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Paper 49 – The Inhabited Worlds

100 posts · 4 participants · started Apr 1, 2025, 12:48 PM

  1. 32:5.7 (365.3) There is in the mind of God a plan which embraces every creature of all his vast domains, and this plan is an eternal purpose of boundless opportunity, unlimited progress, and endless life. And the infinite treasures of such a matchless career are yours for the striving!

    32:5.8 (365.4) The goal of eternity is ahead! The adventure of divinity attainment lies before you! The race for perfection is on! whosoever will may enter, and certain victory will crown the efforts of every human being who will run the race of faith and trust, depending every step of the way on the leading of the indwelling Adjuster and on the guidance of that good spirit of the Universe Son, which so freely has been poured out upon all flesh.

    Evolution – “the adventure of divinity attainment” and “the race for perfection”!

    "Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."

  2. Some points of clarification….I posted above:

    “Evolution must first of all originate in imperfection. That which is perfect is not evolving. It may be experiencing, but it is not evolving. Evolution is a process. A process of perfecting. We are told that life itself, even in its most basic forms is striving. Striving for perfection. All of life is thereby and therefor evolving…seeking new ways to thrive and survive and perpetuate itself. This is inherent in all life forms regardless of simplicity or complexity. It is the foundational urge upon which evolution depends and propagates its own process and reality. Life has its ministers and managers and creators…but life itself is imbued by this impulse to become perfect.

    There is life which created in perfection and then there is life that seeks perfection. There is no other form of life. Except for one. Mortals may choose not to seek perfection. Our very cells in our bodies do still seek out perpetuation and survival and perfection at the cellular level of “life”. Our pets and other animals on the world and the plant life and all other forms of life, minded and pre-minded do still seek survival and adaptivity and perfecting. But mortals are given freewill and personality. We must choose. And we may choose either way…to strive for our potential or merely choose self indulgence. Mortal life is the first level of life in the universe with such choice! For we are the entry level will creatures of time and space.”

    The words posted above about perfecting by all life and survival by all life was intended to present the fact that this urge in unconscious in all life itself…it is how species seek self perpetuation and fight to live and how they adapt to conditions and changing conditions – the adaptability and survival of the fittest aspects of evolution. Humans may choose the perfecting of ourselves by transferring the seat of our identity from the material self to the spirit nature within. Plants and animals and life even more basic do not consciously seek perfecting or adaptations. Such bio-evolution can happen incrementally and very slowly but it can also make giant leaps forward all at once when whole new species emerge suddenly or environmental adaptations spring forth in single generations.

    49:1.1 (559.6) The universes of time and space are gradual in development; the progression of life—terrestrial or celestial—is neither arbitrary nor magical. Cosmic evolution may not always be understandable (predictable), but it is strictly nonaccidental.

    49:1.6 (560.5) The early stages of life evolution are not altogether in conformity with your present-day views. Mortal man is not an evolutionary accident. There is a precise system, a universal law, which determines the unfolding of the planetary life plan on the spheres of space. Time and the production of large numbers of a species are not the controlling influences. Mice reproduce much more rapidly than elephants, yet elephants evolve more rapidly than mice.

    65:0.1 (730.1) BASIC evolutionary material life—premind life—is the formulation of the Master Physical Controllers and the life-impartation ministry of the Seven Master Spirits in conjunction with the active ministration of the ordained Life Carriers. As a result of the co-ordinate function of this threefold creativity there develops organismal physical capacity for mind—material mechanisms for intelligent reaction to external environmental stimuli and, later on, to internal stimuli, influences taking origin in the organismal mind itself.

    65:2.1 (731.5) The story of man’s ascent from seaweed to the lordship of earthly creation is indeed a romance of biologic struggle and mind survival. Man’s primordial ancestors were literally the slime and ooze of the ocean bed in the sluggish and warm-water bays and lagoons of the vast shore lines of the ancient inland seas, those very waters in which the Life Carriers established the three independent life implantations on Urantia.

    65:2.9 (732.7) Probably the greatest single leap of all prehuman evolution was executed when the reptile became a bird. The bird types of today—eagles, ducks, pigeons, and ostriches—all descended from the enormous reptiles of long, long ago.

    65:2.12 (733.2) It was from an agile little reptilian dinosaur of carnivorous habits but having a comparatively large brain that the placental mammals suddenly sprang. These mammals developed rapidly and in many different ways, not only giving rise to the common modern varieties but also evolving into marine types, such as whales and seals, and into air navigators like the bat family.

    65:3.2 (733.8) Life Carriers may employ every possible natural resource and may utilize any and all fortuitous circumstances which will enhance the developmental progress of the life experiment, but we are not permitted mechanically to intervene in, or arbitrarily to manipulate the conduct and course of, either plant or animal evolution.

    5:4.3 (735.2) Many features of human life afford abundant evidence that the phenomenon of mortal existence was intelligently planned, that organic evolution is not a mere cosmic accident. When a living cell is injured, it possesses the ability to elaborate certain chemical substances which are empowered so to stimulate and activate the neighboring normal cells that they immediately begin the secretion of certain substances which facilitate healing processes in the wound; and at the same time these normal and uninjured cells begin to proliferate—they actually start to work creating new cells to replace any fellow cells which may have been destroyed by the accident.

    65:6.2 (737.2) There is original endowment of adaptation in living things and beings. In every living plant or animal cell, in every living organism—material or spiritual—there is an insatiable craving for the attainment of ever-increasing perfection of environmental adjustment, organismal adaptation, and augmented life realization. These interminable efforts of all living things evidence the existence within them of an innate striving for perfection.

    65:6.7 (737.7) The lower forms of plant life are wholly responsive to physical, chemical, and electrical environment. But as the scale of life ascends, one by one the mind ministries of the seven adjutant spirits become operative, and the mind becomes increasingly adjustive, creative, co-ordinative, and dominative. The ability of animals to adapt themselves to air, water, and land is not a supernatural endowment, but it is a superphysical adjustment.

    65:6.8 (738.1) Physics and chemistry alone cannot explain how a human being evolved out of the primeval protoplasm of the early seas. The ability to learn, memory and differential response to environment, is the endowment of mind. The laws of physics are not responsive to training; they are immutable and unchanging. The reactions of chemistry are not modified by education; they are uniform and dependable. Aside from the presence of the Unqualified Absolute, electrical and chemical reactions are predictable. But mind can profit from experience, can learn from reactive habits of behavior in response to repetition of stimuli.

    65:6.9 (738.2) Preintelligent organisms react to environmental stimuli, but those organisms which are reactive to mind ministry can adjust and manipulate the environment itself.

    "Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."

  3. Another point of clarification. Posted above:

    “Our religious experience is not what most of us think of as a religious experience. See, we are having a religious experience without making any conscious commitments to or having any conscious awareness of such experience. Primitive minds and children have religious experience. Love, truth, beauty, and goodness are all elements of such a religious experience. Our expressions of those internal and external (social and material) realities are expressions of our religious experience. Love, truth, beauty, and goodness have only one source – God. The personality which can experience and express these realities also has only one source – God. So the person-ality who experiences and expresses love, truth, beauty, and goodness has found God within and the circuits of God – mind, personality, and spirit – and is actively having a very robust and deeply meaningful religious experience!!

    This is the beginning of the evolution of the soul and the eternal adventure and the perfecting ascension of material born mortal beings as children of God in time!! It is also an all important element and method of evolving mortal society one generation after another. Society is evolved by the evolution of each mortal on each world. And each mortal on each world is also evolved and influenced in our personal progress by the evolutionary progress of the whole of society as we have already learned and studied here. Personal and social evolution are interdependent! Each is a cause and each is an effect of the other.”

    The statement/claim in blue above is accurate…but incomplete I think. This describes only the very beginning of the mortal’s religious experience. Certainly must we make conscious choices eventually in our religious experience…to be born again requires a conscious choice of choosing the Spirit nature. There comes a point when our evolutionary religious experience must become intentional and purposeful. Faith and truth are by and from the inherent connections of the mind and personality to the Spirit within…but we cannot grow sufficiently in the Spirit to fuse with our Adjuster and become eternal beings without conscious awareness of choosing such a destiny and desire to find God and become perfected in time by the Spirit ministry of God.

    "Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."

  4. As I have pointed out, it is interesting how the topics on “Experiential Wisdom” and “What is Assurance” intersect and overlap!!

    Experiential Wisdom is the very foundation of Evolution!! And Evolution is the root of Experiential Wisdom expression!!

    Evolution is the result of experience. Wisdom evolves by the results of experience. Evolution is experiential. Experience is evolutionary!!

    Which is cause? Which is effect? Both are both!! Each causes the other and both are the effects of the other.

    Even biologically and geologically!! But especially socially and religiously. And also on a planetary basis and universe basis…and even at the level of Deity and Paradise origin beings!

    We are taught that the urge to perfect is inherent in life itself. Evolution is the functional and transitional and progressive experience of perfecting in time. All beings with freewill and personality in time evolve but so does all life evolve and, we are taught, does geological and stellar energies and forces seek equilibrium and gain stabilization over time. There are fewer radicalizations and volatility and uncertainty of outcomes due to evolutionary forces and experiential results!

    We are told that their is no confusion or conflict for the purely material or the pure spirit. But every being in time with personality and freewill has some measure of confusion and conflict and uncertainty in the acquisition of wisdom by experience and in the experience of evolution itself. Outcomes of choice are uncertain when personality and time and relationships create circumstances and situations which require navigation by our decisions….lots of decisions by lots of beings. It’s all so very fluid. And because there are so many freewills and so many personalities creating so many choices at so many intersections of decision and choice – then are there always inherently endless potentials for outcomes – almost all of which are unpredictable to those of us in time and making decisions!!

    That’s why we must experience and embrace Divine Assurance to eliminate fear and anxiety from the arena of choice!! We can only enjoy and anticipate uncertainty of outcomes by the certainty of our origin and destiny and by our personal relationship with Deity!!

    Assurance is that gift which eliminates anxiety from uncertainty! Faith and truth experience come with assurance of Being and assurance of Belonging and the assurance of Becoming!!

    Being. (I AM)

    Belonging. (I AM SAFE)

    Becoming. (I AM PERFECTING – or at least I AM PROGRESSING!)

    Origin and Destiny! This is the gift of Divine Assurance.

    Faith is its fruit. By faith do we choose to attach our branch to the vine. Then does the fruit of the Sprit (vine) come forth on the branch attached to the vine.

    "Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."

  5. For the more intrepid students of evolutionary forces, process, and results as portrayed in the UB, I suggest reading Paper 56. Fascinating presentation.

    The experience and expression of Divinity expands proportionately in the individual and the localized associative groups of individuals (family, tribe, community, nation, world, system, constellation, local universe, etc.) and also the totality of all other evolutionary and experiential beings and also the relationship between all of those and Paradise Perfected beings as the realization and actualization of potential.

    Existential /Original Deity itself does not evolve by experience. But the experiential expression of the personal and group effects of this original cause are evolutionary and experiential. And Existential Original Deity has created other forms of interfacing Deity who aggregate and integrate all of the accumulative evolutionary effects – experiences and expressions – of the Original Cause.

    This evolutionary EFFECT (result) grows in its own power and potential to also be further CAUSE (source) for evermore effect (still more and greater result). Every experience and expression of truth, beauty, and goodness is a creative force for perfecting. Every experience and expression of truth, beauty, and goodness is an effect of cause and also a cause of further effects.

    Reality is never improved or perfected by evolution or experiential wisdom I do not think. Our own perfecting does not change or improve perfection. It changes the imperfect. Perfection is already perfect. It is imperfection that is changed and improved. Perfecting is the actualization of potential into reality. Evolution is the experiential expression of perfecting in time by approximations ever approaching actual and original perfection.

    This is evolution. Or so I understand the teachings.

    10. Truth, Beauty, and Goodness

    56:10.1 (646.2) As the worlds settled in life and light progress from the initial stage to the seventh epoch, they successively grasp for the realization of the reality of God the Sevenfold, ranging from the adoration of the Creator Son to the worship of his Paradise Father. Throughout the continuing seventh stage of such a world’s history the ever-progressing mortals grow in the knowledge of God the Supreme, while they vaguely discern the reality of the overshadowing ministry of God the Ultimate.

    56:10.2 (646.3) Throughout this glorious age the chief pursuit of the ever-advancing mortals is the quest for a better understanding and a fuller realization of the comprehensible elements of Deity—truth, beauty, and goodness. This represents man’s effort to discern God in mind, matter, and spirit. And as the mortal pursues this quest, he finds himself increasingly absorbed in the experiential study of philosophy, cosmology, and divinity.

    56:10.3 (646.4) Philosophy you somewhat grasp, and divinity you comprehend in worship, social service, and personal spiritual experience, but the pursuit of beauty—cosmology—you all too often limit to the study of man’s crude artistic endeavors. Beauty, art, is largely a matter of the unification of contrasts. Variety is essential to the concept of beauty. The supreme beauty, the height of finite art, is the drama of the unification of the vastness of the cosmic extremes of Creator and creature. Man finding God and God finding man—the creature becoming perfect as is the Creator—that is the supernal achievement of the supremely beautiful, the attainment of the apex of cosmic art.

    56:10.4 (646.5) Hence materialism, atheism, is the maximation of ugliness, the climax of the finite antithesis of the beautiful. Highest beauty consists in the panorama of the unification of the variations which have been born of pre-existent harmonious reality.

    56:10.5 (646.6) The attainment of cosmologic levels of thought includes:

    56:10.6 (646.7) 1. Curiosity. Hunger for harmony and thirst for beauty. Persistent attempts to discover new levels of harmonious cosmic relationships.

    56:10.7 (646.8) 2. Aesthetic appreciation. Love of the beautiful and ever-advancing appreciation of the artistic touch of all creative manifestations on all levels of reality.

    56:10.8 (646.9) 3. Ethic sensitivity. Through the realization of truth the appreciation of beauty leads to the sense of the eternal fitness of those things which impinge upon the recognition of divine goodness in Deity relations with all beings; and thus even cosmology leads to the pursuit of divine reality values—to God-consciousness.

    56:10.9 (646.10) The worlds settled in light and life are so fully concerned with the comprehension of truth, beauty, and goodness because these quality values embrace the revelation of Deity to the realms of time and space. The meanings of eternal truth make a combined appeal to the intellectual and spiritual natures of mortal man. Universal beauty embraces the harmonious relations and rhythms of the cosmic creation; this is more distinctly the intellectual appeal and leads towards unified and synchronous comprehension of the material universe. Divine goodness represents the revelation of infinite values to the finite mind, therein to be perceived and elevated to the very threshold of the spiritual level of human comprehension.

    56:10.10 (647.1) Truth is the basis of science and philosophy, presenting the intellectual foundation of religion. Beauty sponsors art, music, and the meaningful rhythms of all human experience. Goodness embraces the sense of ethics, morality, and religion—experiential perfection-hunger.

    56:10.11 (647.2) The existence of beauty implies the presence of appreciative creature mind just as certainly as the fact of progressive evolution indicates the dominance of the Supreme Mind. Beauty is the intellectual recognition of the harmonious time-space synthesis of the far-flung diversification of phenomenal reality, all of which stems from pre-existent and eternal oneness.

    56:10.12 (647.3) Goodness is the mental recognition of the relative values of the diverse levels of divine perfection. The recognition of goodness implies a mind of moral status, a personal mind with ability to discriminate between good and evil. But the possession of goodness, greatness, is the measure of real divinity attainment.

    56:10.13 (647.4) The recognition of true relations implies a mind competent to discriminate between truth and error. The bestowal Spirit of Truth which invests the human minds of Urantia is unerringly responsive to truth—the living spirit relationship of all things and all beings as they are co-ordinated in the eternal ascent Godward.

    56:10.14 (647.5) Every impulse of every electron, thought, or spirit is an acting unit in the whole universe. Only sin is isolated and evil gravity resisting on the mental and spiritual levels. The universe is a whole; no thing or being exists or lives in isolation. Self-realization is potentially evil if it is antisocial. It is literally true: “No man lives by himself.” Cosmic socialization constitutes the highest form of personality unification. Said Jesus: “He who would be greatest among you, let him become server of all.”

    "Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."

  6. Evolution is the progressive expression of applying knowledge gained by experience and by reason and insight and revelation and guided by that certain wisdom that results from freewill choices in time. Evolution is more than experience. It’s the pogressive results of experience. No progress, no evolution.

    Likewise with experiential wisdom. No progress in understanding of reality and improvement in the outcomes of our choices, then no progress or experiential wisdom gained. Evolution and wisdom express learning and understanding and growth and developmental progress. They are agents for and the effects of perfecting.

    Again…that which is the effect of cause becomes the cause for further effect. God is the First Cause. The First Source and Center of All Causes and All Effects. That which is and those who are imperfect in time seek and pursue perfection by the evolutionary process of experiential progress.

    A most interesting correlation exists between the part(s) and the whole. As goes the parts so goes the whole. The whole of the time creation is perfected as each constituent personality and freewill experiences and expresses the perfecting process and result. The parts perfect the whole. But the perfecting of the whole…the aggregate and integrated results of the perfecting parts…ALSO is a cause with effects upon the parts!!! The progress of the parts creates the progress of the parts but the progress shared by the whole becomes its own cause for the further effects of perfecting progress. An amazing symbiosis and relationship in evolution and experiential wisdom!!

    116:6.6 (1275.6) And as it is with the parts, so it is with the whole; the spirit person of Supremacy requires the evolutionary power of the Almighty to achieve completion of Deity and to attain destiny of Trinity association. The effort is made by the personalities of time and space, but the culmination and consummation of this effort is the act of the Almighty Supreme. And while the growth of the whole is thus a totalizing of the collective growth of the parts, it equally follows that the evolution of the parts is a segmented reflection of the purposive growth of the whole.

    Me here:  Evolution is another technique of creating that which is perfect. More accurately, that which is and those who are perfected by the process of perfecting by freewill experience and the personal expressions of evolutionary and experiential perfecting are also the perfect results or effects of the First Cause.

    The eventual and eternal results of the perfecting experience of the imperfect in time are certain…no matter the uncertainties inherent in the process and experience itself. Destiny is ultimately certain. And thus may we and should we ne boldly confident in our hope, faith, trust, and anticipation throughout this grand adventure in time!!!

    "Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."

  7. Evolution is the progressive expression of applying knowledge gained by experience and by reason and insight and revelation and guided by that certain wisdom that results from freewill choices in time. Evolution is more than experience. It’s the pogressive results of experience. No progress, no evolution.

    Likewise with experiential wisdom. No progress in understanding of reality and improvement in the outcomes of our choices, then no progress or experiential wisdom gained. Evolution and wisdom express learning and understanding and growth and developmental progress. They are agents for and the effects of perfecting.

    Again…that which is the effect of cause becomes the cause for further effect. God is the First Cause. The First Source and Center of All Causes and All Effects. That which is and those who are imperfect in time seek and pursue perfection by the evolutionary process of experiential progress.

    A most interesting correlation exists between the part(s) and the whole. As goes the parts so goes the whole. The whole of the time creation is perfected as each constituent personality and freewill experiences and expresses the perfecting process and result. The parts perfect the whole. But the perfecting of the whole…the aggregate and integrated results of the perfecting parts…ALSO is a cause with effects upon the parts!!! The progress of the parts creates the progress of the parts but the progress shared by the whole becomes its own cause for the further effects of perfecting progress. An amazing symbiosis and relationship in evolution and experiential wisdom!!

    Evolution is another technique of creating that which is perfect. More accurately, that which is and those who are perfected by the process of perfecting by freewill experience and the personal expressions of evolutionary and experiential perfecting are also the perfect results or effects of the First Cause.

    The eventual and eternal results of the perfecting experience of the imperfect in time are certain…no matter the uncertainties inherent in the process and experience itself. Destiny is ultimately certain. And thus may we and should we ne boldly confident in our hope, faith, trust, and anticipation throughout this grand adventure in time!!!

    "Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."

  8. Personal and social evolution is, like bio evolution, also subject to “survival of the fittest” (Darwin wasn’t wrong about everything afterall). The “fittest” is that which survives and, we are taught, only that which is real or reality aligned and attuned will eventually and ultimately survive (again, socially and personally – remember that astro/geo/bio evolution is purely material and foundational to social and personal evolution).

    The fittest survive competition and adversity. Both of those cause suffering. Suffering causes thinking, choosing, and doing…to reduce suffering….progress!!

    Are there actual advantages and meaning and value which result from human suffering? How are wisdom and enlightenment and perfecting affected by suffering? How is the world and the universe affected by suffering?

    How do we evolve by suffering? Remember that evolution is the process of progressive adaptation and perfecting. Let us consider how personal and social progress, evolution, and perfecting benefit from suffering.

    We are taught that evolutionary and experiential life in-time is for the perfecting of the imperfect by the freewill choice of each personality born or created in time and imperfection. THIS is the very purpose of time and the plan and process created by the Creators and First Source and Center.

    It is immature and blind to ask “Why is there suffering?” when one understands the plan for and purpose of perfecting the imperfect!! How could there possibly be no suffering??!! Consider the objective. All that is imperfect and weak and impure and unreliable and disloyal and untested and incomplete and inadequate and immature and inexperienced and incapable and ignorant and blind and self important and not yet forged and not tempered is not and cannot be perfect.

    All of time is about perfecting. The potential of freewill, personality, and experience to develop wisdom and to choose perfecting and to realize truth, beauty, and goodness in both experience and our expressions of that reality experience is to actualize new levels of perfection…perfection achieved by the decisions and choices and actions (experience) of imperfect freewill personality in time.

    To focus too intently upon suffering, whether our own or that of others even, tends to blind us and obscure the actual causes and results and very purpose of suffering. We are told early humans do not even think unless hungry or in pain…suffering.

    Tools for hunting, gathering, planting, building come only to relieve suffering. Cooperation with others, community, trade, specialization, towns?? Progressive responses to relieve and reduce human suffering! Medicine, mass production, education, music, art, science? To reduce suffering. We act collectively to reduce personal suffering…our own and other’s.

    And if we don’t? More suffering for longer by more people. And what motive best serves this reality? Love of others delivers perfecting progress best and fastest!! Suffering lasts longer and is more acute by acts of self importance. That’s a fact. Deal with it. Learn that. Make better choices for better reasons and watch suffering subside and retreat.

    Suffering has a purpose. It also has a cause. And it also has a solution. A simple solution. Not easy…but simple. Love one another. The greatest good for the greatest number is also the best for the each as well as for the all. How so?

    In two ways…first, the individual is always eventually and ultimately best served when all others also are motivated by love of others. Always. Also…we are wired for reality response…which means our true happiness and joy and contentment and all the fruits of the Spirit only come to us in response to our embrace and expressions of truth, beauty, and goodness – LOVE!!!

    103:5.10 (1134. Man, in his spiritual domain, does have a free will. Mortal man is neither a helpless slave of the inflexible sovereignty of an all-powerful God nor the victim of the hopeless fatality of a mechanistic cosmic determinism. Man is most truly the architect of his own eternal destiny.

    Me here: God created that which is and those who are perfect. His Paradise Creator Sons have created the universes of time and filled them with imperfect beings, who are each given personality, mind, freewill, and spirit by Paradise Deity, for the adventure of perfecting.

    So how is perfecting achieved by the imperfect? By the experience of adversity. Conflict. Dilemma and paradox. Perplexion and confusions. Problems and puzzles to solve. Disappointments and failure. Resolutions that require teamwork and collaborative cooperation. Right and wrong. Good choices and better choices. Outcomes of choices. Unintended outcomes as well as the intended ones sometimes. Foolishness and wisdom.

    Pain and suffering are not desirable but they are inherently vital parts of the process. The avoidance and reduction and elimination of pain and suffering are the hamner and anvil and fire and water and steam of the forge of perfecting the imperfect by the freewill choices of the imperfect.

    Perfection is not and cannot be required or forced upon the imperfect and also be chosen by freewill. Experiential wisdom is a great prize in the universe of universes!! There is no substitute or equal! Experiential wisdom cannot be given or bestowed one to another. There is only one way to acquire and achieve experiential wisdom.

    The personal religious experience delivers first the perfecting and purification of motive and intention and priorities long before experiential wisdom arrives. But the fruits of the Spirit arrive to us and our own suffering is relieved by the very faith experience that purifies our motive and philosophy of living that expresses that religious experience.

    Or so I understand the teachings.

    "Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."

  9. In many ways, planetary progressive evolution is dance (or a stumble) of two steps forward and one step back. We can, have, and do regress from time to time. As a world population we can become distracted by materialism or overcome by anxiety. There are certainly both potential good/progress and error/regression to be chosen with prosperity. There is the folly of the decadence of prosperity that humans are so adept at embracing to their detriment. And then there is the prosperity of leisure expressions which include education, science, art, and religious pursuits which advance the individual and the world in forward progress.

    Materialism simply cannot ever deliver true happiness and satisfaction. Disappointment in materialism eventually leads us forward into further progress and wisdom. There are many agents for progress that also work to preserve progress and actualize that progress into social fabric and culture. Progress includes those who lead us forward into change and those who preserve prior change by reluctance to change and then there are those who are fearful of all change and work to be real obstacles to change.

    All of these forces actually work together in their way to prevent over-rapid and destructive chaotic and unmanageable and unsustainable change while delivering the fact of change and progress to the greater population incrementally generation after generation. Not all change is good. But neither is the status quo preferable to all change. True progress requires progressives and those who resist progress both. The yin and the yang. The balance and harmony.

    On our world, and each such world, there are angels and midwayers and reservists who work to preserve progress and work to create and promote progress. First, the angels:

    114:6.4 (1255.3) The twelve corps of the master seraphim of planetary supervision are functional on Urantia as follows:

    114:6.5 (1255.4) 1. The epochal angels. These are the angels of the current age, the dispensational group. These celestial ministers are intrusted with the oversight and direction of the affairs of each generation as they are designed to fit into the mosaic of the age in which they occur. The present corps of epochal angels serving on Urantia is the third group assigned to the planet during the current dispensation.

    114:6.6 (1255.5) 2. The progress angels. These seraphim are intrusted with the task of initiating the evolutionary progress of the successive social ages. They foster the development of the inherent progressive trend of evolutionary creatures; they labor incessantly to make things what they ought to be. The group now on duty is the second to be assigned to the planet.

    114:6.7 (1255.6) 3. The religious guardians. These are the “angels of the churches,” the earnest contenders for that which is and has been. They endeavor to maintain the ideals of that which has survived for the sake of the safe transit of moral values from one epoch to another. They are the checkmates of the angels of progress, all the while seeking to translate from one generation to another the imperishable values of the old and passing forms into the new and therefore less stabilized patterns of thought and conduct. These angels do contend for spiritual forms, but they are not the source of ultrasectarianism and meaningless controversial divisions of professed religionists. The corps now functioning on Urantia is the fifth thus to serve.

    114:6.8 (1255.7) 4. The angels of nation life. These are the “angels of the trumpets,” directors of the political performances of Urantia national life. The group now functioning in the overcontrol of international relations is the fourth corps to serve on the planet. It is particularly through the ministry of this seraphic division that “the Most Highs rule in the kingdoms of men.”

    114:6.9 (1255.8) 5. The angels of the races. Those who work for the conservation of the evolutionary races of time, regardless of their political entanglements and religious groupings. On Urantia there are remnants of nine human races which have commingled and combined into the people of modern times. These seraphim are closely associated with the ministry of the race commissioners, and the group now on Urantia is the original corps assigned to the planet soon after the day of Pentecost.

    114:6.10 (1255.9) 6. The angels of the future. These are the projection angels, who forecast a future age and plan for the realization of the better things of a new and advancing dispensation; they are the architects of the successive eras. The group now on the planet has thus functioned since the beginning of the current dispensation.

    114:6.11 (1256.1) 7. The angels of enlightenment. Urantia is now receiving the help of the third corps of seraphim dedicated to the fostering of planetary education. These angels are occupied with mental and moral training as it concerns individuals, families, groups, schools, communities, nations, and whole races.

    114:6.12 (1256.2) 8. The angels of health. These are the seraphic ministers assigned to the assistance of those mortal agencies dedicated to the promotion of health and the prevention of disease. The present corps is the sixth group to serve during this dispensation.

    114:6.13 (1256.3) 9. The home seraphim. Urantia now enjoys the services of the fifth group of angelic ministers dedicated to the preservation and advancement of the home, the basic institution of human civilization.

    114:6.14 (1256.4) 10. The angels of industry. This seraphic group is concerned with fostering industrial development and improving economic conditions among the Urantia peoples. This corps has been seven times changed since the bestowal of Michael.

    114:6.15 (1256.5) 11. The angels of diversion. These are the seraphim who foster the values of play, humor, and rest. They ever seek to uplift man’s recreational diversions and thus to promote the more profitable utilization of human leisure. The present corps is the third of that order to minister on Urantia.

    114:6.16 (1256.6) 12. The angels of superhuman ministry. These are the angels of the angels, those seraphim who are assigned to the ministry of all other superhuman life on the planet, temporary or permanent. This corps has served since the beginning of the current dispensation.

    "Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."

  10. As every student of history knows, the past 200 years has included two great struggles in the West – women’s rights and the end of the African slave trade and the emancipation and increasing civil/human rights of both groups – women and Blacks. These two great causes have concurrently challenged humanity’s social conscience during the same time frame as the world’s industrial revolution and scientific surge which have all combined to reshape our very culture and future.

    This recent period exemplifies how suddenly and quickly evolutionary forces can transform civilization. I understand the frustration of each generation of those social movement leaders (and victims) who were and are frustrated by how ‘slow’ the changes come, no matter how righteous and important. The indignation of women and people of color who still suffer prejudice and are denied their just liberties, equalities, and opportunities is real and justified.

    Still….considering how slowly things can change, modern history is breathtaking in its acceleration, momentum, and trajectory of change I think. We are taught that the acceleration of change increases personal and collective stress and anxiety and strife in the family and community as the culture strives to adapt to all the many forms of change happening at once and in sequence.

    Faith and the personal connection to the Spirit is the only meaningful and effective source of calm and peace and confidence during such times. Such outward pressures require our inner lives to maintain our equilibrium and overcome the turmoil of all uncertainties. Or so I understand the teachings of the Revelation.

    This is the power of evolution…progress comes under the pressure of the hammer and anvil and the fires of the forge.

    We are evolutionary beings gaining experiential wisdom by spiritual progress with eternity potential, but also how very important is the study of this fact and process of universe reality, which is only possible thanks to this gift of Epochal Revelation we share here together.

    40:7.2 (448.9) Your own races of surviving mortals belong to this group of the ascending Sons of God. You are now planetary sons, evolutionary creatures derived from the Life Carrier implantations and modified by the Adamic-life infusion, hardly yet ascending sons; but you are indeed sons of ascension potential—even to the highest heights of glory and divinity attainment—and this spiritual status of ascending sonship you may attain by faith and by freewill co-operation with the spiritualizing activities of the indwelling Adjuster. When you and your Adjusters are finally and forever fused, when you two are made one, even as in Christ Michael the Son of God and the Son of Man are one, then in fact have you become the ascending sons of God.

    40:7.3 (449.1) The details of the Adjuster career of indwelling ministry on a probationary and evolutionary planet are not a part of my assignment; the elaboration of this great truth embraces your whole career. I include the mention of certain Adjuster functions in order to make a replete statement regarding Adjuster-fused mortals. These indwelling fragments of God are with your order of being from the early days of physical existence through all of the ascending career in Nebadon and Orvonton and on through Havona to Paradise itself. Thereafter, in the eternal adventure, this same Adjuster is one with you and of you.

    40:7.4 (449.2) These are the mortals who have been commanded by the Universal Father, “Be you perfect, even as I am perfect.” The Father has bestowed himself upon you, placed his own spirit within you; therefore does he demand ultimate perfection of you. The narrative of human ascent from the mortal spheres of time to the divine realms of eternity constitutes an intriguing recital not included in my assignment, but this supernal adventure should be the supreme study of mortal man.

    "Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."

  11. Evolution and experiential progress are not limited to mortals or material planets. Celestials, Creators, and Deity (not Existential Deity but Experiential Deity) all evolve and gain experiential wisdom by trial and error. The Supreme integrates, aggregates, synthesizes, and personalizes the combined righteousness of all creature expressions of progressive experience.

    This is one of the most profound and unique teachings in the Papers.

    116:0.1 (1268.1) IF MAN recognized that his Creators—his immediate supervisors—while being divine were also finite, and that the God of time and space was an evolving and nonabsolute Deity, then would the inconsistencies of temporal inequalities cease to be profound religious paradoxes. No longer would religious faith be prostituted to the promotion of social smugness in the fortunate while serving only to encourage stoical resignation in the unfortunate victims of social deprivation.

    116:0.2 (1268.2) When viewing the exquisitely perfect spheres of Havona, it is both reasonable and logical to believe they were made by a perfect, infinite, and absolute Creator. But that same reason and logic would compel any honest being, when viewing the turmoil, imperfections, and inequities of Urantia, to conclude that your world had been made by, and was being managed by, Creators who were subabsolute, preinfinite, and other than perfect.

    116:0.3 (1268.3) Experiential growth implies creature-Creator partnership—God and man in association. Growth is the earmark of experiential Deity: Havona did not grow; Havona is and always has been; it is existential like the everlasting Gods who are its source. But growth characterizes the grand universe.

    116:0.4 (1268.4) The Almighty Supreme is a living and evolving Deity of power and personality. His present domain, the grand universe, is also a growing realm of power and personality. His destiny is perfection, but his present experience encompasses the elements of growth and incomplete status.

    116:0.5 (1268.5) The Supreme Being functions primarily in the central universe as a spirit personality; secondarily in the grand universe as God the Almighty, a personality of power. The tertiary function of the Supreme in the master universe is now latent, existing only as an unknown mind potential. No one knows just what this third development of the Supreme Being will disclose. Some believe that, when the superuniverses are settled in light and life, the Supreme will become functional from Uversa as the almighty and experiential sovereign of the grand universe while expanding in power as the superalmighty of the outer universes. Others speculate that the third stage of Supremacy will involve the third level of Deity manifestation. But none of us really know.

    116:4.7 (1272.6) But the local universes are the real laboratories in which are worked out the mind experiments, galactic adventures, divinity unfoldings, and personality progressions which, when cosmically totaled, constitute the actual foundation upon which the Supreme is achieving deity evolution in and by experience.

    116:4.8 (1272.7) In the local universes even the Creators evolve: The presence of the Conjoint Actor evolves from a living power focus to the status of the divine personality of a Universe Mother Spirit; the Creator Son evolves from the nature of existential Paradise divinity to the experiential nature of supreme sovereignty. The local universes are the starting points of true evolution, the spawning grounds of bona fide imperfect personalities endowed with the freewill choice of becoming cocreators of themselves as they are to be.

    116:4.11 (1273.3) The local universe is the starting place for those personalities who are farthest from God, and who can therefore experience the greatest degree of spiritual ascent in the universe, can achieve the maximum of experiential participation in the cocreation of themselves. These same local universes likewise provide the greatest possible depth of experience for the descending personalities, who thereby achieve something which is to them just as meaningful as the Paradise ascent is to an evolving creature.

    116:4.12 (1273.4) Mortal man appears to be necessary to the full function of God the Sevenfold as this divinity grouping culminates in the actualizing Supreme. There are many other orders of universe personalities who are equally necessary to the evolution of the almighty power of the Supreme, but this portrayal is presented for the edification of human beings, hence is largely limited to those factors operating in the evolution of God the Sevenfold which are related to mortal man.

    "Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."

  12. The evolutionary progress of each person contributes to the evolutionary attainment of all persons…and Experiential Deity too.

    The failure of any person to achieve eternal perfecting experience retards the evolutionary progress and momentum of potential actualization.

    8)

    117:4.4 (1283.6) The human personality can truly destroy individuality of creaturehood, and though all that was worth while in the life of such a cosmic suicide will persist, these qualities will not persist as an individual creature. The Supreme will again find expression in the creatures of the universes but never again as that particular person; the unique personality of a nonascender returns to the Supreme as a drop of water returns to the sea.

    117:4.5 (1284.1) Any isolated action of the personal parts of the finite is comparatively irrelevant to the eventual appearance of the Supreme Whole, but the whole is nonetheless dependent on the total acts of the manifold parts. The personality of the individual mortal is insignificant in the face of the total of Supremacy, but the personality of each human being represents an irreplaceable meaning-value in the finite; personality, having once been expressed, never again finds identical expression except in the continuing existence of that living personality.

    117:4.6 (1284.2) And so, as we strive for self-expression, the Supreme is striving in us, and with us, for deity expression. As we find the Father, so has the Supreme again found the Paradise Creator of all things. As we master the problems of self-realization, so is the God of experience achieving almighty supremacy in the universes of time and space.

    8)

    117:4.9 (1284.5) The evolution of Adjuster progress in the spiritualizing and eternalizing of a human personality is directly productive of an enlargement of the sovereignty of the Supreme. Such achievements in human evolution are at the same time achievements in the evolutionary actualization of the Supreme. While it is true that creatures could not evolve without the Supreme, it is probably also true that the evolution of the Supreme can never be fully attained independent of the completed evolution of all creatures. Herein lies the great cosmic responsibility of self-conscious personalities: That Supreme Deity is in a certain sense dependent on the choosing of the mortal will. And the mutual progression of creature evolution and of Supreme evolution is faithfully and fully indicated to the Ancients of Days over the inscrutable mechanisms of universe reflectivity.

    117:4.10 (1284.6) 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.

    117:4.11 (1284.7) The great struggle of this universe age is between the potential and the actual—the seeking for actualization by all that is as yet unexpressed. If mortal man proceeds upon the Paradise adventure, he is following the motions of time, which flow as currents within the stream of eternity; if mortal man rejects the eternal career, he is moving counter to the stream of events in the finite universes. The mechanical creation moves on inexorably in accordance with the unfolding purpose of the Paradise Father, but the volitional creation has the choice of accepting or of rejecting the role of personality participation in the adventure of eternity. Mortal man cannot destroy the supreme values of human existence, but he can very definitely prevent the evolution of these values in his own personal experience. To the extent that the human self thus refuses to take part in the Paradise ascent, to just that extent is the Supreme delayed in achieving divinity expression in the grand universe.

    117:4.12 (1285.1) Into the keeping of mortal man has been given not only the Adjuster presence of the Paradise Father but also control over the destiny of an infinitesimal fraction of the future of the Supreme. For as man attains human destiny, so does the Supreme achieve destiny on deity levels.

    117:4.13 (1285.2) And so the decision awaits each of you as it once awaited each of us: Will you fail the God of time, who is so dependent upon the decisions of the finite mind? will you fail the Supreme personality of the universes by the slothfulness of animalistic retrogression? will you fail the great brother of all creatures, who is so dependent on each creature? can you allow yourself to pass into the realm of the unrealized when before you lies the enchanting vista of the universe career—the divine discovery of the Paradise Father and the divine participation in the search for, and the evolution of, the God of Supremacy?

     

    "Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."

  13. So…the inhabited worlds…7 trillion unique creative expressions with a shared and inevitable destiny, progressively determined by identical and yet unique experiential, evolutionary process.  Each world a part of a far greater whole, where each part and the collective whole are slowly perfected over time by the freewill choices of individual personalties – the children of time.

    Each part of the whole, from the individual personality to the planet to the System to the entirety of time and space is a segmented part of the integrated whole of creation, and the whole of creation benefits by the expanding experiential  wisdom of and by all other segments.

    Amazing.  Truly.

    "Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."

  14. (563.4) 49:3.1 The majority of inhabited planets are peopled with the breathing type of intelligent beings. But there are also orders of mortals who are able to live on worlds with little or no air. Of the Orvonton inhabited worlds this type amounts to less than seven per cent. In Nebadon this percentage is less than three. In all Satania there are only nine such worlds.

    (563.5) 49:3.2 There are so very few of the nonbreather type of inhabited worlds in Satania because this more recently organized section of Norlatiadek still abounds in meteoric space bodies; and worlds without a protective friction atmosphere are subject to incessant bombardment by these wanderers. Even some of the comets consist of meteor swarms, but as a rule they are disrupted smaller bodies of matter.

    (563.6) 49:3.3 Millions upon millions of meteorites enter the atmosphere of Urantia daily, coming in at the rate of almost two hundred miles a second. On the nonbreathing worlds the advanced races must do much to protect themselves from meteor damage by making electrical installations which operate to consume or shunt the meteors. Great danger confronts them when they venture beyond these protected zones. These worlds are also subject to disastrous electrical storms of a nature unknown on Urantia. During such times of tremendous energy fluctuation the inhabitants must take refuge in their special structures of protective insulation.

    (563.7) 49:3.4 Life on the worlds of the nonbreathers is radically different from what it is on Urantia. The nonbreathers do not eat food or drink water as do the Urantia races. The reactions of the nervous system, the heat-regulating mechanism, and the metabolism of these specialized peoples are radically different from such functions of Urantia mortals. Almost every act of living, aside from reproduction, differs, and even the methods of procreation are somewhat different.

    (564.1) 49:3.5 On the nonbreathing worlds the animal species are radically unlike those found on the atmospheric planets. The nonbreathing plan of life varies from the technique of existence on an atmospheric world; even in survival their peoples differ, being candidates for Spirit fusion. Nevertheless, these beings enjoy life and carry forward the activities of the realm with the same relative trials and joys that are experienced by the mortals living on atmospheric worlds. In mind and character the nonbreathers do not differ from other mortal types.

    (564.2) 49:3.6 You would be more than interested in the planetary conduct of this type of mortal because such a race of beings inhabits a sphere in close proximity to Urantia.

    "Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."

  15. (564.3) 49:4.1 There are great differences between the mortals of the different worlds, even among those belonging to the same intellectual and physical types, but all mortals of will dignity are erect animals, bipeds.

    (564.4) 49:4.2 There are six basic evolutionary races: three primary — red, yellow, and blue; and three secondary — orange, green, and indigo. Most inhabited worlds have all of these races, but many of the three-brained planets harbor only the three primary types. Some local systems also have only these three races.

    (564.5) 49:4.3 The average special physical-sense endowment of human beings is twelve, though the special senses of the three-brained mortals are extended slightly beyond those of the one- and two-brained types; they can see and hear considerably more than the Urantia races.

    (564.6) 49:4.4 Young are usually born singly, multiple births being the exception, and the family life is fairly uniform on all types of planets. Sex equality prevails on all advanced worlds; male and female are equal in mind endowment and spiritual status. We do not regard a planet as having emerged from barbarism so long as one sex seeks to tyrannize over the other. This feature of creature experience is always greatly improved after the arrival of a Material Son and Daughter.

    (564.7) 49:4.5 Seasons and temperature variations occur on all sunlighted and sun-heated planets. Agriculture is universal on all atmospheric worlds; tilling the soil is the one pursuit that is common to the advancing races of all such planets.

    (564.8) 49:4.6 Mortals all have the same general struggles with microscopic foes in their early days, such as you now experience on Urantia, though perhaps not so extensive. The length of life varies on the different planets from twenty-five years on the primitive worlds to near five hundred on the more advanced and older spheres.

    (564.9) 49:4.7 Human beings are all gregarious, both tribal and racial. These group segregations are inherent in their origin and constitution. Such tendencies can be modified only by advancing civilization and by gradual spiritualization. The social, economic, and governmental problems of the inhabited worlds vary in accordance with the age of the planets and the degree to which they have been influenced by the successive sojourns of the divine Sons.

    (564.10) 49:4.8 Mind is the bestowal of the Infinite Spirit and functions quite the same in diverse environments. The mind of mortals is akin, regardless of certain structural and chemical differences which characterize the physical natures of the will creatures of the local systems. Regardless of personal or physical planetary differences, the mental life of all these various orders of mortals is very similar, and their immediate careers after death are very much alike.

    (565.1) 49:4.9 But mortal mind without immortal spirit cannot survive. The mind of man is mortal; only the bestowed spirit is immortal. Survival is dependent on spiritualization by the ministry of the Adjuster — on the birth and evolution of the immortal soul; at least, there must not have developed an antagonism towards the Adjuster’s mission of effecting the spiritual transformation of the material mind.

    "Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."

  16. The story of “The Inhabited Worlds” includes details found in many Papers throughout the UB.  The time and space creations apparently have a very singular purpose – experiential wisdom, as determined by freewill personalities and a progressive evolutionary perfecting trajectory.

    Mortals, or those of us born on any of the 7 trillion material and evolutionary worlds (the inhabited worlds), are the children of time.   Each such world is like a fish (human) hatchery for the tadpoles of time, with every world breeding a different species of humanity, with each being on all such worlds a beloved child of God and universally and individually connected to Deity.

    Link to topic: “Experiential Wisdom”

    https://urassoc.arko.nyc/forums/topic/experiential-wisdom/

    Each such inhabited world shares the ultimate progressive destiny of Light and Life.  Each tadpole on all such worlds shares the potential for eternal life by our own personal freewill responses to the Deity Connections we are each endowed with and blessed by.  The spiritization of mortals comes by the motives, priorities, and choices we each make in our life in response to the Spirit Guide within and our experiential outcomes.

    Those outcomes are the blessings or suffering that are the reciprocal effects of our individual and collective decisions over time.  The harvest, or reaping, of what we sow.  To sow more kindly and wisely brings the harvest of personal and social progress and Divine Assurance and peace and prosperity and happiness in living.

    Link to topic: “Suffering”

    https://urassoc.arko.nyc/forums/topic/suffering-2/

    Each tadpole may become spiritized and enlightened and uplifted by Divine Affection and Assurance regardless of their world of birth or its current level of social barbarity, primitivism, or advanced socialization.  No material or environmental circumstances can deprive humans of our Deity Connections or prevent any mortal from achieving spiritual growth and the  eternal adventure of perfecting in time.

    The inhabited worlds of time are where the lowest of all freewill creatures and personalities originate and begin our long evolutionary and experiential response-adventure in partnership with the guiding, loving Spirit within each of us.  If we do not respond to the Spirit then our lives are brief indeed.

    Link to topic:  “Deity Connections”

    https://urassoc.arko.nyc/forums/topic/deity-connections/

    And yet, we are taught, every moral thought or act and every expression of truth, beauty, and goodness by every single personality in time lives forever and has a universal and positive effect that cannot be lost or wasted regardless of the individual’s personal fate.  The response to or expression of truth, beauty,  and goodness is an eternal gift to the entirety of creation and becomes the realization of potential and the cause for new potentials still to be realized by evermore such responses and expressions.

    Every act of kindness and generosity and patience and mercy and affection and forgiveness and duty and loyalty and love is a personal Deity response that grows soul and reverberates throughout the universe of universes forevermore.

    The Inhabited Worlds are where mortals become partners with celestials and the Gods in the progressive realization of all the potentials of time and eternity.

    Or so I understand the Papers to teach us.

    "Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."

  17. The Urantia Book

    Paper 1

    The Universal Father
    1:0.1 (21.1) THE Universal Father is the God of all creation, the First Source and Center of all things and beings. First think of God as a creator, then as a controller, and lastly as an infinite upholder. The truth about the Universal Father had begun to dawn upon mankind when the prophet said: “You, God, are alone; there is none beside you. You have created the heaven and the heaven of heavens, with all their hosts; you preserve and control them. By the Sons of God were the universes made. The Creator covers himself with light as with a garment and stretches out the heavens as a curtain.” Only the concept of the Universal Father—one God in the place of many gods—enabled mortal man to comprehend the Father as divine creator and infinite controller.

    1:0.2 (21.2) The myriads of planetary systems were all made to be eventually inhabited by many different types of intelligent creatures, beings who could know God, receive the divine affection, and love him in return. The universe of universes is the work of God and the dwelling place of his diverse creatures. “God created the heavens and formed the earth; he established the universe and created this world not in vain; he formed it to be inhabited.”

    1:0.3 (21.3)The enlightened worlds all recognize and worship the Universal Father, the eternal maker and infinite upholder of all creation. The will creatures of universe upon universe have embarked upon the long, long Paradise journey, the fascinating struggle of the eternal adventure of attaining God the Father. The transcendent goal of the children of time is to find the eternal God, to comprehend the divine nature, to recognize the Universal Father. God-knowing creatures have only one supreme ambition, just one consuming desire, and that is to become, as they are in their spheres, like him as he is in his Paradise perfection of personality and in his universal sphere of righteous supremacy. From the Universal Father who inhabits eternity there has gone forth the supreme mandate, “Be you perfect, even as I am perfect.” In love and mercy the messengers of Paradise have carried this divine exhortation down through the ages and out through the universes, even to such lowly animal-origin creatures as the human races of Urantia.

    1:0.4 (22.1)This magnificent and universal injunction to strive for the attainment of the perfection of divinity is the first duty, and should be the highest ambition, of all the struggling creature creation of the God of perfection. This possibility of the attainment of divine perfection is the final and certain destiny of all man’s eternal spiritual progress.

    1:0.5 (22.2)Urantia mortals can hardly hope to be perfect in the infinite sense, but it is entirely possible for human beings, starting out as they do on this planet, to attain the supernal and divine goal which the infinite God has set for mortal man; and when they do achieve this destiny, they will, in all that pertains to self-realization and mind attainment, be just as replete in their sphere of divine perfection as God himself is in his sphere of infinity and eternity. Such perfection may not be universal in the material sense, unlimited in intellectual grasp, or final in spiritual experience, but it is final and complete in all finite aspects of divinity of will, perfection of personality motivation, and God-consciousness.

    1:0.6 (22.3)This is the true meaning of that divine command, “Be you perfect, even as I am perfect,” which ever urges mortal man onward and beckons him inward in that long and fascinating struggle for the attainment of higher and higher levels of spiritual values and true universe meanings. This sublime search for the God of universes is the supreme adventure of the inhabitants of all the worlds of time and space.

    "Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."

  18. 1:3.6 (25.6) 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.

    1:3.7 (26.1 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.

    "Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."

  19. 49:5.1 (565.2) It will be somewhat difficult to make an adequate portrayal of the planetary series of mortals because you know so little about them, and because there are so many variations. Mortal creatures may, however, be studied from numerous viewpoints, among which are the following:

    49:5.2 (565.3) 1. Adjustment to planetary environment.

    49:5.3 (565.4) 2. Brain-type series.

    49:5.4 (565.5) 3. Spirit-reception series.

    49:5.5 (565.6) 4. Planetary-mortal epochs.

    49:5.6 (565.7) 5. Creature-kinship serials.

    49:5.7 (565.8) 6. Adjuster-fusion series.

    49:5.8 (565.9) 7. Techniques of terrestrial escape.

    49:5.9 (565.10) The inhabited spheres of the seven superuniverses are peopled with mortals who simultaneously classify in some one or more categories of each of these seven generalized classes of evolutionary creature life. But even these general classifications make no provision for such beings as midsoniters nor for certain other forms of intelligent life. The inhabited worlds, as they have been presented in these narratives, are peopled with evolutionary mortal creatures, but there are other life forms.

    49:5.10 (565.11)1. Adjustment to planetary environment. There are three general groups of inhabited worlds from the standpoint of the adjustment of creature life to the planetary environment: the normal adjustment group, the radical adjustment group, and the experimental group.

    49:5.11 (565.12)Normal adjustments to planetary conditions follow the general physical patterns previously considered. The worlds of the nonbreathers typify the radical or extreme adjustment, but other types are also included in this group. Experimental worlds are usually ideally adapted to the typical life forms, and on these decimal planets the Life Carriers attempt to produce beneficial variations in the standard life designs. Since your world is an experimental planet, it differs markedly from its sister spheres in Satania; many forms of life have appeared on Urantia that are not found elsewhere; likewise are many common species absent from your planet.

    49:5.12 (565.13)In the universe of Nebadon, all the life-modification worlds are serially linked together and constitute a special domain of universe affairs which is given attention by designated administrators; and all of these experimental worlds are periodically inspected by a corps of universe directors whose chief is the veteran finaliter known in Satania as Tabamantia.

    49:5.13 (566.1)2. Brain-type series. The one physical uniformity of mortals is the brain and nervous system; nevertheless, there are three basic organizations of the brain mechanism: the one-, the two-, and the three-brained types. Urantians are of the two-brained type, somewhat more imaginative, adventurous, and philosophical than the one-brained mortals but somewhat less spiritual, ethical, and worshipful than the three-brained orders. These brain differences characterize even the prehuman animal existences.

    49:5.14 (566.2)From the two-hemisphere type of the Urantian cerebral cortex you can, by analogy, grasp something of the one-brained type. The third brain of the three-brained orders is best conceived as an evolvement of your lower or rudimentary form of brain, which is developed to the point where it functions chiefly in control of physical activities, leaving the two superior brains free for higher engagements: one for intellectual functions and the other for the spiritual-counterparting activities of the Thought Adjuster.

    49:5.15 (566.3)While the terrestrial attainments of the one-brained races are slightly limited in comparison with the two-brained orders, the older planets of the three-brained group exhibit civilizations that would astound Urantians, and which would somewhat shame yours by comparison. In mechanical development and material civilization, even in intellectual progress, the two-brained mortal worlds are able to equal the three-brained spheres. But in the higher control of mind and development of intellectual and spiritual reciprocation, you are somewhat inferior.

    49:5.16 (566.4)All such comparative estimates concerning the intellectual progress or the spiritual attainments of any world or group of worlds should in fairness recognize planetary age; much, very much, depends on age, the help of the biologic uplifters, and the subsequent missions of the various orders of the divine Sons.

    49:5.17 (566.5)While the three-brained peoples are capable of a slightly higher planetary evolution than either the one- or two-brained orders, all have the same type of life plasm and carry on planetary activities in very similar ways, much as do human beings on Urantia. These three types of mortals are distributed throughout the worlds of the local systems. In the majority of cases planetary conditions had very little to do with the decisions of the Life Carriers to project these varied orders of mortals on the different worlds; it is a prerogative of the Life Carriers thus to plan and execute.

    49:5.18 (566.6) These three orders stand on an equal footing in the ascension career. Each must traverse the same intellectual scale of development, and each must master the same spiritual tests of progression. The system administration and the constellation overcontrol of these different worlds are uniformly free from discrimination; even the regimes of the Planetary Princes are identical.

    49:5.19 (566.7)3. Spirit-reception series. There are three groups of mind design as related to contact with spirit affairs. This classification does not refer to the one-, two-, and three-brained orders of mortals; it refers primarily to gland chemistry, more particularly to the organization of certain glands comparable to the pituitary bodies. The races on some worlds have one gland, on others two, as do Urantians, while on still other spheres the races have three of these unique bodies. The inherent imagination and spiritual receptivity is definitely influenced by this differential chemical endowment.

    49:5.20 (566.8)Of the spirit-reception types, sixty-five per cent are of the second group, like the Urantia races. Twelve per cent are of the first type, naturally less receptive, while twenty-three per cent are more spiritually inclined during terrestrial life. But such distinctions do not survive natural death; all of these racial differences pertain only to the life in the flesh.

    49:5.21 (567.1)4. Planetary-mortal epochs. This classification recognizes the succession of temporal dispensations as they affect man’s terrestrial status and his reception of celestial ministry.

    49:5.22 (567.2)Life is initiated on the planets by the Life Carriers, who watch over its development until sometime after the evolutionary appearance of mortal man. Before the Life Carriers leave a planet, they duly install a Planetary Prince as ruler of the realm. With this ruler there arrives a full quota of subordinate auxiliaries and ministering helpers, and the first adjudication of the living and the dead is simultaneous with his arrival.

    49:5.23 (567.3)With the emergence of human groupings, this Planetary Prince arrives to inaugurate human civilization and to focalize human society. Your world of confusion is no criterion of the early days of the reign of the Planetary Princes, for it was near the beginning of such an administration on Urantia that your Planetary Prince, Caligastia, cast his lot with the rebellion of the System Sovereign, Lucifer. Your planet has pursued a stormy course ever since.

    49:5.24 (567.4)On a normal evolutionary world, racial progress attains its natural biologic peak during the regime of the Planetary Prince, and shortly thereafter the System Sovereign dispatches a Material Son and Daughter to that planet. These imported beings are of service as biologic uplifters; their default on Urantia further complicated your planetary history.

    49:5.25 (567.5)When the intellectual and ethical progress of a human race has reached the limits of evolutionary development, there comes an Avonal Son of Paradise on a magisterial mission; and later on, when the spiritual status of such a world is nearing its limit of natural attainment, the planet is visited by a Paradise bestowal Son. The chief mission of a bestowal Son is to establish the planetary status, release the Spirit of Truth for planetary function, and thus effect the universal coming of the Thought Adjusters.

    49:5.26 (567.6)Here, again, Urantia deviates: There has never been a magisterial mission on your world, neither was your bestowal Son of the Avonal order; your planet enjoyed the signal honor of becoming the mortal home planet of the Sovereign Son, Michael of Nebadon.

    49:5.27 (567.7) As a result of the ministry of all the successive orders of divine sonship, the inhabited worlds and their advancing races begin to approach the apex of planetary evolution. Such worlds now become ripe for the culminating mission, the arrival of the Trinity Teacher Sons. This epoch of the Teacher Sons is the vestibule to the final planetary age—evolutionary utopia—the age of light and life.

    49:5.28 (567.8)This classification of human beings will receive particular attention in a succeeding paper.

    49:5.29 (567.9)5. Creature-kinship serials. Planets are not only organized vertically into systems, constellations, and so on, but the universe administration also provides for horizontal groupings according to type, series, and other relationships. This lateral administration of the universe pertains more particularly to the co-ordination of activities of a kindred nature which have been independently fostered on different spheres. These related classes of universe creatures are periodically inspected by certain composite corps of high personalities presided over by long-experienced finaliters.

    49:5.30 (568.1)These kinship factors are manifest on all levels, for kinship serials exist among nonhuman personalities as well as among mortal creatures—even between human and superhuman orders. Intelligent beings are vertically related in twelve great groups of seven major divisions each. The co-ordination of these uniquely related groups of living beings is probably effected by some not fully comprehended technique of the Supreme Being.

    49:5.31 (568.2)6. Adjuster-fusion series. The spiritual classification or grouping of all mortals during their prefusion experience is wholly determined by the relation of the personality status to the indwelling Mystery Monitor. Almost ninety per cent of the inhabited worlds of Nebadon are peopled with Adjuster-fusion mortals in contrast with a near-by universe where scarcely more than one half of the worlds harbor beings who are Adjuster-indwelt candidates for eternal fusion.

    49:5.32 (568.3)7. Techniques of terrestrial escape. There is fundamentally only one way in which individual human life can be initiated on the inhabited worlds, and that is through creature procreation and natural birth; but there are numerous techniques whereby man escapes his terrestrial status and gains access to the inward moving stream of Paradise ascenders.

    "Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."

  20. 49:6.1 (568.4) All of the differing physical types and planetary series of mortals alike enjoy the ministry of Thought Adjusters, guardian angels, and the various orders of the messenger hosts of the Infinite Spirit. All alike are liberated from the bonds of flesh by the emancipation of natural death, and all alike go thence to the morontia worlds of spiritual evolution and mind progress.

    49:6.2 (568.5)From time to time, on motion of the planetary authorities or the system rulers, special resurrections of the sleeping survivors are conducted. Such resurrections occur at least every millennium of planetary time, when not all but “many of those who sleep in the dust awake.” These special resurrections are the occasion for mobilizing special groups of ascenders for specific service in the local universe plan of mortal ascension. There are both practical reasons and sentimental associations connected with these special resurrections.

    49:6.3 (568.6)Throughout the earlier ages of an inhabited world, many are called to the mansion spheres at the special and the millennial resurrections, but most survivors are repersonalized at the inauguration of a new dispensation associated with the advent of a divine Son of planetary service.

    49:6.4 (568.7)1. Mortals of the dispensational or group order of survival. With the arrival of the first Adjuster on an inhabited world the guardian seraphim also make their appearance; they are indispensable to terrestrial escape. Throughout the life-lapse period of the sleeping survivors the spiritual values and eternal realities of their newly evolved and immortal souls are held as a sacred trust by the personal or by the group guardian seraphim.

    49:6.5 (568.8)The group guardians of assignment to the sleeping survivors always function with the judgment Sons on their world advents. “He shall send his angels, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds.” With each seraphim of assignment to the repersonalization of a sleeping mortal there functions the returned Adjuster, the same immortal Father fragment that lived in him during the days in the flesh, and thus is identity restored and personality resurrected. During the sleep of their subjects these waiting Adjusters serve on Divinington; they never indwell another mortal mind in this interim.

    49:6.6 (569.1)While the older worlds of mortal existence harbor those highly developed and exquisitely spiritual types of human beings who are virtually exempt from the morontia life, the earlier ages of the animal-origin races are characterized by primitive mortals who are so immature that fusion with their Adjusters is impossible. The reawakening of these mortals is accomplished by the guardian seraphim in conjunction with an individualized portion of the immortal spirit of the Third Source and Center.

    49:6.7 (569.2)Thus are the sleeping survivors of a planetary age repersonalized in the dispensational roll calls. But with regard to the nonsalvable personalities of a realm, no immortal spirit is present to function with the group guardians of destiny, and this constitutes cessation of creature existence. While some of your records have pictured these events as taking place on the planets of mortal death, they all really occur on the mansion worlds.

    49:6.8 (569.3)2. Mortals of the individual orders of ascension. The individual progress of human beings is measured by their successive attainment and traversal (mastery) of the seven cosmic circles. These circles of mortal progression are levels of associated intellectual, social, spiritual, and cosmic-insight values. Starting out in the seventh circle, mortals strive for the first, and all who have attained the third immediately have personal guardians of destiny assigned to them. These mortals may be repersonalized in the morontia life independent of dispensational or other adjudications.

    49:6.9 (569.4)Throughout the earlier ages of an evolutionary world, few mortals go to judgment on the third day. But as the ages pass, more and more the personal guardians of destiny are assigned to the advancing mortals, and thus increasing numbers of these evolving creatures are repersonalized on the first mansion world on the third day after natural death. On such occasions the return of the Adjuster signalizes the awakening of the human soul, and this is the repersonalization of the dead just as literally as when the en masse roll is called at the end of a dispensation on the evolutionary worlds.

    49:6.10 (569.5)There are three groups of individual ascenders: The less advanced land on the initial or first mansion world. The more advanced group may take up the morontia career on any of the intermediate mansion worlds in accordance with previous planetary progression. The most advanced of these orders really begin their morontia experience on the seventh mansion world.

    49:6.11 (569.6)3. Mortals of the probationary-dependent orders of ascension. The arrival of an Adjuster constitutes identity in the eyes of the universe, and all indwelt beings are on the roll calls of justice. But temporal life on the evolutionary worlds is uncertain, and many die in youth before choosing the Paradise career. Such Adjuster-indwelt children and youths follow the parent of most advanced spiritual status, thus going to the system finaliter world (the probationary nursery) on the third day, at a special resurrection, or at the regular millennial and dispensational roll calls.

    49:6.12 (570.1)Children who die when too young to have Thought Adjusters are repersonalized on the finaliter world of the local systems concomitant with the arrival of either parent on the mansion worlds. A child acquires physical entity at mortal birth, but in the matter of survival all Adjusterless children are reckoned as still attached to their parents.

    49:6.13 (570.2)In due course Thought Adjusters come to indwell these little ones, while the seraphic ministry to both groups of the probationary-dependent orders of survival is in general similar to that of the more advanced parent or is equivalent to that of the parent in case only one survives. Those attaining the third circle, regardless of the status of their parents, are accorded personal guardians.

    49:6.14 (570.3)Similar probation nurseries are maintained on the finaliter spheres of the constellation and the universe headquarters for the Adjusterless children of the primary and secondary modified orders of ascenders.

    49:6.15 (570.4)4. Mortals of the secondary modified orders of ascension. These are the progressive human beings of the intermediate evolutionary worlds. As a rule they are not immune to natural death, but they are exempt from passing through the seven mansion worlds.

    49:6.16 (570.5)The less perfected group reawaken on the headquarters of their local system, passing by only the mansion worlds. The intermediate group go to the constellation training worlds; they pass by the entire morontia regime of the local system. Still farther on in the planetary ages of spiritual striving, many survivors awaken on the constellation headquarters and there begin the Paradise ascent.

    49:6.17 (570.6)But before any of these groups may go forward, they must journey back as instructors to the worlds they missed, gaining many experiences as teachers in those realms which they passed by as students. They all subsequently proceed to Paradise by the ordained routes of mortal progression.

    49:6.18 (570.7)5. Mortals of the primary modified order of ascension. These mortals belong to the Adjuster-fused type of evolutionary life, but they are most often representative of the final phases of human development on an evolving world. These glorified beings are exempt from passing through the portals of death; they are submitted to Son seizure; they are translated from among the living and appear immediately in the presence of the Sovereign Son on the headquarters of the local universe.

    49:6.19 (570.8)These are the mortals who fuse with their Adjusters during mortal life, and such Adjuster-fused personalities traverse space freely before being clothed with morontia forms. These fused souls go by direct Adjuster transit to the resurrection halls of the higher morontia spheres, where they receive their initial morontia investiture just as do all other mortals arriving from the evolutionary worlds.

    49:6.20 (570.9)This primary modified order of mortal ascension may apply to individuals in any of the planetary series from the lowest to the highest stages of the Adjuster-fusion worlds, but it more frequently functions on the older of these spheres after they have received the benefits of numerous sojourns of the divine Sons.

    49:6.21 (570.10)With the establishment of the planetary era of light and life, many go to the universe morontia worlds by the primary modified order of translation. Further along in the advanced stages of settled existence, when the majority of the mortals leaving a realm are embraced in this class, the planet is regarded as belonging to this series. Natural death becomes decreasingly frequent on these spheres long settled in light and life.

    "Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."

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