TOMAS: 10-29-98.Pgh Part 4

[ZooidODell at aol.com]

(Continued)

ELYSSIA:  Well, I don't think it came as quite a surprise to me when I read
the Book and I found what I've been trying to figure out for a long time:
what was the attraction of Buddhism to so many delightful young people that I
have known in recent years? and I found that part that gave me an answer [Ed:
UB, 1039:   "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."], and now I guess I'm thinking that we haven't developed
that part of our faith, I didn't think, as much as we should have.

TOMAS:  Are you making reference to the teaching of making contact with the
First Source and Center within?

ELYSSIA:  Yes, the part in the Book that said they believed you could make
contact and they've strived to do it and I began to think I was geginning to
appreciate the young Buddhist people in the world more, suddenly.

TOMAS:  Let me then bring you back into your own culture and suggest that
there are people in your own social circles who practice this fine art of
meditation who are not Buddhist, but who also seek contact with the Center
within -- the young people of today are merely hungry for personal religious
experience and this can be had in and through transcendental meditation and
inner refelction, inasmuch as a believer has established a relationship with a
reality shich is other than the material life outside and external.

This is not limited to Buddhism but it is historically an Eastern practice.
Your Western world and Christianity have resisted the Eastern religions'
contribution to spirituality because it allows for the individual to find a
direct relationship with Father, with divinity, and thereby rules out the
"middleman" that is a large part of the culture of Christianity; going all the
way back to early, early priesthoods.

ELYSSIA:  Then they probably don't have a lot of this stuff about sin, because
I had to listen to this last night.  ur wonderful rector spends part of his
marvellous sermons every time I hear him, telling us how sinful we are.  We're
filled with sin.  There's nothing but sin!  And then I was thinking that
Buddhists have avoided this trap.