© 2023 Georges Michelson Dupont
© 2023 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
George Michelson Dupont
Recloses November 2023
The first paragraph of the Urantia Book begins with bad news, the Divine Counselor notes and I quote:
“IN THE MINDS of the mortals of Urantia—that being the name of your world—there exists great confusion respecting the meaning of such terms as God, divinity, and deity. Human beings are still more confused and uncertain about the relationships of the divine personalities designated by these numerous appellations. Because of this conceptual poverty associated with so much ideational confusion, I have been directed to formulate this introductory statement in explanation of the meanings which should be attached to certain word symbols as they may be hereinafter used in those papers which the Orvonton corps of truth revealers have been authorized to translate into the English language of Urantia.” (UB 0:0.1)
To tell the truth, it is clear that he is not wrong. The eventful history of our planet partly explains the situation, but not only that. By that I mean that “this poverty of concepts associated with so much confusion in ideation” belongs to us. How is it that having 3 major monotheistic religions, proclaiming the existence of a single God, their followers have been tearing each other apart for so many centuries without admitting or realizing that it is the same God.
What can we say, then, about the “right-thinking” in the West, who invoke the horror of fratricidal religious wars to reject the very existence of God, confusing the personal relationship with the institution, thus throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Finally, what view should we take of the other half of polytheistic humanity or of those, so numerous, who do not even ask themselves the existential question, the only one worth asking?
This bitter observation was also made by the celestial authorities of Urantia well before the 20th century. In the Middle Ages, Tabamantia came on an inspection visit to Urantia in the midst of a religious war. It was then that the chief of the seraphim and the united midwayers of Urantia, in consultation with him, sent a petition to the Ancients of Days of Uversa to demand a new epochal revelation, the previous one having partially failed. [UB 195:0.12]
This is how a Corps of Truth Revealers was established and sent from the capital Uversa to Urantia “to expand cosmic consciousness and heighten spiritual perception”. [UB 0:0.2] It was no longer a question of sending a Son of Bestowal on a mission of oral revelation but of bringing the truth in written form, The Urantia Book. Thus, the Word which, before, had become flesh, became a book. Let us specify here that the term Word must be understood as divine truth, delivered either orally or in written form.
It is legitimate to ask why a book? I leave it to everyone to think about it and come up with their own answer.
The mission of the revelators is therefore: the expansion of our cosmic consciousness and the enhancement of our spiritual perception. I admit that at first reading, the meaning of this mission seemed very enigmatic to me. What is “cosmic consciousness”? What does “enhancing our spiritual perception” mean? Don’t I already have a reflective consciousness and a perception of the truth? I must admit that it took me a while to understand that these two realities are acquired through progressive experience as I sought to do the will of our Universal Father.
Cosmic consciousness and spiritual perception have a common origin: faith in God and a common process of progression: the good faith experience of the being who seeks to do the will of the Universal Father. The two are dual in their manifestation.
First: the awareness of being inhabited by a fragment of the Universal Father, the Thought Adjuster. It brings us 3 progressive experiential realizations:
1. The intellectual capacity to know God — God consciousness.
The indwelling Thought Adjuster reveals to the human mind the presence of God as our Creator, our Father. Every human being indwelt by an Adjuster is therefore aware of the existence of God, even if he is agnostic or unbelieving.
2. The spiritual need to find Godthe search for God.
The God consciousness thus established, the Thought Adjuster conspires to create the desire to know God and to establish sonship with him. The little ones, from the moment of their birth, seek wonder and protection. This is the preparatory work of the spirit of worship and wisdom for the coming of the Indwelling Spirit.
3. The desire of the personality to be like God — the sincere desire to do the will of the Father. [UB 1:2.6]
Having discovered God, his infinite nature, his attributes, his universal plan of progress and service, then comes the sincere desire to do his will. This supreme motivation will assert itself as we ascend into the architectural spheres of the seventh superuniverse, and will attain perfection of purpose as we leave it for Havona. For me, perfection of motivation will mean that at all times and in all activities I will do the will of the Father.
The Thought Adjuster reveals the unconditional love that our Universal Father has for each of us; he shares our inner life in all our trials and joys. We commune with the divine in the act of worship, and in return we receive his divine love, the spiritual energy that impels us to serve, the desire to do good to others. Thus, God and man are spiritually united in truth and in fact, and we are destined to be ONE with his divine fragment.
Then come the successive epochal revelations, of which The Urantia Book is the most recent. Its goal is:
1. The reduction of confusion by the authoritative elimination of errors.
Too much confusion, misinterpretation and poverty of concepts about God, divinity and celestial personalities prevent us from understanding our relationship with the divine. The main inhibitors to growth are prejudice and ignorance.
2. The coordination of facts and observations known or about to become known.
The authors also engage in predictions
3. The restoration of important lost elements of knowledge concerning historical events of the distant past.
Many missing facts from our history are being brought to our attention, such as the four previous revelations, our planetary Prince who betrayed his mission to uplift the human race 250,000 years ago, the tragic story of Adam and Eve 40,000 years ago, the emergency visit of Melchizedek 4,000 years ago, and the incarnation of our Creator Son, Jesus Christ, 2,000 years ago.
4. The provision of information that fills fundamental gaps in knowledge acquired elsewhere.
In connection with the principle of the divine plan of programmed and intentional evolution, from the importation of the vital plasma on Urantia to us, human beings endowed with the prerogative of free will and self-determination.
5. To present cosmic data in such a way as to illuminate the spiritual teachings contained in the revelation which accompanies them. [UB 101:4.10]
These cosmic data cover realities prior to what our scientists call the Big Bang, even before the appearance of time and space. They reveal the origin of all reality up to the development of the universes in which we live and their purpose. This is the first time in the history of humanity that a complete and rational description of origin, history and destiny has been revealed.
“IT IS not enough that the ascending mortal should know something of the relations of Deity to the genesis and manifestations of cosmic reality; he should also comprehend something of the relationships existing between himself and the numerous levels of existential and experiential realities, of potential and actual realities. Man’s terrestrial orientation, his cosmic insight, and his spiritual directionization are all enhanced by a better comprehension of universe realities and their techniques of interassociation, integration, and unification.” ([UB 106:0.1)
This quote reveals a technique, that of the integration of man into universal citizenship, the discovery of his place in the cosmos and his involvement as an actor in the divine plan. Yes, we are not only children of the Universal Father, we are partners of God the Supreme, both in the development of ourselves as potential finaliters but also in the accomplishment of supremacy, the power-personality synthesis which will bring, in its time, the emergence of the Supreme Being, our mother to all.
Mortal man, being a creature, is not exactly like the Supreme Being, who is deity, but man’s evolution does in some ways resemble the growth of the Supreme. Man consciously grows from the material toward the spiritual by the strength, power, and persistency of his own decisions; he also grows as his Thought Adjuster develops new techniques for reaching down from the spiritual to the morontial soul levels; and once the soul comes into being, it begins to grow in and of itself. (UB 117:3.6)
The technique of interassociation, integration and unification is done both on the personal level by merging with our Thought Adjuster but also on the social (or universal) level by becoming true cosmic citizens aware of our responsibilities.
Very often, during our study groups or discussions concerning revelation, I hear that the knowledge of historical facts, of the administration of the universe or of the origin presented under the aspect of the I AM and its personalizations brings nothing to the daily life of the reader. Still others affirm that it is too “intellectual” or “difficult” and that they are content to approach revelation under the aspect of its spiritual teachings to nourish their spiritual life.
I would say that the two approaches, one mental and the other so-called spiritual, are in fact and in truth complementary; they constitute what the authors call “cosmic consciousness and spiritual perception.
The Solitary Messenger of Orvonton reminds us that personality “has a three-dimensional cosmic realm of accomplishment” [UB 112:1.5]
“1. Length represents direction and nature of progression—movement through space and according to time—evolution.” (UB 112:1.6)
It is the understanding of universal meanings and their integrations into the progressive evolution of our career; cosmic consciousness.
“2. Vertical depth embraces the organismal drives and attitudes, the varying levels of self-realization and the general phenomenon of reaction to environment.” (UB 112:1.7)
It is cooperation with the Thought Adjuster, the need to build strong character through the exercise of love, mercy, and unselfish service.
“3. Breadth embraces the domain of co-ordination, association, and selfhood organization.” (UB 112:1.8)
It is the interassociation, integration and unification of the two approaches with a view to unifying the whole personality.
The personality is therefore capable of combining these two components, length (cosmic consciousness) and depth (spiritual perception) of the personality to achieve integration into the cosmic economy and unification with the Thought Adjuster.
We can also present this in another way:
The Divine Counselor reveals that the First Source-Center personalizes [UB 0:1.1] as The Universal Father. [UB 0:3.10] It is both deified, the Universal Father, and non-deified, The First Source-Center minus the Universal Father. [UB 0:3.11]
The knowledge of the Universal Father is of a spiritual nature; it is made by faith; it is the personal relationship that we maintain with him in worship: we know God as our Father and this relationship is real because it is revealed by our Thought Adjuster [UB 1:2.4] It exists from the arrival of our Adjuster and it is cultivated in the inner life by worship. Let us note that this revelation is established first in our mind; it is the consciousness of God; the intellectual capacity to know God.
The approach to the First Source-Center is of a mental nature, we seek to understand it and that is the whole difference between knowing and understanding. This is what the Divine Counselor invites us to do:
“The enlightened worlds all recognize and worship the Universal Father, the eternal maker and infinite upholder of all creation. The will creatures of universe upon universe have embarked upon the long, long Paradise journey, the fascinating struggle of the eternal adventure of attaining God the Father. The transcendent goal of the children of time is to find the eternal God, to comprehend the divine nature, to recognize the Universal Father. God-knowing creatures have only one supreme ambition, just one consuming desire, and that is to become, as they are in their spheres, like him as he is in his Paradise perfection of personality and in his universal sphere of righteous supremacy. From the Universal Father who inhabits eternity there has gone forth the supreme mandate, “Be you perfect, even as I am perfect.” In love and mercy the messengers of Paradise have carried this divine exhortation down through the ages and out through the universes, even to such lowly animal-origin creatures as the human races of Urantia.” ([UB 1:0.3)
Knowledge of the Universal Father is by faith. The Adjuster reveals the love of the Father and creates in us the insatiable desire to be like him, but he does not reveal anything about the universe in which we live and he cannot since it is entirely spiritual, whereas understanding the universal and divine plan depends on revelations which must be provided to us elsewhere.
Knowledge of God (faith) and understanding of Deity (through revelations) takes place in the human mind and Melchizedek reminds us of this:
“Material evolution has provided you a life machine, your body; the Father himself has endowed you with the purest spirit reality known in the universe, your Thought Adjuster. But into your hands, subject to your own decisions, has been given mind, and it is by mind that you live or die. It is within this mind and with this mind that you make those moral decisions which enable you to achieve Adjusterlikeness, and that is Godlikeness.” ([UB 111:1.4)
Thus, we need to understand Deity in order to better love God and do His will. The cosmic education provided by the revelators eliminates confusion about our relationship with Deity, enriches our knowledge about the universe and its administration, unveils the divine plan in a practical way, and gives a real and meaningful perspective to our lives—all so that we can make the right decisions for our survival.
“If all grand universers should ever relatively achieve the full living of the will of God, then would the time-space creations be settled in light and life, and then would the Almighty, the deity potential of Supremacy, become factual in the emergence of the divine personality of God the Supreme.” ([UB 117:0.2)
“URANTIA MORTALS are passing through a great era of expansion of horizons and broadening of concepts; the evolution of their cosmic philosophy must be accelerated to keep pace with the expansion of the intellectual range of human thought. As their cosmic consciousness expands, mortals perceive the interrelationships of all that they find in their material science, their intellectual philosophy, and their spiritual insight. Yet, along with all this belief in the unity of the cosmos, men perceive the diversity of all existence. Notwithstanding all the concepts concerning the invariance of Deity, men realize that they are living in a universe of constant change and experiential growth. Regardless of the realization of the survival of spiritual values, men must ever reckon with the mathematics and premathematics of force, energy, and power. » UB 104:3.2