Meredith Sprunger's Synopsis of The Urantia Book
Synopsis of Paper 94
THE MELCHIZEDEK TEACHINGS IN THE ORIENT
1. Urantia has never had more enthusiastic and aggressive missionaries of any religion than these noble men and women who carried the teachings of Melchizedek over the entire Eastern Hemisphere ...They established training centers in different parts of the world where they taught the natives the Salem religion and then commissioned these pupils to function as teachers among their own people.
2. The rejection of the Melchizedeks gospel of trust in God and salvation through faith marked a vital turning point for India ...The Brahmans culled the sacred writings of their day in an effort to combat the Salem teachers, and this compilation, as later revised, has come on down to modern times as the Rig‑Vega, one of the most ancient of sacred books...An examination of the Vedas will disclose some of the highest and some of the most debased concepts of Deity ever to be conceived.
3. They proclaimed that, of the two essential divine principles of the universe, one was Brahman the deity, and the other was the Brahman priesthood. Among no other Urantia peoples did the priests presume to exalt themselves above even their gods, to relegate to themselves the honors due their gods.
4. The undue concentration on self led certainly to a fear of the nonevolutionary perpetuation of self in an endless round of successive incarnations as man, beast, or weeds. And of all the contaminating beliefs which could have become fastened upon what may have been an emerging monotheism, none was so stultifying as this belief in transmigration—the doctrine of the reincarnation of souls—which came from the Dravidian Deccan.
5. For more than two thousand years the better minds of India have sought to escape from all desire, and thus was opened wide the door for the entrance of those later cults and teachings which have virtually shackled the souls of many Hindu peoples in the chains of spiritual hopelessness. Of all civilizations, the Vedic‑.Aryan paid the most terrible price for its rejection of the Salem gospel.
6. Many of the new cults were frankly atheistic, claiming that such salvation as was attainable could come only by man's own unaided efforts.
7. The Brahmans set out to deanthropomorphize the Indian concept of deity, but in so doing they stumbled into the grievous error of depersonalizing the concept of God, and they emerged, not with a lofty and spiritual ideal of the Paradise Father, but with a distant and metaphysical idea of an all‑encompassing Absolute ...which has left the spiritual life of India helpless and prostrate from that unfortunate day to the twentieth century.
8. Brahman was conceived to be beyond all definition, capable of being comprehended only by the successive negation of all finite qualities...Brahman‑Narayana was conceived as the Absolute, the infinite IT IS, the primordial creative potency of the potential cosmos, the Universal Self existing static and potential throughout all eternity.
9. The philosophy of Brahmanism also came very near to the realization of the indwelling of the Thought Adjusters, only to become perverted through the misconception of truth. The teaching that the soul is the indwelling of the Brahman would have paved the way for an advanced religion had not this concept been completely vitiated by the belief that there is no human individuality apart from this indwelling of the Universal One.
10. Brahmanic philosophy ...has failed to take into account that what may be finite‑illusory on the absolute level may be absolutely real on the finite level. And it has also taken no cognizance of the essential personality of the Universal Father, who is personally contactable on all levels from the evolutionary creature's limited experience with God on up to the limitless experience of the Eternal Son with the Paradise Father.
11. Hindu theology, at present, depicts four descending levels of deity and divinity:
1. The Brahman the Absolute, the Infinite One, the IT IS.
2. The Trimurti, the supreme trinity of Hinduism ...Brahma ...Siva...Vishnu...
3. Vedic and post‑Vedic deities ...
4. The demigods.12. While Hinduism has long failed to vivify the Indian people, at the same time it has usually been a tolerant religion. Its great strength lies in the fact that it has proved to be the most adaptive, amorphic religion to appear on Urantia...Hinduism has survived because it is essentially an integral part of the basic social fabric of India.
13. Today, in India, the great need is for the portrayal of the Jesusonian gospel—the Fatherhood of God and the sonship and consequent brotherhood of all men, which is personally realized in loving ministry and social service.
14. At See Fuch, for more than one hundred years, the Salemites maintained their headquarters there training Chinese teachers who taught throughout all the domains of the yellow race. It was in direct consequence of this teaching that the earliest form of Taoism arose in China, a vastly different religion than the one which bears that name today.
15. The yellow race was the first to emerge from barbaric bondage into orderly civilization because it was the first to achieve some measure of freedom from the abject fear of the gods, not even fearing the ghosts of the dead as other races feared them. China met her defeat because she failed to progress beyond her early emancipation from priests; she fell into an almost equally calamitous error, the worship of ancestors.
16. About six hundred years ...before Christ, through an unusual co‑ordination of spiritual agencies, not all of which are understood even by the planetary supervisors, Urantia witnessed a most unusual presentation of manifold religious truth. Through the agency of several human teachers the Salem gospel was restated and revitalized, and as it was then presented, much has persisted to the times of this writing.
17. Lao‑Tze built directly upon the concepts of the Salem traditions when he declared Tao to be the One First Cause of all creation. Lao was a man of great spiritual vision. He taught that "man's eternal destiny was everlasting union with Tao, Supreme God and Universal King."
18. Lao's teaching of nonresistance and the distinction which he made between action and coercion became later perverted into the beliefs of "seeing, doing, and thinking nothing." ... But the popular Taoism of twentieth‑century Urantia has very little in common with the lofty sentiments and the cosmic concepts of the old philosopher who taught the truth as he perceived it, which was: That faith in the Absolute God is the source of that divine energy which will remake the world, and by which man ascends to spiritual union with Tao, the Eternal Deity and Creator Absolute of the universes.
19. Confucius (Kung Fu‑tze) was a younger contemporary of Lao in sixth‑century China ...His chief work consisted in the compilation of the wise sayings of ancient philosophers. He was a rejected teacher during his lifetime, but his writings and teachings have ever since exerted a great influence in China and Japan. Confucius set a new pace for the shamans in that he put morality in the place of magic. But he built too well; he made a new fetish out of order and established a respect for ancestral conduct that is still venerated by the Chinese at the time of this writing.
20. Gautama Slddhartha was born in the sixth century before Christ in the north Indian province of Nepal ...Gautama formulated those theories which grew into the philosophy of Buddhism after six years of the futile practice of Yoga. Slddhartha made a determined but unavailing fight against the growing caste system. There was a lofty sincerity and a unique unselfishness about this young prophet prince that greatly appealed to the men of those days. He detracted from the practice of seeking individual salvation through physical affliction and personal pain. And he exhorted his followers to carry his gospel to all the world.
21. Amid the confusion and extreme cult practices of India, the saner and more moderate teachings of Gautama came as a refreshing relief. He denounced gods, priests, and their sacrifices, but he too failed to perceive the personality of the One Universal.
22. Gautama was a real prophet, and had he heeded the instruction of the hermit Godad, he might have aroused all India by the inspiration of the revival of the Salem gospel of salvation by faith. Godad was descended through a family that had never lost the traditions of the Melchizedek missionaries.
23. When proclaimed at its best, Gautama's gospel of universal salvation, free from sacrifice, torture, ritual, and priests, was a revolutionary and amazing doctrine for its time. And it came surprisingly near to being a revival of the Salem gospel...Siddhartha taught far more truth than has survived in the modern cults bearing his name. Modern Buddhism is no more the teachings of Gautama Siddhartha than is Christianity the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.
24. Closely linked to the doctrine of suffering and the escape therefrom was the philosophy of the Eightfold Path; right views, aspirations, speech, conduct, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and contemplation.
25. Siddhartha hardly believed in the immortality of the human personality; his philosophy only provided for a sort of functional continuity. He never clearly defined what he meant to include in the doctrine of Nirvana. The fact that it could theoretically be experienced during mortal existence would indicate that it was not viewed as a state of complete annihilation.
26. According to the original teachings of Gautama, salvation is achieved by human effort, apart from divine help; there is no place for saving faith or prayers to superhuman powers.
27. The great truth of Siddhartha's teaching was his proclamation of a universe of absolute justice. He taught the best godless philosophy ever invented by mortal man; it was the ideal humanism and most effectively removed all grounds for superstition, magical rituals, and fear of ghosts or demons. The great weakness in the original gospel of Buddhism was that it did not produce a religion of unselfish social service...Gautama himself was highly social; indeed, his life was much greater than his preachment.
28. Buddhism prospered because it offered salvation through belief in the Buddha, the enlightened one. It was more representative of the Melchizedek truths than any other religious system to be found throughout eastern Asia.
29. Asoka, who, next to Ikhnaton in Egypt, was one of the most remarkable civil rulers between Melchizedek and Michael...During a period of twenty‑five years he trained and sent forth more than. seventeen thousand missionaries to the farthest frontiers of all the known world. In one generation he made Buddhism the dominant religion of one half the world.
30. Buddhism is a living, growing religion today because it succeeds in conserving many of the highest moral values of its adherents. It promotes calmness and self‑c6ntrol, augments serenity and happiness, and does much to. prevent sorrow and mourning. Those who believe this philosophy live better lives than many who do not.
31. In Tibet may be found the strangest association of the Melchizedek teachings combined with Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and Christianity ...They have rigid dogmas and crystallized creeds, mystic rites and special fasts. Their hierarchy embraces monks, nuns, abbots, and the Grand Lama. They pray to angels, saints, a Holy Mother, and the gods... Among no other people of modern times can be found the observance of so much from so many religions; and it is inevitable that such a cumulative liturgy would become inordinately cumbersome and intolerably burdensome.
32. The great advance made in Buddhist philosophy consisted in its comprehension of the relativity of all truth ...It was taught that the small truth was for little minds, the large truth for great minds. This philosophy also held that the Buddha (divine) nature resided in all men; that man, through his own endeavors, could attain to the realization of this inner divinity. And this teaching is one of the clearest presentations of the truth of the indwelling Adjusters ever to be made by a Urantian religion.
33. But a great limitation in the original gospel of Siddhartha, as it was interpreted by his followers, was that it attempted the complete liberation of the human self from all the limitations of the mortal nature by the technique of isolating the self from objective reality. True cosmic self‑realization resu1ts.from identification with cosmic reality and with the finite cosmos of energy, mind, and spirit, bounded by space and conditioned by time.
34. It was reasoned that, if Gautama had come to the peoples of India, then, in the remote past and in the remote future, the races of mankind must have been, and undoubtedly would be, blessed with other teachers of truth. This gave rise to the teaching that there were many Buddhas, an unlimited and infinite number, even that anyone could aspire to become one—to attain the divinity of a Buddha.
35. While this idea of Absolute Deity never found great popular favor with the peoples of Asia, it did enable the intellectuals of these lands to unify their philosophy and to harmonize their cosmology ...Even an anthropomorphic Yahweh is of greater religious value than an infinitely remote Absolute of Buddhism or Brahmanism.
36. Gradually the concept of God, as contrasted with the Absolute, began to appear in Buddhism ...Step by step, century by century, the God concept has evolved until, with the teachings of Ryonin, Honen Shonin, and Shinran in Japan, this concept finally came to fruit in the belief in Amida Buddha.
37. In their philosophy, the Amidists hold to an Infinite Reality which is beyond all finite mortal comprehension; in their religion, they cling to faith in the all‑merciful Amida, who so loves the world that he will not suffer one mortal who calls on his name in true faith and with a pure heart to fail in the attainment of the supernal happiness of Paradise.
38. The great strength of Buddhism is that its adherents are free to choose truth from all religions; such freedom of choice has seldom characterized a Urantian faith. In this respect the Shin sect of Japan has become one of the most progressive religious groups in the world; it has revived the ancient missionary spirit of Gautama's followers and has begun to send teachers to other peoples. This willingness to appropriate truth from any and all sources is indeed a commendable tendency to appear among religious believers during the first half of the twentieth century after Christ.
39. Buddhism itself is undergoing a twentieth‑century renaissance ...At the time of this writing, much of Asia rests its hope in Buddhism ...Will this ancient faith respond once more to the invigorating stimulus of the presentation of new concepts of God and the Absolute for which it has so long searched?
40. All Urantia is waiting for the proclamation of the ennobling message of Michael, unencumbered by the accumulated doctrines and dogmas of nineteen centuries of contact with the religions of evo1itionary origin. The hour is striking for presenting to Buddhism, to Christianity, to Hinduism, even to the peoples of all faiths, not the gospel about Jesus, but the living, spiritual reality of the gospel of Jesus.
Discussion Questions
1. What was the cause of the depersonalizing concept of God in Brahman theology?
2. Why did the Brahman philosophy come very close to universe truth without actually understanding spiritual reality?
3. What might have caused the revitalization of religion in the 6th century B. C.?
4. Why did the high spiritual teachings of Lao-tse deteriorate?
5. What was the basic value of Gautama Siddhartha’s teaching?
6. If we had the missionary zeal of Asoka, would the teachings of the Urantia Synopsis of Papers soon dominate the world?
7. Why is Buddhism probably the best religious background for presenting the teachings of the Urantia Synopsis of Papers in Asia?
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