Transcript

The Urantia Book

Introducing a bigger frame in which to think

Part 1: Universe Frames

Part 2: the Personal Universe

Part 3: a Family Affair

Part 4: Cosmology

Part 2: the Personal Universe page 1

Part 2: the Personal Universe page 2

Part 2: the Personal universe

( continued from Part 1 )

Part 2: the Personal Universe page 3

As a world, we anticipate contact with “more-than-human” life.

But our scientific method has led many to believe – to believe – that we are nothing but an evolutionary accident, that…

“No display of energy, nor expression of trust, can carry us (personally) beyond the grave”

You can see the problem. How on earth to deliver, to present, …

… a wider view of the world,

a bigger “frame",

to a sceptical, scientific age?

Part 2: the Personal Universe page 4

This Urantia Book

… is an attempt.

Part 2: the Personal Universe page 5

Ok, so what do these papers offer a skeptical, scientific age?

Two things:

The first is simply a description of the way things are, as seen from some other, higher frame.

The second is something that required this wider view: a revelation about ourselves.

Ok, but what do they actually reveal?

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They reveal… surprising answers to three of our most basic questions:

Number 1: Where we are?

These papers describe our place in a finite manifold in a more-than-finite space.

Number 2: What we are?

They explain the components of which we are really made.

And number 3, the big one: Why are we?

These authors offer us a hint of a glimpse of our true, personal (potential) place in Eternity.

Part 2: the Personal Universe page 7

Now, number 1 may be intriguing for astronomers, but for everybody else…

well, not so much. So let’s leave that for later.

Number 3 requires an understanding of what we really are…

So let’s begin with number 2: their revelation about ourselves.

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Of what components are we really made…

And where does personality fit in?

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Every human culture has tried to explain what we humans really are.

Our beliefs – about ourselves – combine concepts of matter, mind and spirit, in all sorts of ways.

And it’s these beliefs which polarise our groups:

In one corner, Spiritualists tend to see anything non-spiritualas “crude” or “illusion”.

Likewise Materialists see all “spiritual belief” as fiction, and thus “not even wrong”.

Meanwhile, philosophers and religionists try to make sense of the numinous impinging upon our private, inner world.

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The Urantia Book coordinates all this in a way which may surprise, even delight, all our factions of belief.

It presents reality as the interaction of four distinct domains. Three we recognize as matter, mind and spirit. But they add one more.

One which motivates and integrates all else.

They call this personality, which may seem like a familiar word.

But in these papers the concept “personality” is absolutely redefined.

* * *

Now, one thing about these four domains…

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… is that each is said to be lit by a characteristic “light”:

• material light,

• intellectual insight,

• spirit luminosity.

Each of these “forms of light” serves as currency – as currency – in the economy of its domain.

So what lights up persons? What serves as currency in the personal domain?

This is where love comes in: Personality is illuminated by love.

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It’s against this background, of Personality illuminated by love, that these authors can at last explain…

“the phenomenon of man”.

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They begin by describing, step by step, how this remarkable package – our body and mind – evolved.

While confirming the basic outlines discovered by science, they add some missing links: they explain why evolution took the path it did, and how a system of mind was woven into the evolving animal forms.

But this “organic” evolution just sets the stage. So let’s skip past the biochemistry and go straight to the heart of the matter:

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The Urantia papers reveal this “package” to be serving as a womb, from which something remarkable is born.

They reveal something made of personality fertilizing something made of spirit.

This fertilization allows gestation, and a second birth.

Let’s move this womb aside, and take a closer look.

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We find three things:

Personality, a divine Presence, and a Soul.

Our personality they describe as… something unimaginable,

an unblemished gift bestowed upon a system of body and mind.

This Presence they reveal to be a divine indweller, an absolute essence of an infinite being.

And our soul?

Here’s where it gets interesting. Let’s take one more look at that poet’s ancient question:

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“What is man, that You are mindful of him?” (Psalm 8)

In this frame, the answer is simple:

Our substance, our soul, combines His essence with Himself.

These components of which we are really made…

Let’s take them one by one.

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Of Personality, they say this:

“The personality of mortal man is neither body, mind, nor spirit;

neither is it the soul. Personality is the one changeless reality

in an otherwise ever-changing creature experience; ”

The Urantia Book (Foreword, section 5)

And this:

“The love of the Father absolutely individualizes each personality

as a unique child of the Universal Father, a child without duplicate

in infinity, a will creature irreplaceable

– irreplaceable – in all eternity.”

The Urantia Book (138.4) 12:7.9

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Of this Presence, this divine Adjuster, they say this:

“The Adjusters are the actuality

of the Father’s love incarnate

in the souls of men”

“The Adjuster is an absolute essence

of an infinite being… ”

“It is the indwelling Adjuster who

individualizes the love of God

to each human soul.”

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And of our Soul, they say this:

“Personality may survive mortal death with identity in

the surviving soul. The Adjuster and the personality are

changeless; the relationship between them (in the soul)

is nothing but change, continuing evolution; ”

As presented in these papers, our soul becomes a technique for salvaging us from death, a way to wean us – as Persons – from the material domain.

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But see the simplicity of our human situation:

o from the choosing we do within our mind arena of choice,

o the indwelling adjuster

o weaves for us a soul.

The key here is choice: it’s our choices that allow this Adjuster literally to weavenew fibres in our soul.

To put this another way, …

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As humans, our mind enables us:

“to discover, recognize, interpret, and choose.”

The Urantia Book (2094.9, 196:3.10)

Our lives become… a sequence of decisions,

… and the opportunity to choose.

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And the good news?

A simple, sincere life of free-will moral choice is all it takes to zip together our essential DNA, our two true parts …

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… Personality and Adjuster.

And simply given time,

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… our true nature unfolds.

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Up next:

Why are we?

Why do we exist at all?

Who invented humans, and why?

And what’s Love got to do with it?

Part 2: the Personal Universe page 26

Part 2: the Personal Universe page 27

– The Urantia Book –

Presenting a larger frame in which to think.

Freely available across the world,

downloadable as an iPhone app.

Next: a Family Affair ( see Part 3 )


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