© 2002 Tom and Karen Allen
© 2002 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
One of the important purposes of revelation, we are told in the Urantia Papers, is to preserve concepts and ideas that have already been achieved by humankind — and are in danger of being lost. Tom and Karen Allen of Oklahoma City began last year to collect conceptual parallels and send them out via email to Urantians. Here is a small sampling of some of their discoveries.
“No mistake is more common and more fatuous than appealing to logic in cases which are beyond her jurisdiction.”
— Samuel Butler, writer (1835-1902)
It is well-nigh impossible for human logic and finite reason to harmonize the concept of divine immanence, God within and a part of every individual, with the idea of God’s transcendence, the divine domination of the universe of universes. UB 5:5.6
“Civilization has been thrust upon me… and it has not added one whit to my love for truth, honesty, and generosity.”
— Chief Luther Standing Bear (Oglala Sioux 18381939)
Civilizations are unstable because they are not cosmic; they are not innate in the individuals of the races. They must be nurtured by the combined contributions of the constitutive factors of man-science, morality, and religion. Civilizations come and go, but science, morality, and religion always survive the crash. UB 16:9.5
“To be a man is to feel that one’s own stone contributes to building the edifice of the world.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900-1940)
The great challenge that has been given to mortal man is this: Will you decide to personalize the experiencible value meanings of the cosmos into your own evolving selfhood? or by rejecting survival, will you allow these secrets of Supremacy to lie dormant, awaiting the action of another creature at some other time who will in his way attempt a creature contribution to the evolution of the finite God? But that will be his contribution to the Supreme, not yours. UB 117:4.10
“You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.”
— Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)
It may be possible that the finaliters will partially attain the Deity Absolute, but even if they should, still in the eternity of eternities the problem of the Universal Absolute will continue to intrigue, mystify, baffle, and challenge the ascending and progressing finaliters, for we perceive that the unfathomability of the cosmic relationships of the Universal Absolute will tend to grow in proportions as the material universes and their spiritual administration continue to expand. UB 10:8.8
"Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart …
Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens."
— Carl Jung (1875-1961)
The advances of true civilization are all born in this inner world of mankind. It is only the inner life that is truly creative. Civilization can hardly progress when the majority of the youth of any generation devote their interests and energies to the materialistic pursuits of the sensory or outer world. UB 111:4.3
“Each indecision brings its own delays and days are lost lamenting over lost days… What you can do or think you can do, begin it. For boldness has magic, power, and genius in it.”
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
You must make a wholehearted choice of the divine will. You must obliterate the dead center of indecision. UB 91:9.5
“Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.”
— Peter Ustinov, actor, writer and director (1921- )
It was not so much what he said that touched this man’s heart as the kindly look and the sympathetic smile which Jesus bestowed upon him at the conclusion of his remarks. UB 133:2.1
“No one has ever become poor by giving.”
— Anne Frank, Holocaust diarist (1929-1945)
For a moment they sat down by the treasury, watching the people drop in their contributions: the rich putting much in the receiving box and all giving something in accordance with the extent of their possessions. At last there came along a poor widow, scantily attired, and they observed as she cast two mites (small coppers) into the trumpet. And then said Jesus, calling the attention of the apostles to the widow: “Heed well what you have just seen. This poor widow cast in more than all the others, for all these others, from their superfluity, cast in some trifle as a gift, but this poor woman, even though she is in want, gave all that she had, even her living.” UB 172:4.2
“Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value to its scarcity.”
— Samuel Butler, poet (1612-1680)
His (Andrew’s) temperamental handicap was his lack of enthusiasm; he many times failed to encourage his associates by judicious commendation. And this reticence to praise the worthy accomplishments of his friends grew out of his abhorrence of flattery and insincerity. UB 139:1.10
Seek no unearned recognition and crave no undeserved sympathy. Love, freely receive from both divine and human sources regardless of your deserts, and love freely in return. But in all other things related to honor and adulation seek only that which honestly belongs to you. UB 156:5.19
“Don’t forget to be kind to strangers. For some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it.”
— Hebrews 13:2
Never, throughout the seven years of this assignment, was this Trinity Teacher Son wholly persuaded as to the identity of his seraphic associate. True, all seraphim during that age were regarded with peculiar interest and scrutiny. Full well we all knew that our beloved Sovereign was abroad in the universe, disguised as a seraphim, but never could we be certain of his identity. Never was he positively identified until the time of his attachment to the bestowal mission of this Trinity Teacher Son. But always throughout this era were the supreme seraphim regarded with special solicitude, lest any of us should find that we had unawares been host to the Sovereign of the universe on a mission of creature bestowal. UB 119:4.4
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“Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.”
— Henry Ward Beecher (1813-87)
Anxiety must be abandoned. The disappointments hardest to bear are those which never come. UB 48:7.21
The angels really find it hard to understand why you will so persistently allow your higher intellectual powers, even your religious faith, to be so dominated by fear, so thoroughly demoralized by the thoughtless panic of dread and anxiety. UB 113:2.5
Many of the cures effected by Jesus in connection with his ministry in behalf of Elman’s patients did, indeed, appear to resemble the working of miracles, but we were instructed that they were only just such transformations of mind and spirit as may occur in the experience of expectant and faithdominated persons who are under the immediate and inspirational influence of a strong, positive, and beneficent personality whose ministry banishes fear and destroys anxiety. UB 148:2.2
Tom and Karen Allen are longtime readers of the Urantia Papers. They live in Oklahoma City with their family of four boys. Tom has served in The Urantia Book Fellowship’s Oklahoma Society and General Council from 1985-1994. Karen is the daughter of veteran Urantians Dick Johnson and the late Peggy Johnson of Phoenix.