© 2011 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
The Tree of Life is located in the midst of God’s paradise, deep within our souls. The abundant and rich fruit that grows and ripens with the greatest perfection, the most accomplished, the most life-giving fruit, is Love. Those who perceive its true character have defined it as the greatest healing force in the world. Love never fails to respond to a request of the human heart. The divine principle of Love can be used to meet all the needs of humanity and to dispel all the sadness, infirmity, or miserable situations that harass it.
Through the understanding and right use of Love, through its subtle and limitless influence, all the wounds of the world can be healed. When Love spreads its wings, it seeks the barren places of the human heart, the places of life that are wasted. Its touch redeems humanity.
Love fulfills the law of its own spirit, completes its work in perfection, and reveals Christ in the human soul. Love continually seeks an entrance to flow into the human heart and pour out its blessings. If the perversity and discordant thoughts of man do not turn it away, the eternal and unchanging stream of God’s Love continually flows, carrying away into the great universal ocean of oblivion every appearance of inharmony or ugliness that could disturb the peace of men. Love is the perfect fruit of the spirit. It comes forward to heal the wounds of humanity, to bring the nations together in harmony, and to bring peace and prosperity to the world. It is the very pulsation of the world, the heartbeat of the universe. This current of the great omnipresent life must fill humanity, if it would accomplish the works of Jesus.
The imperishable Love of God surrounds us, there is no longer any need to fear: “Before you call I will answer, before you have finished speaking I will have heard.”
Let us boldly approach his throne of grace, let us renounce our groveling and supplicating attitudes, let us pray with intelligent faith, let us know that the help we need is already granted. Let us never doubt. Let us do more, let us ask. Let us proclaim like Jesus our birthright as Sons of the living God. Let us know that there exists an invisible and universal Substance, in the midst of which we live and evolve. In it are found all the good and perfect things that man can desire. They only await the expression of his faith to be released in visible and manifest form.
Let us consider Solomon during the night of his experience, when he allowed his radiant nature to expand to the universal plane of consciousness where he asked that his life be free from selfishness and devoted to the service of all. He had recognized the wisdom of Love, and Love filled him with its unlimited riches.
To love is to open the unlimited reservoir of God’s treasures. Whoever loves cannot help but give. Now, to give is to gain. This is the fulfillment of the infallible law “measure for measure”. By giving without the ulterior motive of receiving, we cannot avoid receiving, because the abundance that we have given is returned to us in fulfillment of the law. “Give, and it will be given to you, a full measure shaken together, pressed down and running over. This is how men will fill your breast. For with the same measure that you used to measure, it will be measured to you.”
If we act in the spirit of love, God must be present in our consciousness. To identify with Life, Love, and Wisdom is to consciously make contact with God, it is to receive an influx of abundance. If we act in the spirit of love, God must be present in our consciousness.
To identify with Life, Love, and Wisdom is to consciously make contact with God, to receive an influx of abundance. This abundance reigns for all, and in its presence no one is in need. To receive abundance, the mind must rise far beyond the boundaries of limitations. All ideas of particular objects must be abandoned. It is so vast that it leaves no room for ideas of detail. To maintain it in thought, consciousness must soar far into the Universal and frolic in the joy of perfect freedom.
However, this freedom should not be mistaken for a license, for we are held responsible for all our thoughts and actions. Our consciousness cannot attain this degree of freedom in an instant. The breaking of the last vestiges of limitation can take place instantly, but this glorious event must be prepared. The preparation is accomplished from within in the smallest details, just as each petal of a flower is perfect in its smallest details within the bud. When perfection is achieved, the bud bursts its shell of sepals, and the flower blossoms in its beauty. In the same way man must break his shell of egoism before he blossoms.
The laws of God are eternally the same, now as always. While they are unchangeable, they are beneficial, because they are good. If we live in accordance with them, they become the foundation stones upon which we build health, happiness, peace, balance, success, and fulfillment. If we abide entirely in the law of God, no harm can come to us. We do not need to be healed; we are healthy to the tips of our nails.
The Only Begotten Son unites the masculine and feminine ideal, the eternal human spark presented as savior and companion. The child-born, presented as the Christ-child to the world, is born pure, sacred, holy, conceived of God, born of God. He is the image, the Christ of God. - such a child does not go through the process of successive lives. Only physical thoughts cause a child to be born into the physical world and find himself forced to take on the physical thoughts of sin and discord of his parents. This is the only reason why a new birth is necessary.
When a man leaves for the Promised Land, he must renounce the land of darkness and forget it. He must leave the darkness and leave for the light. One cannot stay and leave at the same time. One must renounce old ideas and adhere to new ones, forget what we do not wish to remember, and remember only what we wish to retain. These two things are indispensable. Only the vision must remain in our memory if we want it to be accomplished. We remember it by maintaining in our thoughts the thing to be reproduced. We dismember, we refuse to remember the thing not to be reproduced. To externalize the vision, we must conform all our ideas, our thoughts, our words, and our actions to it. Such is true concentration, that of devotion, the centering of all forces on the essential. It is the sign that we love the ideal. Now, the ideal can only be expressed by means of love, because it is love that makes it an ideal.
Even if man begins with a failure, he must be determined to persevere. It is the exercise of the will, the cry of self-confidence, the expression of faith directing the power of the ideal. One never reaches the ideal without consciously directing the power towards it, without exercising the will. However, if the ideal were not an ideal will, it would be fatal to it. The ideal will must be as useful as the ideal, otherwise the soul cannot release the power that the will would like to direct. The will to be served instead of serving causes the vital current to turn against itself. The will to serve maintains the flow of the vital current through the soul and maintains the radiance of the personality.
The will to serve gives a purpose to the vision and lets love unfold in life. How would love express itself if it did not pass through the one who expresses life? If it passes through consciousness, the entire organism responds and makes each cell vibrate with the love it expresses. Then the body harmonizes, the soul radiates, thought illuminates, ideas become penetrating, brilliant, alive, precise. Speech becomes positive, true, constructive. The flesh is renewed, purified, vivified, Affairs are arranged, and all things take on their true aspect.
The “I AM” is expressed through the Self, and the Self is no longer permitted to suppress the “I AM.” If the body does not obey the spirit, how can it express the Spirit? The conscious intelligence must desire and seek the Spirit in order to know the power of the Spirit. In this way, man learns that the Spirit is the fulfillment of need. And the Spirit receives its supreme expression when it is allowed to satisfy the needs of others. It is the will to serve that opens to all the unlimited reserves of God and brings about the blossoming of the soul.
The soul has returned to the Father’s house as soon as it has felt the will to serve. The prodigal who serves becomes the pampered Son. The hireling who fed on refuse becomes prince of a royal house, the house of his own possibilities. He knows the love of God, understands the gift of his Father, and puts it to good use. No one can receive this gift except a son. No servant, no hireling can enter into the joy of the son’s inheritance. The servant always seeks a result. The son has already inherited all the Father’s possessions.
When we know that we belong to the Father’s house and are heirs of all that He has, we can begin to live according to the Father’s desires. “Behold, now we are sons of God.” Sonship brings fulfillment; servantship brings scarcity. As soon as we play the part of the Son in thought, word, and deed, we discover that the Father has fulfilled all the desires of our hearts.
The first step is to possess full mastery of all our external activities of thought, soul, and body, with the dominant idea that we are cultivating the habit of perfection, the habit of God, of the Christ of God. Wherever we are, think of perfection, of God, whenever the idea comes to us, as well during our work as during our rest. Let us perceive this perfect presence within us. Let us form the habit of regarding as our true self the presence of the Christ of God.
Let us then take a step further. Let us perceive a divine white light, dazzling in its purity, emanating from the very center of our body. Let us see it spring forth with such splendor and brilliance that it ends up radiating from every cell of our body, from every tissue, muscle, or organ. Then let us see the true Christ of God who presents himself triumphant, pure, perfect, and eternal. Our true Christ of God, the only true son of God, the divinity who triumphs over all. Let us go forward and proclaim that it belongs to us by divine right. It will be ours immediately.
Whenever we say “God,” let us know that we are presenting God to the world. It is good to perceive this ideal and to incorporate it completely. Then we are neither separate from one another nor separate from God. This is how man triumphs over the world.
Let us perceive the great things that can be achieved through our communion in God. If we cultivate it with love, devotion, respect, and adoration, it becomes a habit that completely absorbs our daily life. In a short time, we will have manifested the Divinity, we will have become again the Divine Christ, the firstborn of God. We will become one with the original Spirit, the essential Energy. Let us feel, perceive, and effectively grasp this great light. Let us accept it, proclaim it, and know positively that it is ours. After a brief period, our body will effectively emit this light. This light has existed at all times, in all circumstances, in all the immensity of the universe. It is life.
When a thing is explained to us, light shines into our conscious intelligence. The LIGHT OF LIFE will soon shine to our attentive eye, as it has to all great beings.
There is an infinitely wise Spirit, a divine and infinite intelligence that permeates all things. It forms the source of everything. Its divinity manifested in the form of thought or material body constitutes the true existence of all things.
We can give this intelligent and infinitely wise Spirit whatever name we wish. Once he has named a thing, man has the power to bring it into existence. If the name has been given with respect, adoration, and praise, it can become what he has named.
If we practice sending only messages of life, love, harmony, and perfection, we will soon no longer be able to utter a single discordant word.
We must have the vision, love and idealize what comes from within the soul, and not give a necessarily idolatrous tangible form to the ideal that we want to express.
We must recognize that we have within ourselves the ability to provide for all our needs and we must use this power as Jesus taught us.
You absolutely have to look inside yourself. If you rely on someone else, you make them an idol instead of expressing your own ideal.
There is only one true Universal Principle, Directing, Primitive, Infinite and Divine. The central light of this Principle is called God. As God envelops all, all are God. When we speak of God, we speak of one and all, for all, in all, and through all.
Let us choose whom we will serve. Division means failure and death. Unity in the Father and Mother Principle means progress, honor, and power.
To create and to accomplish, one must be moved by sincere motives and center one’s thought on a point of absorption, that is to say, on an ideal. We can become this center. Nothing takes form without men having first expressed an ideal.
Baird T. Spalding