I. Foreword
I. Foreword
I am writing this Foreword after I have completed receiving the teaching of Jesus.
During my communion with the Father I have asked Him if there is a need for any introduction, foreword, before reading the teachings presented by Jesus. The Father has requested that I would write the foreword explaining as to how I started communing with Him, how I started receiving His teachings, how the presentation of the teachings of Jesus was progressing so that other people would understand, at least to some measure understand, as to how these things are possible. And I have also been asked to divide all the teaching into the chapters and as well as to give them the titles. I have done all that with a big love and devotion.
Since the Father has been teaching me all the time that I would look upon everything as a system all the parts of which are directly, or indirectly, interconnected I must give you some broader context so that you would conceive that the association with the Father, and with Jesus, has not been my personal whim or a sudden fancy. That was a long leading and preparation from within imperceptible even to me, and very often difficult and painful to me.
When thirteen years ago I was given The Urantia Book in English I had no idea that it would change all my life, would lead me to a direct communion with the Father, with Jesus of whom I have learnt so much from this book like from nowhere else.
However, the Father has been changing my life already since my very birth. Now I will mention just some of the episodes.
Since my very childhood, all the time, I had been planning to become a military officer while I got enrolled in the
However during the final high school summer vacation, absolutely unexpectedly to myself, I began to study English just by myself. And I studied it every day according to a program presented to me by the unknown and invisible to me forces. I neither saw nor felt these forces while the system of learning I applied every day I considered to be designed by me. It is only now that I realize that I had no idea as to how I had to study the English language that I disliked so much. Even today this method is not being applied by any schools and universities.
Just envision me being merely a seventeen-year-old lad to whom English is the most disliked subject taking up this very subject during the summer school vacation without any reason, and just by himself at that. And the system was so wonderful that after the three months of my daily work I did outmatch all the top students of my grade. My teacher in English and the class-mates could not believe it. But I had no intention of topping anyone in the subject. That was just some sort of my daily routine for the three months without any clear goal. I had no definite conscious motivation for this study.
However, I got surprised by the fact that I enrolled in the university to study English rather than a military academy as I had planned before. Therefore, in the course of the first two years at the University during the classes my mind would wonder: “What am I doing here? Why am I not at a military academy? What am seeking by such a choice of mine once all those who graduate from the University English Department become teachers.“ And not only could I imagine myself as a teacher but I did not even allow my mind to entertain this idea at all. That was the profession I would not have agreed to choose for any money.
During the second year of my studies at he University, for the first time in Lithuania, there was formed a special study group of translators that I was enlisted in too, without any request on my part, without having been asked whether or not I desired to study in this group. Its curriculum included additional subjects to the ordinary ones studied by the students of English. These were the theory of translation, the history of translation, the practice of translation, the grammar and syntax of the Lithuanian language, the stylistics of Lithuanian, the editing of the text. And we also had to accumulate our practical skills not only during our practice term as the high school teachers but also in a Publishing House. Therefore, the study curriculum of this group was much more intensive than that of the other students of the Department. And, in general, the curriculum of the Foreign Language Department was very hard for nobody could learn a foreign language instead of you if you did not study it yourself.
Some five months prior to my graduation from the University I was suggested by one teacher to apply for a vacancy in the Lithuanian National Television and Radio Company where he had a part-time job as a radio presenter in English at the Department of the Radio Programs to the Overseas Listeners that was reporting in three languages – Lithuanian, Polish, and English. This Radio Service was meant for the Lithuanian emigrants since around one million Lithuanians lived overseas out of the total population of 3.5 million. He informed me that there was a vacancy in the English Section. Thus, several months before the end of my studies I started to work in the National Television and Radio Company. Unfortunately, at least I thought this way at that time, not in the English but, for the unknown reason to me, in the Lithuanian Section. I was making programs on economy and youth life since I was also well versed in these fields. But that is a different story.
And very soon my mind was, again, raising these very similar questions to the ones of my first two years at the University: “What have I studied English for to be working as a journalist in the Lithuanian rather than English Section?“ Even though there was a vacancy there I was not transferred to the English Section during the whole year. Therefore during all this year I was really intensively pondering over this issue as to how I might be transferred to this section, and why they were not doing it and only giving me vague explanations and inventing ever new excuses.
That was my training for my future encounter, after nearly two decades, with The Urantia Book, and for its translation into Lithuanian. This way the Father helped me improve and brush up my skills in Lithuanian, including its style. And once I mastered it to a professional level He allowed me to submerge into a practical application of English after eventually I was transferred to the English Section.
When I was given a copy of The Urantia Book in English I had no idea of either the book itself or how it appeared on the planet altogether. It was simply brought to me and handed in a card-paper box. It looked an enormous book of 2,097 pages, plus 60 pages of the Table of Contents, and of a big size.
While reading it I was receiving the answers to the questions I had previously raised yet I had not been convincingly and reasonably answered by anyone – either by priests, philosophers, theologians, or books, or my own speculations.
Having read The Urantia Book I felt within me that it was necessary to cry out this book to the people simple on the street, in big and small cities, villages and farmsteads. It has such a power that it is beyond understanding that a book can have it whatsoever. It is only thanks to it that I began to realize ever more what God the Father is, what Jesus is, what the divine universe is, and how it operates.
I began delivering lectures in the House of Teachers, in the capital city of
However after some two of years of this work an idea has struck my mind that it would be wonderful to have this book in Lithuanian as well. How many more people could read it. But even then I would drive away this type of an idea that it would be possible to translate all the book. And it was only when I had already accumulated over one thousand of pages of the translated text in handwriting while preparing for the Urantia group classes that I began to feel a tremendous resolution within me, as if someone had wakened it up from the sleep, to translate all the text. And by this time I had already gained self-confidence as to how to deal with this sophisticated and very unaccustomed, to the human mind, text.
And once I made a decision to translate The Urantia Book and get it published in Lithuanian I began to feel as if some invisible force started leading me from within so strongly and assisting me in formulating those long sentences, as if prompting me that I must correct something on some definite page of the translated text, even several hundred pages back, and it seemed to me that this invisible power is very close and dear to me, and it has a desire to help me. And that made me smile as well as it caused my curiosity whether it was really so the way I was feeling. And then I would go back in the text looking for mistakes on the pages pointed out, and I would really find them.
At home, just before falling asleep, I started contemplating-praying in my own words. I was very careful while choosing the words merely not to pledge too much to God. I was abiding by the principle if a word was used in my prayer I also became responsible I would follow that word in my life. If I prayed for a bigger understanding of God it meant that I had to seek a bigger understanding of God, if I prayed for a bigger mercy I myself had to be more merciful. If I agreed with the will of God it meant I had to acknowledge it without any excuse for having the situation in my favor. Therefore, my prayer might have been called as my haggling with the Father while searching for such words that could be acceptable to Him and at the same time would not obligate me and would not restrain the-then freedom of mine. However, the words of my prayer were changing. They became ever deeper and I started experiencing a sense of peace.
Once, while translating The Urantia Book in a small dark room, when only a desk lamp was lighting up the book, I, suddenly, experienced a tremendous blast within me – I was exclusively over flooded with warmth and a love surge. I desired to thrust myself out on the street and cry out to all: “My dears, I have discovered Him, and I do desire to share Him with you, whether you are healthy or ill, even with the catching diseases, whether you are rich or poor, I do desire to explain to all about Him.“ I discovered that all my fear has evaporated. I simply noticed I had no sense of fear any more. It was replaced by the fullness of the feeling of love. That was my birth out of the spirit that Jesus had spoken about. The flesh of man is the same but absolutely different is his character. The feeling of love for all, without any preference for those who are of my own kin and who are not, has all the time been growing and strengthening since that moment. All have become of my own kin. It was then that I realized or rather began to feel that I became free. Free from fear, free from anger, free from irritation, free from jealousy, free from the desire to dominate others. And the negative qualities have been replaced by a wonderful sense of love, by an enormous mercy, by a desire to serve all without seeking any reward for it. It was only then that I realized why Jesus was called the Deliverer.
When I started my regular classes in the second largest city of Lithuania, Kaunas, in addition to those in Vilnius, capital of Lithuania, I began to experience, in the course of the class, that somebody was helping me fluently form up my thoughts, convey them, and even with a certain modulation of the volume of my voice. My preparation for the class would always include my prayer in the car on the way to Kaunas, that is about 65 miles, and my petition to the Father, to Jesus that I would be assisted to express the ideas they wanted me to. I would simple pray that the Father speak thru my lips. And He spoke so marvelously that even during the very class at some moments I would also feel as if listening from without to what He was saying. At that time I did not share this experience with my brethren so they did not know anything about my own personal experiences during these very classes. And on the way back home in my prayer I would always express my thanks for this wonderful leading and experiences during the class.
It has lasted for several years, and this long term experience has enabled me to know for certain that the Father does really operate thru a human being. He is speaking thru man so that another man would be able to hear Him, until this man cannot yet hear the voice of the Father.
When I set up the
Then I recalled the episode of several years past when while flying from Paris to Vilnius from an international conference of the translators of The Urantia Book I was shown in the air the sign of the three concentric circles, the symbol of the Paradise Trinity – God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit – being used in our local universe.
Therefore, I was not surprised by the pleasant scent poured out upon us in the park during our prayer service. However, when this odor has caught up with me while I was riding a bike out of the city, then I also began to feel warmth within me and a surge of love. And again I recalled that exactly the same experiences I had both while flying from
After some time I started applying a silence practice when after my personal worship of the Father I would sit in silence for a while just awaiting to hear what the Father was telling me. As I had made an attempt doing it several years earlier I had failed to hear Him. Therefore I gave up this silence practice for I was even thinking it might be not exactly real, or my level was not yet up to hearing the Father‘s teachings being passed personally to me as well as to any other human. Yet the leading from within was such that maybe some two years later I again returned to the silence practice. And this time I did hear the Father. I was overwhelmed with joy that I was receiving His teachings that I could talk with Him whenever the soul desires this communion and opens up for this association. That was such a tremendous encouragement to me while walking on the spiritual path and that I had not experienced anything of the kind before even though I had many different spiritual experiences on that path, even appearances to my eyes.
Therefore, I started ever more urging all my brethren to seek a personal relationship with the Father, with Jesus, so that they could also feel these, priceless to the growth of one‘s soul, direct teachings that were being adapted to each of us individually, according to that person‘s ability to understand and receive them.
As I began to keep this sort of the relationship with the Father every day my communion with Him was deepening and strengthening. He often is telling me: “You must trust me more. The more you commune with me the bigger is your trust in me, as well as your self-confidence, the more sophisticated teachings of mine you are capable of receiving. This association is necessary to everybody yet not everybody is ready for it. Therefore you must also urge others to look within and discover me within themselves and establish this bilateral communion.“
When my communion with the Father has become an indivisible part of my life it was only then that I did realize how Jesus had managed to talk with the Father. And it was then that the Father urged me, in addition to my communion with Him, to associate with Jesus as well. Thus I started short sessions of my association with Jesus even though my soul was leaning to the Father. However, gradually, while associating with Jesus, I developed a bigger desire for this communion with him too.
Some five months ago I was e-mailed by my brother in spirit some spiritual teachings of Jesus. They were named as Letters of Jesus. They had been revealed in English. Once I read them I had a strong desire to translate them into Lithuanian. They were so profound and assisting man in taking a deeper look upon the reality and upon Jesus as well as upon the meaning of one‘s own life. They have been revealed thru a woman in
I was pondering for several days whether or not to take up translating the Letters of Jesus into Lithuanian so that other people in
Once I established communion with Jesus and told him that I had an intention of asking him for his permission for translating his Letters revealed by him in English and right before establishing that association with him the thought had cut thru my mind that perhaps he could also dictate me the original teaching that would be more fitting to our people so that they would know it was not a translation but his original teaching.
Jesus supported this idea and suggested our daily association at six o‘clock in the morning. It was an early time for me. Usually I would go to bed past
However, the desire to receive the teachings from Jesus generated a great impulse to transform my routine. I did accept the time proposed by him.
On the eve of our first mutual cooperation session I was feeling a much stronger anxiety than during the several other days prior to it, whether or not I shall manage to get up in time, whether I shall have enough of sleep to receive his teachings at such an early hour, what sort of the teachings they shall be, whether I shall manage to receive them, and many other questions were circling in my mind.
From time to time, the teachings being given to me by the Father, I took down both in English and Lithuanian. The English texts I mailed to my brethren in the United States onto a conference list while the translated texts into Lithuanian I put on our website – www.urantija.lt or www.uranta.lt If the teachings of the Father I was receiving in Lithuanian then I would translate them into English, and vice versa. In a word I had some experience in receiving the teachings of the Father in both languages and taking them down while receiving them. That was also a long process-step of my growth from hearing the Father, for the first time, to being able to take His teachings down on paper. However now Jesus shall be giving me his detailed teachings that I have no idea of as to what way they shall be developing and when they might be completed, maybe making even a separate book. Therefore they most likely shall be consistent and extensive and of the sort I have never received before. Thus it had to be a new experience to me as well. However, I was certain that everything was possible with the Father. Therefore I began to worship the Father and pray for all even more intensively. And I was petitioning for myself a bigger devotion to the Father and a deeper wisdom from Him.
Every morning, even before six, I would begin with my worship of the Father and a petition prayer for all, and for my complete devotion to the Father‘s will and the reception of the teachings of Jesus. I would feel a little quiver within as if somebody would connect me to a different frequency of vibrations where my own thoughts, just a moment ago, as if sinking down to the bottom of my own mind and I would be filled up with completely different thoughts from Jesus. I merely needed to register them typing them on computer the way I had been doing while taking down the teachings of the Father.
This type of association with Jesus lasted for two months. When it was completed I began to correct my typing mistakes. However I did not correct either grammar mistakes or style, apart from very few instances with incorrect cases of nouns. Therefore you must not be strict in judging a rather difficult style for I had no right to make it easier. The sort of the text I have received from Jesus this very text I am presenting to you. The teaching is by Jesus. Its receiving and its transcript are mine. Its study and application are yours.
Peace be upon you.
With brotherly love,
Algimantas
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The reception of the teachings by Jesus started at
In
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