the spiritual frame of reference
TRANSCRIPT
The spiritual frame of reference 2015 Urantia Association International Conference by Richard L. Lachance, Québec, CANADA
Temporal reference frame
30 minutes presentation
Introduction
How did we get here today? Bishops University: 2600 College, Lennoxville, Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada J1M 0C8
I used a Global Positioning System (GPS) for a geographical frame of reference for my trip. I knew: where I started, where I was going, and the way to get there.
Fundamental questions
Where do I come from? PAST – What is this place I’m living in?
Who am I? and Why am I here? (cause) PRESENT – Is there a meaning to all of this?
Where am I going? FUTURE – What is my purpose, goal and destiny? – Where shall I go? What about the means to get there?
What is the meaning of life?
Where is his bus going?
Is there even a driver?
Lost in the jungle?
Prayer frame of reference
“ St. Anthony of Padua, please give my life some sense of purpose”
Give us this day our bread for tomorrow
Refresh our souls with the water of life
Give us our spiritual frame of reference
“You can be nourished by the eternal word of God, which is indeed the bread of life, […];
and you can be watered in soul by the divine spirit, which is truly the water of life.
The Father has sent me into the world to show how he desires to indwell and direct all men; and I have so lived this life in the flesh as to inspire all men likewise ever to seek to know and do the will of the indwelling heavenly Father.” [153:3.2]
The Cosmic GPS
God Personal Savior
Insights on our fundamental questions
Where do I come from? – From the infinite love of the Universe Father himself,
as part of his magnificent evolutionary plan – We are conceived, born and raised on a lowly
evolutionary planet, named Urantia, in a distant galaxy far, far away…
19
Cosmic Ascendance of Man
Grand Universe of the 2nd age – Superuniverse Nº 7 – ORVONTON
– Major Sector Nº 5 – Splandon – Minor Sector Nº 3 – Ensa
– Local Universe Nº 84 – NEBADON – Constellation Nº70 – Norlatiadek – System Nº 24 – Satania – Planet Nº606 – URANTIA
Universal Catalogue Nº 5342 482 337 666 L.U. 15:7
Far, but at the same time So close
Although the Universal Father is personally resident on Paradise, at the very center of the universes, he is also actually present on the worlds of space in the minds of his countless children of time, for he indwells them as the Mystery Monitors. The eternal Father is at one and the same time farthest removed from, and most intimately associated with, his planetary mortal sons. [107:0.1]
Who is in Heaven Our Father
Insights on our fundamental questions
Who am I? Evolution of the perceived relationship with God: – Desperate slaves at the mercy of a jealous god, – Servants of God, – Beloved Children of God, as revealed by the life of Jesus – Now we are revealed by the Urantia Book that we are
potential Partners of God
we have to say YES
Insights on our fundamental questions
Why am I here? – To do the will of God, to follow an ascension career, an
evolutionary path toward perfection in partnership with God
The transcendent goal of the children of time is: to find the eternal God, to comprehend the divine nature, to recognize the Universal Father.[1:0.3] From the Universal Father who inhabits eternity there has gone forth the supreme mandate:
“Be you perfect, even as I am perfect”
Supreme Commandment
We are commanded to: – Grow by evolution from the finite, limited, material animal
state, to the infinite, perfect, spiritual state
Is this possible? – Yes! Although we are imperfect now, we are perfectible,
and we have all the means and help to get there
We are imperfect, but perfectible
Experience and Evolution
Evolution, experience is primordial Why should man bemoan his lowly origin and enforced evolutionary career when the very Gods must pass through an equivalent experience before they are accounted experientially worthy and competent finally and fully to rule over their universe domains! [21:4.6]
Our benedictions – Man’s endowments
Physical (“Hardware”) – Life driving a electro-chemical physical body
Mental (“Software”) – Force driving our bodies + Adjutant Mind Spirits
Spiritual – Indwelling Thought Adjuster, co-creating our souls – With an enclosing unique personality
Exterior influences: – Creator Son’ Spirit of truth – Divine Minister’s Holy Spirit + plethora of beings helping to uplift us (e.g. Angels)
We have everything we need for this exciting journey!
Our benedictions – Man’s endowments
Mind is your ship, the Adjuster is your pilot, the human will is captain. The master of the mortal vessel should have the wisdom to trust the divine pilot to guide the ascending soul into the morontia harbors of eternal survival. […] With your consent, this faithful pilot will safely carry you across the barriers of time and the handicaps of space to the very source of the divine mind and on beyond, even to the Paradise Father of Adjusters. [111:1.9]
But all of this is only temporary and only lent to us
Faith is to religion what sails are to a
ship. [159:3.8]
Free will and Faith
How much does God love us? – Infinitely
In order to be infinitely happy, we need to be infinitely free Free will
– where God steps aside and lets us choose our own destiny, to join him and become real, or not…
God wanted us to want him; God chose to need us in order to reach personality
It is now for us to use this free will and decide
Your will be done
On earth as it is in Heaven
What is Beauty?
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. [56:10.3]
Where am I going?
God has planned a magnificent journey inwards, toward the center of all things and being in his marvelous and friendly universe, to his majestic home the Central Island of Paradise
This is our home too, from where we will start (again) our eternal mission of perfection in service in the Master Universe for the eternal ages to come
Our cosmic trajectory & Destination
Urantia
(us today)
Home
God has embarked upon the eternal adventure with man. If you yield to the leadings of the spiritual forces in you and around you, you cannot fail to attain the high destiny established by a loving God as the universe goal of his ascendant creatures from the evolutionary worlds of space. [5:1.12]
Can you really realize?
Can you really realize the true significance of the Adjuster’s indwelling? Do you really fathom what it means to have an absolute fragment of the absolute and infinite Deity, the Universal Father, indwelling and fusing with your finite mortal natures? When mortal man fuses with an actual fragment of the existential Cause of the total cosmos, no limit can ever be placed upon the destiny of such an unprecedented and unimaginable partnership. [107:4.7]
How long will this take?
The treasure is the journey
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! [32:5.7]
Why all this trouble about Evolution?
Through our father’s evolution plan, ascendant beings like ourselves can become versatile and dependable, as we will become by going through the tremendous and profound personal experience acquired by actually climbing up to glory from the dark domains of space. Therefore should we be ever grateful for our lowly origin and our capacity for experience. [22:9.6] If we fully embrace this program down here, constantly
reiterating our choice to engage with God, we have the privilege of becoming an agondonter
Agondonter
Evolutionary will creature who can believe without seeing, persevere when isolated, and triumph over insuperable difficulties even when alone. [50:7.2]
Agondonters
These ascendant children of time have learned to feast upon uncertainty, to fatten upon disappoint-ment, to enthuse over apparent defeat, to invigorate in the presence of difficulties, to exhibit indomitable courage in the face of immensity, and to exercise unconquerable faith when confronted with the challenge of the inexplicable. Long since, the battle cry of these pilgrims became: “In liaison with God, nothing – absolutely nothing – is impossible.” [26:5.3]
What we can become
This whole divine plan and the survival experience of mortal ascension is the greatest security against rebellion and the surest safeguard against sin. During the Lucifer rebellion, not a single Jerusem citizen was lost. Every ascendant mortal survived the fiery trial and emerged from the crucial test triumphant and altogether victorious. [53:7.12]
What an adventure! What a romance!
A gigantic creation to be administered by the children of the Supreme, these personalized and humanized Adjusters, these Adjusterized and eternalized mortals, […] … such amalgamated beings, such partnerships of Creator and creature, will become superb rulers, matchless administrators, and understanding and sympathetic directors of any and all forms of intelligent life which may come into existence throughout these future universes of the first outer space level. [112:7.18]
The three stonemasons
Three stonemasons working together were asked what they were doing.
The first replied “I am shaping stone” The second “I am making a wall”
The third proudly proclaimed:
“I’m building a Cathedral”
The three stonemasons
Three stonemasons working together were asked what they were doing.
The first replied “I am shaping stone” The second “I am making a wall” The third, proudly proclaimed, “I am building a cathedral!”
Same situation, three different visions, three different frames of reference.
This first world is but a step
We’ve just started building the foundation, and we will not see the end result in this humble life
Neither will we see our names engraved in the stones as we’re ready to work in the shadow for the glory of God alone.
Ad majorem Dei gloriam Google: “youtube the invisible woman” Nicole Johnson
Hallowed be your name
Your kingdom come
“The kingdom of God is within you” was probably the greatest pronouncement Jesus ever made, next to the declaration that his Father is a living and loving spirit. [195:10.4]
A matter of personal choice
No one sees the other aspect of fate, death; Nobody knows nothing. So I have the choice, right?
I have my taste, and you have yours; After so much suffering, the despair might please you, but for me I choose hope;
And since, according to you, nothing is clear, nothing is sure, you might choose the ash, but I’m choosing the azure.
Victor Hugo
The choice of survival
If mortal man is wholeheartedly spiritually motivated, unreservedly consecrated to the doing of the Father’s will, then, since he is so certainly and so effectively spiritually endowed by the indwelling and divine Adjuster, there cannot fail to materialize in that individual’s experience the sublime consciousness of knowing God and the supernal assurance of surviving for the purpose of finding God by the progressive experience of becoming more and more like him. [UB 5:1.6]
In all security
Uncertainty with security is the essence of the Paradise adventure – uncertainty in time and in mind, uncertainty as to the events of the unfolding Paradise ascent; security in spirit and in eternity, security in the unqualified trust of the creature son in the divine compassion and infinite love of the Universal Father; uncertainty as an inexperienced citizen of the universe; security as an ascending son in the universe mansions of an all-powerful, all-wise, and all-loving Father. [111:7.1]
An amazing program in front of us
You humans have begun an endless unfolding of an almost infinite panorama, a limitless expanding of never-ending, ever-widening spheres of opportunity for exhilarating service, matchless adventure, sublime uncertainty, and boundless attainment. When the clouds gather overhead, your faith should accept the fact of the presence of the indwelling Adjuster, and thus you should be able to look beyond the mists of mortal uncertainty into the clear shining of the sun of eternal righteousness on the beckoning heights of the mansion worlds of Satania. [108:6.8]
Jesus portrayed this:
“The downfall of nations, the crash of empires, the end of an age, even the end of the world, what have these things to do with one who believes this gospel, and who has hid his life in the surety of the eternal kingdom? Kingdom (cathedral) builders are not to be disturbed by temporal upheavals or perturbed by terrestrial cataclysms. What does it matter to you who believe this gospel of the kingdom if nations overturn, the age ends, or all things visible crash, since you know that your life is the gift of the Son, and that it is eternally secure in the Father?” [176:3.2]
Summary
Have you found answers to the fundamental questions? Personally I can say:
– God has found me, and I have found my father God; I have the certitude of the divine
– I now have a proper spiritual frame of reference on which to build and direct my life
– I know in which bus I’m on board and where I’m going
– I’m not afraid anymore
Conclusion
The great goal of human existence is: to attune to the divinity of the indwelling Adjuster; the great achievement of mortal life is: the attainment of a true and understanding consecration to the eternal aims of the divine spirit who waits and works within your mind. A devoted and determined effort to realize eternal destiny is wholly compatible with a lighthearted and joyous life and with a successful and honorable career on earth. [110:3.4]
Conclusion
The sons of God enlisted together in fighting the battle of reality’s triumph over the partial shadows of existence. At last all creatures become conscious of the fact that God and all the divine hosts of a well-nigh limitless universe are on their side in the supernal struggle to attain eternity of life and divinity of status. Such faith-liberated sons have certainly enlisted in the struggles of time on the side of the supreme forces and divine personalities of eternity; [101:10.9]
Conclusion
Even the stars in their courses are now doing battle for them; at last they gaze upon the universe from within, from God’s viewpoint, and all is transformed from the uncertainties of material isolation to the sureties of eternal spiritual progression. Even time itself becomes but the shadow of eternity cast by Paradise realities upon the moving panoply of space. [101:10.9]
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 everyone 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. [32:5.8]
I’m yours, Take me
Pay it forward
Please share this with your brethren according to your own personal expression. Jesus said: “Go you now into all the world preaching this gospel of the kingdom of heaven to all men. Love all men as I have loved you; serve your fellow mortals as I have served you. Freely you have received, freely give. [193:0.5] For a copy of this presentation: Richard L. Lachance, [email protected]