© 2018 Dominique Ronfet
© 2018 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
Dominique Ronfet
Another provocative title!
Come on, be serious.
This is the 5th revelation of the era all the same!!
- So is this stamp enough for you?
- But finally, weren’t you transformed by reading it? Didn’t this book change your life?
- A book remains a book.
He tells us a story, he can try to demonstrate a line of reasoning to us, to make us dream or to teach us something.
How we receive it will vary for each of us and also depending on our emotional state at the time.
So yes, reading the Fascicles offers me a very enriching perspective. It also allows me to exchange with others on crucial themes of life. But it cannot change my life. A book can only be a revealer if I may say so. It can bring out what is underlying in someone, a hope, a fear, an idea, a desire.
That’s already a lot and perhaps a very powerful experience.
- But do you think that the constant and diligent study of these marvelous truths allows you to evolve all the same?!
- You’re moving quickly. In one sentence, you already say words that don’t have the same meaning for each of us.
I hear “truth” and “evolve”.
- You’re playing on words. A truth is a constant, a certainty and evolution is… it’s getting closer to the ideal that we have set for ourselves.
- So you believe that the study of these booklets will awaken the consciousness of individuals with the same perspective of evolution for example?
- Without a doubt.
- So with the same philosophy of life, the same objective?
- Obviously.
- I’m going to confess something to you.
- Yes?
- I have not yet encountered this current.
And that’s pretty normal.
The Booklets open us up to a unique individual responsibility. The one that Jesus proposes to us is not clearly defined, except by these three axes: accepting our divine filiation, following the will that guides us, serving our neighbor.
It’s a bit like saying to us: “Follow the guide!” leaving everyone with the responsibility of finding it.
- But that’s what we do. And by distributing the Book everywhere we…
- Before taking people on a trip you normally need to have a precise idea of the destination, and have a plan or at least a compass.
But in our case this destination cannot be known before reaching it, because it corresponds to an internal state.
We must therefore identify the guide, which can only be personal and internal. The path is therefore just as much.
- But the Book is a guide, it shows us the way and all the steps.
- He describes an external journey to us. He tells us the story of a positive evolution. He cannot do more. The key to the internal stages to go through remains to be discovered for each person.
- But finally, the study of great truths can only make us grow!
- History is filled with believers in great truths who acted in the opposite direction of these “great truths”. The history of religions is just that. Everything is in the false idea that “believing in truths” is a factor of evolution.
Belief is not experience.
“Do as I say, not as I do,” the saying goes.
Or: “The head thinks alone, because the body only does… what it wants.”
- You are trying to denigrate the work and good faith of the readers.
It’s unbearable.
- Absolutely not, but we should no longer lie to ourselves. The Booklets invite us to a difficult and marvelous life path because it is open and liberating.
It is our duty to humbly acknowledge our position on this path before taking someone by the hand to invite them to share our beliefs.
Let’s not make the same mistakes of the past.
Humility and honesty should be our poles.
- So stay alone, inactive with your navel, it’s your wisdom. Fantastic!
- No more. Studying and especially sharing with other readers can help us get out of our bubble and thus approach our everyday life from new angles, by listening more to others and thus having new social, cultural or religious experiences. And there the work is immense.
But repeated study can just as easily close a group in on itself.
I think we call this a religion. It is the opposite of an open life as Jesus demonstrated to us as an example.
- Obviously. We must not create a new religion.
- The Urantian movement is still young, very young.
And the youth is impatient and seeks the security of the group.
- You have a knack for ruining the mood.
- I’m sorry. That wasn’t my intention. Well, yes, a little.
But I find that we still need to mature in order to embody a little more the happy and combative seeker, thirsty, with an ever-unsatisfied curiosity; a traveler of the absolute who knows that he will find in his recognized inexperience a driving force for permanent enthusiasm. This is how I envision the life that Jesus offers us.
- Nice flight. Come on, I don’t blame you, in fact you are a poet.
Are you coming for a drink?
- Okay. I will just end with this strange passage which reminds us that the soul must take the witness, when the intellect has reached the end of its possibilities.
“Mind knows quantity, reality, meanings. But quality—values—is felt. That which feels is the mutual creation of mind, which knows, and the associated spirit, which reality-izes.” ([UB 111:3.6)