© 2023 Conrad Lavallée
© 2023 Urantia Association of Quebec
Conrad Lavallee
Gatineau
(Editor’s note: Here is the full text of Conrad Lavallée’s conference given on September 17, 2023 as part of the series of conferences organized by the AUQ.)
¶ The implications of divine Fatherhood.
The notion of personality — the personality of Our Universal Father.
Unique characteristics of the concept of personality in The Urantia Book UB 112:0.2 — UB 112:0.16.
It is not our physical body.
It is not our thought (conscious and unconscious).
She is not our morontia soul.
She is not (yet) our Thought Adjuster.
It represents the factor that unifies all of these elements.
It is unique, absolutely unique in time and eternity, there are no copies.
She is gifted with free will and a certain form of creative spontaneity.
It has three finite dimensions, three absonite dimensions, and one absolute dimension.
It is always associated with organisms or living beings.
It never changes, it is permanence in the presence of change.
It responds directly to the personal gravity circuit of Our Universal Father.
What responds to the gravity of lower Paradise is matter-energy. This gravity circuit is measurable.
That which responds to the spiritual gravity of the Eternal Son is spiritual in nature. This circuit of gravity is measurable.
That which responds to the mental gravity of the Infinite Mind is mental in nature. This circuit is also measurable.
That which responds to the personal gravity circuit of our Universal Father is personal in nature. This gravity circuit is not measurable, it is too subtle to be measured.
No one knows the location of our personalities between the time of our death on earth and the time of our repersonalization on the mansion world.
¶ The Unfathomable Nature of Our Universal Father’s Personality Circuit
— UB 12:3.2, also UB 115:5.1.
An absolute personality, and absolutely perfect!
The transcendent character of the personality of our Universal Father—non-anthropomorphic character.
Universal Father, a non-anthropomorphic conception of the living and absolute reality of our Universal Father.
Personality seen as permanence in the presence of change.
Personality and the notion of ontological primacy – its implications.
Our Universal Father is an absolute personality.
He is our creator, the source of our personalities, in short, he is our parent, in the true sense of the word.
Why call him Father rather than divine Mother?
It is a question of ontological primacy.
As the “First” being and Center Source of all things and beings, nothing comes before it, nothing precedes it, nothing and no one can precede it.
This is why it is called Our Father.
It is extremely important to emphasize that this does not imply any conceivable or imaginable form of supposed superiority of man over woman. From a cosmic point of view and from a human point of view, man and woman are on a footing of complete equality.
With the persons of the Paradise Trinity there is a concept of Divine Mother.
And we are clearly told that the guardian spirits are always designated by female first names.
While human beings (men and women) are considered sons of God.
Our Father as the source of all personalities.
Establishing a “personal”, real and authentic relationship with our Universal Father — UB 1:6.4 — UB 1:6.5
The only possible proof of the reality of our Universal Father that one human person can communicate to another.
Our Father loves all his children equally.
But our Father also loves each of His children in a unique way.
An eternal answer to the famous question of who am I.
We are his children, his sons (man and woman, we are all sons of our Universal Father on an equal footing).
This helps explain our status:
In the universe.
Compared to eternity.
Our Universal Father as refuge.
Divine Fatherhood greatly enhances our human dignity, in fact the eternal dignity of all people, without exception.
The notion of the Universal Father greatly expands and enhances our notion and appreciation of brotherhood, and by extension our understanding of what we today call inclusion.
Expanding to encompass all of planetary humanity.
Expanding to encompass cosmic and universal humanity, that is, all human persons throughout the vast universe of universes.
Expanding to encompass all orders of material and super-material personality throughout the vast universe of universes, and even beyond, to the level of Paradise.
It is therefore a concept that considerably increases our empathy, not only in a quantitative way, but also in a profoundly qualitative way and level.
Which also increases, even transforms our sense of tolerance and induces in us a much greater capacity for both love and mercy.
Our Father as the universal source of all life.
Our Father as the universal source of all reality our Universal Father is the One who institutes reality, nothing less.
As evolutionary sons of our Universal Father we have the opportunity, at all times, to cooperate with the reality of His Presence within us.
We designate Universal Father that part of God, the First and Eternal Central Source of all things and all beings, a part that we know through our living and filial relationship with it.
This experience is meant to grow, to grow eternally.
Our conception of our Universal Father is therefore called to grow, to grow eternally.
Our philosophical conception of the Father must take into account that reality of the Father which lies infinitely beyond our conception, and this, no matter what level we may reach in the framework of our eternal career. There will always be something new, something more for us to discover, concerning the living reality of our Universal Father, and this from all eternity.
Our Father is the true Source of our free will, our free will, and this despite the constraints and conditioning which inevitably accompany our current human condition.
Our Thought Adjuster, the direct presence within us of the Spirit of our Universal Father.
Through our Thought Adjuster, our Father shares his divine Self with us.
The highest essence of divinity, of Deity directly present within our human mind, acting at a super-conscious level.
A presence with which we are called to merge eternally, through our real, sincere desire to accomplish His good and divine will.
Two immutable realities, which do not change in us our personality and our Thought Adjuster.
But which are called to merge, to become one eternally.
Our Adjuster—prepersonal—at a level prior to personality, a level antithetical to all distinction between spirit, thought, and energy.
Our Adjuster “adjusts” our thinking to the absolute, eternal reality of our Universal Father.
In the process of worshiping our Universal Father, it is our Adjuster who conducts this worship and actually presents it directly to our Father at the center of all things.
Our Adjuster is both pure spirit and pure energy, it is as if we have a part of the big bang in us, but in reality it is infinitely more extraordinary than that.
Communion with the living reality of our Universal Father.
The possibility of direct personal communication with the absolute person of our Universal Father.
Exploration, growing appreciation and progressive experiential unification of the three supreme values—truth, goodness and beauty—in our respective lives.
The coordination of these values through faith, wisdom, worship and love.
The concepts of personality and prepersonality
The Universal Father at the level of I AM — that is, the Eternal Father.
The will of our Universal Father is present at the level of I AM, of the Infinite Father.
It is the will of our Universal Father present at the level of I AM which makes possible the passage from one to the many.
Which brings out a multitude of profound implications at the level of our life, our universal career, and our behaviors, our religious, spiritual and integral approaches with regard to our relationship with the world, with universal and phenomenal reality.
This concerns the reality of the universe, of the cosmos, it is absolutely not the fruit, the result of any form of cosmic illusion.
The will of our Universal Father is truly transformational, leading us not only to transform ourselves, but also to transform the world, the universe in which we live.
The act is ours, the consequences are God’s.
¶ What brings God closer to the human person and the human person closer to God.
Let us consider the importance of what brings the human person closer to God and God closer to the human person. In this perspective, the experience of recognizing and relating to God as our Universal Father plays a crucial role because it is the most direct, effective, warmest, richest and most wonderful way, but also the safest way to establish, maintain and nourish, to continually feed our direct personal relationship with God. It is the approach that brings a human person closest to God and God closest to the human person.
¶ Factors that contribute to distancing people from God.
God presented as a force, as an energy in the immensity of the universe.
God as an impersonal absolute and very difficult to access - accessible through disciplines that are often complex, very difficult and sometimes even dangerous, requiring going through gurus, masters.
Primitive and anthropomorphic notions of God.
God presented as a sort of distant adoptive Father, accessible only through intercession.
God not directly accessible, with an almost mechanical conception which involves blind obedience and conformity to the prescriptions of certain supposedly sacred books.
Notions relating to a jealous, angry, wrathful, and punishing God.
Sacrificial God — relics of evolutionary religions, notions of redemption by blood, original sin, etc.
God presented as a sort of character, as a sort of temporary crutch on a more or less human scale — example the Iswara concept.
¶ Problems that characterize these factors:
Intellectualization and rationalization of the notion of God, which makes it less and less accessible to ordinary mortals.
God becomes, in a way, a matter for specialists.
Complex philosophies and intellectual flights of fancy come between man and God. We intellectualize the notion of God in order to better control it.
We involve all sorts of complicated steps, generally negative, restrictive, ascetic, often insipid and almost always useless in the end to arrive at true communion with God.
The relationship with God is cluttered with rituals of all kinds, harsh conditions, institutional rules, to control the religious and spiritual behavior of people, even going so far as to use fear as a means of control.
All these approaches succeed only very weakly, and often not at all, in quenching the spiritual thirst of the human soul, and the true spiritual needs of all human persons.
In many contemporary religions, especially Eastern ones, God is presented as a perfect but totally impersonal Absolute. And since we live in an imperfect universe, the universe, and therefore human life as a whole, is presented as a vast cosmic illusion due to a sort of fundamental ignorance.
So, within the framework of these approaches, spiritual life becomes a sort of escape from the world, from universal reality considered as a vulgar illusion. These teachings often lead to a denial of the reality of the human person, of his will, of his free will.
From this perspective, spiritual life becomes a kind of escape.
¶ What the recognition of divine paternity brings us.
It brings us immensely closer to God, not just in theory, but in reality.
The recognition of divine paternity opens an interior door which allows us to establish directly, without the slightest
intermediary, an intimate and personal, loving relationship with God, our Universal Father.
This relationship allows us to appreciate and deeply feel the love of God, as the true Father of our people.
This recognition requires only an act of faith to be effective and bear fruit. It is within the reach of all human beings capable of making a moral choice, including young children.
This act of faith is immediately accessible, within reach, so to speak, of every human being living on this planet, and every person living in the universe of universes.
The recognition of divine paternity is accessible to all human persons living on this planet, regardless of their level of culture, their scientific or philosophical knowledge, their standard of living, their level of education or even lack of education, their gender, their age, their political orientation, their language, their ethnicity, their religious beliefs, their refinement and their technological expertise.
It quenches the spiritual thirst of the human soul by immediately establishing a direct loving relationship with our Father.
It immediately enhances the spiritual receptivity of the human person, and in doing so the receptivity to the directives of the Spirit of the Father who inhabits our human thoughts.
It immensely enhances the dignity of the human being in the universe while making us aware of his immense value, as sons of God.
It leads to the realization of the universal brotherhood of all personalities, and consequently increases the desire and joy of service, tolerance, acceptance, empathy, true compassion, and love in the noblest and highest sense of the word. It makes us aware not only of our common interdependence, but of our common, spiritual, universal and eternal kinship.
It immediately, instantly ensures our eternal survival in this great and wonderful family of our Father’s will.
It brings us joy, comfort, courage, determination, it wonderfully stimulates in us all that is best, noblest, highest. It directly nourishes our living soul. It allows us to take refuge at all times in the loving and divine person of our Universal Father and is the source of an indescribable peace. It leads us to overcome our selfish impulses and to reach out to others lovingly, in a spirit of selfless service. It transforms us from top to bottom and makes us born from above. It makes us participate now in eternal life by ensuring our eternal survival.
¶ Illustration of the notion of an art of living.
In the art of living, our entire life becomes our canvas. We are called to create, on this canvas, a work for the glory of God. Our three primary colors are truth, goodness and beauty. We can obtain an infinite number of shades by mixing these primary colors. We can therefore create astonishing works by applying these three fundamental values to the various components of our respective lives. But we need brushes. We therefore have four formidable brushes at our disposal with which we can apply these colors, that is to say coordinate these supreme values: faith, wisdom, love and worship.
¶ Looking at the glass half empty or half full.
It is obvious that a glass half full is also a glass half empty, and vice versa. Looking at and considering the glass as half empty or half full does not magically change the nature or condition of the glass. On the other hand, the nature of the look considerably modifies the nature of the person looking. The person who looks at the glass as half empty tends to become pessimistic, to develop anxiety, to panic, to worry about the bad side of things. But the person who looks at the glass as half full tends to take things on the bright side, to develop their hope, their confidence, to maintain attitudes and adopt positive, constructive behaviors which will actually allow them to move forward in life, with more joy, inner peace and true happiness.
¶ Our view of God and divine Fatherhood.
The same is true of our way of relating to God, our way of looking at God. This does not change God, but it does change immensely, profoundly the life of the person who looks at Him. But, in fact, divine fatherhood is more than just a look, it is a universal, eternal and fundamental reality. Our personalities are direct gifts from God. He is our Father as the real, direct and eternal source of each of our personalities. The free will that we possess is a personal faculty that comes directly from Him, that He has given to us.
¶ The reason we inhabit our bodies.
The reason why we inhabit the material body that comes from our parents, that we are the ones who inhabit it personally instead of another person, is that our Universal Father has directly transmitted the prerogative of personal status to our living organism. This means that he is really the eternal Father of each of our personalities and that he leaves us free to nourish or not our relationship with Him.
¶ For Our Father, there are two kinds of people in the universe UB 133:0.3
Jesus tells us that for the Father, there are two kinds of people in the universe, those who want to do His will and those who do not want to do His will. He leaves us completely free to nurture this Father/child relationship with Him. In other words, He leaves us completely free to accept and welcome, by living faith, the reality of His Fatherhood. And when we accept and recognize the reality and the simply sublime and wonderful fact of His Fatherhood, by living faith, something fantastic happens immediately. We enter fully, and immediately, into the living reality of the Kingdom of Heaven, of the eternal family, of His good and divine will. We are instantly, immediately and without reservation admitted into the endless circuit of eternal life. We live the experience of eternal salvation.
¶ Pearl of great price — the greatest service we can render.
It is the pearl of great price, the treasure of treasures, the wonder of wonders. Of all the services we can render to someone, the communication, the transmission, the loving and living proclamation of this great news remains the most precious, the most important, the richest and the highest service we can render to another person.
¶ What can we be afraid of?
What can we be afraid of when we know that God, who institutes all universal and personal reality, in time and space, and beyond time and space, is, and this directly, our own Father, that he loves us with an extraordinary love, that he continually takes care of us. He sends his Spirit, a subabsolute part of Himself, of his own Self, to live inside our human thought to develop an immortal soul there, and he offers us the possibility of merging eternally, thus of becoming one with this divine Spirit through the accomplishment of his good and divine will!
¶ This is good, life-saving news.
This is good news, this is the good saving news par excellence, eternally destined to make all the peddlers of bad news in this world or in any world pale.
¶ If we recruit through fear we end up with a lot of fearful people.
We live in toxic and morbid media and often political environments that continually strive to present us with the glass half empty, an easy and convenient way to manipulate people through fear. I see that the scarecrow of fear is sometimes raised to recruit or mobilize people, even within the framework of the Urantia movement. But I tell you that if we use fear to recruit readers, or to mobilize the readership, we will end up with a lot of fearful people! And I can guarantee you that this is not what Jesus wants, nor is it what the revelators want.
¶ Jesus exhorts us to have no fear, to rejoice and be filled with gladness—and heroic people.
Jesus never asked us to whine, to be pessimistic, to only see the bad side of things, to panic when faced with the slightest problem, the slightest challenge that life can and will present to us. He always told us to be without fear, have no fear! He always told us: rejoice and be filled with gladness! And when you are faced with the challenges of life, let the Spirit of my Father who is in you speak! A hero is a person who risks his life out of love for the people he loves, or out of love for the people around him. Heroic people are courageous people, they are not cowards, people driven by fear, but wonderfully courageous people whose authentic courage comes from a deep and true love for their fellow men.
¶ We are the custodians of the greatest saving message.
We are the custodians of the greatest saving message, the most important and wonderful good news ever given to humanity. So let us live courageously and lovingly up to this situation.
¶ Better to light a candle than curse the darkness.
A Chinese proverb tells us that it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. I believe this is a word of wisdom that applies to all areas, that is valid for all situations.
¶ Exert spiritual pressure from above.
The approach at the level of the proclamation of divine Fatherhood and human brotherhood proceeds by the sole power of spiritual attraction which consists of lodging the spiritual call at the level of the soul of our interlocutors, and this without exerting the slightest physical, emotional or psychological pressure. We allow only one form, only one type of pressure to act: authentic and true spiritual pressure. In fact, people must be truly, naturally and spiritually inspired by the living forces of living spirituality which emerge from our lives.
¶ Comparison with magnetic domains.
This is what will make all the difference. To make an analogy, we can compare people to magnetic domains in a metal bar, such as iron. When these domains are oriented in all sorts of directions, they end up canceling each other out, thus neutralizing each other. But when we align these domains, they release a powerful force of magnetic attraction. The same is true, continuing the analogy, with our personal thoughts. When our thoughts and desires shoot out in all sorts of directions, they also end up canceling each other out, neutralizing each other. But when they align in the direction of the will of our good and divine Universal Father, they release a formidable force of attraction and spiritual inspiration wonderfully capable of motivating and directing our spiritual brothers and sisters towards our Universal Father, and towards the learning practice of his good and divine will.
¶ Thought Adjuster, Spirit of Truth, Mother Spirit of our local universe.
It is our Thought Adjuster who aligns our thoughts and desires in the direction of the fulfillment of the will of our Universal Father, and it is the Spirit of Truth who registers and captures these thoughts and desires, these well-aligned spiritual orientations, in the spiritual attraction circuit of the Eternal Son. The spiritual quality of these thoughts causes them to also register in the mind circuit of the Infinite Spirit through the Mother Daughter of our local universe.
¶ By developing our ability to live the will of our Universal Father.
By developing our ability to live the will of our Universal Father, we considerably promote the entry and functioning of these circuits of gravitation, of spiritual and mental attraction in our respective lives. And it is in this way, in particular, that we can ensure that authentic spiritual pressure can be exerted from above in the hearts and souls of our interlocutors, of the people with whom we come into contact in our lives.
¶ Some food for thought on our awakening to the world of houses.
¶ Our new morontia body.
New, therefore new youth.
We will have a completely new body, therefore young, immortal and capable of evolutionary metamorphoses towards an entirely spiritual state, a form of pure spiritual luminosity.
The perspective of aging that inevitably characterizes our psychological dynamics in this world will be replaced by a perspective of growth and eternal improvement. There will therefore be very profound changes of a psychological nature. We will witness new attitudes towards life as a whole (attitudes already realized here, on earth, by people animated by a living faith).
And even if we will be deprived of reproductive organs, many of the fundamental characteristics that make us men and women are expected to persist and will ensure that we will continue to love and intrigue each other at this level, and this probably with an eternal perspective.
Non-combustible — neither flesh nor blood.
Our new morontia body is made of substance and materials that are not combustible.
He has neither flesh nor blood.
No reproductive organs
Since we are no longer reproductive beings, this new body is devoid of reproductive organs.
No excretory organs UB 43:6.6.
Morontia nutrients are absorbed there at 100%, so we also have no excretory organs.
Far superior sensory acuity UB 46:5.10.
Our senses are considerably more refined and developed than our earthly human senses.
Far superior psychic equipment UB 103:6.7, UB 101:3.13, UB 46:6.2.
We will be endowed with morontia thought, therefore with a type of brain considerably more advanced than our material brain.
A New World of perceptions.
We will be able to directly perceive and interact with material, morontia, and spiritual beings and realities.
Our new morontia thinking will give us a stereoscopic perception of reality, a perception that integrates both the spiritual and material realms. From a cognitive standpoint, our potential for growth and evolution is greatly enhanced, even heightened in virtually every way.
¶ Our new immediate environment.
Our world in comparison to architectural worlds.
Our planet is probably overpopulated.
When I was born, about 2 billion people.
I am now 70 years old, and there are already more than 8 billion of us.
Only 14-15 percent of our planet’s surface is inhabited by humans.
71% covered by vast oceans and bodies of water.
50% of the land is habitable.
An evolutionary world characterized by seasonal and climatic variations, cataclysms of all kinds, famines, periods of drought, political instability, pollution on a very large scale, many endangered species, diseases and pandemics, wars, very great inequalities, a great ethnic, cultural, linguistic variety. Very dangerous levels of poverty, often immature leaders who tend to maintain short-term perspectives, and the dangerous and destructive game of human selfishness. And despite all this, there are still very good things happening on this planet.
Architectural worlds.
100% habitable area — abundant lakes and canals, but no vast oceans or rivers or large streams.
Jerusem 100 larger than the earth, approximately the size of our sun!
Jerusem’s immediate satellites — 10 times the size of our planet, or approximately the size of Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system.
The home worlds, and all secondary satellites the size of our planet, but completely habitable.
Temperature, climate, lighting.
The temperature, climate and lighting are perfectly controlled on the architectural worlds, so there will no longer be, for us, seasonal variations, rains, droughts, torrid heat or Siberian cold, no more tornadoes, hurricanes, landslides, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, or all of these meteorological phenomena which characterize our inhabited planetary-type worlds.
Food is abundant there, so no more famines. No more breeding of animals for the slaughterhouse either since our diet will be vegetarian.
Transparent and roofless dwellings.
Our dwellings, our morontia abodes, will be carved from blocks of completely transparent crystals—since we no longer have reproductive organs, the notion of privacy takes on a whole new meaning. Opaque walls as such are no longer necessary.
In addition, our homes will no longer have roofs, so they will be open to the sky, which becomes completely understandable given that the climate is perfectly mastered and controlled in these environments. There will no longer be large sewer systems like those found in our terrestrial cities, since we absorb 100% of our food, which is, in fact, pure energy growth.
Rapid transport — and carrier birds.
We will have very fast, more efficient public transport, and perhaps, in some cases, more or less personal means of transport. But certainly not congested and polluting systems like those we know on earth.
Extremely helpful and wonderfully intelligent animals — the spornagias.
There will be no carnivorous animals or dangerous animals. But we will have animals considerably more beautiful, intelligent and evolved and more helpful than those we know on earth, namely the spornagias.
¶ Our new cultural environment.
Cosmic civilization of several billion years.
While we have been living in a world that we can consider partially civilized for only a few centuries, we are arriving in a world with a culture, a civilization and a technical and scientific evolution that is several billion years old! The changes for us will not only be considerable, but also quite fascinating.
Personalized welcome — translators at our disposal.
We will have access to translators—the morontia companions, who are the true linguists of our system. We will be personally greeted by one of them upon our arrival on the mansion world.
Human colleagues from 619 planetary worlds plus a multitude of other personality types.
We will be called upon to rub shoulders with a multitude of personality types, and pilgrims from over 600 inhabited worlds. Our immediate environment will be much more cosmic in nature, and we will be able to develop a much more wonderfully universal sense of brotherhood and inclusion.
Learning the systemic languages of Nebadon and Orvonton — profound impact on the development of a universal culture.
We will be called upon to learn three languages—the systemic language, the language of Nebadon, and then the language of Orvonton. As a result of these linguistic learnings, we will be able to converse with an immeasurable number of human and celestial beings. As a result, our culture is called upon to become cosmic, universal in the true sense of the term.
We will have access to the vast circuits of universal telecommunication and broadcasting, which will enable us to see directly Michael of Nebadon as he is the Creator Son of our local universe, and the same is true of Gabriel.
This will enable us to receive direct news from other worlds, constellations, our local universe, minor and major systems, as well as our superuniverse of Orvonton, and even news directly from Havona and Paradise.
Instead of an internet flouted by all sorts of pernicious phenomena such as scams, pirates, excessive commercialism, phenomena of systematic disinformation, exploitation of private lives, hostile manipulations of an algorithmic nature, we will have access to a vast network of balanced universal television broadcasting, wonderfully ethical, constructive, educational, fascinating, revealing transformational realities, truly inspiring, capable of inspiring us and galvanizing us in the sense of fulfilling the will of our Universal Father, of guiding us and making us grow in the sense of truth, goodness and beauty.
We will have access to educational systems and methods that are vastly more advanced and effective than anything we know of here on earth.
¶ What awaits us, in particular. Parental experience and probationary nursery.
We will have the opportunity to see first-hand very rich and wonderfully faithful recordings of footage from Jesus’ life on earth.
We will become familiar with the history and evolution of over 600 inhabited worlds in our system, and we will have the opportunity to visit these worlds directly!
We will, of course, have the opportunity to communicate again with acquaintances who have preceded us in the world of homes, members of our families, our relatives, friends, people with whom we have worked or served in this world.
And of course, new arrivals who know us will have the opportunity to communicate with us.
We will be formed into teams or groups including people with whom we have walked during our lifetime in this world.
All our hereditary and psychological deficiencies will be completely corrected, and our characters will be wonderfully oriented in the right direction.
In a short time, we will have the chance to visualize the finaliter colonies, thus having a preliminary glimpse of some absolutely fascinating elements of our universal destiny.
We will, in particular, have the opportunity to see and share directly with our big brothers Melchizedek!
We will learn a new form of mathematics, so-called morontia mathematics, which will considerably expand our capacity for understanding a set of universal phenomena, some of which are associated with the dimensions of personality.
We will also have tremendous musical formations, we will reach the pinnacle of music as understood at its highest level in the evolutionary planetary worlds.