© 2023 Gilles Bertrand
© 2023 Urantia Association of Quebec
Gilles Bertrand
Quebec
I would like to submit to you a method of progression towards God, which came to my mind following certain reflections on this subject. Let me tell you about my recent adventure which still delights me today.
First, I took from The Urantia Book some basic information, the bare minimum, don’t worry, which I submit to you for a better understanding of my text. These three paragraphs will be enough to direct your thoughts towards my lived experience and perhaps some proposals that will benefit your personal efforts.
A good example to resemble God is to understand the behaviors and actions of our master Jesus and to study his profound teachings. Then to try to have attitudes and actions to sincerely imitate these discoveries and put them into practice. We must therefore trust the Spirit of Truth who must adequately direct his own personality through the evolving soul.
Also, there is another point not to be neglected, it is to always have this desire present in our mind to resemble God. I then suggest to you this injunction found in The Urantia Book, to sincerely recognize divine paternity and to worship with love, which probably brings me closer to this goal.
What does a human being do to resemble the hero he admires? Let’s imagine a superhero of today, whether it’s a Spider-Man, a Batman or a Superwoman, and let’s put these personalities on stage to study certain behaviors. The individual who wants to imitate the celebrity who interests him tries to grasp the attitudes of his idol. He understands the goals of his cult character. He notices and remembers his methods of action. He can collect his significant and amazing designs. He even sometimes comes to imagine that he is this character. Then, he disguises himself and acts in such a way that he perceives himself as also being part of this special force of this emblematic figure.
¶ You see where I’m going with this, don’t you?
Yes! I only want to analyze a few points which will serve as a starting point for my quest, my personal investigation I say, going towards the conquest and my understanding of my being in front of my Source of divine reality.
I want to bring together in my mortal reality what is most intelligible to me and most practical at my present level of evolution to resemble God in the face of this surprising injunction: “be perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect”. I will not necessarily speak to you about absolutism or what has a direct relationship with the infinity and total universality of God and his coordinates in eternity. Perhaps a little later in my future research. These superlatives will complete my personal picture in another time.
I want to present to you some values listed a little further on in my text which can become a basis for inclusion in your personal relationships, in your daily life.
In the meantime, this is what led me to discover another way out of this banality of purely material life which always remains very limited in itself in its restrictive sphere.
I had a serious discussion, in the summer of 2022, with a friend who saw me as a person of great intensity and with unusual thoughts. She found my behavior even extreme sometimes when I engaged in certain activities. My occupation was constantly to try to fix the words more precisely to arrive at adequately describing the truth of things and especially to try to elucidate the mystery “God” in more appropriate definitions, that is to say by speaking of love, righteousness, forgiveness, etc.
It is a truth when one can appreciate the simple things of life, confidence and peace are restful. But one can learn even more about the situations of life if one wants to understand the mechanisms of the universe and their authors. One can look at a watch and have the time immediately. One can be satisfied with many things without understanding all the mechanism or the functioning. But if one studies in depth some mysteries, one advances towards the source of the facts and the arrangements deployed. One can thus be satisfied to believe in God, but the fact of seeking Him differently one realizes that the relationship is now different and our movement increases the quality of our proximity with Him because affinities are now established between us! The skills require intelligence, efforts, coordination and for me experience. The deep awareness of things and events includes several phenomena of evolution on different levels. Grasping some pieces of it leads me to open myself to the Truth. God is Truth, Love, Beauty and Goodness and more yet to be discovered. My work of tracing and joining the Source is simple, but to fully understand His nature and character, I must also be persevering, because I need an immense amount of time to carry out this eternal task and the means to be used can be multiple. There is a little less dogmatism in this which is important to get rid of!
For me, this way of thinking is an example of understanding and drawing closer to The Absolute Source of all things, my Infinite Sustainer and Benefactor, my Heavenly Father.
When this lady saw my way of trying to approach, understand and imitate my Heavenly Father through this desire to pursue and grasp these small details which make up the set of values, virtues which could describe my Heavenly Father and through the parallel of superheroes, then this woman began to perceive my true passion and my deep affection to discover the measure, the nuances if not the merit of this gathering.
For several years now, I have begun my days by referring to the reading of the thoughts of the day found in the perpetual calendar suggested by the Urantia Foundation. This calendar refers to passages from the Urantia Book under different themes each month. I discovered an important and primordial link in these writings only following my conversation with this lady who was initially incredulous. For, while I was trying to describe my God of love in terms of understanding the character, attributes and qualifiers of my Creator and trying to interpret designations by analyzing and seeking conceptions in forms and terms that express Truth, Goodness and Beauty, I subsequently discovered and made the link with the perpetual calendar of the Urantia Foundation which offers us 12 themes and encourages us to daily meditations and deep reflections.
Here are the twelve subjects proposed in this notebook and the ones corresponding to their respective months.
In January the chosen theme is “truth”. In February, “beauty”. And so on, for the other reciprocal fields such as “goodness”, “unity”, “love”, “mercy”, “service”, “worship” which I call wonder, “joy”, “faith”, “wisdom” and “peace”.
I refer you to the UB 44:7 booklet to conclude my presentation, it perfectly summarizes my reasoning.
“These divine qualities are perfectly and absolutely unified in God. And every man or angel who knows God possesses the potential for unlimited self-expression on ever-progressive levels of unified self-realization through the technique of the endless attainment of Godlikeness — the experiential blending in the evolutionary experience of eternal truth, universal beauty, and divine goodness.”