"The universe is a whole; no thing or being exists or lives in isolation. Self-realization is potentially evil if it is antisocial. It is literally true: "No man lives by himself." Cosmic socialization constitutes the highest form of personality unification. Said Jesus: "He who would be greatest among you, let him become server of all." 56:10.14

As human beings we each have many concerns which demand our attention in our daily lives.  We are concerned about our needs for shelter, food, clothing, economic security for our families, education and health care for our children.  We have concerns about social and political matters.  We also share some concerns about our spiritual lives and our personal relationships with God.

To help us think about these matters I would like to share some questions with you.  These are questions which you should answer for yourself.  Your answers will help you gain a deeper perspective on the primary elements of your spiritual life.

Some questions about those things which occupy your attention

1. In daily life, to which tasks do you devote your best time, energy and thinking?

2. What are the causes, dreams, goals or institutions to which you contribute time or creative effort?

3. As you live your life, what power or powers do you rely on and trust?

4. To what or to whom are you committed in life?  In death?

5. With whom or with what group do you share your most sacred and private hopes for your life and for the lives of those you love?

6. What are your most sacred hopes, your most compelling goals and the primary purposes in your life?

These questions are intended to help you become more aware of those realities which truly occupy the center of your life and command your creative attention.

Let’s try to summarize all these questions with another question -- What is the central value, or set of values, relative to which all of your other life situations are evaluated or subordinated?   Stated another way, “What is your ultimate concern in life?”

Do you structure your life around the needs of your job or career?  Do you evaluate everything on the basis of how it will effect you economically?  Do you base your major life decisions on what you believe people in your community might think of you?  Is your life structured around the needs of your family? 

That which truly constitutes our personal religious life is the devotion with which we pursue that which is of greatest importance to us – that which we believe will bring fulfillment and meaning to our life.  Our personal religion may be wholly material, social or spiritual, but we each have elements in our lives which we pursue with religious devotion.  The task of religious growth as it relates to cosmic citizenship and personality integration, is to make sure that those central values to which we are devoted – our ultimate concerns – are truly spiritual in nature and cosmic in scope.  The reason for this is to be sure that we don’t develop our lives relative to some temporary phenomenon in the universe which will one day collapse and require us to start over. 

“Religion is not a specific function of life; rather is it a mode of living. True religion is a wholehearted devotion to some reality which the religionist deems to be of supreme value to himself and for all mankind. And the outstanding characteristics of all religions are: unquestioning loyalty and wholehearted devotion to supreme values. This religious devotion to supreme values is shown in the relation of the supposedly irreligious mother to her child and in the fervent loyalty of nonreligionists to an espoused cause.” 100:6.1

Carefully evaluating the above questions will give us an idea of how our personal religious life appears when evaluated on the basis of the ideas given in The Urantia Book.  In The Urantia Book’s view of personal religious experience, the behaviors in which we engage as we pursue whatever reality we deem to be of supreme value, these constitute our religious life. From a psychological perspective, that to which we are supremely devoted plays the role of God in our lives. 

Your God may be our career, our bank account, our family, our social image, or a role we play in a human institution or organization. 

Important as each of these are, if they are treated as the highest center in our lives, they become idolatrous because they take a position in our inner lives which should be dominated by our personal relationship with the Father and the desire to do his will. 

I am not suggesting that we sacrifice these important and necessary elements of our personal lives.  What is required is that we subordinate them to the pursuit of the Father’s will.  That is to say, when we make decisions regarding our family lives, our careers, our economic needs, our social roles we learn to make them relative to a sincere seeking of the Father’s will – our consideration of God and our desire to do his will in all things must become our supreme value.  Thus our spiritual experience can come to coordinate and integrate all of the other concerns which affect us in daily life.

Given this understanding of the religious life, what is faith?  Why is it important?  How does it grow and develop over the course of a human lifetime?

Next: Paul Tillich's Perspective on Faith as a Background for the Study