The Mansion Worlds and the Morontian Life
(Note the first few minutes of this tape are a duplicate of the end of Tape5)
(Audience Member: “While we are on the subject of attainment, may we at this time kill Bud and send him on his way and see what happens?”)
First we’d review his remains. Some would view his remains in sorrow and some with glee. But that’s life. And Bud will sleep a varying length of time. Bud will make it in three days if he’s got a personal guardian or he might make it as a part of some special group, maybe the Blue Book group. There was a special deal when Adam died. The survivors of Eden all went over together in a group. They let Eve sleep for 17 years until Adam died and then brought them over together, which was nice. She didn’t have any time of waiting. Or it might be a millennial thing, every thousand years they tap the barrel and draw out a few pints. Or it might be dispensational; they empty the whole barrel and start out clean.
At any rate, be it three days or some longer time interval, Bud wakes up on this marble slab on the first Mansion world. He wakes up because they have drawn a GI body suitable for Bud, not too dissimilar to the one he’s got and they reassemble him, his group or personal seraphim has deposited his soul, the Adjuster has come back, the Life Carrier has vitalized that body (there would have to be a Life Carrier there). They put in a mind circuit and then the personality simply appears and no one knows how it gets there. When this personality seizes that mind circuit, that is the return of consciousness. Some Archangel or deputy of an Archangel will take the finger prints of that personality so that they know it is Bud. They can prove it; everybody is sure it is. The Adjuster would be evidence of that. But for the official record.
So when he cuts loose on the first mansion world, the first thing he gets is ten days vacation; and their days are three times as long as ours so that’s a month off, and that’s for casual orientation. And then they’ll put him through some tests. They’ll check him out. Let’s say he really doesn’t have any job to do on the first mansion world, so he’ll graduate. They’ll lay him down and transport him down to the second mansion world and they go through this whole business all over again because the change from mansion world to mansion world is so radical that they can’t re-key these bodies. You get seven new bodies, one for each mansion world.
Let’s say that Bud doesn’t quite make on the second mansion world so here he has to go to school. He goes to school by doing certain jobs. To do these jobs he has to master certain lessons; then he’s got to socialize. It’s a school of thinking, feeling and doing. And when he passes his exams, this is where he teaches the courses he has learned. When he can do this then he can go on. He gets his grade at that point. Most of the work which they do on these early mansion worlds has to do with de-animalizing us. It’s negative; its trying to bring us up to where people should really get if they were really on the ball. It’s getting us up to the cultural level – the spiritual cultural level which Jesus attained when he was about 32 years of age. He did that in 32 years. Enoch did it probably in much longer time. Elijah did it. These are people who made it without death. They fused here in this lifetime. Had Jesus been an ordinary man he would have left this world when he was 32; he would have fused with his Thought Adjuster.
Somewhere along about the fourth mansion world its less of deficiency ministry and more or a real teaching business. It’s less negative in making up for what we didn’t do, and more positive.
Let’s say Bud is typical and on the fifth mansion world he fuses with his Thought Adjuster. There is a scene described there which is analogous to the scene on the Jordan, at the baptism of Jesus. An Archangel (or someone will appear) and he will speak to Bud in the presence of his associates saying, “This is a beloved son in whom I am well pleased.” And fusion takes place and at that time Bud is excused from all duties and assignments. I imagine this experience leads him a bit shook up because all of a sudden an iron curtain goes down and there is a lot more room inside. There is a whole annex that he suspected was there and he could hear something on the other side of the wall and occasionally hear them playing the stereo. And all of a sudden you break through and you get to know your neighbor.
You go away and sit down and figure out who you are. It’s at this time you get a name. The names we use now don’t count. Santa And and Santa An were the names which the first two human beings had here on earth. It was at the time of fusion that they were christened Andon and Fonta. And these names have significance. The name Andon means “the first father-like human being to exhibit perfection hunger.” And Fonta means “the first son-like human being to exhibit perfection hunger.” So I don’t know what they’ll call Bud. I hope there aren’t too many syllables in it because Bud is easier to say.
At any rate, after this fusion experience, when Bud gets acquainted with his partner, then they really draw up the articles of partnership, this has all been tentative. The Adjuster has been on consignment but now the sale is closed. When fusion takes place you have bought something. Then you go back to work and it’s more of the same except this milestone has been passed. Bud knows that there is nothing but time separating him from God.
Next they head to Jerusem and take up citizenship and for awhile we don’t grow so fast. This is sitting down, kind of between rounds. I kind of see that we are citizens on Jerusem for quite a long while and there we enjoy things as adults, we’re not just pupils now. We are citizens; we are performing a job, we’re grown up. This is the second adult experience we have. The first one being here.
This is a time when universe horizons stand still; when the goal has been attained and we taste all of the sweetness of success. We have scored. This is home plate. I don’t know how long we stay there, but long enough I think to get full satisfaction and success. And then one day our psychology does a flip. We get itchy feet. All of a sudden these horizons, instead of being comfortingly stationary, begin to look small. We begin to wonder what is on the other side of the mountain. This is probably the indication that it is time for us to move on to the constellation level.
Of course we have learned a lot on Jerusem. The Melchizedeks have worked us over. We’ve gotten acquainted with the really permanent citizens of Jerusem, the Adams, and it’s been an all together delightful experience. We are still pretty material, because even though we are eighth stage morontians, when we go to the library we exhibit a preference for the material records, not the morontia records, much less spiritual records.
(Audience member: “Do you think there is a consciousness of this ascendancy?”)
Sure, we know exactly where we are and what we are doing. We are just as conscious of growth up there as we are conscious of growth down here, even more so – much more so. I think we have a social experience that is very refreshing in contrast to the rather narrow social experience which we have here on earth. I think we really mix and mingle with our fellow ascenders and there are folks you know from 618 other worlds pouring in here.
(Audience member: “You’re still speaking of Jerusem?” I thought the socializing came on one of the mansion worlds when we got there.”)
Yes. I think it is all the way up the line. We just hadn’t gotten around to talking about until now. There are people from 618 other worlds moving on up to Jerusem. This means 618 planetary histories we get acquainted with. Heroes and heroines that we know about. There are chances to go and visit these worlds if we could ever hitchhike because we probably won’t actually have business there. You can’t command transportation unless you have a commission. If you are going to be a tourist you have to find transportation but you are on standby. You can’t get a confirmed reservation, but seraphim are coming and going all the time and they are obliging folks. I dare say we will get to see a fair percentage of these worlds.
(Audience Member: “You do still have that relative freedom?”)
Sure you do. Their worlds must be fascinating. We can go see this neighboring planet that we read about. We could go see Panoptia where they really had a Joan of Arc. You know the story of Panoptia. Panoptia is a sister world of ours whose Planetary Prince joined Lucifer and that it’sprobably was a world with a much more advanced culture than ours. It’s probably a world where most of the world knew about the Planetary Prince. There was a woman on Panoptia by the name of Ellanora who defied the Planetary Prince and she swung the whole bloody human race behind her. The Panoptians have a unique function in going through the system headquarters. They act as the custodians of the interned rebels.
(Audience Member: “That’s a good adventure story for your high school students. It’s a beautiful story.”)
I think we will see most of these worlds. We will go as student visitors and we will be invisible to the people. We won’t be able to interfere with anything.
(Audience member: “Space ships, flying saucers?”)
No, we’ll go by seraphic transport.
(Audience member: “What is the highest attainment our hero can reach?”)
We haven’t even gotten started yet. He can be as far as we know, and I don’t think we begin to know all the things, they are just suggested, they give us samples. According to the Blue Book, he can be anyone of four things – five things. If he couldn’t fuse with his Adjuster, and this is an extraordinarily rare thing, way below a hundredth part of one percent. He would be a son-fused mortal and then he would become a permanent citizen of the superuniverse. Considering how many mortals there are and how few son-fused mortals there are, this is something that happens with - this is an amazing thing – this doesn’t happen once in a million years in the local universe, but it does happen now and then, it is a possibility. Or the surest thing he is going to be is a Finaliter; he’s an Adjuster-fused ascender. He goes into the Corps of the Finality. If on his way up he should encounter rebellion and be loyal or if he should prevent it, then his tour of duty as a Finaliter would be temporary. He would be withdrawn and embraced by the Trinity and would then be commissioned as a Mighty Messenger. Or let’s say he has an extraordinary administrative gift. He is a natural born executive. The same thing would happen only then he would become One High in Authority. He would be an officer of the government of the Ancients of Days in some superuniverse. Or let’s say he is a rarer bird; there are a hundred times as many Mighty Messengers as there are this last category. There are ten times as many executives as falls in this last category. This last category is a person who has an unusual grasp of the spiritual intent of the Deities. And when they are Trinity embraced they become Those Without Name and Number.
(Audience Member: “Is there a stabilization of categories?”)
No, these are the possible destinies.
(Audience Member: “I get confused, it’s like reading a Tolstoy novel – you don’t quit have all the characters. But say the Melchizedeks or Lanonandeks, do they become something other than that – is this their highest attainment or do they go on?”)
They are comparatively stationary. They are created as such and ordinarily remain about as such. There are, again, rare exceptions. The Melchizedek who lived here on this world probably is going onto the Corps of the Finality. There are probably six others like him in the Local Universe. There are always exceptions to the general rule – but this would be the general rule. Generally the Melchizedeks keep serving as Melchizedeks.
(Audience member; “Bill, we don’t know – they say nothing about the destiny of these descending sons or stationary sons in the next universe age. It could be altogether different.”)
Oh yes. For example, when Bud goes on to the Constellation, he’ll live with the Univitatia, and since the beginning of the super universes, the Univitatia have always lived on the Constellations as their permanent citizens. As far as we know they will forever live there, but the papers speculate that possibly Univitatia may move into Havona in the next universe age.
The Life Carrier who writes those interesting introductory papers in Part 1 points out that they have three phases of function. Normally they are in the mid-phase which would be analogous to Morontia but isn’t. They can step down into a physical phase which they have to work in if they are to manipulate stuff to build chromosomes. When he took renunciation vows and accepted a detached assignment to remain here on earth as an observer, then he moved into a semi-spirit phase and said we all look forward to someday attaining a fourth level of existence, completely spiritual, but no one has as yet shown us how to do that.
So there is change, but not this radical change such as takes place in the human being who starts out an animal and ends up a Finaliter.
(Audience Member: “The higher the ascendancy, the slower the change. Now suppose that Bud’s progeny that he loves dearly dies, what contact, or is there a contact that he ascends?”)
Sure, if he wants to. Let’s say that Bud makes is on the third day. Let’s say we have Bud, Jr. and these two are pretty close and Bud’s on the fifth mansion world and Bud, Jr doesn’t make the third circle, he gets killed accidentally and he has to wait a long time so that Bud is up on the fifth mansion world or sixth by the time this guy lands. Bud’s been over there for 28,000 years getting up this far and he hears about this. He didn’t hear about it right away. They don’t say your son made it, but in due course, its about 800 years after Bud, Jr, lands on the first mansion world that Bud casually finds this out. He reads it in the paper. So on his next free period he goes down to the second mansion world where Bud, Jr. is and it’s quite a reunion. So they see each other and by this time Bud is on Jerusem, Bud Jr is on the third mansion world. There’s a terrific gap there but this time they cooked up a deal and Bud goes into the assignment office on Jerusem and says “now look, normally I know what you do, but here is a job that is waiting over here and I could do this job. This job is going to take quite a long while. I’d like to drop out of the group I am with and wait for my son. In the meantime I’ll do this job for you as a quid pro quo.”
(Audience member: “What floor is he waiting on?”)
On Jerusem, the system capital.
(Audience member: “On the first floor of the firehouse.”)
Oh, all this story is on the first floor of the firehouse. So they take Bud up on this proposition. He can do a good job – he’s not the only person who could do it, but he could do a good job. And so, he accepts a special assignment that is going to take him around 20,000 years to complete. And when this job is over, Bud Jr has made it to Jerusem, so they have caught up with each other. This you can do. This is not a mechanical Universe. Your wishes are respected, within reason. They won’t turn the thing up side down for you but they will make any reasonable adjustment.
(Audience member: “Bill, what if Bud is gone, his son is still on earth, can he make….(unable to understand due to audience noise in background)
No. Because there is only one place you can’t come. Of all the 618 worlds this one is verboten. You cannot come back here; you cannot communicate with earth. The only information you can get from here is has anybody come up from here. The seraphim who has been on duty; you can go down and get the latest “poop” you know from Urantia.
(Audience member: “Or you can listen to the broadcasts.”)
If it’s mentioned. Or you can talk to people who are tickling through. There is a continuous stream of information coming up from this world as people ascend. You could never come back to this world in the same mortal epoch that you died. You could come back in a future mortal epoch if you had business here.
(Audience Member: “What would that business be?”)
Take John the Baptist. He was at one time Resident Governor General of this world so he could come back because technically he is as of the preceding dispensation. Moses came back. Adam came back, as Resident Governor General. Eve came back as Resident Governor General.
(Audience discussion in background, unable to determine comments and questions.)
I don’t think you could get a cold on the first mansion world but I think you could break a leg. You could have a physical accident. (Again, audience comments over each other, unable to discern question). No why would they.
(Audience member: “Are there any physical ills of any kind?”)
No, there are no bacteria; there are no parasitic bacteria up there. These are architectural worlds. I am talking about all of the morontia worlds. These worlds have life on them but this life never evolved; it was not worked out by a competitive process. This life was put there – the plant life, the animal life, the lower and higher animal orders – the Spornagia are the highest of the animal orders. It’s all there. There is an adaptation; there is a cooperativeness that is built in – it is not competitive. There are no carnivorous animals up there.
(Audience member: “We don’t eat up there?”)
We eat, breath and drink and the only difference is there is no residual ash left over from our eating. (“Thank God!”) There are no bathrooms; at least if we have bathrooms for bathing purposes there would be one other familiar object would be missing from the bathroom because it is superfluous, it is unneeded. I remember Phil Kopenhager who used to say that this was his principle incentive for surviving because he had been harassed with constipation all his life and he so much wanted to die so the problem couldn’t come up.
(Audience Member: “What do we eat and drink?)
We eat morontia food. On this worlds they are physical and morontia. (Audience: “This is not world of procreation?”) No. We are still male and female. We have all the primary and secondary sex differences, but we are not procreating beings. Which of course means that we can socialize in a lot of ways that are little bit on the taboo side down here.
(Audience member: “Now if one still has the urge to procreate it could be one hell of a place to live, couldn’t it?”)
That right, but we won’t have that chemistry.
(Audience member: “Now explain that last statement before that. Are the differentials the same physically?”)
I don’t know. The essential difference is internal – it’s an outlook and a reaction. These papers instruct me that even in the Corps of the Finality men and women will continue to intrigue each other, because they won’t react the same. There is a difference and even there some French man who is in the Finality Corps will probably say “viva la difference.”
(Audience member: “But they won’t intrigue each other on a physical level. So on the morontia level where you are partially physical, you are morontial, you are still discernible, you have a form. [Yes.] Women will have a form. [Yes.] Will you know a woman by site? [Bill: I’m sure you will, at least in the earlier stages.”] Then she will have to be physically so constituted to look like a woman.
I would think there would be a difference; what difference I do not know. Maybe they require women to wear pink tunics and men wear blue tunics. You know the story of the fence. They held a little boy up so he could look over. They said what’s on the other side and he said people. Are they men or women? And he said “I can’t tell they haven’t got any clothes on.”
The social life on the morontia worlds will be, I think, very refreshing. Example: Let’s say I am intrigued very much with Bud so I say let’s go fishing for a weekend. We’ll do some fishing and a lot of talking. Perfectly acceptable. Let’s say I am very intrigued with Betty and I am. I can’t say to her here on earth, “Let’s go fishing for a weekend.” There would be a scandal. This is possible on the morontia level; this is not probably desirable here in this life.
And then again, we have available other people. It would be fun to spend a weekend with a seraphim. These are very intriguing personalities. Or a cherubim, or a morontia companion, or somebody from some other world. And we listen to him tell us how his planet got to be the way it was.
This is a very interesting thing. I think the atmosphere is symbolic of these worlds. There are three gases; there is a physical atmosphere because there are physical beings there, like the Adams who breathe as we breathe. Like the Spornagia who breathe as we breathe. And the third gas supports morontia respiration. There are two forms of vegetation on these worlds. There is the familiar green vegetation which we see right here with chlorophyll. And there is a violet-hued vegetation which is morontia in nature.
(Audience member: “Is this where there are 200 elements?”)
Yes, there are 100 physical elements and 100 morontia elements on these worlds. It doesn’t rain but they have a high dew point in a three-gas atmosphere. Every night dew falls and refreshes the vegetation.
(Audience member: “Don’t the imperfections creep in any place on the physical level in nature too? I’m thinking about bugs and weeds.”)
No, because they never get started. This is non-evolutionary life. This life was designed and planted. It was constructed just like the world. A Spornagia did not evolve from a lower form; a Spornagia has always been a Spornagia.
(Audience member: “Well this is beginning to sound like our old idea of heaven.”)
Yes. When we describe Jerusem we are describing something which is considerably better than the average human beings idea of heaven and we are just one asphalt tile thickness off.
(Audience member: “When John in his book of Revelation saw this, he called it heaven.”)
Sure he did, and I think the descriptions which they give us of Jerusem are pretty factual, because Jerusem is the most physical of all of the places we will go to.
(Audience member: “Is their death there?”)
No. Well yes there is of the animal level. The animals are not immortal. (response to inaudible question) Let’s not say perfect but let’s say in exquisite balance with all other physical life.
(Audience member: “And in these physical forms we all become, all this is perfect there.”)
Not perfect, but harmonious. It’s less than perfect. I am talking about the physical set up. If you can have an accident and break a leg, this is not perfect. But I am sure they do an awfully good job of setting your leg.
(Audience member: “Well unless you get to the perfect stage. Now here the body may be imperfect; but there it isn’t.”)
There it is good. There our bodies are on the order of the body that Machiventa Melchizedek wore. On the order of the bodies designed for the corporeal staff of the Planetary Prince. Now those bodies were not perfect but they were tremendously efficient.
(Audience member: “I have to look for this but I never could find that the physical morontia body is perfect.”)
It isn’t perfect, it’s just excellent. I think this Julia, if an imperfection should creep in it would be corrected just as much as say General Motors turns out a car that has imperfections and they fix it, then it runs.
(Audience Member: “This is an important point for all the people who are going to read this book who are sick, or born imperfect.”)
(Audience Member: “Well if they are going to equalize you they have to start you off at least with a descent body.”)
(Several audience members talking at the same time, unable to discern complete thoughts for transcribing.)
They will have normal bodies up there; they will be good ones.
(Audience Member: “Will you explain about the Spornagia how they can get a new body when they wear it out.)
Well here’s what happens. These Spornagia live for an awfully long time – about 40,000 years (this is on Jerusem?). These Spornagia are purely physical beings who have five adjutants. They are exquisitely beautiful and highly intelligent. In fact these Spornagia are so intelligent they speak the language. They direct the lower mammalian orders in the physical care of the planet. They are glorified animals. A Spornagia’s body can wear out even though it is well constructed. When an old Spornagia is going to die, the Life Carriers build another body for him. This Spornagia has a five adjutant mind, but this five adjutant mind doubles to the sixth level. This is not the adjutant of worship, but this is a totality which constitutes the identity of the Spornagia, not a personality and they can pick this up and put it in a new body. And this is reincarnation and this is the only form of reincarnation in existence.
These Spornagia are technically vulnerable to death but practically with the aid of the Life Carriers they don’t die. The book speculates, they wonder, if they are always going to remain animals or will they change in the next universe age.
You see, if the Father gave them personality they would become moral beings. The Spornagia have certain powers of choice just like Tiglath has but such choices are operated on a sub-moral level. They attend in worship; they don’t know what worship is about but they like us and when we go they go for the same reason Tiglath might accompany Bud to church.
This world in which we live has fluctuations of light. About three-quarters of the day the light is about the intensity of the sun at ten o’clock in the morning. In the remaining part of the day the light diminishes until it is about as dark as it is when there is a full moon. This world does not have sunlight. This world is a self-lighting world. They funnel energy currents up into the atmosphere and the atmosphere has something similar to our ionosphere which reflects this light back out on the planet like an even, sifting light. And that is how they can regulate it so that mostly it is light and the night isn’t as long.
There are no mountain ranges on any of these worlds because mountain ranges are formed by geologic cataclysms and these worlds have not cataclysms. They have no storms, no tornadoes, no hurricanes, no rain, just dew. There are no oceans but there are streams, there are lakes and while there are no mountains there are highlands that are designed that way. The topography is exciting.
There is an economy up there. They have factories which manufacture but they don’t look like our factories because there are no smoking chimneys. They have airplanes up there, I am sure, because the Adamites and physical beings, and we will be virtually physical beings, can’t travel around on the energy circuits. We still require a mechanical device to get around in. I am sure they have airports up there.
(Audience Member: “Do they have money?”)
I think they must. There must be some indication that you are entitled to service. I think later on there is no money, but in the early mansion worlds I’ve pondered this and pondered this. You see we are not yet altruistic. We are not yet boiling over with this desire to serve. I think we require penalties. I think we need to go broke if we haven’t done our homework.
Mostly I think we still need the stimulus and a medium of exchange. You see, the service motive doesn’t really take hold until about the fifth mansion world. And they are not going to abandon the profit-loss motive until a better one has taken over. They are not going to throw away one that works for one that is idealistic and won’t work.
(Audience Member: “Well, if we are going to have food, are we going to have clothing. We’ll need money. We will need some medium of exchange.”)
There is a physical economy up there as well as a morontia economy and spirit economy. Jerusem will be full of people that we won’t see. It will be full of people that we will see. And I think there is a threshold of our advancing sensory mechanism where there will be situations in which we may see someone or not see someone – let us say are we morontially speaking, upwind or downwind from them – do you follow me. I think we will encounter transitional perceptions as our sensory mechanism expands because while we never loose our old perceptive techniques, we are adding new ones all the time. That is why they can’t tell us much about the celestial artisans. They work in ways that simply don’t register on us. It’s just as hard to tell us about what they do as it is to describe the color red to one who is born color blind.
(Audience Member: “They are very kind to us because they’ll show us the finaliters made physical to us. This is a preview of the coming attraction.”)
Right, we can see things that we can’t see in the same sense that a fluoroscope will reveal to us, many things which we couldn’t otherwise see. The x-ray technique I think is a good method or this gismo will trap waves which don’t register on our sensory mechanisms.
(Audience Member: “Then there is a culture and a new appreciation of culture.”)
Right. As we move up the line we have something to say about what we do. There are required courses and there are electives. There is more than one route that we can take. They will not let us do anything which is really harmful to us or anyone else. But there is a great big gray area which is optional and they respect our choice. They may counsel us by saying it would be better if you did this, but I want to do this. Well they may give us a good sell and if they couldn’t sell us, they’d say, all right, do that tract and when you are through you will probably realize it would have been better if you had gone the other way – but you will have the satisfaction of having your own way.
I think, within reason, they will let us make fools of ourselves. Let’s say that Bud arrives there and the first time he gets on Jerusem he has a burning desire to be a musician. Bud will talk to the mind planners – they are the vocational guidance experts up there - and they not only have to do with guiding us but they group us for maximum of stimulus. In other words, they will build up a group which is very effective because the group will spark each other. They assemble social groups for the value of the association. In other words, let’s put it in terms of baseball. They won’t put too many star pitchers on one team. They put just one good first baseman there; they’ll pick one whale of a shortstop; one tremendously good catcher. In other words, they are assembling a team. They are assembling complementary aptitudes. They may put an Alpheus twin in there for the same reason that Jesus had a couple of Alpheus twins.
It is the task of the mind planners – these are seraphim (we’re on page 553). It is the task of the mind planners to study the nature, experience and status of the Adjuster souls in transit through the mansion worlds and to facilitate their grouping for assignment in advancement. But these mind planners do not scheme, manipulate or otherwise take advantage of the ignorance or other limitations of mansion world students. They are wholly fair and eminently just. They respect your new-born morontia will; they regard you as independent volitional beings – there’s freewill again - and they seek to encourage your speedy development in advancement. Here you are face to face with true friends and understanding counselors, angels who are really able to help you to see yourself as others see you and to know yourself as angels know you.
Now here’s an answer to a question asked yesterday.
Even on Urantia these seraphim teach the everlasting truth, if your own mind does not serve you well, you can exchange it for the mind of Jesus of Nazareth, who always serves you well.
See, they work down here too because there are morontia souls here and these are the seraphim who are concerned with ministry to human beings who are in transition.
(Audience Member: “Please elaborate on that last sentence you read just a little. That’s what we all want to do.”)
If you can learn, that’s what we read in our excerpt on Christianity last night, if you can learn to live and love as Jesus taught is Apostles to live and love and serve. You see these angels are active down here. The first of these groups are the seraphic evangels who will help you choose wisely among the optional routes to Edentia, Salvington, Uversa and Havona. If there are a number of equally advisable routes they will be put before you and you will be permitted to select the one that most appeals to you. These seraphim then make recommendations to the Four and Twenty Advisors on Jerusem concerning the course which would be most advantageous for each ascending soul. You are not given unrestricted choices to your future course but you may choose within the limits of that which the transition ministers and their superiors wisely determine to be the most suitable for your future spirit attainment. The spirit world is governed on the principal of respecting your free will choice provided the course you choose is not detrimental to you or injurious to your fellows.
(Audience Member: “Do you think those evangels help people down here?”)
Let me read.
These seraphic evangels are dedicated to the proclamation of the gospel of eternal progression, the triumph of perfection attainment. On the mansion worlds they proclaim the great law of the conservation and dominance of goodness. No act of good is ever wholly lost; it may be long thwarted but never wholly annulled. It is eternally potent in proportion to the divinity of its motivation. Even on Urantia they counsel the human teachers of truth and righteousness to adhere to the preaching of the goodness of God that leads to repentance, to proclaim the love of God which casts out all fear. Even so have these truths been declared on your world.
“The God’s are my caretakers, I shall not stray. Side by side they lead me in the beautiful paths and glorious refreshment of life everlasting.” This is the original of the 23rd Psalm. “I shall not in this divine presence want for food or thirst for water. Though I go down into the valley of uncertainty, or ascend up into the worlds of doubt, though I move in loneliness or with the fellows of my kind, though I triumph in the choirs of light or falter in the solitary places of the spheres, your good spirit shall minister to me and your glorious angel will comfort me. Though I descend into the depths of darkness and death itself, I shall not doubt you nor fear you, for I know that in the fullness of time and the glory of your name you will raise me up to sit with you on the battlements on high.”
That is the story whispered in the night season to the shepherd boy. He could not retain it word for word, but to the best of his memory he gave it much as it is recorded today. Sure they work down here.
(Audience Member: “You said that there would be many beings that we would not recognize.” [On Jerusem, right.] But how many are here that we don’t recognize?”)
We’ll recognize more. We’ll recognize seraphim, Adams, Melchizedeks, most of the time I think - Lananondeks. We won’t recognize Solitary Messengers there. We won’t recognize them until we get all the way into Havona. It’s up there that we will study mota and mota is not just a super philosophy. Mota has a different value.
(Reading from page 554)
Mota is more than a superior philosophy. It is to philosophy as two eyes are to one. It has a stereoscopic effect on meanings and values. Material man sees the universe as it were with but one eye – flat. Mansion world students achieve cosmic perspective – depth – by superimposing the perceptions of the morontia life upon the perceptions of the physical life. And they are able to bring these material and morontial viewpoints into true focus, largely through the untiring ministry of their seraphic counselors who sufficiently teach the mansion world students and the morontia progressors.
We will fraternize with the recorder teachers up there. These angels are all in the chain of recorders extending from the lowest to the highest custodians of the facts of time and the truths of eternity. Some day they will teach you to seek truth as well as fact, to expand your soul as well as your mind. Even now you should learn to water the garden of your heart as well as to seek for the dry sands of knowledge. Forms are valueless when lessons are learned. No chick may be had without the shell, and no shell is of any worth after the chick is hatched. But sometimes error is so great that its rectification by revelation would be fatal to those slowly emerging truths which are essential to its experiential overthrow. When children have their ideals do not dislodge them, let them grow, and while you are learning to think as men, you should also be learning to pray as children.
Law is life itself and not the rules of its conduct. Evil is a transgression of law, not a violation of the rules of conduct pertaining to life which is the law. Falsehood is not a matter of narration technique but something premeditated as a perversion of truth. The creation of new pictures out of old facts, the restatement of parental life in the lives of offspring – these are the artistic triumphs of truth, the shadow of a hairs turning, premeditated for an untrue purpose, the slightest twisting or perversion of that which is principle – these constitute falsehoods. But the fetish of factualized truth, fossilized truth, the iron band of so-called unchanging truth, holds one blindly in a closed circle of cold fact. One can be technically right as to fact and everlastingly wrong in the truth.
And that is well illustrated by one of the twenty-eight philosophic illustrations of morontia motive. The argumentative defense of any proposition is inversely proportional to the truth contained.
(Reading from page 555)
A large corps of all orders of the transition seraphim is held on the first mansion world – next to the destiny guardians. These transition ministers draw the nearest to humans of all orders of seraphim.
I love this sentence here. Angels take delight in service and when unassigned often minister as volunteers. They are friendly.
The soul of many an ascending mortal has for the first time been kindled by the divine fire of the will to service through personal friendship with the volunteer servers of the seraphic reserves. From them you will learn to let pressure develop stability and certainty; to be faithful and earnest and withal cheerful; to accept challenges without complaint and to face difficulties and uncertainties without fear. They will ask: If you fail will you rise indomitably to try anew? If you succeed, will you maintain a well balance poise, a stabilized and spiritualized attitude throughout every long effort and the long struggle to break the fetters of material inertia, to attain the freedom of spirit existence?
Even as mortals, so have these angels been father to many disappointments and they will point out that sometimes your most disappointing disappointments have become your greatest blessings. Sometimes the planting of a seed necessitates its death. The death of your fondest hopes before it can be reborn to bear the fruits of new life and opportunity. And from them you will learn to suffer less through sorrow and disappointment, first by making fewer personal plans concerning other personalities and then by accepting your lot when you have faithfully performed your duty.
In the words of the Old Testament, these should be engraved on the palms of our hands.
(Audience Members: “Fewer personal plans concerning other personalities – that thing – gets more people into a hole than anything else. This sounds so good we all ought to jump right off a cliff.”))
To me it’s intriguing. It’s in connection with this early group of ministers that they tell so much that is so helpful in this life. You will learn that you increase your burdens and decrease the likelihood of success by taking yourself too seriously. Nothing can take precedence over the work of your status sphere: this world or the next. Very important is the work of preparation for the next higher sphere, but nothing equals the importance of the work of the world in which you are actually living. But though the work is important, the self is not. When you feel important you loose energy to wear and tear of ego dignity so that there is little energy left to do the work. Self-importance, not work importance exhausts immature creatures. It is the self element that exhausts, not the effort to achieve. You can do important work if you do not become self-important. You can do several things as easily as one if you leave yourself out. Variety is restful; monotony is what wears and exhausts. Day after day is life – just life - or the alternative of death.
Isn’t that tremendous?
(Audience Member: “It would behoove us first to learn how to live here before we try to master everything on the next universe.”)
Can you imagine a tadpole who is sulking over in one corner of the water concentrating on living as a frog. This would be the most useless tadpole on the face of the earth. I am a man and I am very interested in doing the best job I can living as a man, not a morontian.
(Audience Member: “That rather discredits the Hindus who sit outside…”)
It discredits the whole monastic concept. Buddhist teaching may lead to monastacism in the concept of the Arrat, but Buddha’s life contains much more truth and presents as the other ideal in Buddhism, the Buddhasafa, the one who serves, not the one who meditates.
And then on the next page you can go to school if you want to. They have given us half of the text of a lesson. They teach morontia mota up there by the parallel technique. They put down citations of human philosophy and then the mota equivalents. And they have given us half of the blackboard, chalk talk of some teacher up there, in these twenty-eight philosophic illustrations of morontia mota.
We still can perceive as we now perceive. We never lose this. You don’t have to explain a sunset to a finaliter. He gets just as much out of that sunset as he did when he was a mortal among men. A Divine Counselor doesn’t perceive a sunset. He never was human. So as morontians we now have two levels of perception. We retain everything we have here and we add to it morontia perception. And now we are looking at reality from two levels, like two eyes instead of one eye. Mota has a stereoscopic depth perception into meanings which no human being can have because we are one eyed perceivers, just physical perception.
All these activities of the morontia and spirit world are real. To spirit beings, the spirit world is a reality. To us the material world is the more unreal. The higher forms of spirits pass freely through ordinary matter. High spirits are reactive to nothing material excepting certain of the basic energies. To material beings, the spirit world is more or less unreal. To spirit beings the material world is almost entirely unreal, being merely a shadow of the substance of spirit realities.
I cannot, with exclusive spirit vision perceive the building in which this narrative is being translated and recorded. A Divine Counselor from Uversa who chances to stand by my side perceives still less of these purely material creations. This would be the differential of spirit level between the local universe and the super universe.
We discern how these material structures appear to you by viewing a spirit counterpart presented to our minds by one of our attending energy transformers. This material being is not exactly real to me, a spirit being, but it is of course very real and very serviceable to material mortals. There are certain types of beings who are capable of discerning the reality of the creatures of both the spirit and the material worlds. Belonging to this class are the so-called fourth creatures of Havona Servitals and the fourth creatures of the conciliators. The Angels of Time and Space are endowed with the ability to discern both spirit and material beings, as also are the ascending mortals subsequent to deliverance from the life in flesh. After attainment of the higher spirit levels the ascenders are able to recognize material, morontia and spirit realities. There is also here with me a Mighty Messenger from Uversa, an ascendant, adjuster fused, one-time mortal being, and he perceives you as you are and at the same time he visualizes the Solitary Messenger, the supernaphim and other celestial beings present.
Never in your long ascendancy will you lose the power to recognize your associates of former existences. Always, as you ascend inward in the scale of life, will you retain the ability to recognize and fraternize with the fellow beings of your previous and lower levels of experience. Each new translation or resurrection will add one more group of spirit beings to your vision range without in the least depriving you of the ability to recognize your friends and fellows of former states.
That’s very comforting to me.
In these morontia mota citations, there are some that appeal more to one than to others. May I read you the ones that I like the best? (Pages 556-557)
(2) Few persons live up to the faith which they really have. Unreasoned fear is a master intellectual fraud practiced upon the evolving mortal soul.
(5) Difficulties may challenge mediocrity and defeat the fearful, but they only stimulate the true children of the Most High.
(6) To enjoy privilege without abuse, to have liberty without license, to possess power and steadfastly refuse to use it for self-aggrandizement – these are the marks of high civilization.
(7) Blind and unforeseen accidents to not occur in the cosmos. Neither do the celestial beings assist the lower being who refuses to act upon his light of truth.
(8) Effort does not always produce joy, but there is no happiness without intelligent effort.
(11) The weak indulge in resolutions, but the strong act. Life is but a day’s work – do it well. The act is ours, the consequences God’s.
(12) The greatest affliction of the cosmos is never to have been afflicted. Mortals only learn wisdom by experiencing tribulation.
(13) Stars are best discerned from the lonely isolation of experiential depths, not from the illuminated and ecstatic mountain tops.
(16) You cannot perceive spiritual truth until you feelingly experience it, and many truths are not really felt except in adversity.
(17) Impatience is a spirit poison; anger is like a stone hurled into a hornets nest.
(20) Only a poet can discern poetry in the common place prose of routine existence.
(21) The evolving soul is not made divine by what it does but by what it strives to do.
(22) Death added nothing to the intellectual possession or to the spiritual endowment, but it did add to the experiential status the consciousness of survival.
(24) The destiny of eternity is determined moment by moment by the achievements of the day by day living; the acts of today are the destiny of tomorrow.
(28) The argumentative defense of any proposition is inversely proportional to the truth contained.
This is all taking place up here on Jerusem on the mansion worlds. I think this takes quite a while to get to Jerusem. I have thought about it. How long would you want to spend on these mansion worlds just voluntarily? I think I would like to spend a hundred years or so, at least maybe a thousand years. I’d like to spend 10,000 years on Jerusem. There is so much to learn. There is a whole great system to explore and to visit, to grow and to learn. Such fascinating things going on up there. Jerusem itself is a place of such great beauty – just the physical beauty of the structures.
The superuniverse and the Paradise Havona broadcasts are received on Jerusem in liaison with Salvington and by a technique involving the polar crystal – the Sea of Glass. In addition to provisions for the reception of these extra-Nebadon communications, there are three distinct groups of receiving stations. These separate but tri-circular groups of stations are adjusted to the reception and broadcasts from the local worlds, from the Constellation headquarters and from the capital of the local universe. These broadcasts are automatically displayed so as to be discernible by all types of beings present in the central broadcast amphitheater. Of all preoccupations for an ascending mortal of Jerusem, none is more engaging and engrossing than that of listening in on the never ending stream of universe space reports.
The Jerusem broadcast receiving station is encircled by an enormous amphitheater constructed of scintillating materials largely unknown on Urantia and seating over 5 billion beings, material and morontia, besides accommodating innumerable spirit personalities. (They are not in space, you know.)
It is a favorite diversion for all Jerusem to spend their leisure at the broadcast station, there to learn of the welfare and state of the Universe. And this is the only planetary activity which has not slowed down during the recession of light.
I think when we are settled in Light and Life and the Morontia Temple is here, then I suspect mortals do get some of these broadcasts and they do learn the system language while they are still alive here on earth.
(Audience member: What are the purposes of these isolated planets?”)
They were the thirty-seven planets that threw in their lot with Lucifer at the time of the rebellion. And they are not isolated in terms of God but they are isolated in terms of these communication circuits, reflectivity circuits and so forth. It doesn’t make much difference to the people but it makes an awful lot of difference to the super human administrators because a lot of things they are used to are dead down here. The circuits are here but there is no juice flowing.
(Audience Member: “They’re getting extra help for those people aren’t they?”)
No, I think they have to rise to the challenge. For example, superuniverse administrators down here would be used to having the reflective services of the seconophim. I think they can bring seconophim down here but I’m not so sure they can do any reflecting down here. That circuit is non-operative here. I think the circuits were restored when Lanaforge took over. They didn’t penalize the loyal worlds of the system. They through the whole system out of circuit. You see it forced everything to be done by pony express. The rebellion couldn’t spread by wireless; it could only spread if they sent a messenger. This planet could communicate with Jerusem, but it had to be done by seraphim, a personal message carrier. After the ascension of Jesus, he transferred the divisional headquarters of the Archangels in Satania from Jerusem to Urantia and they brought their circuit with them, so we do have a communication line out of this planet now.
(Audience Member: “Would it be like the carrier pigeons?”)
Like carrier pigeons, exactly, yes. But the wires are down on some pigeons.
(Audience Member: “What would happen if the Lucifer rebellion was adjudicated tomorrow, say and that the Most Highs…?”)
I don’t think we would know any different. But starting with Secondary Midwayers on up it would make a tremendous difference to this world. It wouldn’t make any difference to human beings.
Our narrative of these residential and administrative areas takes no account of the vast and beautiful estates of the Material Sons of God, the permanent citizens of Jerusem. Neither do we mention numerous other fascinating orders of spirit and near-spirit creatures. For example, Jerusem enjoys the efficient services of the Spironga of design for system function. These beings are devoted to spiritual ministry in behalf of the supernatural residents and visitors. They are a wonderful group of intelligent and beautiful beings who are the transition servants of the higher morontia creatures and of the morontia helpers who labor for the upkeep and embellishment of all morontia creations. They are on Jerusem what the midway creatures are on Urantia. Midway helpers functioning between the material and the spiritual.
The System Capitals are unique in that they are the only worlds which exhibit well-nigh perfectly all three phases of universe existence: the material, the morontial, and the spiritual. Whether you are a material, morontia, or spirit personality, you will feel at home on Jerusem, as so also do the combined beings, such as the Midway Creatures and the Material Sons.
Jerusem has great buildings of both material and morontia types, while the embellishment of the purely spiritual zones is no less exquisite and replete. If I only had words to tell you of the morontia counterparts of the marvelous physical equipment of Jerusem, if I could only go on to portray the sublime grandeur and exquisite perfection of the spiritual appointments of this headquarters world your most imaginative concept of perfection of beauty and repleteness of appointment would hardly approach these grandeurs. And Jerusem is but the first step on the way to the supernal perfection of Paradise beauty.
On Jerusem there are many circles and it is an interesting concept of structure. They are concentric circles – seven – and they are devoted to certain orders of beings like the Sons of God, the Angels, and always the higher orders are in the lower center most circles observable by the lower orders who thus enjoy privacy as concerns being observed by their seniors. So that the lowest order admissible to live there – these are apartment houses, so to speak. The lowest orders are on the highest level at the periphery and the highest orders are center most in lower level.
The Circles of the Finaliters. These circles have a unique structure at the center and this same vacant temple is found on every system headquarters world throughout Nebadon. This edifice on Jerusem is sealed with the insignia of Michael and it bears this inscription: “Undedicated to the seventh stage of spirit - to the eternal assignment.” Gabriel placed the seal on this temple of mystery and none but Michael can or may break the seal of sovereignty affixed by the Bright and Morning Star. Some day you shall look upon this silent temple even though you may not penetrate its mystery.
I think we have pretty well covered Bud’s adventures on Jerusem. In other words, we have now taken the first step in the Paradise career, which is the seven mansion worlds and Jerusem. Not everybody goes through these seven mansion worlds. Some people, from rather advanced spheres, wake up on Jerusem and then they have to go back and get the mansion world experience as teachers. At least this would be true as long as the mansion worlds continue to function as mansion worlds. Of course, when the whole system is settled in light and life, and when everybody wakes up on Jerusem then these mansion worlds will be devoted to other purposes. And then I think we will understand why they are the satellites of the finaliters’ worlds.
Now visualize Jerusem itself. Jerusem is about 100 times the size of this world, but without proportional gravity because it’s a made-to-order world and they can build them pretty big without getting so darned massive, like Jupiter. And encircling Jerusem are its seven primary satellites. And encircling each of these satellites are seven moons, all architectural. And the seven mansion worlds are the seven moons of primary satellite number one, which is a world given over to the finaliters.
And these other clusters of worlds are devoted to other activities and as we advance through the mansion worlds, we will get a chance to visit them. So you see, we are primarily concerned with only eight of the fifty-seven spheres in the Jerusem cluster: the seven mansion worlds and Jerusem itself.
We visit them but they are not study worlds. They are worlds on which other activities are going on and they tell us a little about who lives there; one of these clusters of eight is for the use of seraphim and the like – it’s their system headquarters, and so on.
So, should we promote Bud to the Constellation level? He is moving on to the Constellation and we are moving backward in the book. You now, this story is told in reverse – they start with Paradise and the last thing they talk about in the series is an inhabited world. So we are reading the book backwards.
Up on the Constellation it’s his principle objective to become socialized (Page 485 is the start of the paper). This is a big cluster – this is 771 architectural worlds. This constitutes the administrative headquarters of the Constellation of Norlatiadek. Now we really get introduced to some foreigners because 99 other local systems are pouring their ascenders into this constellation. In other words, in a Constellation there are one hundred thousand worlds and if our system is a criterium, we’ve got say sixty odd thousand worlds from which ascenders are arriving at Constellation headquarters. Some extremely advanced individuals skip the entire system and wake up on the Constellation. This is possible in worlds settled in light and life, that have been there a long time.
(Audience member: “You think they would have fused.”)
Yes, some would. You see, when a world is long settled in light and life, death becomes decreasingly frequent. A higher and higher percentage of the mortals fuse during life. And I can imagine that the final stronghold of snobbery could be exemplified by a discussion in a family. You know Kathy is very interested in that Jones boy and momma says, “well I don’t know about the Joneses, you know, they die.” This would be a sort of a stigma. They have too many deaths in the family. Now what’s with you people. The author of that paper says that he has visited no world from which death has disappeared. But he has visited worlds on which death is getting reasonably rare.
I think in many ways, a world like ours is a pretty good world because we are up against coercive pressure, we are forced to make decisions. This is a pressure planet and there are many advantages, I believe, to having gotten hatched out on a world like this.
The job we have to do here is to learn how to live with difficult people. And these difficult people are the Univitatia who are discussed on page 493. Spiritually they are alike, intellectually they vary as we do. In form they much resemble the morontia state of existence and they are created to function in seventy diverse orders of personality. Each of these orders exhibits ten major variations of intellectual activity and each of these varying intellectual types presides over the special training and cultural schools of progressive occupational or practical socialization on some one of the ten satellites which swing around each of the major Edentia worlds. They’ve got seventy major worlds and each of those have ten satellites, that gives us 770 and Edentia is the last of the spheres.
The physical endowment of Edentia and its surrounding spheres is well-nigh perfect; they could hardly equal the spiritual grandeur of the spheres of Salvington, but they far surpass the glories of the training worlds of Jerusem.
The time spent on the seventy training worlds of transition morontia culture associated with the Edentia age of mortal ascension is the most settled period in an ascending mortals career up to the status of a finaliter; this is really the typical morontia life.
It’s the mid-phase. On Jerusem you are more physical, on Salvington you are more spiritual, but here you are a true morontian.
While you are re-keyed each time you pass from one major cultural world to another, you retain the same morontia body and there are no periods of personality unconsciousness.
Your sojourn on Edentia and its associated spheres will be chiefly occupied by the mastery of group ethics, the secret of pleasant and profitable interrelationships between the various universe and superuniverse orders of intelligent personalities.
On the mansion worlds you completed the unification of the evolving mortal personality; on the system capital you attained Jerusem citizenship and achieved the willingness to submit the self to the disciplines of group activities and coordinated undertakings. But now on the constellation training worlds, you are achieve the real socialization of your evolving morontia personality. This supernal cultural acquirement consists in learning how to:
1. Live happily and work effectively with ten diverse fellow morontians, while ten such groups are associated in companies of one hundred and then federated in corps of 1000.
2. Abide joyfully and cooperate heartily with ten Univitatia, who, though similar intellectually to morontia beings and very different in every other way. And then must you function with this group of ten as it coordinates with ten other families which are in turn confederated into a corps of one thousand Univitatia.
3. Achieve simultaneous adjustment to both fellow morontians and these host Univitatia. Acquire the ability voluntarily and effectively to cooperate with your own order of beings in close working association with a somewhat dissimilar group of intelligent beings.
4. While thus socially functioning with beings like and unlike yourself, achieve intellectual harmony with and make vocational adjustment to both groups of associates.
5. While attaining satisfactory socialization of the personality on the intellectual and vocational levels, further perfect the ability to live in intimate contact with similar and slightly dissimilar beings with ever lessening irritability and ever diminishing resentment. [And that means we are still irritable and we can still hold resentment.] The reversion directors contribute much to the latter attainment through their group play activities.
6. Adjust all of these various socialization techniques to the furtherance of the progressive coordination of the paradise ascension career; augment universe insight by enhancing the ability to grasp the eternal role meanings concealed within the seemingly insignificant time-space activities.
7. And then, climax all of these procedures of multi-socialization with the concurrent enhancement of spiritual insight as it pertains to the augmentation of all phases of personal endowment through group spiritual association and morontia co-ordination. Intellectually, socially, and spiritually, two moral creatures do not merely double their personal potentials of universe achievement by partnership technique; they more nearly quadruple their attainment and accomplishment possibilities.
I think an organization is to the, you might say, tissue of religion what one’s skeleton is to one’s body. Did you every stop to think how unpleasant a skeleton is if it shows and how useless any of us would be without that bone structure. But the place for the skeleton is on the inside, not the outside. The more an organization shows, the uglier it is. The more invisible it is, the more valuable it is. That’s my own feeling about an organization.
We might take a look at what they say about Edentia. The system capitals are particularly beautified with material and mineral constructions while the universe headquarters is more reflective of spiritual glory. But the capitals of the constellations are the acme of morontia activities and living embellishments. On the constellation headquarters worlds, living embellishment is more generally utilized. And it is this preponderance of life - botanic artistry - that causes these worlds to be called the Gardens of God.
The architectural worlds enjoy ten forms of life of the material order. On Urantia there is plant and animal life, but on such a world as Edentia there are ten divisions of the material orders of life. Were you to view these ten divisions of Edentia life, you would quickly classify the first three as vegetable and the last three as animal. But you would be utterly unable to comprehend the nature of the intervening four groups of prolific and fascinating forms of life.
Even the distinctly animal life is very different from that of the evolutionary worlds, so different that it is quite impossible to portray to mortal minds the unique character and affectionate nature of these non speaking creatures. There are tens upon thousands of living creatures which your imagination could not possibly picture. The whole animal creation is of an entirely different order from the gross animal species of the evolutionary worlds. But all this animal life is most intelligent and exquisitely serviceable and all the various species are surprisingly gentle and touchingly companionable. There are no carnivorous creatures on such architectural worlds. There is nothing in all Edentia to make any living being afraid.
The vegetable life is also very different from that of Urantia, consisting of both material and morontia varieties. The material growths have the characteristic green coloration but the morontia equivalence of vegetative life have a violet or orchid tinge of varying hue and reflection. Such morontia vegetation is purely an energy growth. When eaten, there is no residual portion.
Being endowed with ten divisions of physical life, not to mention the morontia variations, these architectural worlds provide tremendous possibilities for the biologic beautification of the landscape and of the material and morontia structures. The celestial artisans direct the native Spornagia in this extensive work of botanic decoration and biologic embellishment. Whereas your artists must resort to inert paint and lifeless marble to portray their concepts, the celestial artisans and the Univitatia more frequently utilize living materials to represent their ideas and to capture their ideals.
If you enjoy the flowers, shrubs, and trees of Urantia, then will you feast your eyes upon the botanical beauty and the floral grandeur of the supernal gardens of Edentia. But it is beyond my powers of description to undertake to convey to the mortal mind an adequate concept of these beauties of the heavenly worlds. Truly, eye has not seen such glories as await your arrival on these worlds of the mortal ascension adventure.
(Audience Member: “It’s so hard to imagine that.”)
I think this is why they associate the paper on the Celestial Artisans with the constellation. Because as I look at, art form as we visualize it would be at its peak at the constellation level. And if you will recall, they try to describe what these celestial artisans are like, and they simply run out of gas. Celestial musicians, heavenly reproducers, divine builders, thought recorders, energy manipulators, designers and embellishers, harmony workers.
It was in that paper we read the section about the fact that material reality just isn’t real to a spiritual being who was created as such.
It says here the best of music of Urantia is just a fleeting echo of the magnificent strains heard by the celestial associates of your musicians who left but snatches of these harmonies of morontia forces on record as the musical melodies of sound harmonics. While you have assembled some beautiful melodies on Urantia, you have not progressed musically nearly so far as many of your neighboring planets in Satania. If Adam and Eve had only survived, then would you have had music in reality. But the gift of harmony so large in their natures has been so diluted by strains of unmusical tendencies that only once in a thousand mortal lives is their any great appreciation of harmonics. But be not discouraged, some day a real musician may appear on Urantia and whole peoples will be enthralled with the magnificent strains of his melody. One such human being could forever change the course of the whole nation, even the entire civilized world. It is literally true, “melody has power a whole world to transform.” Forever, music will remain the universal language of men, angels and spirits. Harmony is the speech of Havona.
Each superuniverse has its own language, a tongue spoken by its personalities and prevailing throughout its sectors. This is known as the tongue of Uversa in our superuniverse. Each local universe also has its own language (page 503). All of the higher orders of Nebadon are bilingual, speaking both the language of Nebadon and the tongue of Uversa. When two individuals from different local universes meet they communicate in the tongue of Uversa. If, however, one of them hails from another superuniverse, they must have recourse to a translator. In the central universe there is little need of a language. There exists perfect and well-nigh complete understanding. There, only the Gods are not fully comprehended. We are taught of a chance meeting on Paradise reveals more of mutual understanding than could be communicated by a mortal language in a thousand years. Even on Salvington, we know as we are known.
Page 483. Mind is always creative. The mind endowment of an individual animal, mortal, morontian, spirit ascender, or finality attainer, is always competent to produce a suitable and servicable body for the living creature identity. But the presence phenomenon of a personality or the pattern of an identity as such is not a manifestation of energy either physical, mindal or spiritual. The personality form is the pattern aspect of the living being. It connotes the arrangement of energies and this plus life and motion, is the mechanism of creature existence.
On a material world, you think of a body as having a spirit, but we regard the spirit as having a body. The material eyes are truly the windows of the spirit born soul. The spirit is the architect, the mind is the builder, the body is the material building.
The liaison of the cosmic mind and the ministry of the adjutant mind-spirits evolve a suitable physical tabernacle for the evolving human being. Likewise does the morontia mind individualize the morontia form for all mortal survivors. As the mortal body is personal and characteristic for every human being, so will the morontia form be highly individual and adequately characteristic of the creative mind which dominates it. No two morontia forms are any more alike than any two human bodies. The morontia power supervisors sponsor, and the attending seraphim provide, the undifferentiated morontia material wherewith the morontia life can begin to work. And after the morontia life it will be found that spirit forms are equally diverse, personal and characteristic of their respective spirit mind indwellers.
Now, here I think is one of the real incentives to progress. You see, if you are ugly on the inside up there, you body is much more flexible and you will turn ugly on the outside. And the only Helena Rubenstein you can visit to improve your appearance would be to make a stronger spiritual effort to do the will of the Father. Their beauty would correlate with goodness. And I fancy the higher you go the more responsive these patterns would become to the innards of us. The trouble with life down here is that too much of it is like the picture of Dorian Grey. We don’t write deeply enough our character in our faces.