Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Is there such a thing as "soul travel?"
Q: Is there anything called soul travel as practice by eckanker or other school of thought?
A: Thank you for your question. Yes, there is something called soul travel. It's associated with confusing beliefs about souls disconnecting from the body and traveling around, observing, becoming ghosts, reincarnating -- beliefs that are ancient and based in superstition. The process is along the lines that intent, or meditation, or drugs can allow the soul to detach, that it remains attached to the body only through a thin silver cord, that it can travel great distances -- to other planets as well -- and as long as the cord is attached the soul will return to the body but if it breaks it won't return. Eckankar focuses on teaching this technique and other meditation practices promote it as well -- after all, who wouldn't want to be able to fly off and observe all manner of interesting things?
It's a mind game deception. Our minds are powerful as well as directable. We do have the ability to direct our mind and a conscious connection so that it may seem we have left our body. Mind can detect information at a distance but "you" don't leave one place and travel to another. Through practice one can strengthen the connection to the subconscious mind's psychic abilities and participate in many otherwise strange mind games. Such a practice will disengage one from reality substituting the practical to make it become impractical.
The Urantia Book warns against attempting to augment psychic abilities, offering instead a practical, inspiring, spiritually beneficent cosmology which answers life's most challenging questions and gives focus to human longings and desires in a logical, positive, and uplifting manner. There's more than enough in reality to satisfy curiosity and the desire for adventure without veering away into augmenting unreality experiences.
Another of our responders has a few words on this subject as well...
I wonder if you are familiar with The Urantia Book teaching on the soul? I find it to be one of the loveliest parts of the Revelation. And it goes like this: When a child reaches the age of reason - anywhere from 5-7 years - and makes a conscious choice for good, that is the time when God sends a fragment of himself to indwell that child's mind. The Urantia Book calls this fragment the Thought Adjuster. And, it signals the birth of the soul. Thereafter, every moral choice that the child makes results in growth of the soul. The soul is comprised on only goodness, and it is that part of us that will survive us after our material bodies have died here on earth. It grows throughout our lifetime, and will actually be our true appearance when we awaken on the Mansion Worlds of God.
I only add this because sometimes people have a fuzzy understanding of just what the soul is - I know I did, before I read about it in The Urantia Book.
Personally, I would not like to think of my soul traveling away from me. I agree that our minds, including imagination, can play tricks on us - if we are so-minded. But they also can be influenced greatly by our spiritual choices. Maybe your spiritual frame of mind wants to think that your soul can travel to other realms, perhaps, but what does that really mean? There really are only two realms - the material and the spiritual. If you want to travel to spirit realms, you have to go no further than your own mind, where that fragment of God still resides, and get to know him. That is the best spiritual realm of all, and it is in the here-and-now, and will help your soul to grow, and you'll be conscious of everything.
If you are thinking more along the lines of remote-viewing or something, I would definitely not want to send my soul somewhere less than spiritual. This seems dangerous to me, only because it really could disassociate you from reality - reality being spiritual - and this would not be beneficial for your soul's growth. I don't know the limits of the human mind, and I find remote-viewing kind of interesting, but I doubt that it has anything to do with our soul. Again, this is a confusion of mind and soul, in my opinion.
Some additional soul quotes from The Utantia Book:
The material self has personality and identity, temporal identity; the prepersonal spirit Adjuster also has identity, eternal identity. This material personality and this spirit prepersonality are capable of so uniting their creative attributes as to bring into existence the surviving identity of the immortal soul.
Having thus provided for the growth of the immortal soul and having liberated man's inner self from the fetters of absolute dependence on antecedent causation, the Father stands aside. Now, man having thus been liberated from the fetters of causation response, at least as pertains to eternal destiny, and provision having been made for the growth of the immortal self, the soul, it remains for man himself to will the creation or to inhibit the creation of this surviving and eternal self which is his for the choosing. No other being, force, creator, or agency in all the wide universe of universes can interfere to any degree with the absolute sovereignty of the mortal free will, as it operates within the realms of choice, regarding the eternal destiny of the personality of the choosing mortal. As pertains to eternal survival, God has decreed the sovereignty of the material and mortal will, and that decree is absolute.
p71:2 (5:6.7)
The association of actuals and potentials equals growth, the experiential realization of values. But growth is not mere progress. Progress is always meaningful, but it is relatively valueless without growth. The supreme value of human life consists in growth of values, progress in meanings, and realization of the cosmic interrelatedness of both of these experiences. And such an experience is the equivalent of God-consciousness. Such a mortal, while not supernatural, is truly becoming superhuman; an immortal soul is evolving.
p1097:3 (100:3.6)Labels: Eckankar, mind, soul, The Urantia Book, Thought Adjuster
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Friday, May 04, 2007
What Is The Will Of God?
Q: What is the will of God?
A: This is a wonderful question, and I am happy to help you explore the subject as it is treated in The Urantia Book. It is actually a more elusive subject than one might think at first glance.
In this following quote we find the first mention of the will of God:
p25:6 1:3.6 In the universes God the Father is, in potential, the overcontroller of matter, mind, and spirit. Only by means of his far-flung personality circuit does God deal directly with the personalities of his vast creation of will creatures, but he is contactable (outside of Paradise) only in the presences of his fragmented entities, the will of God abroad in the universes. This Paradise spirit that indwells the minds of the mortals of time and there fosters the evolution of the immortal soul of the surviving creature is of the nature and divinity of the Universal Father. But the minds of such evolutionary creatures originate in the local universes and must gain divine perfection by achieving those experiential transformations of spiritual attainment which are the inevitable result of a creature's choosing to do the will of the Father in heaven.
This quote explains that the will of God is present in our world, but it exists only in the Spirit of God which indwells all normal-minded mortals. The good Spirit actually IS God, and is our only means of contacting God outside of Paradise . This is a wonderful and reassuring truth - that God actually DOES indwell our minds, and through our own efforts, we can use this indwelling presence to progressively discern the will of God.
This following quote further explains just how we, as mortals of earthly origin, grow to adopt the leadings of the indwelling Spirit, the "will of God," thereby achieving ultimate eternal survival. When we choose to be led by the Spirit-within, we then create that indestructible entity known as the soul, which is the very part of us that survives.
p26:1 1:3.7 In the inner experience of man, mind is joined to matter. Such material-linked minds cannot survive mortal death. The technique of survival is embraced in those adjustments of the human will and those transformations in the mortal mind whereby such a God-conscious intellect gradually becomes spirit taught and eventually spirit led. This evolution of the human mind from matter association to spirit union results in the transmutation of the potentially spirit phases of the mortal mind into the morontia realities of the immortal soul. Mortal mind subservient to matter is destined to become increasingly material and consequently to suffer eventual personality extinction; mind yielded to spirit is destined to become increasingly spiritual and ultimately to achieve oneness with the surviving and guiding divine spirit and in this way to attain survival and eternity of personality existence.
Although you did not specifically ask, I thought you might like to have further information regarding the will of God - for example, how the will of God is discerned and performed in a human life. How do we actually DO the will of God?
These quotes may give you some direction and encouragement:
p1221:2 111:5.1 The doing of the will of God is nothing more or less than an exhibition of creature willingness to share the inner life with God—with the very God who has made such a creature life of inner meaning-value possible. Sharing is Godlike—divine. God shares all with the Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit, while they, in turn, share all things with the divine Sons and spirit Daughters of the universes.
p1221:3 111:5.2 The imitation of God is the key to perfection; the doing of his will is the secret of survival and of perfection in survival.
p1221:7 111:5.6 This choosing of the Father's will is the spiritual finding of the spirit Father by mortal man, even though an age must pass before the creature son may actually stand in the factual presence of God on Paradise. This choosing does not so much consist in the negation of creature will—"Not my will but yours be done"—as it consists in the creature's positive affirmation: "It is my will that your will be done."
So, we can now see that the "will of God" is truly an "inside job." The will of God exists in the form of the indwelling Spirit of God in the minds of mortals (known in Urantia Book teachings as the Thought Adjuster, or Mystery Monitor), and the finding and doing of that will consists in sharing that inner life - the life apart from the purely mechanical function of the brain - the life of the mind, and in the arena of free will. In other words, it is our mandate to choose, of our own free will, to do the will of God, allowing the leadings of the indwelling Spirit to inform our choices in life.
Finally, I chose the following quotes to give you an even broader view of the function of the will of God in the mind of man.
p138:2 12:7.7 The will of God does not uniformly prevail in the heart of the God-seeking material mortal, but if the time frame is enlarged beyond the moment to embrace the whole of the first life, then does God's will become increasingly discernible in the spirit fruits which are borne in the lives of the spirit-led children of God.
p382:6 34:7.6 ... present-day mortals would experience less of this apparent warfare between the flesh and the spirit if they would enter the spirit kingdom, wherein the faith sons of God enjoy comparative deliverance from the slave-bondage of the flesh in the enlightened and liberating service of wholehearted devotion to doing the will of the Father in heaven.
p435:7 39:4.14 The keys of the kingdom of heaven are: sincerity, more sincerity, and more sincerity. All men have these keys. Men use them—advance in spirit status—by decisions, by more decisions, and by more decisions. The highest moral choice is the choice of the highest possible value, and always—in any sphere, in all of them—this is to choose to do the will of God. If man thus chooses, he is great, though he be the humblest citizen of Jerusem or even the least of mortals on Urantia.
p1176:4 107:0.4 Any mortal who has seen a Creator Son has seen the Universal Father, and he who is indwelt by a divine Adjuster is indwelt by the Paradise Father. Every mortal who is consciously or unconsciously following the leading of his indwelling Adjuster is living in accordance with the will of God. Consciousness of Adjuster presence is consciousness of God's presence.
Thank you for this most interesting question. I hope the answer has been helpful to you.
Sincerely,
MaryJo
Truthbook.com
Labels: God's Will, inner life, kingdom of heaven, Mary Jo, soul, The Urantia Book, Thought Adjuster
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Thursday, March 22, 2007
Questions Regarding Death
Q: I had a good friend pass away at 41 unexpectedly. How does God decide when is your time to pass away? When she died, did she go to sleep right away? Do their souls stay around for awhile?
A: Thank you for your question. According to The Urantia Book God is the infinite controller and sustainer of all creation but God does not micromanage. God loves us so much he has conferred free will which means how we live, the choices we make and consequences we receive, and how and when we die are not decisions God takes part in -- we can always ask for guidance, but we are the captains of our souls.
One of the consequences of living on an imperfect material world is that each of us has challenges to face that are imposed by our heredity, the family environment we grow up in, the decisions we make as we grow, and the just plain accidents that occur when living in such an unpredictable environment. We tend to become so wrapped up in our daily drama that we lose sight of the bigger picture -- that we're here for only a short while and then we begin in the less material realms right where we leave off here and that there is a grand spiritual adventure before us -- this life is a stepping stone for what's to come.
Losing someone near and dear is always a shock and is cause for reflecting on the lives we live and the meaning of it all. Peace be with you as you confront your friend's unexpected death but it was not God's doing, it's part of the normal process of material existence.
When she died she lost consciousness just like happens in deep, dreamless sleep. When she is awakened on the mansion worlds she will remember who she was and will begin the new life there. The sadness of losing a loved one is experienced by those left behind -- the joy and freedom of experiencing the continuation of life after earthly death is transcendent for the one awakening.
At times you may experience your friend's presence even though she is no longer here -- her life has affected the world around us to some degree -- but the real "she" is in a better place and is not present here and does not return or visit.
Peace be with you.
Larry Watkins
Truthbook.comLabels: death, free will, God, Larry Watkins, soul, The Urantia Book
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Thursday, October 26, 2006
What does the Urantia Book say about hell and judgment day?
Q: What does the Urantia Book say about hell and judgment day?
A: The Urantia Book does not teach the existence of a place called "hell." There is no place of eternal fire for the erring children of God. However, here are several quotes that illustrate the beginnings of the concept of hell, and its subsequent growth in human history:
The Death Survival Concept
p953:6 86:4.7 Early man entertained no ideas of hell or future punishment. The savage looked upon the future life as just like this one, minus all ill luck. Later on, a separate destiny for good ghosts and bad ghosts—heaven and hell—was conceived. But since many primitive races believed that man entered the next life just as he left this one, they did not relish the idea of becoming old and decrepit. The aged much preferred to be killed before becoming too infirm.
p953:7 86:4.8 Almost every group had a different idea regarding the destiny of the ghost soul. The Greeks believed that weak men must have weak souls; so they invented Hades as a fit place for the reception of such anemic souls; these unrobust specimens were also supposed to have shorter shadows. The early Andites thought their ghosts returned to the ancestral homelands. The Chinese and Egyptians once believed that soul and body remained together. Among the Egyptians this led to careful tomb construction and efforts at body preservation. Even modern peoples seek to arrest the decay of the dead. The Hebrews conceived that a phantom replica of the individual went down to Sheol; it could not return to the land of the living. They did make that important advance in the doctrine of the evolution of the soul.
The Concept Of Sin
p975:5 89:2.1 The fear of chance and the dread of bad luck literally drove man into the invention of primitive religion as supposed insurance against these calamities. From magic and ghosts, religion evolved through spirits and fetishes to taboos. Every primitive tribe had its tree of forbidden fruit, literally the apple but figuratively consisting of a thousand branches hanging heavy with all sorts of taboos. And the forbidden tree always said, "Thou shalt not."
p975:6 89:2.2 As the savage mind evolved to that point where it envisaged both good and bad spirits, and when the taboo received the solemn sanction of evolving religion, the stage was all set for the appearance of the new conception of sin. The idea of sin was universally established in the world before revealed religion ever made its entry. It was only by the concept of sin that natural death became logical to the primitive mind. Sin was the transgression of taboo, and death was the penalty of sin.
p975:7 89:2.3 Sin was ritual, not rational; an act, not a thought. And this entire concept of sin was fostered by the lingering traditions of Dilmun and the days of a little paradise on earth. The tradition of Adam and the Garden of Eden also lent substance to the dream of a onetime "golden age" of the dawn of the races. And all this confirmed the ideas later expressed in the belief that man had his origin in a special creation, that he started his career in perfection, and that transgression of the taboos—sin—brought him down to his later sorry plight.
p976:1 89:2.4 The habitual violation of a taboo became a vice; primitive law made vice a crime; religion made it a sin. Among the early tribes the violation of a taboo was a combined crime and sin. Community calamity was always regarded as punishment for tribal sin. To those who believed that prosperity and righteousness went together, the apparent prosperity of the wicked occasioned so much worry that it was necessary to invent hells for the punishment of taboo violators; the numbers of these places of future punishment have varied from one to five
p976:2 89:2.5 The idea of confession and forgiveness early appeared in primitive religion. Men would ask forgiveness at a public meeting for sins they intended to commit the following week. Confession was merely a rite of remission, also a public notification of defilement, a ritual of crying "unclean, unclean!" Then followed all the ritualistic schemes of purification. All ancient peoples practiced these meaningless ceremonies. Many apparently hygienic customs of the early tribes were largely ceremonial.
Early Egyptian Religion
p1045:2 95:2.9 When Melchizedek appeared in the flesh, the Egyptians had a religion far above that of the surrounding peoples. They believed that a disembodied soul, if properly armed with magic formulas, could evade the intervening evil spirits and make its way to the judgment hall of Osiris, where, if innocent of "murder, robbery, falsehood, adultery, theft, and selfishness," it would be admitted to the realms of bliss. If this soul were weighed in the balances and found wanting, it would be consigned to hell, to the Devouress. And this was, relatively, an advanced concept of a future life in comparison with the beliefs of many surrounding peoples.
p1045:3 95:2.10 The concept of judgment in the hereafter for the sins of one's life in the flesh on earth was carried over into Hebrew theology from Egypt. The word judgment appears only once in the entire Book of Hebrew Psalms, and that particular psalm was written by an Egyptian.
Zoroaster - The Salem Teachings In Iran.
p1050:2 95:6.6 The Jewish traditions of heaven and hell and the doctrine of devils as recorded in the Hebrew scriptures, while founded on the lingering traditions of Lucifer and Caligastia, were principally derived from the Zoroastrians during the times when the Jews were under the political and cultural dominance of the Persians. Zoroaster, like the Egyptians, taught the "day of judgment," but he connected this event with the end of the world.
p1050:3 95:6.7 Even the religion which succeeded Zoroastrianism in Persia was markedly influenced by it. When the Iranian priests sought to overthrow the teachings of Zoroaster, they resurrected the ancient worship of Mithra. And Mithraism spread throughout the Levant and Mediterranean regions, being for some time a contemporary of both Judaism and Christianity. The teachings of Zoroaster thus came successively to impress three great religions: Judaism and Christianity and, through them, Mohammedanism.
p1050:4 95:6.8 But it is a far cry from the exalted teachings and noble psalms of Zoroaster to the modern perversions of his gospel by the Parsees with their great fear of the dead, coupled with the entertainment of beliefs in sophistries which Zoroaster never stooped to countenance.
p1050:5 95:6.9 This great man was one of that unique group that sprang up in the sixth century before Christ to keep the light of Salem from being fully and finally extinguished as it so dimly burned to show man in his darkened world the path of light leading to everlasting
The idea of "judgment day," when it is thought that each one is to stand before God and be deemed worthy or unworthy for Heaven, is more real. But as the following quote illustrates, each person is seen as equal before God, and equally worthy of admission to the heavenly realms.
p1468:3 133:0.3 Said Jesus: "Though human beings differ in many ways, the one from another, before God and in the spiritual world all mortals stand on an equal footing. There are only two groups of mortals in the eyes of God: those who desire to do his will and those who do not. As the universe looks upon an inhabited world, it likewise discerns two great classes: those who know God and those who do not. Those who cannot know God are reckoned among the animals of any given realm. Mankind can appropriately be divided into many classes in accordance with differing qualifications, as they may be viewed physically, mentally, socially, vocationally, or morally, but as these different classes of mortals appear before the judgment bar of God, they stand on an equal footing; God is truly no respecter of persons."
The only thing that can keep a soul from progressing to Heaven is the final decision of that person to reject God's mercy, and his invitation to live forever. Every soul will be given an equal opportunity to accept or reject God's love. Those who do reject God, rather than going to a place of damnation, are extinquished as personality in all the universe. It is as though they never existed at all. But there is no place called hell for sinners.
Following are some quotes illustrating the importance of the spiritual life to mortals as far as survival after death is concerned:
From "God Is A Unversal Spirit:"
p25:6 1:3.6 In the universes God the Father is, in potential, the overcontroller of matter, mind, and spirit. Only by means of his far-flung personality circuit does God deal directly with the personalities of his vast creation of will creatures, but he is contactable (outside of Paradise) only in the presences of his fragmented entities, the will of God abroad in the universes. This Paradise spirit that indwells the minds of the mortals of time and there fosters the evolution of the immortal soul of the surviving creature is of the nature and divinity of the Universal Father. But the minds of such evolutionary creatures originate in the local universes and must gain divine perfection by achieving those experiential transformations of spiritual attainment which are the inevitable result of a creature's choosing to do the will of the Father in heaven.
p26:1 1:3.7 In the inner experience of man, mind is joined to matter. Such material-linked minds cannot survive mortal death. The technique of survival is embraced in those adjustments of the human will and those transformations in the mortal mind whereby such a God-conscious intellect gradually becomes spirit taught and eventually spirit led. This evolution of the human mind from matter association to spirit union results in the transmutation of the potentially spirit phases of the mortal mind into the morontia realities of the immortal soul. Mortal mind subservient to matter is destined to become increasingly material and consequently to suffer eventual personality extinction; mind yielded to spirit is destined to become increasingly spiritual and ultimately to achieve oneness with the surviving and guiding divine spirit and in this way to attain survival and eternity of personality existence.
From "The Goodness Of God:"
p41:6 2:6.8 God loves the sinner and hates the sin: such a statement is true philosophically, but God is a transcendent personality, and persons can only love and hate other persons. Sin is not a person. God loves the sinner because he is a personality reality (potentially eternal), while towards sin God strikes no personal attitude, for sin is not a spiritual reality; it is not personal; therefore does only the justice of God take cognizance of its existence. The love of God saves the sinner; the law of God destroys the sin. This attitude of the divine nature would apparently change if the sinner finally identified himself wholly with sin just as the same mortal mind may also fully identify itself with the indwelling spirit Adjuster. Such a sin-identified mortal would then become wholly unspiritual in nature (and therefore personally unreal) and would experience eventual extinction of being. Unreality, even incompleteness of creature nature, cannot exist forever in a progressingly real and increasingly spiritual universe.
p42:1 2:6.9 Facing the world of personality, God is discovered to be a loving person; facing the spiritual world, he is a personal love; in religious experience he is both. Love identifies the volitional will of God. The goodness of God rests at the bottom of the divine free-willness—the universal tendency to love, show mercy, manifest patience, and minister forgiveness.
In general, humans who are of survivor status, but who have not made the ultimate decision to survive before their death, are numbered among the "sleeping survivors." Groups of these souls slumber peacefully until a resurrectional roll call is made.
Following are some quotes having to do with what might be thought of a real "judgment day." These are rare, and wonderful events - times when many, many souls are resurrected at once, rather than having been resurrected "on the third day." You can assume that each of these souls will, once reawakened, be given the same opportunity for survival as any other soul, before or since. And the desision of the soul itself will determine the soul's being judged worthy of eternal life.
Ascending Mortals
p341:1 30:4.4 2. Sleeping Survivors. All mortals of survival status, in the custody of personal guardians of destiny, pass through the portals of natural death and, on the third period, personalize on the mansion worlds. Those accredited beings who have, for any reason, been unable to attain that level of intelligence mastery and endowment of spirituality which would entitle them to personal guardians, cannot thus immediately and directly go to the mansion worlds. Such surviving souls must rest in unconscious sleep until the judgment day of a new epoch, a new dispensation, the coming of a Son of God to call the rolls of the age and adjudicate the realm, and this is the general practice throughout all Nebadon. It was said of Christ Michael that, when he ascended on high at the conclusion of his work on earth, "He led a great multitude of captives." And these captives were the sleeping survivors from the days of Adam to the day of the Master's resurrection on Urantia.
p341:2 30:4.5 The passing of time is of no moment to sleeping mortals; they are wholly unconscious and oblivious to the length of their rest. On reassembly of personality at the end of an age, those who have slept five thousand years will react no differently than those who have rested five days. Aside from this time delay these survivors pass on through the ascension regime identically with those who avoid the longer or shorter sleep of death.
p341:3 30:4.6 These dispensational classes of world pilgrims are utilized for group morontia activities in the work of the local universes. There is a great advantage in the mobilization of such enormous groups; they are thus kept together for long periods of effective service.
And this final quote illustrates the last dispensational resurrection, made by Jesus at the time of his ascension into Heaven following his resurrection from the tomb.
The Dispensational Resurrection
p2024:3 189:3.1 A little after half past four o'clock this Sunday morning, Gabriel summoned the archangels to his side and made ready to inaugurate the general resurrection of the termination of the Adamic dispensation on Urantia. When the vast host of the seraphim and the cherubim concerned in this great event had been marshaled in proper formation, the morontia Michael appeared before Gabriel, saying: "As my Father has life in himself, so has he given it to the Son to have life in himself. Although I have not yet fully resumed the exercise of universe jurisdiction, this self-imposed limitation does not in any manner restrict the bestowal of life upon my sleeping sons; let the roll call of the planetary resurrection begin."
p2024:4 189:3.2 The circuit of the archangels then operated for the first time from Urantia. Gabriel and the archangel hosts moved to the place of the spiritual polarity of the planet; and when Gabriel gave the signal, there flashed to the first of the system mansion worlds the voice of Gabriel, saying: "By the mandate of Michael, let the dead of a Urantia dispensation rise!" Then all the survivors of the human races of Urantia who had fallen asleep since the days of Adam, and who had not already gone on to judgment, appeared in the resurrection halls of mansonia in readiness for morontia investiture. And in an instant of time the seraphim and their associates made ready to depart for the mansion worlds. Ordinarily these seraphic guardians, onetime assigned to the group custody of these surviving mortals, would have been present at the moment of their awaking in the resurrection halls of mansonia, but they were on this world itself at this time because of the necessity of Gabriel's presence here in connection with the morontia resurrection of Jesus.
p2024:5 189:3.3 Notwithstanding that countless individuals having personal seraphic guardians and those achieving the requisite attainment of spiritual personality progress had gone on to mansonia during the ages subsequent to the times of Adam and Eve, and though there had been many special and millennial resurrections of Urantia sons, this was the third of the planetary roll calls, or complete dispensational resurrections. The first occurred at the time of the arrival of the Planetary Prince, the second during the time of Adam, and this, the third, signalized the morontia resurrection, the mortal transit, of Jesus of Nazareth.
p2024:6 189:3.4 When the signal of the planetary resurrection had been received by the chief of archangels, the Personalized Adjuster of the Son of Man relinquished his authority over the celestial hosts assembled on Urantia, turning all these sons of the local universe back to the jurisdiction of their respective commanders. And when he had done this, he departed for Salvington to register with Immanuel the completion of the mortal transit of Michael. And he was immediately followed by all the celestial host not required for duty on Urantia. But Gabriel remained on Urantia with the morontia Jesus.
p2025:1 189:3.5 And this is the recital of the events of the resurrection of Jesus as viewed by those who saw them as they really occurred, free from the limitations of partial and restricted human vision.
Thanks for this question.
MaryJo
Truthbook.comLabels: ascension, dispensational resurrection, Egyptian religion, hell, Judgment day, Mary Jo, Salem teachings, sin, sleeping survivors, soul, Zoroaster
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Tuesday, March 14, 2006
What does the UB say about why we are here on earth?
Q: What does the UB say about why we are here on earth?
A: The Urantia Book has a lot to say about what you've asked, but to give a short answer, God chose to create a spiritual and a material universe and to experience that creation. There are many types of self aware spiritual and material beings in God's creation, human beings being but one of those types, and God has given a fragment of himself to accompany the soul of human beings as they begin the long adventure of finding their way back to God. The purpose of our life on earth is to begin that adventure as the lowest order of free will creature in existence and to set out on that long adventure by giving birth to an immortal soul simply by believing that life has more to offer than what we can see and touch. Your new born soul, which is you without a material body, and your fragment of God travel together in this adventure until your soul has become spiritualized enough that you and God's fragment fuse into one being and then you continue on as one until the ultimate goal is reached. Earth is but one of billions of starting point worlds that human beings inhabit but it happens to be unique, first because it's an experimental world and is unlike the vast majority of normal worlds, and second it's unique because Jesus lived here; he hasn't lived on any other material worlds. So we're very fortunate that our individual personalities were sent here to inhabit these material bodies on this material world in company with our individual fragment of God the Father. We're just setting out on a grand adventure.Labels: Earth, God, Jesus, soul, The Urantia Book
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Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Where do animals go after death?
Q: Where do animals go after death?
A: Here's a quote from The Urantia Book:
The life bestowed upon plants and animals by the Life Carriers does not return to the Life Carriers upon the death of plant or animal. The departing life of such a living thing possesses neither identity nor personality; it does not individually survive death. During its existence and the time of its sojourn in the body of matter, it has undergone a change; it has undergone energy evolution and survives only as a part of the cosmic forces of the universe; it does not survive as individual life. The survival of mortal creatures is wholly predicated on the evolvement of an immortal soul within the mortal mind.
Page 404 (36:6.5)
Many people who have owned pets or have had a close relationship with an animal have found this statement to be difficult to accept, particularly because it says that animals don't possess identity or personality. The problem stems from taking the term out of context. When used by The Urantia Book the word personality is given a different interpretation from what we commonly use it for. We all know our cat or dog has personality – that's why the pet becomes special to us. But what TUB is relating is that the eternal evolutionary course for creatures of free will intent (human beings) is separate and different from what becomes of other forms of life.
When our beloved pet dies the life force that made it special and unique to us is absorbed back into the Supreme Being. When we die we go on to the mansion worlds where we will encounter even more appealing forms of plant and animal life to associate with.Labels: animals, death, personality, soul, Supreme Being, The Urantia Book
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Xerpi
