© 2022 Claude Flibotte
© 2022 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
What if time was directly linked to movement and our mental capacity to understand it! This is the reflection that is currently creeping into my thoughts!
¶ THE HUMAN CONCEPTION OF TIME
We all know that our material mind as human beings is limited. Depending on our biological heritage, some are more equipped than others to exploit this phenomenon that is the mind. Although it is possible to push one’s mental capacities further through practice as we increase the capacity of muscles with exercise, there remain limits that the human mind cannot cross unless it acquires the higher mental faculties of the soul. It is this cognitive limitation of the human mind associated with movement that makes us conscious of time.
Finally, time is completely relative depending on several factors affecting the present moment for each person. If I am sad and unhappy, time seems like an eternity to me. The same is true if I am waiting for something or someone. On the other hand, if I am in the joy of a joyful activity shared with friends, time flies by.
The revelators inform us of the personality that it has a unique consciousness of time, something other than the perception of time by the mind or spirit (UB 112:0.16). The absolute of time is eternity (UB 12:5.2), but to conceive of this absolute of time one must be endowed with an absolute consciousness, which we obviously do not have! According to the revelators, there are three levels of knowledge of time: first, time perceived by the mind—a consciousness of sequence, movement, and a sense of duration; second, time perceived by the spirit—a perception of movement toward God and a consciousness of upward movement to levels of increasing divinity; and third, as I indicated earlier, the personality creates a unique sense of time by its penetration of reality, plus a consciousness of presence and a perception of duration (UB 12:5.6-9). Note that the word “creates” in the previous description is in italics, which signifies the importance of understanding what they want to show us.
Through our capacity for mental perception and being inhabited by the spirit, we humans are able to imagine the past, to act in the present and by clairvoyance to predict the future. We have the possibility of being a cosmic cause of these events (UB 12:5.11). The more I immerse myself in cosmic consciousness, the more my decisions-actions are real and in accordance with the will of the Father, the more my reality asserts itself in the cosmos and the more my perception of time changes to approach the global and unified vision of my Creator.
¶ THE VISION OF THE FATHER’S CREATIVE PLAN
In contrast to man’s vision, let us see together a faint glimpse of God’s vision. He is absolute, infinite and eternal. In his vision of absolute eternity, only the present moment exists.
The perfection of divine reality is immutable, this is undoubtedly the reason for the absence of movement, and the explanation of the static level of perfect and all-inclusive reality. For the Father, there is neither beginning nor end, there is only the existential perfection of his universal plan of divine expression.
This expression has manifested itself in the existence of the Eternal Son, the Paradise Island, the Infinite Spirit, the Paradise Trinity, the three Absolutes (Deity, Unqualified and Universal) and the central universe of Havona inhabited by perfect beings. Except for Havona and its inhabitants, the other eight (including the Father) are absolute and existential actualities. Havona and its natives are eternal. This universe is in another class which I will deal with later.
It is said that the citizens of Paradise are fully aware of the timeless sequence of events (UB 11:2.11). This state of affairs is entirely consistent with their nature as quasi-absolute divine existential beings, a situation caused by their status as creatures. They benefit from almost the same vision of the Paradise Deities. This is the reason why they are aware of the sequence of events, but not aware of time, because they inhabit Paradise outside of time and space.
In the vision of the Universal Father, we are all finaliters, but in the eyes of His manifestation in the Supreme Being, we are humans in progression to becoming finaliters.
¶ THE EXISTENCE OF ABSONITES
As mind in all its forms is midway between material and spirit consciousness; as the morontia level is between the material and the spiritual levels; as the soul exists between human existence and Adjuster divinity, the absonite level is a reality between the level of the finite and the level of the absolute. What characterizes these three levels is the experience of the attainment of perfection. Absonite beings have neither beginning nor end, and while they are aware of time and space, they transcend them. They are not created beings like ourselves, but eventuated beings ( UB 0:1.12 ). What does this mean? I think that in the mind of God these beings are existential, and when the time of their intervention is present, they are. This is why there have been absonite beings in Paradise and Havona in the eternal past and will be in the distant future on the four outer space levels.
¶ Time… this by-product of Paradise Island
It is written in UB 11:2.11, it seems that space originates just below Nether Paradise and time just above Upper Paradise. Why do the revelators not tell us that the origin of time and space is Paradise rather than saying “it seems”? The reason is probably this: the absolute and infinite reality of eternal Deity includes neither. It must be remembered that Paradise Island is not located in space, it is a timeless reality! All that is absolute is not concerned with time and space. All that is subabsolute is concerned with time and space, whether it is of the finite, absonite realm or the experiential absolute (supreme-ultimate). Therefore, time and space are consequences of the reality of Paradise Island. “Collateral damage” as our military would say! What comes from Paradise is the power of space that was emitted all at once at the dawn of eternity (UB 42:2.3).
Since the Adjusters are of God and in fact are God, it is normal that they are not conscious of time since for the existential God, time has no reality. This is why the water changed into wine at the wedding at Cana could be accomplished without recourse to time. In fact, all actions of the Paradise Deities will always be a divine fiat, an instantaneous and perfect creation. Only that which comes from subinfinite personalities can be actualized in time and space. It is not for nothing that the Father-Son begets Creator Sons for the creation of the universes of time and space!
Just as certain personalities from the Infinite Spirit can cancel linear gravity, antigravity, certain other personalities from the same origin can manipulate time. The example of the dissolution of Jesus’ body in an instant is an eloquent demonstration of this.
¶ Conclusion
It seems to me that being in Paradise, after my last sleep of time and space, equipped at that moment with a cosmic consciousness embracing the universal concept of the divine plan, I will have a vision similar to that of my Father, an eternal instant where the past-present-future will be no more than a single existential reality endowed with an infinite potential for endless experience! I will be similar to the beings populating the island of Paradise, but in possession of an inestimable experience of time and space. The experience of my self-creation and that of a new Deity!
Claude Flibotte
Sainte-Julie (Quebec) Canada
Experience, wisdom, and judgment coincide with the lengthening of the unit of time in mortal experience. When the human mind reaches back into the past, it evaluates previous experience with the purpose of influencing a present situation. When the mind extends into the future, it attempts to evaluate the future significance of a possible action. Having thus taken into account both experience and wisdom, the human will makes a decision-judgment in the present, and the plan of action thus born of the past and the future comes into existence.
In the maturity of the developing self, the past and the future are brought together to illuminate the true meaning of the present. As the self matures, it draws on an increasingly distant past for its experience, while its wisdom forecasts seek to penetrate ever deeper into the unknown future. And as the conceiving self extends its reach further into the past and future, its judgment depends less and less on the momentary present. The decision-action thus begins to escape the bonds of the moving present, while it gradually takes on the aspects of past-future meaning.
Patience is practiced by mortals whose units of time are short. True maturity transcends patience through a long-suffering born of true understanding. UB 118:1.4