© 2021 André Desjardins
© 2021 Francophone Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
Our birth is not perfect from a spiritual point of view, we are born into a world considered experiential and imperfect in certain respects but we have the capacity and the privilege to develop our mental abilities and our physical capacities whether material or spiritual. Each human can learn to develop his talents or his aptitudes in order to reach a level of experience of material or spiritual perfection according to his intended goals. By his nature man has always sought to perfect himself by evolution, by need or by finding technical means to improve the human condition using as little physical effort as possible. “These endless efforts of all living creatures prove in them the existence of an innate search for perfection.” Ref.: [UB 65:6.2]
Today it would be almost inconceivable to go back to the last 100 years and even to the last 20 taking into consideration today’s technological advances. Man possesses within himself this innate germ of perfection, he is thus capable of participating in the advancement for the well-being of humanity but he can also participate in his own destruction by producing sophisticated weapons that are increasingly lethal. It always depends on the reasons and projects sought to achieve goals of improvement.
Athletes always seek to improve themselves in their personal performances or through various Olympic competitions. These performances are most often ephemeral because they can be supplanted by a superior performance of another athlete. This underlines that man always seeks to improve himself through the progression of material perfection always likely to be surpassed.
Man can also attain higher goals in spiritual perfection through his personal relationship with God. If God had created man existentially perfect like Himself, we would not necessarily have the leisure to choose our own path by our choices, our free will, and our voluntary gift of access to the goal of the perfection of divinity by the will of our personality. The Universal Father thus gives us the choice by our free will whether or not to enter into a personal relationship with Him by living the experience of divine perfection. It is up to each of us to consent or to reject living the experience of spiritual perfection in a personal relationship with the Father by a voluntary consent of the choice without restriction of the will of our personality. No human personality is forced to submit to it, God Himself cannot go beyond the human will. "The Creator refuses to coerce or force the spiritual free will of His material creatures into submission. » Ref.: [UB 1:1.2] Through this personal choice and our will, it is thus possible for us to attain a certain degree of spiritual perfection through experience.
God places great importance on humans like us on our planet so that we can access a certain level of perfection of divinity. Through his Divine Plan, the Universal Father has granted himself the privilege of having a personal relationship with each personality endowed with will. Through his infinite Love, the Universal Father with the complicity of the Eternal Son proposed to make man in their own image. Ref…: [UB 6:5.7]
No doubt this was one of the primary purposes of his relationship with the Eternal Son. Through this combined divine association we receive the genetic profile of the Father’s spirit through the Thought Adjuster and the manifestation of the divine Word of the Eternal Son through the bestowal of our Creator Son Michael of Nebadon on our planet Urantia and incarnated in the flesh of Joshua ben Joseph. This privilege of experiential perfection of divinity is given to us just as a child receives the combined genetic profile of its biological parents. It is therefore incumbent upon the children of time such as ourselves to utilize this genetically divine DNA and to take advantage of this gift received from our Divine Parents to gain the experience of divinity with God.
This proposal of association of our Divine Parents towards humans such as ourselves on Urantia, thus gives us the potential for perfection of divinity by living perfection through experience. This personal gift of voluntary consent of our personality allows us to live the experience of doing the Will of the Father in our search for experiential perfection. Our will is the only real gift that we can make to God as described in The Urantia Book: “In fact, such a consecration of the creature will constitutes the only really valid gift that it is possible for man to make to the Paradise Father. In God, man lives, moves and has his being. There is nothing that man can give to God, except this choice to conform to the will of the Father” [UB 1:1.2]
When, through and by the ministry of all the helper hosts of the universal scheme of survival, you are finally deposited on the receiving world of Havona, you arrive with only one sort of perfection — perfection of purpose. Your purpose has been thoroughly proved; your faith has been tested. You are known to be disappointment proof. Not even the failure to discern the Universal Father can shake the faith or seriously disturb the trust of an ascendant mortal who has passed through the experience that all must traverse in order to attain the perfect spheres of Havona. By the time you reach Havona, your sincerity has become sublime. Perfection of purpose and divinity of desire, with steadfastness of faith, have secured your entrance to the settled abodes of eternity; your deliverance from the uncertainties of time is full and complete; and now must you come face to face with the problems of Havona and the immensities of Paradise, to meet which you have so long been in training in the experiential epochs of time on the world schools of space. (UB 26:4.13)
From the very first paper, the Urantia Book mentions that it is possible to reach a level of experience of perfection of divinity. “This magnificent and universal injunction to strive for the perfection of divinity is the first duty and should be the highest ambition of all creatures struggling in the creation of the God of perfection. This possibility of reaching divine perfection is the final and certain destiny of all the eternal spiritual progress of man.” UB 1:0.4
This injunction is the “first duty” for persons desiring to attain this spiritual progression, and the “should” is conditional upon the personal involvement of the personality will. The Urantia Book gives us several clues to this, but it is always by the free choice of our personality to respond to this first duty of seeking to attain this goal of divinity perfection. This first duty is our personal gift to God in order to conform to his will; it is the beginning of our commitment in response to this supreme injunction of divinity perfection. Our faithfulness in attaining this supreme goal is our “first duty” of perfection according to our good will. The best means to attain this primary goal of living this ideal of spiritual progress in our search for perfection is to rectify our defects of character and learn to master our animal instincts. The Urantia Book states: "In doing the will of God, a creature does nothing more or less than show his willingness to share his inner life with God. Ref…: [UB 111:5.1]
Thus our “good will” is as if the Father were simply asking us to share his existential Life with our original experiential life. The Universal Father cannot free himself from his existential status, He has found a way to approach us through his prepersonal Fragments and has implemented his personality circuit in order to have personal contact with us according to our good will. The Father uses this way of contacting us personally in order to get closer to his creatures such as us on our planet Urantia in order to know our way of living the experience of perfection.
Doing the will of God is to perfect oneself in the experience of divinity and means growing in wisdom and worship by improving our mental attitude, looking at our character defects and our personal behavior. The way we interact in our social interactions is the way to perfect our relationship with God. Seeking divine perfection is like a gold prospector looking for a nugget and finding it; continues his search in order to find another to build up a treasure. The man who seeks God is like this gold prospector; he cannot be satisfied with finding a single nugget to increase his treasure of nuggets of divinity. For the gold prospector the nuggets found belong to him; for the man seeking God the nuggets of perfection of divinity are his by right in a life of perpetual search for experiential perfection.
Through the practice of transforming our mental attitudes and our behavior in our relationships and interactions with others, we learn to develop our personality and our spiritual abilities in this practice. The more or less unpleasant events occurring in our daily life and in our material constraints are the school allowing us to learn in wisdom and in worship to develop our qualities of experience of perfection of divinity. By refining our human relationships, we thus learn to listen better, to communicate better with them and thus to understand them better. The Urantia Book mentions: “The better a man understands his neighbor, the easier it is for him to forgive him and even to love him.” [UB 2:4.2]
The best pilot in order to pursue our ideal of spiritual perfection is undoubtedly by the attitude and behavior of Jesus during his human life on our planet Urantia. The incarnation of our Creator Son in the person of Jesus is the perfect archetype of divine attitude and behavior. Humans such as we on our planet have the capacity and the latitude to acquire these experiential qualities of divinity during our earthly life. Our will to seek the experience of spiritual perfection in spite of the uncertainties of everyday life and the obstacles encountered by our material and physical existence leads us towards spiritual progress in this process of seeking perfection. A positive mental attitude trains us and leads us to live an ideal of true spiritual life towards the supreme goal sought in response to the supreme injunction of the Father to attain the perfection of divinity by experience “Be perfect as I myself am perfect.” Ref…: [UB 1:0.3]
This supreme request of the Father addressed to humans such as us on our planet Urantia indicates the possibility of aiming for divine perfection. The “be perfect” is like a challenge required of personalities of good will wishing to submit voluntarily in response to this supreme precept of God. All human personalities are logically involved in this supreme injunction, but no one is forced to follow it, the Universal Father cannot impose His Will against the will and free will of our personality; the sovereignty of our personality is absolute and no one nor God Himself can interpose themselves in the personal choices of each personality.
By continuing our perseverance towards divine perfection, we learn to develop our mental abilities by perfecting our capacities for tolerance, patience, altruism, understanding, long-suffering and fairness as Jesus lived it during his human bestowal on Urantia. Although we cannot live perfection as Jesus lived it on our planet, it is perfectly possible for us humans to live an ideal of perfection by the sincere choice to do the will of God as mentioned in The Urantia Book: “Although an ordinary mortal of Urantia cannot hope to attain the high perfection of character acquired by Jesus of Nazareth during his time of incarnation, it is entirely possible for any mortal believer to develop a strong unified personality along the perfected lines of the personality of Jesus.” Ref…: [UB 100:7.1]
Our will and deep motivation are the main key to reaching the higher levels of perfection, it is not about living the life of Jesus as he lived it but living ours as we live it today on our planet by our deep desire to live the supreme experience of perfection of divinity. Our approach towards this supreme goal by our mental transformations, our power of will, our firmness in our decisions and our perseverance in overcoming all obstacles is the path indicated by the motivation to become more and more like God right here on our planet Urantia. “The essential thing is to know him and to aspire to be like him.” Ref…: [UB 1:1.6]
Self-mastery is the best technique of aspiration toward our ideal of conformity with the will of God. This technique of learning helps to master our innate impulses of our nature and our primitive instincts of animal origin. By mastering our nature of animal origin and our associated primitive instincts, we acquire progressive qualities of divinity perfection by experience, narrowing the gap separating us from the absolute perfection of God. The daily circumstances and situations of our lives provide ample opportunity to learn to perfect our mental abilities and rectify our defects of character in order to improve the quality of our human relationships and our personal contact with the Universal Father. The Urantia Book states: “The difficulties of the universe and the obstacles encountered on the planet must be met as a part of the experiential education provided for the growth and development (progressive perfection) of the evolving souls of mortal creatures.” Ref.: UB 154:2.5
Our spiritual growth always depends on a stable and objective mental attitude towards the unpredictable events and changes in our lives. Self-mastery eliminates the interferences and mental short-circuits that prevent us from being mentally receptive to the will of God. This exercise of practicing this technique of achieving Godlikeness is a blending of human experiential divinity in association with the existential divinity of God. This human-divine association is considered the beginning of morontia life on our planet considering that the morontia soul is formed and associated with our Thought Adjuster. The Urantia Book explains it this way: “You should understand that the morontia life of an ascending mortal actually begins on the inhabited worlds at the conception of the soul, at the time when the mind of a creature of moral status is inhabited by the spiritual Adjuster.” Ref.: [UB 48:6.2]
By learning to control ourselves, to adjust and adapt to the more or less unexpected situations of our life, self-control thus becomes the best school of learning for the formation and stabilization of our character in order to unify and develop our personality through experience in the growth of our development of spiritual perfection. The purpose of our life on our planet is self-realization through mastery. Adjustments to the unpredictable situations of our life are the opportunity to live and evolve morally and spiritually through experience in order to become better citizens of the universe in wisdom and worship. Jesus mentions about self-control: “Self-control is the measure of a man’s moral nature and the index of his spiritual development.” Ref.: [UB 143:2.3]
Ability to comprehend is the mortal passport to Paradise. Willingness to believe is the key to Havona. The acceptance of sonship, co-operation with the indwelling Adjuster, is the price of evolutionary survival.
Ability to comprehend is the mortal passport to Paradise. Willingness to believe is the key to Havona. The acceptance of sonship, co-operation with the indwelling Adjuster, is the price of evolutionary survival. (UB 26:4.15)
Our interactions in our contacts with the people we meet indicate the quality of our relationships in our way of acting and behaving towards our neighbor. Through true sincere inner introspection, we can see the real objective of the corrections to be made to our personality in order to live the experience of divine perfection in our contacts with the people we meet. In our faithfulness in seeking to do the will of God; an attitude of spiritual grace is developed to live the experience of progression towards the goal of being more and more in conformity with his Will. Being more and more in conformity with his Will is always manifested in our human relationships. The Urantia Book mentions: “It is less important to love all men today than to learn each day to love one more.” [UB 100:4.6]
This quest for divine perfection facilitates the work of our Thought Adjuster in spiritualizing our minds, thus giving us eternal value to our experiences of spiritual perfection. To know the Will of God is to know the will of the indwelling Adjuster, and he makes his requests known to us through his difficulties in contacting his subject with regard to our animal minds: “Much of my difficulty arose from the endless conflict between the two natures of my subject: the urge of ambition thwarted by animal indolence” (see following). Ref.: [UB 111:7.5] And: “It is not only the innate nature of the human races that interferes with the work of the Adjusters, but your own preconceived opinions, fixed ideas, and outmoded prejudices also greatly retard their ministry.” Ref.: [UB 109:5.3]
These complaints from our Adjuster indicate the direction to take in order to make a personal evaluation in a real introspection of ourselves. A true meditation allows us to look at and evaluate the handicaps obstructing the inner work of our Thought Adjuster. These unstable mental attitudes hinder the efforts of our Adjuster to raise our spiritual perception in the growth of spiritual perfection. Our spiritual progression allows us to improve our relationships with the people we meet whether at work, in our leisure time, in the family environment or in public places. Our spiritual growth is always proportional to the level of our growth through our behavior in our personal relationships.
The habit of self-evaluation allows us to improve our progress in spiritual perfection by meditating on how to better do the will of God, through our aspiration, our constancy and in our desire to want to be like Him and in conformity with His will. Doing the will of God produces fruits of the spirit and these fruits are always manifested in our interactions with the human beings we meet. By looking at our character defects it is possible to correct the interferences and internal conflicts as mentioned above according to our Thought Adjuster by our own preconceived opinions, our fixed ideas and our outdated prejudices. By a sincere and honest look at ourselves in our behavior, it is possible to produce more fruits of the spirit in our relationships such as “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness and temperance” Ref…: [UB 34:6.13]
The fruits of the Spirit are the antidote to our ego by diminishing the importance of self. Altruism in our human relationships fertilizes the fruits of the Spirit by the fertilizer we spread of love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and temperance; it would be fitting to add to this list of fruits of the Spirit understanding and compassion. The manifestation of the fruits of the Spirit is always realized in our social interactions by the way we behave toward the people we associate with. Our civic behavior toward those we associate with is always representative of our spiritual evolution. Jesus tells us: “Take an interest in your fellow men; learn to love them, and watch for an opportunity to do for them something you are sure they desire.” Then he quoted the ancient Jewish proverb: “A man who wishes to have friends must himself be friendly.” » Ref…: [UB 130:7.2]
The experience gained through our actions and our efforts in the search for divine perfection is reflected in the evolution of our morontia soul. “A soul in evolution is not made divine because it does, but because it strives to do.” Ref.: [UB 48:7.24]
The best way to experience perfection is perfectly quoted in The Urantia Book: “It is not so much what you learn in this first life; it is the experience of living this life that is important. Even the work in this world, important as it is, is not nearly as important as the manner in which you do it.” Ref.: [UB 39:4.13]
Andrew Desjardins
St-Alexis-des-Monts (Quebec-Canada)
LIFE AND DEATH, ONE DOES NOT GO WITHOUT THE OTHER, THIS IS HOW EXISTENCE WORKS. IF WE SPEND OUR DAYS WONDERING WHEN THE DEADLINE WILL ARRIVE, INSTEAD OF LIVING INTENSELY IN THE PRESENT MOMENT, WE CAN CONSIDER THAT DEATH HAS ALREADY CAUGHT US IN ITS NETS…
LIFE IS SHORT, THAT GOES WITHOUT A MATTER. WE CANNOT PREDICT WHEN WE WILL LEAVE IT, BUT WE CAN DECIDE TO REJOICE DAILY IN BEING ALIVE, BY TAKING FULLY ADVANTAGE OF WHAT EXISTENCE BRINGS US. BY RADIATING INTENSITY, BY SPREADING HAPPINESS AROUND US. BECAUSE IF WE REMAIN AUTHENTIC TOWARDS OTHERS, IF WE SPREAD LOVE DAY AFTER DAY, WHEN THAT DAY COMES, WE WILL BE ABLE TO DEPART IN PEACE…
JOELLE LAURENCIN