Spiritual Advice and Guidance Blog: Urantia Book: ...where were we before this life?

Q: If we humans on Urantia are evolutionally at "the bottom of the ladder," so to speak, where were we before this life? Were we just a drop in the pool of consciousness, waiting to be given a body?

A: Thank you so much for your thoughtful question. We love to hear from our visitors.

When you talk about whether "we" were a "drop in the pool of consciousness, waiting to be given a body," and ask "where were we before this life?" you are asking very deep questions.

When we think about our identities, we naturally go back to what makes us, us - and that is personality. It is what distinguishes us, one from another.

The Urantia Book is very clear on personality:

Personality. The personality of mortal man is neither body, mind, nor spirit; neither is it the soul. Personality is the one changeless reality in an otherwise ever-changing creature experience; and it unifies all other associated factors of individuality. The personality is the unique bestowal which the Universal Father makes upon the living and associated energies of matter, mind, and spirit, and which survives with the survival of the morontial soul. (0:5.11)

Since personality is a bestowal from the eternal Father, one might safely assume that "we" have eternally had potential in the personality of the Father, and this potential was established before the beginning of time itself. That potential was realized when our moms and dads joined to make the potential actual at our conception. The resulting person - that actuality of personality - became a physical expression of your aspect of the Father's personality when you were born - eternal and divine in potential. Actually, I guess one cannot say for certain exactly WHEN that personality is bestowed (at conception or at birth), only that it IS a certain bestowal at the pleasure of the Father.

It was - and is - God's prerogative to decide what aspect of himself that he bestows on which physical body that is conceived. There really is no "pre-existence;" I guess you you might say that all personality is pre-existent in the whole of the Father's personality. But that individual personality that belongs to you has no actuality, or "you-ness," ( for want of a better term) prior to its bestowal upon mortal flesh.

Among other thing, The Urantia Book acknowledges the "mystery" of personality, so the comprehension of these revelations concerning personality, while somewhat graspable by our human minds, still requires our faith and trust in God to settle our ideas of it. It is a fascinating subject...

Just for more information, you may be interested to visit our topical study on PERSONALITY, where Urantia Book teachings on this subject are pretty thoroughly explored.

Thanks again for this most interesting question; I hope that this answer is of help to you. Please write back any time!

Labels: consciousness, God, personality, pre-esistence, The Urantia Book

Permalink 3 comments

3 Comments:

About personality and what we were before our life here on Urantia:
One day while studying the Bible long before I was introduced to TUB I was lead to read Jeremiah 1;4&5 where God told Jeremiah "Before you were formed in the womb, I knew you. I set you aside to be a voice to the nations."
With much prayer I meditated on this and this verse really changed my outlook on this life here. At that time I was really going through much soul searching since my father tried to have me aborted.I can truly say that I am an abortion survivor. also when I was born I was premature by three months, weighed less than three pounds and my doctors said that I would not survive until the day that I was taken home from the hospital over three months after I was born. The Urantia Book has given me a new outlook on life and personality survival much more meaningful than what I got from reading the Bible.
Hence I believe that we were indeed in the bosom of God awaiting our incarnation orders. I really look forward to the time that I can really learn the truth of just how I survived this long after having so many strikes against me before I was born. I believe that midway creatures mentioned in TUB maybe had a hand in my survival. I thank them for that work.

By Anonymous, at 6:21 PM

What is Urantia?

By Anonymous, at 2:47 AM

i sort of disagree respectfully. Whilst i dont beleive in the concept of reincarnation as it is traditionall understood. I do however think that the UB means that human life is the first life....it does not mean that THIS human life is the first life. I could easily have had past incarnations, but yet essentially i was the same person.

By rajeev, at 10:47 PM