© 2009 Chris Ragetly
© 2009 Association Francophone des Lecteurs du Livre d'Urantia
| Guest: Dutch Urantia Association | Le Lien Urantien — Issue 46 — Spring 2009 | Personal Growth - Arrival Mansion Worlds |
606 Urantia — Satania 24 Jerusem — Norlatiadek 70 Edentia — Nebadon 84 Salvington U Minor the Third 3 Ensa — U Major the Fifth 5 Splandon — Orvonton 7 Uversa
(Quotations from The Urantia Book in italics; some important passages are in bold.)
Levels of realization of things, meanings and values (fact — idea — relationship)
The authors of The Urantia Book and all superhuman personalities are accustomed to calling the three elements in universal reality: fact, idea, and relationship, things, meanings, and values: See: UB 196:3.2. There are only three elements in universal reality: fact, idea, and relationship. Religious consciousness identifies these realities as science, philosophy, and truth. Philosophy would tend to regard these activities as reason, wisdom, and faith—physical reality, intellectual reality, and spiritual reality. We are accustomed to calling these realities things, meanings, and values.
Depending on whether we look at it from the point of view of religion or philosophy, the understanding of these three elements is different but it is also complementary, religious consciousness considers them as science, philosophy and truth. We notice that philosophy is considered as “meanings”. As such they open up to us the point of view of the philosopher who considers these three elements (the fact, the idea and the relationship) as reason, wisdom and faith, or physical reality, intellectual reality and spiritual reality. The “fact” is understandable as a “thing”, the “idea” as a “mental meaning” and the “relationship” as an understanding of our spiritual filiation with the Universal Father, therefore a “spiritual reality-value”.
We can consider the associated concepts of things, meanings and values of universal reality, as well as their relationships to the Deities.
In the hope of facilitating comprehension and of preventing confusion on the part of every mortal who may peruse these papers, we deem it wise to present in this initial statement an outline of the meanings to be attached to numerous English words which are to be employed in designation of Deity and certain associated concepts of the things, meanings, and values of universal reality. (UB 0:0.3)
(In the above paragraph, the word “things” represents energy, the word “meanings” signifies mental faculties, and the word “values” the spiritual level in which minds evolve.)
Throughout the universes the agencies of the Conjoint Actor ceaselessly manipulate the forces and energies of all space. Like the First Source and Center, the Third is responsive to both the spiritual and the material. The Conjoint Actor is the revelation of the unity of God, in whom all things consist—things, meanings, and values; energies, minds, and spirits. (UB 9:0.4)
In physical life the senses tell of the existence of things; mind discovers the reality of meanings; but the spiritual experience reveals to the individual the true values of life. These high levels of human living are attained in the supreme love of God and in the unselfish love of man. If you love your fellow men, you must have discovered their values. Jesus loved men so much because he placed such a high value upon them. You can best discover values in your associates by discovering their motivation. If someone irritates you, causes feelings of resentment, you should sympathetically seek to discern his viewpoint, his reasons for such objectionable conduct. If once you understand your neighbor, you will become tolerant, and this tolerance will grow into friendship and ripen into love. (UB 100:4.4)
It is highly probable that these undisclosed creator powers will remain self-contained throughout the present universe age. But sometime in the far-distant future, in the now mobilizing universes of outer space, we believe that the liaison between a sevenfold Master Son and a seventh-stage Creative Spirit may attain to absonite levels of service attended by the appearance of new things, meanings, and values on transcendental levels of ultimate universe significance. (UB 21:6.3)
The unification of these three diverse realities can only be done in a mind firmly conscious of things, meanings and values, (this perfect experiential synthesis is done in the Supreme Being) see:
Even the discoveries of science are not truly real in the consciousness of human experience until they are unraveled and correlated, until their relevant facts actually become meaning through encircuitment in the thought streams of mind. Mortal man views even his physical environment from the mind level, from the perspective of its psychological registry. It is not, therefore, strange that man should place a highly unified interpretation upon the universe and then seek to identify this energy unity of his science with the spirit unity of his religious experience. Mind is unity; mortal consciousness lives on the mind level and perceives the universal realities through the eyes of the mind endowment. The mind perspective will not yield the existential unity of the source of reality, the First Source and Center, but it can and sometime will portray to man the experiential synthesis of energy, mind, and spirit in and as the Supreme Being. But mind can never succeed in this unification of the diversity of reality unless such mind is firmly aware of material things, intellectual meanings, and spiritual values; only in the harmony of the triunity of functional reality is there unity, and only in unity is there the personality satisfaction of the realization of cosmic constancy and consistency. (UB 102:2.5)
Spirituality greatly helps to discover beauty in things, to recognize truth in meanings and goodness in values, see:
Spirituality becomes at once the indicator of one’s nearness to God and the measure of one’s usefulness to fellow beings. Spirituality enhances the ability to discover beauty in things, recognize truth in meanings, and discover goodness in values. Spiritual development is determined by capacity therefor and is directly proportional to the elimination of the selfish qualities of love. (UB 100:2.4)
It is through a cosmic technique of self-revelation that this recognition of the reality of these three manifestations of the Infinite is effected. When unified, these three factors consist of a correlation of authentic scientific, philosophical, moral and religious experiences. These three cosmic intuitions give objective validity to the reality of man’s experiences of things, meanings and values. UB 16:6.10. In the outpourings of the mind of the local universes, these three inner perceptions of the cosmic mind constitute the a priori affirmations which make it possible for man to act as a rational and self-conscious personality in the fields of science, philosophy and religion. In other words, the recognition of the reality of these three manifestations of the Infinite is effected through a cosmic technique of self-revelation. Matter-energy is recognized by the mathematical logic of the senses, mental reason intuitively knows its moral duty, and spirit-faith (worship) is the religion of the reality of spiritual experience. These three basic factors of reflective thought may either be unified and coordinated in the development of the personality, or they may become disproportionate and virtually incoherent in their respective functions. But when unified, they produce a strong character, consisting in the correlation of factual science, moral philosophy, and genuine religious experience. And it is these three cosmic intuitions which give objective validity, reality, to man’s experience of things, meanings and values, and to his experience with them. The true values of life are made known only through spiritual experiences, for the mind must be conscious of material things, intellectual meanings and spiritual values and it is in unity that the personality is satisfied in the realization of cosmic constancy and coherence.
At that moment, he becomes aware of his relationship with the experiential Deity, the Supreme Being (UB 102:2.5). The synthesis of things, meanings and values takes place on ever ascending levels of reality (UB 106:0.19). The perception of cosmic constancy and coherence is one of the most satisfying experiences that the human personality can have, in other words, feeling like a cosmic citizen in his own right.
In physical life the senses tell of the existence of things; mind discovers the reality of meanings; but the spiritual experience reveals to the individual the true values of life. These high levels of human living are attained in the supreme love of God and in the unselfish love of man. If you love your fellow men, you must have discovered their values. Jesus loved men so much because he placed such a high value upon them. You can best discover values in your associates by discovering their motivation. If someone irritates you, causes feelings of resentment, you should sympathetically seek to discern his viewpoint, his reasons for such objectionable conduct. If once you understand your neighbor, you will become tolerant, and this tolerance will grow into friendship and ripen into love. (UB 100:4.4)
Even the discoveries of science are not truly real in the consciousness of human experience until they are unraveled and correlated, until their relevant facts actually become meaning through encircuitment in the thought streams of mind. Mortal man views even his physical environment from the mind level, from the perspective of its psychological registry. It is not, therefore, strange that man should place a highly unified interpretation upon the universe and then seek to identify this energy unity of his science with the spirit unity of his religious experience. Mind is unity; mortal consciousness lives on the mind level and perceives the universal realities through the eyes of the mind endowment. The mind perspective will not yield the existential unity of the source of reality, the First Source and Center, but it can and sometime will portray to man the experiential synthesis of energy, mind, and spirit in and as the Supreme Being. But mind can never succeed in this unification of the diversity of reality unless such mind is firmly aware of material things, intellectual meanings, and spiritual values; only in the harmony of the triunity of functional reality is there unity, and only in unity is there the personality satisfaction of the realization of cosmic constancy and consistency. (UB 102:2.5)
We encounter another definition from the Urantia Book regarding things, meanings and values, which may leave us perplexed, it is the appearance of tertiary maxima, see:
We speak of the perfect and the perfected as primary and secondary maximums, but there is still another type: Trinitizing and other relationships between the primaries and the secondaries result in the appearance of *tertiary maximums—*things, meanings, and values that are neither perfect nor perfected yet are co-ordinate with both ancestral factors. (UB 105:5.10)
It is thanks to the technique of trinitization and certain other relationships between the primary and secondary maxima that the appearance of the tertiary maxima is reflected. What are these primary and secondary maxima, see:
1. Primary maximums, the supremely perfect reality, the Havona type of universe and creature.
2. Secondary maximums, the supremely perfected reality, the superuniverse type of creature and creation. (UB 105:5.7-8)
We know that the tertiary maxima are, as far as we are concerned, finite realities which are perfectly unified in the Supreme Being. It is in some way the appearance of the coordinated experiential perfect which precedes (for us) the perfect, primary maxima, and the perfected, secondary maxima.
| Guest: Dutch Urantia Association | Le Lien Urantien — Issue 46 — Spring 2009 | Personal Growth - Arrival Mansion Worlds |