© 2017 Ivan Stol, Dolfo-Guzman, Patrick Morelli, Cyril Causette, Guy Stéphane Nyasse, Ralph Zehr
© 2017 Association Francophone des Lecteurs du Livre d'Urantia
Hello Dear Readers,
We tried to chat online with ZOOM and it was not a success. I thought I would have more participants, but apparently hardware problems were the cause. Even if the image is not an important factor, the sound was sometimes disappointing. On the other hand, the handling is simple and fast.
It’s a shame, because without many accessible groups, some people remain frustrated at not being able to exchange and learn.
Le Lien is the journal of the French-speaking association of readers of the Urantia Book (AFLUB), a member of the UAI, Urantia Association International.
Head office: 1, rue du Temple, 13012 Marseille. +33 (0)980 978481
Cœurriel: afllu@urantia.fr
Site/Forum: http://www.urantia.fr and http://forum.urantia.fr
Publication Director: Ivan Stol; ivan.stol@free.fr
Editor-in-Chief: Georges Michelson-Dupont; georges.michelson-dupont@wanadoo.fr
Reading Committee: Jean Duveau; Ivan Stol & Patrick Morelli.
The Link: Published 4 times a year electronically to AFLLU members
Legal deposit: December 1997 — ISSN 1285-1116
All rights reserved. Materials from The Urantia Book are used with permission. Any literary or artistic representation(s), interpretation(s), opinion(s) or conclusion(s) implied or stated are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of Urantia Foundation or its affiliates.
Jesus is, without a doubt, the most important character that ever appeared in history. Malik Charles (1) said:
“The greatest thing about any civilization is the human person, and the greatest thing about that person is the possibility of his encounter - with the person of Jesus Christ.”
The encounter with “Jesus the man”, “the book made Word” (2) offers us this inestimable gift. It is through; His faith, His courage, His common sense, His curiosity, and His desire to know and understand his neighbor, that I have tried to make a succinct approach to “Jesus the man of Nazareth”, a subject oh! how important and complex.
Read more
Dolfo-Guzman November 2008
Conditions for obtaining Personality
One of the conditions for obtaining personality is stated in UB 5:6.3:
“Personality is potential in all creatures who possess a mind endowment ranging from the minimum of self-consciousness to the maximum of God-consciousness. But mind endowment alone is not personality, neither is spirit nor physical energy. Personality is that quality and value in cosmic reality which is exclusively bestowed by God the Father upon these living systems of the associated and co-ordinated energies of matter, mind, and spirit. Neither is personality a progressive achievement. Personality may be material or spiritual, but there either is personality or there is no personality. The other-than-personal never attains the level of the personal except by the direct act of the Paradise Father.” (UB 5:6.3)
This text implies that the presence and association of the three levels of manifestation are explicitly necessary, physical, mental and spirit energy, for the sudden and not gradual appearance of that quality and value of cosmic reality which is personality.
Patrick Morelli.
The path of spiritual growth can be compared to these five sons who were old enough to leave home and wanted to build their own house.
The family occupied the very center of Jesus’ philosophy of life—here and hereafter. He based his teachings about God on the family, while he sought to correct the Jewish tendency to overhonor ancestors. He exalted family life as the highest human duty but made it plain that family relationships must not interfere with religious obligations. He called attention to the fact that the family is a temporal institution; that it does not survive death. Jesus did not hesitate to give up his family when the family ran counter to the Father’s will. He taught the new and larger brotherhood of man—the sons of God. In Jesus’ time divorce practices were lax in Palestine and throughout the Roman Empire. He repeatedly refused to lay down laws regarding marriage and divorce, but many of Jesus’ early followers had strong opinions on divorce and did not hesitate to attribute them to him. All of the New Testament writers held to these more stringent and advanced ideas about divorce except John Mark. (UB 140:8.14)
The first refused to build his own house. He was content to choose the one he preferred from among the existing houses. He then called upon the best architects and the best workers to build it. Being wealthy, he did not neglect to bring the most beautiful elements to decorate it. Once finished, he entered his home but never felt at home there. The latter was neglected and abandoned and finally fell into ruin.
Cyril Causette
In all your praying be fair; do not expect God to show partiality, to love you more than his other children, your friends, neighbors, even enemies. But the prayer of the natural or evolved religions is not at first ethical, as it is in the later revealed religions. All praying, whether individual or communal, may be either egoistic or altruistic. That is, the prayer may be centered upon the self or upon others. When the prayer seeks nothing for the one who prays nor anything for his fellows, then such attitudes of the soul tend to the levels of true worship. Egoistic prayers involve confessions and petitions and often consist in requests for material favors. Prayer is somewhat more ethical when it deals with forgiveness and seeks wisdom for enhanced self-control. (UB 91:4.3)
The religious experience of the majority of Africans is reduced to selfish prayer. And the magic of the fifth revelation is that it fully validates and enhances these experiences.
I wish to enable many of our fellow readers (especially Europeans and Americans) to understand the African religious attitude. By understanding our brothers, we will become more like them, and this would be one of the elements to be taken into account for the dissemination of the teachings of the Urantia Book in Africa.
Guy Stéphane Nyasse (Douala, Cameroon February 2017)
Group or congregational prayer is very effective, in that its effects greatly increase sociability. When a community devotes itself to common prayer for moral uplift and spiritual elevation, these devotions react upon the individuals who compose the group; their participation makes them all better. Even a whole city or a whole nation can be helped by these devotional prayers. Confession, repentance, and prayer have led individuals, cities, nations, and entire races to powerful reform efforts and to courageous acts valiantly performed. (UB 91:5.2)
Before our work meetings or any other similar event that brings us together, we pray to our Heavenly Father and the spiritual forces that surround us in order to receive help, assistance and wisdom to resolve the problems that arise and make the best decisions in accordance with our responsibilities.