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The Urantia BookIntroducing a bigger frame in which to thinkPart 1: Universe FramesPart 2: the Personal UniversePart 3: a Family AffairPart 4: CosmologyPart 2: the Personal Universepage 1
Part 2: the Personal universe( continued from Part 1 )Part 2: the Personal Universepage 2
As a world, we anticipate contact with “more-than-human” life.But our scientific method has led many to believe – to believe – that we arenothing but an evolutionary accident, that “No display of energy, nor expression of trust,can carry us (personally) beyond the grave”You can see the problem. How on earth to deliver, to present, Part 2: the Personal Universepage 3
a wider view of the world,a bigger “frame",to a sceptical, scientific age?Part 2: the Personal Universepage 4
This Urantia Book is an attempt.Part 2: the Personal Universepage 5
Ok, so what do these papers offer a skeptical, scientific age?Two things:The first is simply a description of the way things are, as seen from some other,higher frame.The second is something that required this wider view: a revelation aboutourselves.Ok, but what do they actually reveal?Part 2: the Personal Universepage 6
They reveal surprising answers to three of our most basic questions:Number 1: Where we are?These papers describe our place in a finite manifold in a more-than-finite space.Number 2: What we are?They explain the components of which we are really made.And number 3, the big one: Why are we?These authors offer us a hint of a glimpse of our true, personal(potential) place in Eternity.Part 2: the Personal Universepage 7
Now, number 1 may be intriguing for astronomers, but for everybody else well, not so much. So let’s leave that for later.Number 3 requires an understanding of what we really are So let’s begin with number 2: their revelation about ourselves.Part 2: the Personal Universepage 8
Of what components are we really made And where does personality fit in?Part 2: the Personal Universepage 9
Every human culture has tried to explain what we humans really are.Our beliefs – about ourselves – combine concepts of matter, mind and spirit,in all sorts of ways.And it’s these beliefs which polarise our groups:In one corner, Spiritualists tend to see anything non-spiritualas “crude” or “illusion”.Likewise Materialists see all “spiritual belief” as fiction,and thus “not even wrong”.Meanwhile, philosophers and religionists try to make sense ofthe numinous impinging upon our private, inner world.Part 2: the Personal Universepage 10
The Urantia Book coordinates all this in a way which may surprise, even delight,all our factions of belief.It presents reality as the interaction of four distinct domains. Three we recognizeas matter, mind and spirit. But they add one more.One which motivates and integrates all else.They call this personality, which may seem like a familiar word.But in these papers the concept “personality” is absolutely redefined.* * *Now, one thing about these four domains Part 2: the Personal Universepage 11
is that each is said to be lit by a characteristic “light”: material light, intellectual insight, spirit luminosity.Each of these “forms of light” serves as currency – as currency – in the economyof its domain.So what lights up persons? What serves as currency in the personal domain?This is where love comes in: Personality is illuminated by love.Part 2: the Personal Universepage 12
It’s against this background, of Personality illuminated by love, thatthese authors can at last explain “the phenomenon of man”.Part 2: the Personal Universepage 13
They begin by describing, step by step, how this remarkable package – our bodyand mind – evolved.While confirming the basic outlines discovered by science, they add somemissing links: they explain why evolution took the path it did, and how a systemof mind was woven into the evolving animal forms.But this “organic” evolution just sets the stage. So let’s skip past thebiochemistry and go straight to the heart of the matter:Part 2: the Personal Universepage 14
The Urantia papers reveal this “package” to be serving as a womb,from which something remarkable is born.They reveal something made of personality fertilizingsomething made of spirit.This fertilization allows gestation, and a second birth.Let’s move this womb aside, and take a closer look.Part 2: the Personal Universepage 15
We find three things:Personality, a divine Presence, and a Soul.Our personality they describe as something unimaginable,an unblemished gift bestowed upon a system of body and mind.This Presence they reveal to be a divine indweller,an absolute essence of an infinite being.And our soul?Here’s where it gets interesting. Let’s take one more look at that poet’s ancientquestion:Part 2: the Personal Universepage 16
“What is man, that You are mindful of him?”In this frame, the answer is simple:Our substance, our soul, combines His essence with Himself.These components of which we are really made Let’s take them one by one.Part 2: the Personal Universepage 17(Psalm 8)
Of Personality, they say this:“The personality of mortal man is neither body, mind, nor spirit;neither is it the soul. Personality is the one changeless realityin an otherwise ever-changing creature experience; ”The Urantia Book (Foreword, section 5)And this:“The love of the Father absolutely individualizes each personalityas a unique child of the Universal Father, a child without duplicatein infinity, a will creature irreplaceable– irreplaceable – in all eternity.”The Urantia Book (138.4) 12:7.9Part 2: the Personal Universepage 18
Of this Presence, this divine Adjuster, they say this:“The Adjusters are the actualityof the Father’s love incarnatein the souls of men”“The Adjuster is an absolute essenceof an infinite being ”“It is the indwelling Adjuster whoindividualizes the love of Godto each human soul.”Part 2: the Personal Universepage 19
And of our Soul, they say this:“Personality may survive mortal death with identity inthe surviving soul. The Adjuster and the personality arechangeless; the relationship between them (in the soul)is nothing but change, continuing evolution; ”As presented in these papers, our soul becomes a technique for salvaging usfrom death, a way to wean us – as Persons – from the material domain.Part 2: the Personal Universepage 20
But see the simplicity of our human situation:o from the choosing we do within our mind arena of choice,o the indwelling adjustero weaves for us a soul.The key here is choice: it’s our choices that allow this Adjuster literally to weavenew fibres in our soul.To put this another way, Part 2: the Personal Universepage 21
As humans, our mind enables us:“to discover, recognize, interpret, and choose.”The Urantia Book (2094.9, 196:3.10)Our lives become a sequence of decisions, and the opportunity to choose.Part 2: the Personal Universepage 22
And the good news?A simple, sincere life of free-will moral choice is all it takes to zip together ouressential DNA, our two true parts Part 2: the Personal Universepage 23
Personality and Adjuster.And simply given time,Part 2: the Personal Universepage 24
our true nature unfolds.Part 2: the Personal Universepage 25
Up next:Why are we?Why do we exist at all?Who invented humans, and why?And what’s Love got to do with it?Part 2: the Personal Universepage 26
– The Urantia Book –Presenting a larger frame in which to think.Freely available across the world,downloadable as an iPhone app.Next: a Family Affair ( see Part 3 )Part 2: the Personal Universepage 27
The Urantia Book (Foreword, section 5) And this: “The love of the Father absolutely individualizes each personality as a unique child of the Universal Father, a child without duplicate in infinity, a will creature irreplaceable –irreplaceable –in all eternity.” The Urantia Book
