© 2021 Gaétan Charland, Gilles Bertrand, Samuel Heine, Margarita Niño
© 2021 Urantia Association of Quebec
¶ Word from the President November 2021
Gaetan Charland
president@urantiaqc.org
Hello readers and friends of the association,
In a previous message from the President, the one from September, I spoke to you about the mental (intellectual), moral and spiritual confusion that has existed in our society and in our world for several years. I hope that you have had the time and curiosity to explore the question and to have found answers that could have inspired you with solutions to bring a little more light around you.
When we became believers in the teachings of The Urantia Book, we then inherited the responsibility to put them into practice and to become inwardly what we sincerely believe. This is what Jesus taught his apostles and disciples when he was among us, and in part he said, “It is no longer enough for you to live as you did before this hour; you must now live as those who have tasted the glories of a better life and have been sent back to earth as ambassadors of the Sovereign of this new and better world.” UB 140:3.2
He also spoke at greater length on this exhortation to integrate and live the truth; you can learn more about this inspiring subject by studying Paper 140 on the ordination of the twelve in more detail. In essence, this is what we must remember: “Ye are the salt of the earth,” “Ye are the light of the world,” “Ye shall know them by their fruits.” UB 140:4.4 This is a message that is unequivocal as to our responsibility as believers in the teachings of The Urantia Book. In response to this invitation, a new question may well arise, but how do we integrate and live these teachings?
To answer this question in part, the Urantia Association of Quebec invites you to participate in a study group or create one, to attend the many webinars or conferences announced in our newsletters, to participate in online courses and to commit to serving in your community. You will find on the association’s website information concerning study groups, the announcement of webinars or virtual conferences and in its new EDUCATION section the various virtual schools and courses offered. There is also the “READERS’ TEXTS” section where you will find very rich secondary works that are the creation of several students of the Urantia Book.
All the resources are there to help you become that light, that source of inspiration, that example of benevolence, that moral uprightness and that expression of living faith that is so needed in the world at present. There is also no shortage of opportunities to serve where you can abundantly express the fruits of the spirit. And the more they are manifested in your life, the more you will become that benevolent and strengthening light for your family, your friends and those around you.
The Urantia Association of Quebec also offers you newsletters, a Journal, a website presenting videos of multiple conferences on many subjects and many secondary works that are overflowing with resources and information that will guide you in your research to deepen your relationship with God and better do his will. One of the two greatest revelations that Jesus made is “The kingdom of heaven is within you”, so if this truth inspires you, manifest it by becoming this light of love and benevolence that the world needs so much.
¶ The question that made you smile
Gilles Bertrand
Quebec
On September 26, 2021, the A.U.Q. brought us closer to our planetary brothers. Indeed, it oversaw a conference given by Moustapha Ndiaye from Senegal on the Zoom platform. You can watch this moment on the association’s website which is accessible to all.
This virtual presentation on: Human Philosophy and Meaning, was wonderfully inspiring and worth watching and rewatching. But there is one point that particularly touched me during the reaction period, it is a question asked by a listener and that made everyone smile. This question came from our good friend Claude Flibotte. We can summarize his question as follows: Why has he, Claude F., not yet fused? What are the missing elements in his life? What would it take for him to reach fusion with his Adjuster? Jesus had reached this level before the age of thirty and he (Claude) like all of us, are still marking time, even doubling the years necessary for the Master who had reached the level of potential fusion at his baptism in the Jordan, on Monday, January 14, 26 A.D. at noon. [UB 135:8.6]
Everyone has already asked themselves (hence the laughter and smiles seen on the screen): What more do I need to acquire personally to reach this glorified state? Would having more trials help? Would advancing into more meaningful and enriching experiences be desirable? Would making more convincing choices towards my brothers and serving them be a solution? Would worshiping, praying and meditating more abundantly, seriously or finding more creative methods to end up doing the will of God be the secret?
A first answer that Moustapha offers us in his intervention with Claude was to point out to us precisely the attitude of Jesus. Always on the lookout for the will of his Father in paradise, Jesus was regularly in communion with Him. So this ideal model is a perfect example to help us if we sincerely lend ourselves to retracing the attitudes and concrete actions of Jesus, we will surely manifest like Him, the fruits of the Spirit and all this will bring us closer to our goal.
Our speaker continued with some quotes (by heart) from the Urantia Book including these inspiring passages: …on courage, love, altruism… these…: “it is necessary that man” …live in these trials, these necessary inevitabilities, these uncertainties of life and these vicissitudes of existence. (UB 3:5.5)
Experiencing these values in our soul is the way forward, the procedure for which also personally requires other rather extensive and elaborate clarifications, because the investments on our part are total, they concern our entire being and this involves many pieces of the puzzle of life.
Whether through meditation approaches, relationships (human and divine), attitudes, love, sharing etc, they are all important and should be balanced, unified in divine wisdom whose secrets are only partially revealed to us according to our integration capacities. (heredity, environment, choices, decisions, actions…)
I ultimately believe that fusion is a personal matter between the individual and God; and I explain this by referring to my personal experience that I am sharing with you now.
For my part, a large part of my delayed marriage with this divine part in me is due to obstacles, for the moment, purely human. That is to say to my fears. The greatest fear that I had was to leave more space to my divine monitor. I was afraid of being thus obliged to discipline myself in my relations with others, to leave my comfortable moments, to cut on interesting culinary satisfactions, to lose ego power, to forget some heady prides. To say perhaps goodbye to episodes or to normal sensual or sexual experiences. Yes I was afraid of giving up too much or all the things or people that I believed certain for my happiness.
A striking example that comes to my memory was the fact of an alcoholic of mine, who did not want to pray for maximum awareness. One day a friend asked me why don’t you pray for more awareness? Well, not being ready to stop drinking, I avoided the solution for years until the moment of my liberation from this servile and useless slavery for my happiness. I prayed, stopped my drinking and since then my awareness has ceased to be numbed by alcohol.
I am ready to go through the other stages that I now see as commitments, consents in common partnerships, joint adventures. Yes, you are right Moustapha, you have to know your brother to love him, but you have to love God to know him.
I am in the process of taming God and what a pleasure it is to do so… imagine!
Imagine these daily practices as movements towards a search for perfection, of constant enthusiasm because sharing these voluntary acts with this divine part that we all have in each of us, becomes a tasty, new and intriguing path.
Like fiancés who coax and seduce each other, they take advantage of their respective potentials. For one, personality, for the other, eternity. Moreover, and in fact, I am certain that I have lost nothing at all in my life and I realize that my baggage of happiness grows every day with its lots of joys, surprises, great satisfactions, happiness, fraternity, mutual sharing, lasting gifts and peace.
As Moustapha said, the time that passes before our fusion is not wasted, it is also our best ally in time and space. The best way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live its life as a tadpole day after day. I therefore trust in the perfect plan of the Eternal Father and I am going with this human step to bravely conquer my intended inheritance. Attention fiancé; with all these tips and recommendations reviewed and corrected, we can only arrive at our ideal, at our fusion!
¶ The importance of deep retrospection
Samuel Heine
Reunion Island
“The importance of deep retrospection.” (The act of looking back, of going back into the past.)
Have you ever tried, in deep meditation, to remember clearly and visually things that you experienced in your youth or even twenty years ago?
For some of you you will realize how little you remember clearly, try this in deep meditation and you will perceive how many memories can be very very blurry (even things experienced with our children when they were very small).
This is because we do not meditate enough in retrospect on the events of our past days, there is the spiritual counterpart of our experiences which is not integrated into our soul and this is what we forget.
Personally, for the past 15 years that I have been practicing retrospective meditation every morning, I remember visually, and even audibly, practically everything that I have experienced over the past 15 years, in the smallest details.
I am sharing with you below a very effective technique to practice every evening before going to sleep, if you are interested and of course, my little point of view on the subject “is only my own”:
“The evening exercise, Retrospection, is of greater value than any other method in advancing the aspirant on the path of progress. Its effect is such that it enables the one who practices it to learn in anticipation, not only all the lessons of the present existence, but also lessons which are ordinarily reserved for future lives. In the evening, after retiring to bed, the body should be relaxed by relaxing all the muscles. Then the aspirant reviews the scenes of the day in reverse order, beginning with the events of the evening, then those of the afternoon, forenoon, and morning. He tries to imagine each scene as faithfully as possible, tries to reproduce before the mirror of the intellect all that each imaged scene contained, with the aim of judging his actions, of assuring himself whether his words had the meaning he wanted to give them or whether, on the contrary, they could give rise to another interpretation, or whether, in speaking to others, he exaggerated or minimized the facts. He reviews the moral attitude he had in each scene. At the meal, did he eat to live or did he live to eat, to flatter his palate? Let him judge himself by blaming what is blameworthy, by praising what is praiseworthy. Sometimes some people find it difficult to stay awake until the exercise is finished. In this case, they can sit up in bed instead of lying down, until it is possible for them to follow the method indicated. The value of retrospection is immense—and beyond all imagining. First, we do the work of restoring harmony consciously, and in a shorter time than the desire body can do during sleep, thus leaving much more time available during the night for outer work. Second, we live our Purgatory and First Heaven every night, and incorporate into the mind as Right Feeling the essence of the daily experience. We thus avoid Purgatory after death and also save the time spent in the First Heaven. Finally, and this is most important, having extracted day by day the essence of the experiences which contribute to the growth of the soul, and having incorporated them into the mind, we are actually living in an attitude of mind and developing along lines ordinarily reserved for future lives. By faithfully performing this exercise we remove undesirable events from our subconscious memory each day, so that our faults are erased, our aura begins to shine with the spiritual gold extracted from the experiences of each day by retrospection, and we thus attract the attention of the Teacher. Those who are pure will see God, said Christ, and the Teacher will quickly open our eyes as soon as we are ready to enter the ”Ship of Teaching", that is, the World of Desire, where we will have the first experiences of a conscious life outside the dense body.
(Max Heindel’s Rosicrucian Cosmogony)
¶ Keeping the seed of peace alive
Margarita Niño
Each of us who aspires to Peace must keep alive within us the seed of this plant that will grow and bear fruit in due time. The most important things to take care of so that peace can be born after the crisis are the following:
- To firmly believe in ourselves that we will achieve the wonderful Peace because we honestly believe and love the dream of the brotherhood of all, absolutely all the inhabitants of our planet whom we recognize as brothers and sisters, beyond the disagreements that make us suffer.
- Search the hidden treasure of our minds for the will to be generous and service-minded toward those around us and forgive those we now feel are enemies.
- Stay alert to eradicate in our hearts the seeds of the desire for revenge, which knows how to cover itself with the words “justice and rights”, but which is a poison for peace.
- Maintain courage and faith despite obstacles. Live our day, every day, fulfilling the duties that fall to us and sharing with those who are at our side.
- Let us not judge. We are not judges. We can disagree and protest, but we cannot turn ourselves into judges to apply justice on our own. This is another poison that prevents the germination of a lasting and reliable Peace.
¶ Online conference by Zoom
Khatabe Ndiaye, Senegal
THE SUPREME, insights and perspectives
The presentation aims to develop a little awareness about the reality of God the Supreme.
Let us remember that: although we are presently sons and daughters of God by faith, although Paradise is our destiny, it is God the Supreme who is our true model of divinity, the maximum of God-consciousness that we will ever perceive.
The approach will be done in a rather gentle and edible way, based mainly on quotes from Jesus or the Urantia Book. The goal is to lead us to progress in our career, supervised by God the Father and God the Mother (The Supreme) just as we were during our entire childhood.
¶ Study groups
This activity allows several readers of different levels of understanding to exchange and study together the teachings of The Urantia Book. It promotes spiritual progress by allowing its participants to find practical applications to the teachings of The Urantia Book in their daily lives. This important step helps to maintain a broad perspective on concepts of truth.
You wish to participate or form a study group; we will be happy to assist you. If you wish to have your study group appear in this list, contact the person in charge, via email association.urantia.quebec@gmail.com or at 450-565-3323.
Outaouais Group
Region: Gatineau
Wednesday, from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Maurice Migneault (613) 789-6833
Group: “Uni-Terre”
Region: Joliette
Sundays from 9:00 am to 11:00 am, (virtual Zoom)
Contact :
Eric Martel (450) 756-9387
Group: “At Maisonnia”
Region: Quebec
Every 2 weeks: Sundays, from 1:15 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Gilles Bertrand & Louise Renaud (418) 871-4564
Group: “The United Family of Urantia”
Region: Montreal — Downtown
Thursdays, from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Mrs. Diane Labrecque (514) 277-2308
Group : “Le Pont”
Region: Montérégie
(Sainte-Julie, south of Montreal)
Tuesdays, from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Claude Flibotte (438) 404-6399
NEW
Group: “Urantian Universalists”
Every Monday from 2:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Eastern Time (Montreal)
Responsible:
Claude Flibotte (438) 404-6399
Subject: Appendices of W. S. Sadler Jr.
Zoom Virtual Group. (Get informed)
Group: “Découverte”
Region: Laurentians — St-Jérôme
Mondays, from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Gaétan Charland and Line St-Pierre Tel.: (450) 565-3323
Possibility to participate via Internet (Zoom)
Sherbrooke Group
Region: Sherbrooke
Every 2 weeks: Tuesday or Wednesday, (to be confirmed) from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Helene Boisvenue and Denis Gravelle
Tel.: (819) 569-6416
To see the official list of study groups:
Click directly on the following link: http://urantia-quebec.ca/activites_liste_des_groupes.php
¶ Réflectivité
| Responsible: | Claude Flibotte |
| Assisted by: | Robert Cadieux Gilles Bertrand |
(438) 404-6399 Claude Flibotte
(514) 237-3616 Robert Cadieux
(418) 871-4564 Gilles Bertrand
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