© 1996 François Dupont
© 1996 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
| Artistic conception of the Master Universe | Le Lien Urantien — Issue 2 — Autumn 1996 | Meeting of the translators of the URANTIA Book organized by the URANTIA Foundation in PARIS in April 1996 |
From August 9 to 12, 1996, the 3rd IUA conference took place in Nasville-Tennessee (USA). National associations from different states met there.
A strategic planning session preceded it on August 8, led by representatives of the various national delegations, to define objectives and develop a plan for the dissemination and promotion of The URANTIA Book over the next 5 to 10 years.
These two events took place on the campus of Vanderbilt University, a place conducive to both warm contacts and more personal meditations.
Under the title “On the road to service” a triptych Consecration-Integration-Transformation was deployed — forming the basis of the conference.
After the practical communications, the morning began with the successive study of one of the parts of the triptych.
In the afternoon, small groups were formed to develop in depth the theme presented previously.
However, two new possibilities have been introduced:
On August 9, Michäel Hanian (Russia) opened the Study Conference by developing the first theme, dedicated to Consecration.
The Universal Father never imposes any form of arbitrary recognition, formal worship, or slavish service upon the intelligent will creatures of the universes. The evolutionary inhabitants of the worlds of time and space must of themselves—in their own hearts—recognize, love, and voluntarily worship him. The Creator refuses to coerce or compel the submission of the spiritual free wills of his material creatures. The affectionate dedication of the human will to the doing of the Father’s will is man’s choicest gift to God; in fact, such a consecration of creature will constitutes man’s only possible gift of true value to the Paradise Father. In God, man lives, moves, and has his being; there is nothing which man can give to God except this choosing to abide by the Father’s will, and such decisions, effected by the intelligent will creatures of the universes, constitute the reality of that true worship which is so satisfying to the love-dominated nature of the Creator Father. (UB 1:1.2)
He highlighted the link between intellectual curiosity and deepening of the content born from the approach of the URANTIA Book. The result of his two investigations leading to a new perception of God, Men and Life.
To achieve this, it would be desirable for the individual will to be able to be supported by various processes of reflection and research. The reader could find there a viaticum made of trust and it would therefore be possible for him to devote his qualities of intelligence, heart and strength of soul to it. These processes will necessarily coincide with the will of the Universal Father, but will not go without constant “refining”. God created the Supreme. By a reoriented will, Man can contribute to his evolution, he can accelerate it towards the final completeness of the Supreme.
On August 10, Nienke Begemann (Netherlands) continued the second morning on the second theme, that of Integration.
It is a matter of harmonizing the three levels of the finite reality of our personality: the physical, the mental, and the spiritual. By allowing the Divine Adjuster and the Spirit of Truth to illuminate our thinking and structure our soul, we facilitate the appearance of successive mutations in our thought system.
On August 11, Neill Francey (Australia) closed the last part of the triptych by evoking the theme of Transformation.
This will happen slowly or suddenly, on a case-by-case basis, depending on the individuals and personalities encountered, the ultimate goal being, in the long term, the achievement of perfection.
In the meantime, these transformations, large or small, spectacular or modest, prepare our personality for previously unsuspected possibilities. From these new openings will now emerge our intellectual, moral, spiritual choices.
We will thus cross the successive spirals of human evolution.
Our understanding of cosmic citizenship as well as our dialogue with God the Father will be strengthened. As for the supports or vehicles of these transformations, we will find them in the life and teachings of Jesus which include, among others: humility, communion, meditation, forgiveness, international and social fraternity, confident expectation etc.
In the universes God the Father is, in potential, the overcontroller of matter, mind, and spirit. Only by means of his far-flung personality circuit does God deal directly with the personalities of his vast creation of will creatures, but he is contactable (outside of Paradise) only in the presences of his fragmented entities, the will of God abroad in the universes. This Paradise spirit that indwells the minds of the mortals of time and there fosters the evolution of the immortal soul of the surviving creature is of the nature and divinity of the Universal Father. But the minds of such evolutionary creatures originate in the local universes and must gain divine perfection by achieving those experiential transformations of spiritual attainment which are the inevitable result of a creature’s choosing to do the will of the Father in heaven. (UB 1:3.6)
Francois Dupont
September 1, 1996 — BRUSSELS
| Artistic conception of the Master Universe | Le Lien Urantien — Issue 2 — Autumn 1996 | Meeting of the translators of the URANTIA Book organized by the URANTIA Foundation in PARIS in April 1996 |