PAIN

Q: Is your continued ability to experience pain an aid to your growth and development at your stage in the mansion worlds and in your work here on the planet with us mortals?

A: I do not care for pain anymore than you do, and yet Father does not waste. He does not create anything without purpose. I believe that the pain that I still experience is partly a reminder that I am still part animal in my nature and that it serves as a continued reminder to me that I have very, very far to go.

It is said that once the journey to Paradise has been completed, there is no more pain as we know it. Whether being in the presence of God obliterates the pain or you have already achieved a condition in which you do not any longer experience pain prior to your audience with Father is not clear to me, but I can tell you that I believe I sense less pain now than when I was a material being on my planet of origin.

Q: Rayson, are we talking about physical pain or emotional pain, and does everybody experience that when they leave this planet?

R: Do you mean physical death? (Yes.) For some, death is not painful at all. Do you wish to rephrase the question, or would you like me to elaborate on death itself?

S2: I believe the question was whether or not you felt pain after you left this life, at the next stage of existence. Is that correct?

Q: Yes. And is it physical or emotional pain we're talking about?

A: Most of the pain that you experience in your present state is a composite of physical discomfort which is contributed to by emotional anguish based on frustration of animal drives and spirit longing. As you grow in your spiritual development, the former will decrease in their contribution and the latter will increase proportionately. However, spirit longing is a different sort of feeling than physical pain as you know it. Have you not ever had the sense of your own incompleteness? (S: Many times.) That is something like spiritual pain or longing. It can be very uncomfortable, can it not? (Yes.) And yet you would not characterize it as the same thing as, for example, suffering a cut or a broken bone, would you?

S: True. Right.

R: What do you think is the difference?

S: I'm not sure how to answer that. It seems to me one's more emotional, and the other's more physical.

R: You think the spiritual pain is physical?

S: Well, ok, one's more spiritual and one's more physical then.

R: Does anyone else have a comment?

S2: Well, I would think that the physical pain is carried to the brain through the nervous system, and the emotional pain is not located in any particular place, but is carried to the conscience by the psyche perhaps, something of that nature.

R: And the spiritual?

S2: The Bible talks about spiritual groanings and longings which I think that we all have. We do not identify that as pain. Perhaps it is pain, but I have not thought of it as being pain. It's simply an unfulfilled, deep longing, a hunger for -

Q: Are both physical and emotional pain rooted with spiritual undertones? I remember reading of Jesus and His comments to afflicted people experiencing pain, both emotional and physical. Many times their faith would be the healing factor of overcoming both emotional and physical pains and longings.

A: Your faith will help not only in subduing the discomfort you experience from the physical and the mental but will also help greatly to allay the discomfort of spiritual longings. When I speak of pain myself, I speak more of my own sense of imperfection, my imperfection, for I am in company with perfect creatures who do not know this feeling that we speak of and, like yourselves, I compare myself to them, as you would compare to another.

Q: Is there an element of sadness then that is part of the sense of pain, a sadness at one's own imperfection?

A: Yes, you could say that. And yet I have had enough mota lessons to know logically that it is a wonderful endowment to be imperfect.

Q: Rayson, is pain a positive thing in the sense that it contributes to the striving for perfection?

A: Some say that is the reason for its existence. Animals certainly experience pain and you know that we are evolved from animal. I can honestly say that I do not fully understand all of God's reasoning for endowing us with pain, but He is perfect, and His plan is perfect. So it is placed with a perfect motive, and what you suggest may very well be part of that motive.

Q: I have been under the impression that physical pain was the device by which we're notified that something is physically wrong so we can correct it. Is spiritual pain the device by which we're notified of things that are spiritually wrong, so we can correct them?

A: Yes, but it is more than that, for you need not have acted in error in order to experience spiritual pain. Your action at any given time may be in accord with God's wishes, and yet you may still have pain.

Q: Is an example of that the feeling that Jesus had before the crisis at Capernaum when He isolated Himself from His apostles and was apparently in great agony before He voluntarily submitted Himself to the embarrassment, I should say, of having His own people reject Him?

A: He was also torn by a great turmoil related to the trial of Lucifer, for His life on Urantia as you know was a key argument presented to the Ancients of Days against the rebuttals of Lucifer in his own defense. So Jesus, the man, at the time - He was fully aware of His complete identity and purpose - experienced far, far more pain than any Urantia mortal has ever been subjected to, or most likely could ever withstand, and yet remained alive physically.

S: I'm amazed. I didn't realize that the life of Jesus had been presented to the court of the Ancients of Days in the trial of Lucifer, Gabriel vs Lucifer. That is an amazing concept. I certainly agree with you. I see now how it had to be, but I hadn't even thought of that before.

R: Yes, it is somewhat different from your own legal practice.

S: It's difficult for us, with our limited knowledge of Jesus' life from the writings we have on our planet, to picture fully all the things that He was doing in the latter part of His life on earth. He was helping to govern the planet, helping to deal with the rebellion, and still carrying out His Father's mission here to help us understand Father and Father to understand us. It's a marvel that He could do it all.

R: Yes, it is one of the wonderful mysteries of the cosmos. As Urantia evolves and its peoples advance in their evolution, there will be yet more revelations. It is likely that when this planet enters light and life, a day by day, almost hour-by-hour account, of the life of Jesus will be available to all for review.

S: I'm anxious to review it. (01/02/94)

"Michael est toujours au Volant."

(Michael is always at the Steering Wheel.)

11:11 Angels