© 2013 Ivan Stol, Guy de Viron, Max Masotti, Meredith J. Sprunger, Simon Orsini, Dominique Ronfet
© 2013 Association Francophone des Lecteurs du Livre d'Urantia
¶ The President’s Note: Light
Dear Urantians,
Society is crumbling…
Life gets complicated…
Everyone clings to their power or privileges, thinking they have built on a rock.
But the time of every man for himself has passed and only God will offer comfort tomorrow.
Ivan Stol
¶ Edito: Love, again and again
Lots of love in this winter edition of Le Lien! Coincidence between the writing of Teilhard de Chardin, that of Meredith Sprunger or that of Ernest Holmes, all complementary…
A bit of freshness with the Lotus Temple in New Delhi which shows us to what extent man is capable of transcending many limits to get closer to human universality and the worship of the Father Creator!
Guy from Viron
Editor’s note (editor’s note):
The Links are quarterly and appear on the 15th of March, June, September and December! They are first sent to subscribers in digital form (PDF format) on these same dates and then, as far as possible, in their “paper” form. As AFLUB prints are grouped with other periodicals, it is possible that the deadline for the paper format is longer. As for the texts intended to be published within the Link concerned, they must imperatively arrive 30 days before the aforementioned publication date and approved by our president, Ivan Stol, director of publication. Thank you for your understanding.
¶ Thesis: On Love IV
Immediately, the effect of universal love, made possible by Omega, is to underlie each of our actions a fundamental identity of passionate interest and giving. What will be the influence of this common ground (one could say: of this new climate) on our inner life? Will it dissolve us in its gentle warmth? Blunt the clarity of future objectives in an atmosphere of mirage? Distract us from the tangible individual to absorb us in a confused sense of the Universal?.. — To fear it, one would have to forget once again that, in the direction of the spirit, union differentiates. It is true, no doubt, that if I have discovered Omega, all things become in some way the same thing to me; so that, whatever I do, I can have the impression of doing the same thing. But this fundamental unity has nothing in common with a dissolution in the homogeneous. In the first place, it accentuates, far from weakening it, the relief of the elements that it brings together: for Omega, the only one desired, is formed before our eyes and offered to our contact, only in the perfection of the elementary progress by which Evolution is experimentally woven. — But there is more. Love does not only impregnate the Universe in the manner of an oil that would revive its colors. It does not simply connect in a common transparency the opaque dust of our experiences. It is a true synthesis that it operates on the grouped bundle of our faculties. And this is ultimately the point that it is important to understand well.
Teilhard de Chardin
¶ Maxien Quiz No. 16: The questions
Superuniverse
- Do you know what persons will make up the Absolute Trinity?
- The functional family of the Third Source and Center, as revealed in The Urantia Book, falls into three great groups: What are these three great groups?
- On the High Paradise, a region immediately surrounding the presence of the Deities is set apart as a Most Holy Sphere and reserved for very specific functions. What are these?
- Who are the Universe Power Directors?
Max Masotti
¶ Psychospi: The Seven Fundamental Realities VIII
Love
Love determines the quality and effectiveness of the spiritual life. It is the spiritual attitude that acts as the master synergetic catalyst and integrates all the spiritual qualities of the human personality. Love increases and unifies the power of the soul, it is our closest approach to a God-like attitude. It is the supreme reality of the universe, the most useful guide to the perception of truth, and the most important relationship among and between personalities.
On the material level love appears to be a naive and unrealistic method of pursuing political goals or establishing social justice. Obviously, brute force and material power determine events on the physical level of existence. For this reason, spiritually immature individuals and societies must be regulated and controlled by physical power. But as civilization develops, those who have the vision and courage to sacrifice privileges and even lives in acts of love for truth and justice are slowly shifting the direction of power among peoples and nations.
Meredith J. Sprunger
¶ Prayer
Father,
Make our whole life a prayer
Who rises towards Coi like a fire
And carries away in its flame
Cut what is evil and impure,
In me and in others,
That You may fill him with Your Spirit
And make it so good
Let it become your property
And may it be of use.
Lord, do not let evil remain in us,
I’ll transform it;
Make us open to your action,
Even if it makes us suffer ;
Allow our conversion;
Allow us all this in your Name.
Amen.
Author unknown
¶ Reflection: The Power of Love
Skip between columns
Because a man lived as if God were the invisible part of himself, we have the feast of Christmas. Because a being believed so totally in the Cosmic Power within him, we celebrate the Divine Incarnation.
The great error of Christianity has not been a lack of sincerity in its desire to follow its Great Master, but rather in a mistaken conception of his message. It would be to the advantage of those who believe in the teaching of Jesus to seek to penetrate more deeply into its meaning.
Here is a being who, without any arrogance and free from all egoism, believed in the Divine Incarnation in himself and in all men. He believed that Divine self-knowledge acted as intuition at the heart of his own consciousness of being. If Jesus had taken this as a mere theory, his life would never have fired the imagination of men. It is because he demonstrated what he believed that we celebrate his birth, that we take his life as a model for all Humanity.
Ernest Holmes
¶ Wise Words: Life
May the sweetness of friendship be made of laughter and shared pleasures.
If you don’t understand your friend in all circumstances, you will never understand him.
Do not think that you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
We are like nuts, We must be cracked to be discovered.
Loneliness is a storm of silence that tears away all our dead branches.
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life’s call to itself.
Khalil Gibran
¶ Reality: The Lotus Temple
The Lotus Temple, located in Bahapur, a southern suburb of Delhi, India, is one of the eight main Baha’i Houses of Worship. It is considered the “Mother Temple” of South Asia. It is a monument that is open to all faiths. Regardless of its religious character, this remarkable architectural work has received numerous awards.
Construction
On land acquired in 1953, the Iranian architect Fariborz Sahba built for the Indian Bahúí Association a temple in the shape of a lotus flower, a symbol of purity inextricably linked to the religious spirit in India. The construction site opened in 1980 and, on December 24, 1986, the building was officially dedicated to the One God, to the Unity of Religion and Humanity.
Description
¶ Testimony: War doctor
Jacques Bérès, the 71-year-old surgeon, testifies to the violence of the Syrian regime against doctors
“There are buildings burning, holes in the walls of houses and many, many injured people, mostly civilians, men, women and children…”, Jacques Bérès describes by satellite phone, unperturbed despite the bombing of Bab Amro a hundred meters away from him.
But what is this 71-year-old French doctor doing under the Syrian bombs, in this district of Homs destroyed by the army of a president determined to crush the revolt that began almost a year ago?
¶ Reflection: Causes, effects III
Gamma rays
These are the emanations that characterize the spontaneous dissociation of atomic matter. The best example of this form of electronic activity is found in the phenomena associated with the disintegration of radium. The next step in the slowing down of the electron provides the various forms of solar x-rays as well as artificially generated x-rays. Solar x-rays are identical to those mechanically generated to explore the interior of the human body, except that their wavelength is slightly different. For example, the ultraviolet or chemical rays of sunlight, white light, all the visible light of the suns, the infrared rays which participate in the slowing down of electronic activity approaching even more appreciable heat, Hertzian waves the energies used for television broadcasts are part of the ten phases of wave energy activity, the human eye can only react to one octave that of ordinary sunlight.
Simon Orsini
¶ Interview: Death does not exist
“Death has washed me of all fear. Do not be afraid: life never ends.”
Following a cardiac arrest, Jean-Paul Duc collapses. He is declared dead at 2:06 p.m. However, more than an hour later, his heart starts beating again. The after-effects will be severe, but the man has “seen”. And he decides to speak. It is July 17, 2010. For entrepreneur Jean-Paul Duc, the morning has gone badly: he has been agitated for hours for no reason. Lunch comes, with his family. Suddenly, the man collapses, overcome by a heart attack. The reflex of his loved ones is adequate: they lay him on the lawn, cover him, call for help, who do everything they can. In vain: around 2:00 p.m., the encephalogram falls flat. It is while preparing to take the body away, more than an hour later, that we let out a cry: because the activity of the heart, and that of the brain, have just resumed. According to medical science, there is no explanation for this phenomenon (see box below). Not to mention the rest.
¶ Maxien Quiz No. 16: The answers
Superuniverse
- The Absolute Trinity — The second experiential Trinity now in process of actualization will consist of God the Supreme, God the Ultimate, and the unrevealed Consummator of Universe Destiny. UB 0:12.7
- The functional family of the Third Source and Center, as revealed in The Urantia Book, falls into three great groups:
- I. The Supreme Spirits. A group of composite origin which embraces among others the following orders:
- The Seven Master Spirits of Paradise.
- The Reflective Spirits of the Superuniverses.
- The Creative Spirits of Local Universes.
- I. The Supreme Spirits. A group of composite origin which embraces among others the following orders:
Max Masotti
¶ Brother Dom’s Little Corner: Reading
- Do you really think you can learn anything by reading a book?
- I see you coming. But you’re right. No, indeed, one cannot really “learn” something. A book just provides a setting, an intellectual path. It can put you in the right frame of mind, bring you to the door of an experience. But it is not the experience.
- So what’s missing?
- Who knows? An inner influence, a magical encounter between your desire and your need. That little extra that will crystallize a level in you and add a stone to your building.
Dominique Ronfet
¶ Imprint
Le Lien Urantien is the journal of the French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book, a member of the UAI, the International Urantia Association.
| Head office | rue du Temple 1, F-13012 Marseille, +33 (0)4 91 27 13 20 |
| afflu@urantia.fr | |
| Site | www.urantia.fr / http://forum.urantia.fr |
| Publication Director | Ivan Stol, ivan.stol@free.fr |
| Editor in Chief | Guy de Viron, guydeviron@bluewin.ch |
| Reading Committee | Jean Royer, Max Masotti |
| Subscription | €20 per year (quarterly publication 4 issues) |
| Legal deposit | December 1997 — ISSN 1285-1116 |
| Print run | 125 copies © 1955 URANTIA Foundation |
All rights reserved. Materials from The Urantia Book are used with permission. Any artistic depictions, interpretations, opinions or conclusions implied or stated are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of URANTIA Foundation or its affiliates.