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Urantia Book Paper 48 The Morontia Life
SPIRITWEB ORG, PROMOTING SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS ON THE INTERNET.
Subjects Archive The Urantia Book Urantia Book PART II: The Local Universe :
The Evolution Of Local Universes Administration Of The Local Universe The Local
Universe Mother Spirit The Local Universe Sons Of God The Life Carriers
Personalities Of The Local Universe Ministering Spirits Of The Local Universe
The Seraphic Hosts The Ascending Sons Of God Physical Aspects Of The Local
Universe Energy--mind And Matter The Constellations The Celestial Artisans The
Local System Administration The Local System Headquarters The Seven Mansion
Worlds The Morontia Life The Inhabited Worlds The Planetary Princes The
Planetary Adams Planetary Mortal Epochs The Lucifer Rebellion Problems Of The
Lucifer Rebellion The Spheres Of Light And Life Universal Unity
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Paper 48 The Morontia Life
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Introduction
THE Gods cannot--at least they do not--transform a creature of gross animal
nature into a perfected spirit by some mysterious act of creative magic. When
the Creators desire to produce perfect beings, they do so by direct and
original creation, but they never undertake to convert animal-origin and
material creatures into beings of perfection in a single step.
The morontia life, extending as it does over the various stages of the local
universe career, is the only possible approach whereby material mortals could
attain the threshold of the spirit world. What magic could death, the natural
dissolution of the material body, hold that such a simple step should instantly
transform the mortal and material mind into an immortal and perfected spirit?
Such beliefs are but ignorant superstitions and pleasing fables.
Always this morontia transition intervenes between the mortal estate and the
subsequent spirit status of surviving human beings. This intermediate state of
universe progress differs markedly in the various local creations, but in
intent and purpose they are all quite similar. The arrangement of the mansion
and higher morontia worlds in Nebadon is fairly typical of the morontia
transition regimes in this part of Orvonton.
1. MORONTIA MATERIALS
The morontia realms are the local universe liaison spheres between the material
and spiritual levels of creature existence. This morontia life has been known
on Urantia since the early days of the Planetary Prince. From time to time this
transition state has been taught to mortals, and the concept, in distorted
form, has found a place in present-day religions.
The morontia spheres are the transition phases of mortal ascension through the
progression worlds of the local universe. Only the seven worlds surrounding the
finaliters' sphere of the local systems are called mansion worlds, but all
fifty-six of the system transition abodes, in common with the higher spheres
around the constellations and the universe headquarters, are called morontia
worlds. These creations partake of the physical beauty and the morontia
grandeur of the local universe headquarters spheres.
All of these worlds are architectural spheres, and they have just double the
number of elements of the evolved planets. Such made-to-order worlds not only
abound in the heavy metals and crystals, having one hundred physical elements,
but likewise have exactly one hundred forms of a unique energy organization
called morontia material. The Master Physical Controllers and the Morontia
Power Supervisors are able so to modify the revolutions of the primary units
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of matter and at the same time so to transform these associations of energy as
to create this new substance.
The early morontia life in the local systems is very much like that of your
present material world, becoming less physical and more truly morontial on the
constellation study worlds. And as you advance to the Salvington spheres, you
increasingly attain spiritual levels.
The Morontia Power Supervisors are able to effect a union of material and of
spiritual energies, thereby organizing a morontia form of materialization which
is receptive to the superimposition of a controlling spirit. When you traverse
the morontia life of Nebadon, these same patient and skillful Morontia Power
Supervisors will successively provide you with 570 morontia bodies, each one a
phase of your progressive transformation. From the time of leaving the material
worlds until you are constituted a first-stage spirit on Salvington, you will
undergo just 570 separate and ascending morontia changes. Eight of these occur
in the system, seventy-one in the constellation, and 491 during the sojourn on
the spheres of Salvington.
In the days of the mortal flesh the divine spirit indwells you, almost as a
thing apart--in reality an invasion of man by the bestowed spirit of the
Universal Father. But in the morontia life the spirit will become a real part
of your personality, and as you successively pass through the 570 progressive
transformations, you ascend from the material to the spiritual estate of
creature life.
Paul learned of the existence of the morontia worlds and of the reality of
morontia materials, for he wrote, "They have in heaven a better and more
enduring substance." And these morontia materials are real, literal, even as in
"the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God." And each of
these marvelous spheres is "a better country, that is, a heavenly one."
2. MORONTIA POWER SUPERVISORS
These unique beings are exclusively concerned with the supervision of those
activities which represent a working combination of spiritual and physical or
semimaterial energies. They are exclusively devoted to the ministry of morontia
progression. Not that they so much minister to mortals during the transition
experience, but they rather make possible the transition environment for the
progressing morontia creatures. They are the channels of morontia power which
sustain and energize the morontia phases of the transition worlds.
Morontia Power Supervisors are the offspring of a local universe Mother Spirit.
They are fairly standard in design though differing slightly in nature in the
various local creations. They are created for their specific function and
require no training before entering upon their responsibilities.
The creation of the first Morontia Power Supervisors is simultaneous with the
arrival of the first mortal survivor on the shores of some one of the first
mansion worlds in a local universe. They are created in groups of one thousand,
classified as follows:
1. Circuit Regulators 400
2. System Co-ordinators 200
3. Planetary Custodians 100
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4. Combined Controllers 100
5. Liaison Stabilizers 100
6. Selective Assorters 50
7. Associate Registrars 50
The power supervisors always serve in their native universe. They are directed
exclusively by the joint spirit activity of the Universe Son and the Universe
Spirit but are otherwise a wholly self-governing group. They maintain
headquarters on each of the first mansion worlds of the local systems, where
they work in close association with both the physical controllers and the
seraphim but function in a world of their own as regards energy manifestation
and spirit application.
They also sometimes work in connection with supermaterial phenomena on the
evolutionary worlds as ministers of temporary assignment. But they rarely serve
on the inhabited planets; neither do they work on the higher training worlds of
the superuniverse, being chiefly devoted to the transition regime of morontia
progression in a local universe.
1. Circuit Regulators. These are the unique beings who co-ordinate physical and
spiritual energy and regulate its flow into the segregated channels of the
morontia spheres, and these circuits are exclusively planetary, limited to a
single world. The morontia circuits are distinct from, and supplementary to,
both physical and spiritual circuits on the transition worlds, and it requires
millions of these regulators to energize even a system of mansion worlds like
that of Satania.
Circuit regulators initiate those changes in material energies which render
them subject to the control and regulation of their associates. These beings
are morontia power generators as well as circuit regulators. Much as a dynamo
apparently generates electricity out of the atmosphere, so do these living
morontia dynamos seem to transform the everywhere energies of space into those
materials which the morontia supervisors weave into the bodies and life
activities of the ascending mortals.
2. System Co-ordinators. Since each morontia world has a separate order of
morontia energy, it is exceedingly difficult for humans to visualize these
spheres. But on each successive transition sphere, mortals will find the plant
life and everything else pertaining to the morontia existence progressively
modified to correspond with the advancing spiritization of the ascending
survivor. And since the energy system of each world is thus individualized,
these co-ordinators operate to harmonize and blend such differing power systems
into a working unit for the associated spheres of any particular group.
Ascending mortals gradually progress from the physical to the spiritual as they
advance from one morontia world to another; hence the necessity for providing
an ascending scale of morontia spheres and an ascending scale of morontia
forms.
When mansion world ascenders pass from one sphere to another, they are
delivered by the transport seraphim to the receivers of the system
co-ordinators on the advanced world. Here in those unique temples at the center
of the seventy radiating wings wherein are the chambers of transition similar
to the resurrection halls on the initial world of reception for earth-origin
mortals, the necessary changes in creature form are skillfully effected by the
system co-ordinators.
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These early morontia-form changes require about seven days of standard time for
their accomplishment.
3. Planetary Custodians. Each morontia world, from the mansion spheres up to
the universe headquarters, is in the custody--as regards morontia affairs--of
seventy guardians. They constitute the local planetary council of supreme
morontia authority. This council grants material for morontia forms to all
ascending creatures who land on the spheres and authorizes those changes in
creature form which make it possible for an ascender to proceed to the
succeeding sphere. After the mansion worlds have been traversed, you will
translate from one phase of morontia life to another without having to
surrender consciousness. Unconsciousness attends only the earlier metamorphoses
and the later transitions from one universe to another and from Havona to
Paradise.
4. Combined Controllers. One of these highly mechanical beings is always
stationed at the center of each administrative unit of a morontia world. A
combined controller is sensitive to, and functional with, physical, spiritual,
and morontial energies; and with this being there are always associated two
system co-ordinators, four circuit regulators, one planetary custodian, one
liaison stabilizer, and either an associate registrar or a selective assorter.
5. Liaison Stabilizers. These are the regulators of the morontia energy in
association with the physical and spirit forces of the realm. They make
possible the conversion of morontia energy into morontia material. The whole
morontia organization of existence is dependent on the stabilizers. They slow
down the energy revolutions to that point where physicalization can occur. But
I have no terms with which I can compare or illustrate the ministry of such
beings. It is quite beyond human imagination.
6. Selective Assorters. As you progress from one class or phase of a morontia
world to another, you must be re-keyed or advance-tuned, and it is the task of
the selective assorters to keep you in progressive synchrony with the morontia
life.
While the basic morontia forms of life and matter are identical from the first
mansion world to the last universe transition sphere, there is a functional
progression which gradually extends from the material to the spiritual. Your
adaptation to this basically uniform but successively advancing and spiritizing
creation is effected by this selective re-keying. Such an adjustment in the
mechanism of personality is tantamount to a new creation, notwithstanding that
you retain the same morontia form.
You may repeatedly subject yourself to the test of these examiners, and as soon
as you register adequate spiritual achievement, they will gladly certify you
for advanced standing. These progressive changes result in altered reactions to
the morontia environment, such as modifications in food requirements and
numerous other personal practices.
The selective assorters are also of great service in the grouping of morontia
personalities for purposes of study, teaching, and other projects. They
naturally indicate those who will best function in temporary association.
7. Associate Registrars. The morontia world has its own recorders, who serve in
association with the spirit recorders in the supervision and custody of
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the records and other data indigenous to the morontia creations. The morontia
records are available to all orders of personalities.
All morontia transition realms are accessible alike to material and spirit
beings. As morontia progressors you will remain in full contact with the
material world and with material personalities, while you will increasingly
discern and fraternize with spirit beings; and by the time of departure from
the morontia regime, you will have seen all orders of spirits with the
exception of a few of the higher types, such as Solitary Messengers.
3. MORONTIA COMPANIONS
These hosts of the mansion and morontia worlds are the offspring of a local
universe Mother Spirit. They are created from age to age in groups of one
hundred thousand, and in Nebadon there are at present over seventy billion of
these unique beings.
Morontia Companions are trained for service by the Melchizedeks on a special
planet near Salvington; they do not pass through the central Melchizedek
schools. In service they range from the lowest mansion worlds of the systems to
the highest study spheres of Salvington, but they are seldom encountered on the
inhabited worlds. They serve under the general supervision of the Sons of God
and under the immediate direction of the Melchizedeks.
The Morontia Companions maintain ten thousand headquarters in a local
universe--on each of the first mansion worlds of the local systems. They are
almost wholly a self-governing order and are, in general, an intelligent and
loyal group of beings; but every now and then, in connection with certain
unfortunate celestial upheavals, they have been known to go astray. Thousands
of these useful creatures were lost during the times of the Lucifer rebellion
in Satania. Your local system now has its full quota of these beings, the loss
of the Lucifer rebellion having only recently been made up.
There are two distinct types of Morontia Companions; one type is aggressive,
the other retiring, but otherwise they are equal in status. They are not sex
creatures, but they manifest a touchingly beautiful affection for one another.
And while they are hardly companionate in the material (human) sense, they are
very close of kin to the human races in the order of creature existence. The
midway creatures of the worlds are your nearest of kin; then come the morontia
cherubim, and after them the Morontia Companions.
These companions are touchingly affectionate and charmingly social beings. They
possess distinct personalities, and when you meet them on the mansion worlds,
after learning to recognize them as a class, you will soon discern their
individuality. Mortals all resemble one another; at the same time each of you
possesses a distinct and recognizable personality.
Something of an idea of the nature of the work of these Morontia Companions may
be derived from the following classification of their activities in a local
system:
1. Pilgrim Guardians are not assigned to specific duties in their association
with the morontia progressors. These companions are responsible for the whole
of the morontia career and are therefore the co-ordinators of the work of all
other morontia and transition ministers.
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2. Pilgrim Receivers and Free Associators. These are the social companions of
the new arrivals on the mansion worlds. One of them will certainly be on hand
to welcome you when you awaken on the initial mansion world from the first
transit sleep of time, when you experience the resurrection from the death of
the flesh into the morontia life. And from the time you are thus formally
welcomed on awakening to that day when you leave the local universe as a
first-stage spirit, these Morontia Companions are ever with you.
Companions are not assigned permanently to individuals. An ascending mortal on
one of the mansion or higher worlds might have a different companion on each of
several successive occasions and again might go for long periods without one.
It would all depend on the requirements and also on the supply of companions
available.
3. Hosts to Celestial Visitors. These gracious creatures are dedicated to the
entertainment of the superhuman groups of student visitors and other celestials
who may chance to sojourn on the transition worlds. You will have ample
opportunity to visit within any realm you have experientially attained. Student
visitors are allowed on all inhabited planets, even those in isolation.
4. Co-ordinators and Liaison Directors. These companions are dedicated to the
facilitation of morontia intercourse and to the prevention of confusion. They
are the instructors of social conduct and morontia progress, sponsoring classes
and other group activities among the ascending mortals. They maintain extensive
areas wherein they assemble their pupils and from time to time make requisition
on the celestial artisans and the reversion directors for the embellishment of
their programs. As you progress, you will come in intimate contact with these
companions, and you will grow exceedingly fond of both groups. It is a matter
of chance as to whether you will be associated with an aggressive or a retiring
type of companion.
5. Interpreters and Translators. During the early mansonia career you will have
frequent recourse to the interpreters and the translators. They know and speak
all the tongues of a local universe; they are the linguists of the realms.
You will not acquire new languages automatically; you will learn a language
over there much as you do down here, and these brilliant beings will be your
language teachers. The first study on the mansion worlds will be the tongue of
Satania and then the language of Nebadon. And while you are mastering these new
tongues, the Morontia Companions will be your efficient interpreters and
patient translators. You will never encounter a visitor on any of these worlds
but that some one of the Morontia Companions will be able to officiate as
interpreter.
6. Excursion and Reversion Supervisors. These companions will accompany you on
the longer trips to the headquarters sphere and to the surrounding worlds of
transition culture. They plan, conduct, and supervise all such individual and
group tours about the system worlds of training and culture.
7. Area and Building Custodians. Even the material and morontia structures
increase in perfection and grandeur as you advance in the mansonia career. As
individuals and as groups you are permitted to make certain changes in the
abodes assigned as headquarters for your sojourn on the different mansion
top of page - 547
worlds. Many of the activities of these spheres take place in the open
enclosures of the variously designated circles, squares, and triangles. The
majority of the mansion world structures are roofless, being enclosures of
magnificent construction and exquisite embellishment. The climatic and other
physical conditions prevailing on the architectural worlds make roofs wholly
unnecessary.
These custodians of the transition phases of ascendant life are supreme in the
management of morontia affairs. They were created for this work, and pending
the factualization of the Supreme Being, always will they remain Morontia
Companions; never do they perform other duties.
As systems and universes are settled in light and life, the mansion worlds
increasingly cease to function as transition spheres of morontia training. More
and more the finaliters institute their new training regime, which appears to
be designed to translate the cosmic consciousness from the present level of the
grand universe to that of the future outer universes. The Morontia Companions
are destined to function increasingly in association with the finaliters and in
numerous other realms not at present revealed on Urantia.
You can forecast that these beings are probably going to contribute much to
your enjoyment of the mansion worlds, whether your sojourn is to be long or
short. And you will continue to enjoy them all the way up to Salvington. They
are not, technically, essential to any part of your survival experience. You
could reach Salvington without them, but you would greatly miss them. They are
the personality luxury of your ascending career in the local universe.
4. THE REVERSION DIRECTORS
Joyful mirth and the smile-equivalent are as universal as music. There is a
morontial and a spiritual equivalent of mirth and laughter. The ascendant life
is about equally divided between work and play--freedom from assignment.
Celestial relaxation and superhuman humor are quite different from their human
analogues, but we all actually indulge in a form of both; and they really
accomplish for us, in our state, just about what ideal humor is able to do for
you on Urantia. The Morontia Companions are skillful play sponsors, and they
are most ably supported by the reversion directors.
You would probably best understand the work of the reversion directors if they
were likened to the higher types of humorists on Urantia, though that would be
an exceedingly crude and somewhat unfortunate way in which to try to convey an
idea of the function of these directors of change and relaxation, these
ministers of the exalted humor of the morontia and spirit realms.
In discussing spirit humor, first let me tell you what it is not. Spirit jest
is never tinged with the accentuation of the misfortunes of the weak and
erring. Neither is it ever blasphemous of the righteousness and glory of
divinity. Our humor embraces three general levels of appreciation:
1. Reminiscent jests. Quips growing out of the memories of past episodes in
one's experience of combat, struggle, and sometimes fearfulness, and ofttimes
foolish and childish anxiety. To us, this phase of humor derives from the
deep-seated and abiding ability to draw upon the past for memory material with
which pleasantly to flavor and otherwise lighten the heavy loads of the
present.
top of page - 548
2. Current humor. The senselessness of much that so often causes us serious
concern, the joy at discovering the unimportance of much of our serious
personal anxiety. We are most appreciative of this phase of humor when we are
best able to discount the anxieties of the present in favor of the certainties
of the future.
3. Prophetic joy. It will perhaps be difficult for mortals to envisage this
phase of humor, but we do get a peculiar satisfaction out of the assurance
"that all things work together for good"--for spirits and morontians as well as
for mortals. This aspect of celestial humor grows out of our faith in the
loving overcare of our superiors and in the divine stability of our Supreme
Directors.
But the reversion directors of the realms are not concerned exclusively with
depicting the high humor of the various orders of intelligent beings; they are
also occupied with the leadership of diversion, spiritual recreation and
morontia entertainment. And in this connection they have the hearty
co-operation of the celestial artisans.
The reversion directors themselves are not a created group; they are a
recruited corps embracing beings ranging from the Havona natives down through
the messenger hosts of space and the ministering spirits of time to the
morontia progressors from the evolutionary worlds. All are volunteers, giving
themselves to the work of assisting their fellows in the achievement of thought
change and mind rest, for such attitudes are most helpful in recuperating
depleted energies.
When partially exhausted by the efforts of attainment, and while awaiting the
reception of new energy charges, there is agreeable pleasure in living over
again the enactments of other days and ages. The early experiences of the race
or the order are restful to reminisce. And that is exactly why these artists
are called reversion directors--they assist in reverting the memory to a former
state of development or to a less experienced status of being.
All beings enjoy this sort of reversion except those who are inherent Creators,
hence automatic self-rejuvenators, and certain highly specialized types of
creatures, such as the power centers and the physical controllers, who are
always and eternally thoroughly businesslike in all their reactions. These
periodic releases from the tension of functional duty are a regular part of
life on all worlds throughout the universe of universes but not on the Isle of
Paradise. Beings indigenous to the central abode are incapable of depletion and
are not, therefore, subject to re-energizing. And with such beings of eternal
Paradise perfection there can be no such reversion to evolutionary experiences.
Most of us have come up through lower stages of existence or through
progressive levels of our orders, and it is refreshing and in a measure amusing
to look back upon certain episodes of our early experience. There is a
restfulness in the contemplation of that which is old to one's order, and which
lingers as a memory possession of the mind. The future signifies struggle and
advancement; it bespeaks work, effort, and achievement; but the past savors of
things already mastered and achieved; contemplation of the past permits of
relaxation and such a carefree review as to provoke spirit mirth and a morontia
state of mind verging on merriment.
Even mortal humor becomes most hearty when it depicts episodes affecting those
just a little beneath one's present developmental state, or when it portrays
one's supposed superiors falling victim to the experiences which are commonly
top of page - 549
associated with supposed inferiors. You of Urantia have allowed much that is at
once vulgar and unkind to become confused with your humor, but on the whole,
you are to be congratulated on a comparatively keen sense of humor. Some of
your races have a rich vein of it and are greatly helped in their earthly
careers thereby. Apparently you received much in the way of humor from your
Adamic inheritance, much more than was secured of either music or art.
All Satania, during times of play, those times when its inhabitants
refreshingly resurrect the memories of a lower stage of existence, is edified
by the pleasant humor of a corps of reversion directors from Urantia. The sense
of celestial humor we have with us always, even when engaged in the most
difficult of assignments. It helps to avoid an overdevelopment of the notion of
one's self-importance. But we do not give rein to it freely, as you might say,
"have fun," except when we are in recess from the serious assignments of our
respective orders.
When we are tempted to magnify our self-importance, if we stop to contemplate
the infinity of the greatness and grandeur of our Makers, our own
self-glorification becomes sublimely ridiculous, even verging on the humorous.
One of the functions of humor is to help all of us take ourselves less
seriously. Humor is the divine antidote for exaltation of ego.
The need for the relaxation and diversion of humor is greatest in those orders
of ascendant beings who are subjected to sustained stress in their upward
struggles. The two extremes of life have little need for humorous diversions.
Primitive men have no capacity therefor, and beings of Paradise perfection have
no need thereof. The hosts of Havona are naturally a joyous and exhilarating
assemblage of supremely happy personalities. On Paradise the quality of worship
obviates the necessity for reversion activities. But among those who start
their careers far below the goal of Paradise perfection, there is a large place
for the ministry of the reversion directors.
The higher the mortal species, the greater the stress and the greater the
capacity for humor as well as the necessity for it. In the spirit world the
opposite is true: The higher we ascend, the less the need for the diversions of
reversion experiences. But proceeding down the scale of spirit life from
Paradise to the seraphic hosts, there is an increasing need for the mission of
mirth and the ministry of merriment. Those beings who most need the refreshment
of periodic reversion to the intellectual status of previous experiences are
the higher types of the human species, the morontians, angels, and the Material
Sons, together with all similar types of personality.
Humor should function as an automatic safety valve to prevent the building up
of excessive pressures due to the monotony of sustained and serious
self-contemplation in association with the intense struggle for developmental
progress and noble achievement. Humor also functions to lessen the shock of the
unexpected impact of fact or of truth, rigid unyielding fact and flexible
ever-living truth. The mortal personality, never sure as to which will next be
encountered, through humor swiftly grasps--sees the point and achieves
insight--the unexpected nature of the situation be it fact or be it truth.
While the humor of Urantia is exceedingly crude and most inartistic, it does
serve a valuable purpose both as a health insurance and as a liberator of
emotional pressure, thus preventing injurious nervous tension and overserious
self-contemplation. Humor and play--relaxation--are never reactions of progres-
top of page - 550
sive exertion; always are they the echoes of a backward glance, a reminiscence
of the past. Even on Urantia and as you now are, you always find it
rejuvenating when for a short time you can suspend the exertions of the newer
and higher intellectual efforts and revert to the more simple engagements of
your ancestors.
The principles of Urantian play life are philosophically sound and continue to
apply on up through your ascending life, through the circuits of Havona to the
eternal shores of Paradise. As ascendant beings you are in possession of
personal memories of all former and lower existences, and without such identity
memories of the past there would be no basis for the humor of the present,
either mortal laughter or morontia mirth. It is this recalling of past
experiences that provides the basis for present diversion and amusement. And so
you will enjoy the celestial equivalents of your earthly humor all the way up
through your long morontia, and then increasingly spiritual, careers. And that
part of God (the Adjuster) which becomes an eternal part of the personality of
an ascendant mortal contributes the overtones of divinity to the joyous
expressions, even spiritual laughter, of the ascending creatures of time and
space.
5. THE MANSION WORLD TEACHERS
The Mansion World Teachers are a corps of deserted but glorified cherubim and
sanobim. When a pilgrim of time advances from a trial world of space to the
mansion and associated worlds of morontia training, he is accompanied by his
personal or group seraphim, the guardian of destiny. In the worlds of mortal
existence the seraphim is ably assisted by cherubim and sanobim; but when her
mortal ward is delivered from the bonds of the flesh and starts out on the
ascendant career, when the postmaterial or morontia life begins, the attending
seraphim has no further need of the ministrations of her former lieutenants,
the cherubim and sanobim.
These deserted assistants of the ministering seraphim are often summoned to
universe headquarters, where they pass into the intimate embrace of the
Universe Mother Spirit and then go forth to the system training spheres as
Mansion World Teachers. These teachers often visit the material worlds and
function from the lowest mansion worlds on up to the highest of the educational
spheres connected with the universe headquarters. Upon their own motion they
may return to their former associative work with the ministering seraphim.
There are billions upon billions of these teachers in Satania, and their
numbers constantly increase because, in the majority of instances, when a
seraphim proceeds inward with an Adjuster-fused mortal, both a cherubim and a
sanobim are left behind.
Mansion World Teachers, like most of the other instructors, are commissioned by
the Melchizedeks. They are generally supervised by the Morontia Companions, but
as individuals and as teachers they are supervised by the acting heads of the
schools or spheres wherein they may be functioning as instructors.
These advanced cherubim usually work in pairs as they did when attached to the
seraphim. They are by nature very near the morontia type of existence, and they
are inherently sympathetic teachers of the ascending mortals and most
efficiently conduct the program of the mansion world and morontia educational
system.
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In the schools of the morontia life these teachers engage in individual, group,
class, and mass teaching. On the mansion worlds such schools are organized in
three general groups of one hundred divisions each: the schools of thinking,
the schools of feeling, and the schools of doing. When you reach the
constellation, there are added the schools of ethics, the schools of
administration, and the schools of social adjustment. On the universe
headquarters worlds you will enter the schools of philosophy, divinity, and
pure spirituality.
Those things which you might have learned on earth, but which you failed to
learn, must be acquired under the tutelage of these faithful and patient
teachers. There are no royal roads, short cuts, or easy paths to Paradise.
Irrespective of the individual variations of the route, you master the lessons
of one sphere before you proceed to another; at least this is true after you
once leave the world of your nativity.
One of the purposes of the morontia career is to effect the permanent
eradication from the mortal survivors of such animal vestigial traits as
procrastination, equivocation, insincerity, problem avoidance, unfairness, and
ease seeking. The mansonia life early teaches the young morontia pupils that
postponement is in no sense avoidance. After the life in the flesh, time is no
longer available as a technique of dodging situations or of circumventing
disagreeable obligations.
Beginning service on the lowest of the tarrying spheres, the Mansion World
Teachers advance, with experience, through the educational spheres of the
system and the constellation to the training worlds of Salvington. They are
subjected to no special discipline either before or after their embrace by the
Universe Mother Spirit. They have already been trained for their work while
serving as seraphic associates on the worlds native to their pupils of mansion
world sojourn. They have had actual experience with these advancing mortals on
the inhabited worlds. They are practical and sympathetic teachers, wise and
understanding instructors, able and efficient guides. They are entirely
familiar with the ascendant plans and thoroughly experienced in the initial
phases of the progression career.
Many of the older of these teachers, those who have long served on the worlds
of the Salvington circuit, are re-embraced by the Universe Mother Spirit, and
from this second embrace these cherubim and sanobim emerge with the status of
seraphim.
6. MORONTIA WORLD SERAPHIM--TRANSITION MINISTERS
While all orders of angels, from the planetary helpers to the supreme seraphim,
minister on the morontia worlds, the transition ministers are more exclusively
assigned to these activities. These angels are of the sixth order of seraphic
servers, and their ministry is devoted to facilitating the transit of material
and mortal creatures from the temporal life in the flesh on into the early
stages of morontia existence on the seven mansion worlds.
You should understand that the morontia life of an ascending mortal is really
initiated on the inhabited worlds at the conception of the soul, at that moment
when the creature mind of moral status is indwelt by the spirit Adjuster. And
from that moment on, the mortal soul has potential capacity for supermortal
function, even for recognition on the higher levels of the morontia spheres of
the local universe.
top of page - 552
You will not, however, be conscious of the ministry of the transition seraphim
until you attain the mansion worlds, where they labor untiringly for the
advancement of their mortal pupils, being assigned for service in the following
seven divisions:
1. Seraphic Evangels. The moment you consciousize on the mansion worlds, you
are classified as evolving spirits in the records of the system. True, you are
not yet spirits in reality, but you are no longer mortal or material beings;
you have embarked upon the prespirit career and have been duly admitted to the
morontia life.
On the mansion worlds the seraphic evangels will help you to choose wisely
among the optional routes to Edentia, Salvington, Uversa, and Havona. If there
are a number of equally advisable routes, these 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 advisers on Jerusem concerning
that course which would be most advantageous for each ascending soul.
You are not given unrestricted choice as to your future course; but you may
choose within the limits of that which the transition ministers and their
superiors wisely determine to be most suitable for your future spirit
attainment. The spirit world is governed on the principle of respecting your
freewill choice provided the course you may choose is not detrimental to you or
injurious to your fellows.
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, and 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, which 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 Gods are my caretakers; I shall not stray;
Side by side they lead me in the beautiful paths and glorious refreshing of
life everlasting.
I shall not, in this Divine Presence, want for food nor 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.
top of page - 553
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.
These seraphim are also the evangels of the gospel of perfection attainment for
the whole system as well as for the individual ascender. Even now in the young
system of Satania their teachings and plans encompass provisions for the future
ages when the mansion worlds will no longer serve the mortal ascenders as
steppingstones to the spheres on high.
2. Racial Interpreters. All races of mortal beings are not alike. True, there
is a planetary pattern running through the physical, mental, and spiritual
natures and tendencies of the various races of a given world; but there are
also distinct racial types, and very definite social tendencies characterize
the offspring of these different basic types of human beings. On the worlds of
time the seraphic racial interpreters further the efforts of the race
commissioners to harmonize the varied viewpoints of the races, and they
continue to function on the mansion worlds, where these same differences tend
to persist in a measure. On a confused planet, such as Urantia, these brilliant
beings have hardly had a fair opportunity to function, but they are the
skillful sociologists and the wise ethnic advisers of the first heaven.
You should consider the statement about "heaven" and the "heaven of heavens."
The heaven conceived by most of your prophets was the first of the mansion
worlds of the local system. When the apostle spoke of being "caught up to the
third heaven," he referred to that experience in which his Adjuster was
detached during sleep and in this unusual state made a projection to the third
of the seven mansion worlds. Some of your wise men saw the vision of the
greater heaven, "the heaven of heavens," of which the sevenfold mansion world
experience was but the first; the second being Jerusem; the third, Edentia and
its satellites; the fourth, Salvington and the surrounding educational spheres;
the fifth, Uversa; the sixth, Havona; and the seventh, Paradise.
3. Mind Planners. These seraphim are devoted to the effective grouping of
morontia beings and to organizing their teamwork on the mansion worlds. They
are the psychologists of the first heaven. The majority of this particular
division of seraphic ministers have had previous experience as guardian angels
to the children of time, but their wards, for some reason, failed to
personalize on the mansion worlds or else survived by the technique of Spirit
fusion.
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 and 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 newborn morontia will; they regard you as independent
volitional beings, and they seek to encourage your speedy development and
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."
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.
top of page - 554
4. Morontia Counselors. These ministers receive their name because they are
assigned to teach, direct, and counsel the surviving mortals from the worlds of
human origin, souls in transit to the higher schools of the system
headquarters. They are the teachers of those who seek insight into the
experiential unity of divergent life levels, those who are attempting the
integration of meanings and the unification of values. This is the function of
philosophy in mortal life, of mota on the morontia spheres.
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 enabled to bring these
material and morontial viewpoints into true focus largely through the untiring
ministry of their seraphic counselors, who so patiently teach the mansion world
students and the morontia progressors. Many of the teaching counselors of the
supreme order of seraphim began their careers as advisers of the newly
liberated souls of the mortals of time.
5. Technicians. These are the seraphim who help new ascenders adjust themselves
to the new and comparatively strange environment of the morontia spheres. Life
on the transition worlds entails real contact with the energies and materials
of both the physical and morontia levels and to a certain extent with spiritual
realities. Ascenders must acclimatize to every new morontia level, and in all
of this they are greatly helped by the seraphic technicians. These seraphim act
as liaisons with the Morontia Power Supervisors and with the Master Physical
Controllers and function extensively as instructors of the ascending pilgrims
concerning the nature of those energies which are utilized on the transition
spheres. They serve as emergency space traversers and perform numerous other
regular and special duties.
6. Recorder-Teachers. These seraphim are the recorders of the borderland
transactions of the spiritual and the physical, of the relationships of men and
angels, of the morontia transactions of the lower universe realms. They also
serve as instructors regarding the efficient and effective techniques of fact
recording. There is an artistry in the intelligent assembly and co-ordination
of related data, and this art is heightened in collaboration with the celestial
artisans, and even the ascending mortals become thus affiliated with the
recording seraphim.
The recorders of all the seraphic orders devote a certain amount of time to the
education and training of the morontia progressors. These angelic custodians of
the facts of time are the ideal instructors of all fact seekers. Before leaving
Jerusem, you will become quite familiar with the history of Satania and its 619
inhabited worlds, and much of this story will be imparted by the seraphic
recorders.
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
recti-
top of page - 555
fication 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 hair's turning, premeditated
for an untrue purpose, the slightest twisting or perversion of that which is
principle--these constitute falseness. 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.
7. Ministering Reserves. 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, and
many of your leisure moments will be spent with them. Angels take delight in
service and, when unassigned, often minister as volunteers. 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-balanced poise--a stabilized and spiritualized
attitude--throughout every effort in 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 new 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.
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 lose energy to the
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 alike--just life or the alternative of death.
top of page - 556
7. MORONTIA MOTA
The lower planes of morontia mota join directly with the higher levels of human
philosophy. On the first mansion world it is the practice to teach the less
advanced students by the parallel technique; that is, in one column are
presented the more simple concepts of mota meanings, and in the opposite column
citation is made of analogous statements of mortal philosophy.
Not long since, while executing an assignment on the first mansion world of
Satania, I had occasion to observe this method of teaching; and though I may
not undertake to present the mota content of the lesson, I am permitted to
record the twenty-eight statements of human philosophy which this morontia
instructor was utilizing as illustrative material designed to assist these new
mansion world sojourners in their early efforts to grasp the significance and
meaning of mota. These illustrations of human philosophy were:
1. A display of specialized skill does not signify possession of spiritual
capacity. Cleverness is not a substitute for true character.
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.
3. Inherent capacities cannot be exceeded; a pint can never hold a quart. The
spirit concept cannot be mechanically forced into the material memory mold.
4. Few mortals ever dare to draw anything like the sum of personality credits
established by the combined ministries of nature and grace. The majority of
impoverished souls are truly rich, but they refuse to believe it.
5. Difficulties may challenge mediocrity and defeat the fearful, but they only
stimulate the true children of the Most Highs.
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 do 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.
9. Action achieves strength; moderation eventuates in charm.
10. Righteousness strikes the harmony chords of truth, and the melody vibrates
throughout the cosmos, even to the recognition of the Infinite.
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.
14. Whet the appetites of your associates for truth; give advice only when it
is asked for.
top of page - 557
15. Affectation is the ridiculous effort of the ignorant to appear wise, the
attempt of the barren soul to appear rich.
16. You cannot perceive spiritual truth until you feelingly experience it, and
many truths are not really felt except in adversity.
17. Ambition is dangerous until it is fully socialized. You have not truly
acquired any virtue until your acts make you worthy of it.
18. Impatience is a spirit poison; anger is like a stone hurled into a hornet's
nest.
19. Anxiety must be abandoned. The disappointments hardest to bear are those
which never come.
20. Only a poet can discern poetry in the commonplace prose of routine
existence.
21. The high mission of any art is, by its illusions, to foreshadow a higher
universe reality, to crystallize the emotions of time into the thought of
eternity.
22. The evolving soul is not made divine by what it does, but by what it
strives to do.
23. 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.
25. Greatness lies not so much in possessing strength as in making a wise and
divine use of such strength.
26. Knowledge is possessed only by sharing; it is safeguarded by wisdom and
socialized by love.
27. Progress demands development of individuality; mediocrity seeks
perpetuation in standardization.
28. The argumentative defense of any proposition is inversely proportional to
the truth contained.
Such is the work of the beginners on the first mansion world while the more
advanced pupils on the later worlds are mastering the higher levels of cosmic
insight and morontia mota.
8. THE MORONTIA PROGRESSORS
From the time of graduation from the mansion worlds to the attainment of spirit
status in the superuniverse career, ascending mortals are denominated morontia
progressors. Your passage through this wonderful borderland life will be an
unforgettable experience, a charming memory. It is the evolutionary portal to
spirit life and the eventual attainment of creature perfection by which
ascenders achieve the goal of time--the finding of God on Paradise.
There is a definite and divine purpose in all this morontia and subsequent
spirit scheme of mortal progression, this elaborate universe training school
for ascending creatures. It is the design of the Creators to afford the
creatures of time a graduated opportunity to master the details of the
operation and adminis-
top of page - 558
tration of the grand universe, and this long course of training is best carried
forward by having the surviving mortal climb up gradually and by actual
participation in every step of the ascent.
The mortal-survival plan has a practical and serviceable objective; you are not
the recipients of all this divine labor and painstaking training only that you
may survive just to enjoy endless bliss and eternal ease. There is a goal of
transcendent service concealed beyond the horizon of the present universe age.
If the Gods designed merely to take you on one long and eternal joy excursion,
they certainly would not so largely turn the whole universe into one vast and
intricate practical training school, requisition a substantial part of the
celestial creation as teachers and instructors, and then spend ages upon ages
piloting you, one by one, through this gigantic universe school of experiential
training. The furtherance of the scheme of mortal progression seems to be one
of the chief businesses of the present organized universe, and the majority of
innumerable orders of created intelligences are either directly or indirectly
engaged in advancing some phase of this progressive perfection plan.
In traversing the ascending scale of living existence from mortal man to the
Deity embrace, you actually live the very life of every possible phase and
stage of perfected creature existence within the limits of the present universe
age. From mortal man to Paradise finaliter embraces all that now can
be--encompasses everything presently possible to the living orders of
intelligent, perfected finite creature beings. If the future destiny of the
Paradise finaliters is service in new universes now in the making, it is
assured that in this new and future creation there will be no created orders of
experiential beings whose lives will be wholly different from those which
mortal finaliters have lived on some world as a part of their ascending
training, as one of the stages of their agelong progress from animal to angel
and from angel to spirit and from spirit to God.
[Presented by an Archangel of Nebadon.]
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Subjects Archive The Urantia Book Urantia Book PART II: The Local Universe :
The Evolution Of Local Universes Administration Of The Local Universe The Local
Universe Mother Spirit The Local Universe Sons Of God The Life Carriers
Personalities Of The Local Universe Ministering Spirits Of The Local Universe
The Seraphic Hosts The Ascending Sons Of God Physical Aspects Of The Local
Universe Energy--mind And Matter The Constellations The Celestial Artisans The
Local System Administration The Local System Headquarters The Seven Mansion
Worlds The Morontia Life The Inhabited Worlds The Planetary Princes The
Planetary Adams Planetary Mortal Epochs The Lucifer Rebellion Problems Of The
Lucifer Rebellion The Spheres Of Light And Life Universal Unity
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