered and ultraindividualistic apostle had many psychic, emotional, and spiritual troubles, his main difficulties were: In personality, he was isolated. In mind, he was suspicious and vengeful. In temperament, he was surly and vindictive. Emotionally, he was loveless and unforgiving. Socially, he was unconfiding and almost wholly self-contained. In spirit, he became arrogant and selfishly ambitious. In life, he ignored those who loved him, and in death, he was friendless.

These, then, are the factors of mind and influences of evil which, taken altogether, explain why a well-meaning and otherwise onetime sincere believer in Jesus, even after several years of intimate association with his transforming personality, forsook his fellows, repudiated a sacred cause, renounced his holy calling, and betrayed his divine Master.(Jesus)

Even today many people are not out of such a danger of 'ultra-individualistic' isolation. Many believers are in such a mindset. Lack of true friendship and fellowship made even Judas-a companion and apostle of Jesus- to slip away from salvation and God's mercy.

I feel that in today's world we need to think of the dangers associated in leading a life without friendship and fellowship. The affluence and facilities that they happen to enjoy in life may create a situation wherein they tend to develop an ultra-individualistic mindset. That eventually cause them to be too egoistic and self centred isolating them from their fellowmen.

And such an isolation eventually might lead to contempt, desparation and self destruction!

[Adapted from truthbook discussions by the author]