© 2004 Jean-Claude Romeuf
© 2004 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
Life does not happen by chance. It is intentional, never accidental. Mind linked to Spirit is creative and produces life.
When a planet becomes favorable to the implantation of life, the Life Carriers are mandated to perform this service. With the agreement of the Paradise Sons, they will choose the models of life, develop the vital plasma and organize the form and physiology of living beings. In no case are they capable of giving life, they transmit it: the spark of life and the reproductive powers are the gift of the Mother Spirit of the local universe. They are also not capable of attributing a mind to the material bodies that they shape; however, the adjutant spirits, source of the material mind, accompany them. Long after their arrival in a chosen world, millions of years later, the circuits that are the adjutants will come into operation as and when they prove useful. It is not impossible, for example, that the first animal experiencing fear triggers the mechanism by which the adjutant of courage is activated.
Urantia is a decimal planet. As such, life was not implanted here according to the strict Nebadonian pattern. The Life Carriers have been given the ability to experiment and permission to deviate somewhat from established techniques. As a result, the common types of living beings have been modified to some extent. Urantia is therefore unique in the entire local universe in the physical form and structure of some of the beings who inhabit it.
Life is evolutionary and perfectionist. It always seeks to anchor itself in the Light, that is to say to reach the relativity of a divine perfection in beauty, truth and love. This golden age requires millions and millions of years of tribulations during which life will be produced and evolve on three distinct levels of reality which are juxtaposed:
The material level of physicoenergetic reactions under the domination of the non-teachable mechanical mind: the Plant and animal transition era. This level is called “non-teachable” because it is not a source of experience for the living organism, which is entirely dependent on the surrounding environment to survive and cannot act on this environment. Many biochemical reactions that are apparently uncontrollable are dependent on the mechanical mind, a mind directed by the Physical Controllers (example: the chemical reactions that follow one another in animals to produce energy from food). The Life Carriers do not create, but use these mechanical reactions and coordinate them in order to obtain and maintain the planned life models.
The material level sensitive to the mind non-mechanical teachable, mental represented by the adjutant mental spirits: the animal and pre-human Era. This level allows the individual to learn by experience; it has a brain and an associated nervous system even rudimentary or embryonic. It is capable of adjusting the environment to survive (example: a frog can take shelter under a stone and thus fight against dehydration by the sun).
The material and mental level, sensitive and submitting its will to the spirit: the human Era of spiritual progression. This level inaugurates the ability of the living being to transform mental meanings into values of spiritual and eternal realities.
1. Material evolution is subject to laws.
Everything is kept in memory: the Life Carriers had planned for Urantia a model of life called “sodium chloride”. We draw our origin from the shallow seas in which a primitive plant life, sensitive to the sun, was implanted in the form, perhaps, of bacteria, lichens. The same water of the oceans still bathes the cells of our body.
In the same way, each species keeps the chromosomal memory of the species that gave birth to it and recovers its dominant genes. (Example: it seems that some of us are descended from frogs. We see them breaking all the long jump records at the Olympic Games. It is not useful, for the purposes of proof, to make a comparative map of their genome with that of their batrachian ancestor.)
Evolution is always subject to a series of brutal transformations. The development of a species takes a long time to complete, but the passage from one species to another takes only an instant. New forms of life do not appear by accumulation of small variations, but by sudden appearance and are always the work of a single living being. One day in the distant past, a representative of the reptile class engendered a bird: all current birds have this common ancestor as their father. It was from a single carnivorous dinosaur that placental mammals appeared. Let’s not look for the missing link: between the frog and the Eskimo, we will not find it. But, it is quite satisfying to know that this inhabitant of the polar circle has many traits of resemblance to Andon and Fonta, our first human parents.
Within the same family, every need generates function, even if the function becomes useless for the descendants. We know for example, in the current light of science, that fish with spiny fins all derive from one and the same ancestral individual.
2. Matter sensitive to the mind.
The primary question that now arises is at what stage of evolution did the first adjutant mind come into operation: intuition. The Urantia Book tells us that plants are not sensitive to it.
He teaches us that the intelligent mind appears as soon as the individual is capable of acting on the environment in which he lives and has the potential to learn through experience. This faculty of teachable mind is born very early in the animal chain and affects primitive and invisible existences. These are, for sure, mites, animal plankton and perhaps even less developed animals; but one can doubt that the animal cell, such as the amoeba or the paramecium, is considered an animal in its own right, the cells of our organism, more perfected, not being animals.
We know that the first tenants of the land bordering the sea from which they came were worms. Let us not cry Eureka! when reflection leads us to say that they were capable of sinking into the ground in the event of a forest fire. In any case, it is quite natural to believe that they were receptive to the first mental adjutant reactive to the surrounding environment: the spirit of intuition.
We know that the fourth adjutant mental spirit, knowledge, came into operation with mammals and the spirit of counsel with higher mammals.
There is nothing that can allow us to place the second and third adjutants on the animal scale with precision. However, reptiles were the obligatory passage before mammals and birds.
As there is no other intermediary, we can say without being mistaken that their intellect, like that of the birds of which they were the ancestors, functioned with the help of the third mental adjutant: courage.
A small aside to point out that the Urantia Book teaches that certain animals have regressed. It is possible that this state of regression is accompanied by a loss of sensitivity to an adjutant that their ancestors had incorporated with difficulty into their minds. It may not be wrong to say that everything that both crawls and bites is devoid of the spirit of courage.
The class of amphibians just precedes that of reptiles, so it had certainly already put into practice the use of the second adjutant: understanding. As for the effectiveness of the third adjutant, it is permissible to doubt the usefulness of courage for a frog! When you have nothing to defend yourself with, it is better to flee than to be eaten!
One of the greatest events that took place during this long period of great biological upheavals was the arrival of the first vertebrates: fish. This important step, especially for fishermen, perhaps marks the functioning of the second adjutant. Indeed, try to catch a single roach with a worm poorly attached to the end of a hook or a line that is too thick and you will see that they are capable of understanding!
3. The mind sensitive to the spirit
While the course of animal evolution is marked by periods of abrupt transition, the sensitivity of individuals to spiritual influences is always gradual.
At the level of the sixth phase, the spirit of worship, an overlapping of ministries occurs: “the superior descends to the inferior to coordinate with it”. He who cannot yet truly be called “man” is undoubtedly beginning to capture in his thought the influence of the Holy Spirit.
Then you know the story, it is the coming into operation of the adjutant of wisdom, of the first moral decision triggering the appearance of the Thought Adjuster, of the ministry of the guardian angels and of the Spirit of Truth when the planet received the bestowal of a Paradise Son: “the new man has arrived!”
When this stage occurs for the first time on a planet, a major event occurs: the Life Carriers see themselves rewarded for their efforts and it is a great joy for them. But, from this moment, they no longer have the right to influence the course of evolution.
This has two major consequences:
At the same time as the material body of animals becomes more and more efficient, we are witnessing an influence of the adjutant mental spirits becoming more and more active. Let us therefore expect to see in the ages of Light and Life animals approaching the perfection of the animal creatures of the architectural spheres: the spornagias in whom “the sensitive mind with five adjutants is equivalent to a level of totality or sixth reality”.
In man, this natural development in perfection of the material structure also exists. As in animals, it is accompanied by a stimulation of the adjutant mental spirits allowing the material mind to be more and more efficient.
But man is both a personal and collective being. The influence of the Spirit on the mind of a personality acts on the community. By putting my will in agreement with the will of the Spirit that inhabits me, I make society better. The Golden Age of Light passes through me. We cannot therefore speak of Love without the Spirit.
4. Talking about Love
During the embryonic period which lasts from a few days to a few months, every individual, whether animal or human, goes through the evolutionary cycle of millions of years which has given the characteristics of its species. The embryonic layers develop and become more and more specialized by cellular multiplication. The Urantia Book tells us UB 55:6.4 that during intra-uterine life, the adjutant mental spirits are operative.
The human baby arriving in the world with the most developed brain in the animal kingdom, we can think that already, the first five adjutants have begun to shape his mind so that he becomes sensitive, during his childhood, to the spirits of worship and wisdom characterizing the material mind of the human being. This makes the young man a volitional being, capable of moral choices and able to learn to discover the God who now inhabits him.
To speak of God is to speak of Love. To learn to know him is to learn to love. To submit one’s will to his is to submit to love, no longer as a child loves his brothers, which is already good, but as a father loves his children because “Paternal love delights in returning good for evil - in doing good in response to injustice.”
However, to reach this potential of top level of love, it took a lot of learning, because Love is also evolving. There is no need to despair! All men and women cannot be equal in aptitude or power of love. Only our deep intentions of love, our inner desire to want them to come true, despite our temporary inabilities to love, are eternal values. We grow, that is what matters! Our errors, the faults that we believe we have committed through lack of love, are only experiences and must serve us. They are only immaturity. Let us not blame ourselves. Let us grow! By being indulgent with ourselves, we become indulgent with others.
Learning love is not a purely human fact. It is as if the adjutants prepared, during evolution, the animal mind to become sensitive to higher spiritual influences. In addition to physical development, this makes the animal indispensable to the intellectual development of man.
Love begins with oneself, but if there are two or more, it’s better. While the female crow croaks happily in her nest while incubating her eggs, under the amused eye of the cuckoo waiting for her to leave, we have never yet seen a frog, for the time of a croak, take care of its tadpoles! However, among fish, which are lower than it on the animal scale, we sometimes observe that the parents watch over the eggs for a few days. Cichlidae do even better: they protect their fry by sheltering them in their mouths, but their patience and memory not being very developed, they end up confusing them with food.
It is considered good form among the male macaques of the Middle Atlas to present themselves to the community by holding a newborn in their arms, thus showing all the tenderness that one has and arousing admiration. While the new mother hugs her offspring with emotion, the eldest son has only one idea in mind: to steal his young brother. With patience, the mother ends up falling asleep and that’s it! And, as he puffs out his chest while carrying the little one, as he cries out in vanity in front of the assembly of males, male jealousy is triggered! Everyone comes down from their tree and rushes onto the field. There is quickly a fight, then a scrum, then the little one is transformed into a ball: rugby has just been invented!
It is easy to love those who love us or those who come from our flesh. The love that a mother or a father has for his children is great, but it is within the reach of the majority. This humoral love is given to us: a hungry lioness does not eat her cubs!
Family life is the cell through which we learn to live brotherly love. When we recognize God as Father, it is easy to know that men are our brothers.
But wanting to learn to love others as our sons is a choice of supreme desire.
With the posthumous permission of Georges Brassens, we will say in conclusion that the one who is capable of actualizing this kind of love is a universal mother. Although the storks did not always bring her the child she desired so that she could love it, hang it on her bodice and water it with her milk, she is the blessed and wonderful woman of the future, new and eternal, because all the children of the earth, the sea and the sky are now hers.
Jean-Claude Romeuf