© 2017 Guy Stéphane Nyasse
© 2017 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
The Urantia Book was given to me in 2012, and I read it on my own for 3 years. It was a personal choice; I didn’t want to be influenced by anyone else. I wanted to form my own point of view on these wonderful teachings. After being convinced of the value of this revelation, I began to look for readers. It is very curious that I have never seen the UBIS school because it has been there for several years on the Foundation’s website. I discovered UBIS in 2015 when I read the book for the first time in paper version because on the first page of the book there is a mention of the internet link for the UBIS school.
I didn’t know anyone who read the fifth revelation, today I know that I really didn’t take advantage of it. In reality, as long as I was alone in my corner, The Urantia Book represented a magnificent book of philosophy and religion. I didn’t live my religion at all. How to live it? I tasted a little of the freedom offered, because these wonderful teachings had freed me from fears of ghosts, rituals, and prejudices about our salvation. I missed the religious fraternal connection. I experienced in my youth the religious life in an organization, I had belonged to a younger community (Jehovah’s Witnesses) characterized by total control of my life, and later at the dawn of my adulthood to another (The Sahaj Marg) where this time the members are totally disinterested in the lives of their brothers; It was even recommended that the preceptor (a bit like priests) not have a private, personal relationship with the members for fear of creating a bond of dependency between them and the members of the Ashram (Eastern church). I was then sufficiently curious and full of prejudices. What was I going to find in the UBIS? I was also really happy to move to another level in the study of these unique teachings!
In April 2015 I registered for unforgettable courses: “The True Religion” with Guy Perron and “The Inevitable Injunction” with Georges Michelson-Dupont". Curiosity and enthusiasm filled me; from the first period, I flooded the class with my many questions. I received pleasant feedback from my sisters and brothers present in my two classes. The readers of The Urantia Book in my two classes were full of kindness. It is well written that our points of view are limited and narrow. The fifth revelation tells us this well.
It is overwhelming to see for the first time people, a community that lives its teachings. The sisters and brothers in my classes did not look down on me. On the contrary, my youth (26 years old at the time) and my environment (Cameroon) apparently gave a lot of flavor to my answers, and my sisters and brothers from other continents were struck by this difference. I found a friendly environment where I could flourish. And I flourished.
These classes coincided with a difficult, very difficult period in my life. I wondered how religion could help me resolve these problems. And all these exchanges brought me consolation and comfort.
One of the questions invited us to respond about our difficulties, and a brother shared about his difficulty in having water to heat his bath, because he lived on the top floor of his building. I had difficulty finding food, and after reading his sharing I told him about it. Many brothers put their level of difficulty into perspective. One of them wrote me a personal message with this passage:
Personal, spiritual religious experience is an efficient solvent for most mortal difficulties; it is an effective sorter, evaluator, and adjuster of all human problems. Religion does not remove or destroy human troubles, but it does dissolve, absorb, illuminate, and transcend them. True religion unifies the personality for effective adjustment to all mortal requirements. Religious faith—the positive leading of the indwelling divine presence—unfailingly enables the God-knowing man to bridge that gulf existing between the intellectual logic which recognizes the Universal First Cause as It and those positive affirmations of the soul which aver this First Cause is He, the heavenly Father of Jesus’ gospel, the personal God of human salvation. (UB 196:3.1)
I will not tell you that until today I understood the full meaning of this passage; what I will tell you is that thanks to the sharing of this brother, I looked at the situation I was living with different eyes. I positioned myself honestly as a son of God and I decided to tackle these difficulties with courage.
This same brother invited me on Skype. We met and spoke via videoconference. We continued our discussions, and I had the opportunity to explore this other passage in more depth:
The uncertainties of life and the vicissitudes of existence do not in any manner contradict the concept of the universal sovereignty of God. All evolutionary creature life is beset by certain inevitabilities. Consider the following:
1. Is *courage—*strength of character—desirable? Then must man be reared in an environment which necessitates grappling with hardships and reacting to disappointments. (UB 3:5.5-6)
I now live a fulfilling personal religious life. I move forward with courage towards my goals, I remain honest and sincere towards God and myself.
I received another invitation from this brother who gave me personalized attention, this time on Zoom, a videoconferencing platform. There was a weekly study group and I was able to see many brothers every day. UBIS led me to brothers who lived all over the world. And these groups on Zoom are a blessing to this day. With group and personal meetings with these brothers, I received indirect training, or I understood over time that I had good skills and that my personal experience gave me the skills to become a facilitator!
Facilitator! It was an important role for me, my material situation was mediocre and thanks to it I had acquired good dispositions. I was happy. You can’t imagine to what extent. So I received direct training this time again on zoom. Training that is not yet finished. I benefited from the loving mentoring of a brother very far from me. And in April 2016, just a year after my first course I took my first steps as a facilitator and the experience is doubled again. I am still in the sessions registered as a student, and I benefit from a double perspective. I have a kind of pleasant responsibility. God blessed me with the fifth revelation, and through service I in turn allow brothers to benefit from a caring environment that will allow them to study, to benefit from the acquisitions of the religious experience of other humans.
A little later, I met a long-time Cameroonian reader, about the same age. We chatted from time to time. Two young brothers from my environment were also interested in the teachings of the Urantia Book. The whole UBIS experience, the training and especially the union of souls gave me skills that make me a full-time facilitator. I am the facilitator of a small group of 6 Cameroonian readers and an Ivorian who is a student in Cameroon. UBIS is a magnificent sharing platform, a virtual study group, which allows us to meet brothers from all over the world. Thanks to the Adjuster who inspired the founders. The flexibility it offers and especially the climate of benevolence that reigns there allows readers of the fifth revelation from all over the world to have a moment of sharing their personal religious experience, to make us experience the Union of souls. We have here a foretaste of the universal television broadcasts of the local universe…
Guy Stephane NYASSE
Douala, Cameroon