© 2005 Antonio Moya, Olga López, Eduardo Altuzarra
© 2005 Urantia Association of Spain
| A personal overview, part one | Luz y Vida — No. 2 — September 2005 — Index | The Urantia Book in Africa: account of a trip to Dakar |
By various authors
The questions you ask yourself are the ones that lead you to investigate. The last question that was going around my head recently was: "Why do we human beings have to be born and live in these sad circumstances that we know, when ALL the other beings in the universe are born and live indefinitely in better conditions? than us? Why did we get this china? There must be some good reason for it. And I want to know.
“The mortal personality, never sure as to which will next be encountered, . . .” (UB 48:4.18)
“It is only natural that mortal man should be harassed by feelings of insecurity. . .” (UB 111:6.8)
“Uncertainty with security is the essence of the Paradise adventure—uncertainty in time and in mind, uncertainty as to the events of the unfolding Paradise ascent; security in spirit and in eternity, security in the unqualified trust of the creature son in the divine compassion and infinite love of the Universal Father; uncertainty as an inexperienced citizen of the universe; security as an ascending son in the universe mansions of an all-powerful, all-wise, and all-loving Father.” (UB 111:7.1)
“mankind is designed to evolve by the technique of experience. . .” (UB 106:9.8)
“Actual living experience has no cosmic substitute. . . . it is the one thing which no amount of divine endowment can absolve you from the necessity of securing by actual living.” (UB 109:1.3)
The Urantia Book tells us that the central universe of Havona is composed of one billion (1,000,000,000) perfect inhabited worlds. And that the seven superuniverses of space-time are destined to house seven trillion (7,000,000,000,000) worlds inhabited by mortal, finite and imperfect beings like us.
The difference between the number of Havona worlds and those of the seven superuniverses is, by all accounts, remarkable. In our visible and known universe there are NOT a few inhabited planets, as the most progressive scientists claim, but approximately ONE BILLION in each superuniverse.
The Book also tells us of the (before) Havona age, and that we are now in the age of the superuniverses, the post-Havona age, the age of the evolutionary growth of the Supreme Being. In other words, the universal age we are living in now is the age of evolution for mortals like us living on the SEVEN BILLION planets of the superuniverses.
We can deduce from this that we mortals are the target of this universal age, the focus of the present age of the universe (the age of development of the Supreme), and spiritual beings of all orders imaginable are there to help us up, to serve us as teachers and teachers all the way from the animal to God.
This universal age that we are living in is different from the previous Havona age, and the age that will be lived in the future in the universes of outer space.
When one wonders why we have to be born like this into this godforsaken world, instead of beginning our existence like other orders of spiritual or semi-spiritual beings, living indefinitely and not suffering as many tribulations, one has the feeling that there is some injustice in it. But there must be some good reason. When you want to make a good king, you should start by being a beggar, and go up the social ladder in order to know them all well in order to govern with extreme wisdom and good knowledge of the facts.
The Urantia Book tells us: “In traversing the ascending scale of living existence from mortal man to the Deity embrace, you actually live the very life of EVERY possible phase and stage of perfected creature existence within the limits of the present universe age. From mortal man to Paradise finaliter embraces ALL that now can be—encompasses EVERYTHING presently possible to the living orders of intelligent, perfected finite creature beings” (UB 48:8.4).
“The local universe is the starting place for those personalities who are FARTHEST from God, and who can therefore experience the GREATEST DEGREE OF SPIRITUAL ASCENT in the universe, can achieve the MAXIMUM OF EXPERIENTIAL PARTICIPATION IN THE COCREATION OF THEMSELVES.” (UB 116:4.11)
“It is the design of the Creators to afford the creatures of time a graduated opportunity to master the details of the operation and administration of the grand universe, and this long course of training is best carried forward by having the surviving mortal climb up gradually and by actual participation in every step of the ascent.” (UB 48:8.2)
Forgive me for including these paragraphs of the L.d.U. instead of clarifying the concepts with my own comments, but I find them extremely instructive. As instructive I find the following long paragraph. It has no waste:
“The mortal-survival plan has a practical and serviceable objective; you are not the recipients of all this divine labor and painstaking training only that you may survive just to enjoy endless bliss and eternal ease. There is a goal of transcendent service concealed beyond the horizon of the present universe age. If the Gods designed merely to take you on one long and eternal joy excursion, they certainly would not so largely turn the whole universe into one vast and intricate practical training school, REQUISITION a substantial part of the celestial creation AS TEACHERS AND INSTRUCTORS, and then spend ages upon ages piloting you, one by one, through this gigantic universe school of experiential training. The furtherance of the scheme of mortal progression seems to be ONE OF THE CHIEF BUSINESSES of the present organized universe, and the MAJORITY of innumerable orders of created intelligences are either directly or indirectly engaged in advancing some phase of this progressive perfection plan.” (UB 48:8.3)
What I was telling you before: It seems that we are the center of attention of the present age of the universe. Making ourselves aware of this is not nonsense, since we have always thought that we have quite little importance, that we are left in the hands of God, etc.
There is another important detail that also tells us that we are the target of the present universe age: Thought Adjusters.
“No order of beings is inhabited like this (by Adjusters), except for volitional and evolutionary creatures with a final destiny”. (UB 107:7.7). We are therefore unique in the universe, which is no small feat. “There are no created beings that would not be delighted to be the hosts of the Mystery Monitors, but…” (UB 107:7.7) this privilege is only reserved for us.
After seeing all this, we can start to tremble, or jump for joy, depending on how you look at it: The Creators make us born in the lowest of existence to take us to the highest. And they also endow us with the very spirit of Deity, something that no other being in the universe has. Fusing with the spirit of the Deity will make us into beings, no longer personal, but omnipersonal. And also we will be the architects of our own perfected state, we will have (co)created ourselves.
What card does God have up his sleeve for us? What piece of mission are you going to entrust to us? What immense responsibility is going to fall on us?
“The goal of the existence of all personalities is the spirit”. (UB 12:8.13), which seems evident, since we lasted very little here. And besides, we are not going to take anything from anywhere in the universe to the next life: no money, no houses, no cars, no swimming pools. “The great circuits of energy, mind and spirit are never a permanent possessions of ascending personality”. “Creatures merely utilize the qualities and quantities of the finite as they ascend to the Father;”. (UB 117:5.7,12)
So what do we take with us from each world we visit? “What man himself takes with him as a personality possession are the character consequences of the experience of having used the mind and spirit circuits of the grand universe in his Paradise ascent ”. (UB 117:5.13). What we take from one world to another is the experience lived and the values acquired, all impregnated in our personality. But we land empty-handed of material things (of associated atoms), or at worst we won’t even have hands…
“The progressing personality leaves a trail of actualized reality as it passes through the ascending levels of the universes”. (UB 117:5.6). We are leaving a trail of our works, of our work in each world where we are.
“_Always must Deity provide the pattern universe, the perfect personalities, the original truth, beauty, and goodness for which all subdeity creations strive.” (UB 118:5.3). What a logical thing, right? God always provides the model to imitate or follow.
In short, it seems that we are born at the bottom because we are destined to rise to the top. And once there, instead of resting and taking a well-deserved “eternal” nap, they are going to give us a mission from there do not wiggle in the universes of outer space, the domain NOT of our Supreme Being, but of God the Ultimate, the Deity of transcendental beings. And all this without charging a penny.
If someone wants to get off this train, there is still time.
I have often marveled at the enormous assembly that the Deity has organized for us to perfect ourselves, the enormous workshop-school in which we are installed from the moment we are born, from the moment the Father “thinks of us.” .
The first world, the physical world, is harsh. There is pain, injustice, suffering… This is where we experience and live situations that we will not be able to experience or live in the following worlds: we go through physical privations such as feeling hungry, thirsty, cold, hot, afraid… but we also experience unrepeatable situations in other worlds such as feeling alone, betrayed, disappointed… In short, we feel “the material” in all its intensity. We also live in this our first world gratifying and pleasant experiences, valuable experiences for our future career, such as that of paternity/maternity.
Fortunately, the Father does not eternalize us in this world; Such intense and harsh experiences would be difficult to bear for many years. What does the span of time of our physical life mean in relation to our total path to Havona and Paradise? Just a breath. Of course, an important sigh and that conditions many of the things that will happen to us in the following worlds.
The experience of paternity, for example, is considered very important. So much so that it is considered that, if it has not been exercised enough, it should be carried out in the first world of mansions (UB 47:1.6). Another thing that conditions our future career is the fact of belonging to a certain group of mortals. For example, non-breathing beings, which might seem like a miracle of biology to us, cannot be inhabited by fragments of the Father like breathing beings (among which we find ourselves), but are inhabited by fragments of Spirit, making them remain in the local universe for their entire lives (UB 37:5.11).
And here we are, inhabitants of a decimal planet, isolated for thousands of years from the planetary circuits due to a rebellion in our system, mortal breathers inhabited by Adjusters from the moment we made our first moral decision. A priori we have all the numbers, not only to reach the very presence of the Father, but also to belong to the shock forces of the universes, due to our origin in a troubled and atypical world in many aspects. Where there are important “browns” to solve, there they will send a Urantian. You will hardly find anyone with more experience in righting wrongs, since since it began it has encountered more problems than it could have encountered in a “normal” world. Remember: we are “agodontarios” (UB 50:7.2).
Where other beings have convictions and certainties, we have a faith tested thousands of times. We fall many times, but we get back up many times. Faith often becomes a burning nail to which we cling so as not to give up everything, because we think that justice must be in another world, if it is not in this one. Even a Marxist philosopher like Bloch, although a friend of theologians, said that he was not resigned to the fact that the last music he heard was that of the shovelfuls of earth that someone would throw on his coffin. Walter Benjamin, another Marxist thinker, said that he was not resigned to the fact that the victims of history did not have their due reparation for the injustices committed. We all, whether we are believers or not, cling to the hope that this world is not the last word. Theologians like Rahner said that man will always take himself too seriously not to believe in some kind of transcendence. And they are all right. It cannot be that everything ends life in the flesh. Something inside us tells us that there is something more.
I suppose that in the worlds that await us after this one there will also be problems to solve and a lot to learn but, frankly, I don’t think we will have as bad a time as we do here.
And the learning continues. We never stop learning. Our curiosity will never be satisfied. And the teachings that await us are not dull and useless, as they can be here on Urantia. We will not have to learn by obligation to pass an exam. In the worlds to come, the secrets of the universe will be revealed to us as we are able to assimilate them. But also not only will we learn but we will also make what we have learned our own, it will be part of us. And once we have made it ours we will pass it on to those who have yet to learn it, in an endless learning chain (UB 25:4.12)
The Universal Father created the perfection inherent in Paradise-Havona. Then the space-time creation appeared, where perfection is brewing through experience. The inherently perfect creation acts as a model, as a reference for spatio-temporal creation, but both contribute to each other, there is a mutual enrichment.
An example of this is found in the relations of the pilgrims of time and space with the inhabitants of the Havona worlds. Relationships that acquire their maximum exponent in the beings trinitized by the creatures, joint work of beings from Havona and mortals. They are the embodiment of concepts that will be of great help in the ages to come (UB 22:9.7).
And the thing does not stop there, because “out there” is the creation of outer space, where the next act of inhabited creation will be performed. There mortals like us will have a very important role to play.
What can happen, what can manifest in the worlds of outer space? We have inherent perfection, perfection achieved through experience… what then will be the perfection that will begin its journey in outer space? What path will the inhabitants of outer space follow? Will they have to traverse the superuniverses, already established in light and life, continue towards Havona and finally arrive at Paradise? Something is said in the documents dealing with the Supreme Being. The developers do not know what kind of development the outer space universes will follow, but it will be different from what we are following, since they will not contribute to the development of the Supremacy (UB 117:2.6). But it is not only the inhabitants of the superuniverses who will help the future inhabitants of outer space: Havona and the seven superuniverses are also needed to reach the maximum of finite achievement, and they will need the outer space universes one day to transcend the finite (UB 117:6.20)
It is clear that the Father offers us the search for perfection through experience, not to keep us entertained on a long journey, but because that, apart from giving rise to the full personalization of the Supreme Being, will provide values, knowledge and an experience that will prove tremendously valuable to the outer space creations currently in the making.
The perspective that awaits us is certainly a bit dizzying, but for nothing in the world would I miss what awaits me. It’s a far more exhilarating prospect than playing the harp on a cloud. Furthermore, if it is true that we are the protagonists of this universal era, we must not disappoint the casting directors who have given us a role in this gigantic work.
After reading “The Center of Attention”, we have been able to see what a wonderful and eternal future awaits us. On the one hand, the everlasting uncertainty; on the other, the certainty that having been born in this world has made us candidates to ascend to the Universal Father.
Several of the exposed documents we had already read last year preparing “The career of an ascending mortal.” I remember how enthusiastically we recounted the various topics paragraph by paragraph and how many fantasies he made us live.
What stuck with us the most and produced the most illusions for us was that part in which, having already been before the Father, there in Paradise, and exercising as a sixth grade spirit for we don’t know how many aeons of time, we became spirits of seventh grade. Something that no personality, apparently, knows.
It does not surprise us at all that, if this time is that of the development of the Superuniverses and that of all its inhabitants, we mortals are the center of attention. We think that, saving the circumstances of this world, our next stages have to be worth living with the support, advice and protection that we are going to have from all the superior personalities that are waiting for us.
What LAO TSE commented comes to mind: “A journey of a thousand leagues begins with the first step”. As long as we take our first steps firmly and securely, we consider that we secure our future. A future full of surprises and learning, but with all the faith ready to reach the Universal Father.
We think that, knowing what we know, we must be very aware in each and every one of the situations that we have to live. Well, all those experiences and all the values that we come to acquire will accompany us throughout the trajectory of our existence.
If in this world we begin by doing things as best as possible, just as God commands, providing us with a model to imitate or follow; In principle we will try to develop circumstances and situations that have to do with truth, beauty and goodness.
“I love only one thing: to do well what I have to do,” declared the playwright Jean Anouilh. It is the impulse of the good artisan, of the wise researcher, of the meticulous worker who is not content with seasoning tasks. The ideal of the best is generally unattainable, but that does not invalidate the aspiration for things well done. The “slowly and well written / that doing things well / matters more than doing them” is not prudent advice for beginners, but a challenge that grips away from the objective that is theoretically intended to be achieved.
We have to get into the habit of being brave and determined, but educated and sensible. All kinds of tests await us and we must develop them without resting on our laurels.
| A personal overview, part one | Luz y Vida — No. 2 — September 2005 — Index | The Urantia Book in Africa: account of a trip to Dakar |