Текст книги "The British Study Edition of the Urantia Papers"

Автор книги: Tigran Aivazian

^43:5.1 The rotation of the Most Highs on Edentia was suspended at the time of the Lucifer rebellion. We now have the same rulers who were on duty at that time. We infer that no change in these rulers will be made until Lucifer and his associates are finally disposed of.

^43:5.2 The present government of the constellation, however, has been expanded to include 12 Sons of the Vorondadek order. These 12 are as follows:

^43:5.3 1. The Constellation Father. The present Most High ruler of Norlatiadek is number 617,318 of the Vorondadek series of Nebadon. He saw service in many constellations throughout our local universe before taking up his Edentia responsibilities.

^43:5.4 2. The senior Most High associate.

^43:5.5 3. The junior Most High associate.

^43:5.6 4. The Most High adviser, the personal representative of Michael since his attainment of the status of a Master Son.

^43:5.7 5. The Most High executive, the personal representative of Gabriel stationed on Edentia ever since the Lucifer rebellion.

^43:5.8 6. The Most High chief of planetary observers, the director of the Vorondadek observers stationed on the isolated worlds of Satania.

^43:5.9 7. The Most High referee, the Vorondadek Son intrusted with the duty of adjusting all difficulties consequential to rebellion within the constellation.

^43:5.10 8. The Most High emergency administrator, the Vorondadek Son charged with the task of adapting the emergency enactments of the Norlatiadek legislature to the rebellion-isolated worlds of Satania.

^43:5.11 9. The Most High mediator, the Vorondadek Son assigned to harmonize the special bestowal adjustments on Urantia with the routine administration of the constellation. The presence of certain archangel activities and numerous other irregular ministrations on Urantia, together with the special activities of the Brilliant Evening Stars on Jerusem, necessitates the functioning of this Son.

^43:5.12 10. The Most High judge-advocate, the head of the emergency tribunal devoted to the adjustment of the special problems of Norlatiadek growing out of the confusion consequent upon the Satania rebellion.

^43:5.13 11. The Most High liaison, the Vorondadek Son attached to the Edentia rulers but commissioned as a special counsellor with the Faithful of Days regarding the best course to pursue in the management of problems pertaining to rebellion and creature disloyalty.

^43:5.14 12. The Most High director, the president of the emergency council of Edentia. All personalities assigned to Norlatiadek because of the Satania upheaval constitute the emergency council, and their presiding officer is a Vorondadek Son of extraordinary experience.

^43:5.15 And this takes no account of the numerous Vorondadeks, envoys of Nebadon constellations, and others who are also resident on Edentia.

^43:5.16 ¶ Ever since the Lucifer rebellion the Edentia Fathers have exercised a special care over Urantia and the other isolated worlds of Satania. Long ago the prophet recognized the controlling hand of the Constellation Fathers in the affairs of nations. “When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people.”

^43:5.17 Every quarantined or isolated world has a Vorondadek Son acting as an observer. He does not participate in planetary administration except when ordered by the Constellation Father to intervene in the affairs of the nations. Actually it is this Most High observer who “rules in the kingdoms of men.” Urantia is one of the isolated worlds of Norlatiadek, and a Vorondadek observer has been stationed on the planet ever since the Caligastia betrayal. When Machiventa Melchizedek ministered in semimaterial form on Urantia, he paid respectful homage to the Most High observer then on duty, as it is written, “And Melchizedek, king of Salem, was the priest of the Most High.” Melchizedek revealed the relations of this Most High observer to Abraham when he said, “And blessed be the Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.”

^43:6.1 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.”

^43:6.2 ¶ About one half of Edentia is devoted to the exquisite gardens of the Most Highs, and these gardens are among the most entrancing morontia creations of the local universe. This explains why the extraordinarily beautiful places on the inhabited worlds of Norlatiadek are so often called “the garden of Eden.”

^43:6.3 Centrally located in this magnificent garden is the worship shrine of the Most Highs. The Psalmist must have known something about these things, for he wrote: “Who shall ascend the hill of the Most Highs? Who shall stand in this holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to vanity nor sworn deceitfully.” At this shrine the Most Highs, on every tenth day of relaxation, lead all Edentia in the worshipful contemplation of God the Supreme.

^43:6.4 ¶ The architectural worlds enjoy 10 forms of life of the material order. On Urantia there is plant and animal life, but on such a world as Edentia there are 10 divisions of the material orders of life. Were you to view these 10 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.

^43:6.5 Even the distinctively 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 nonspeaking creatures. There are thousands 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 planets. 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.

^43:6.6 The vegetable life is also very different from that of Urantia, consisting of both material and morontia varieties. The material growths have a characteristic green colouration, but the morontia equivalents 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.

^43:6.7 Being endowed with 10 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 the 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.

^43:6.8 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.

^43:7.1 Univitatia are the permanent citizens of Edentia and its associated worlds, all 770 worlds surrounding the constellation headquarters being under their supervision. These children of the Creator Son and the Creative Spirit are projected on a plane of existence in between the material and the spiritual, but they are not morontia creatures. The natives of each of the 70 major spheres of Edentia possess different visible forms, and the morontia mortals have their morontia forms attuned to correspond with the ascending scale of the univitatia each time they change residence from one Edentia sphere to another as they pass successively from world number 1 to world number 70.

^43:7.2 Spiritually, the univitatia are alike; intellectually, they vary as do mortals; in form, they much resemble the morontia state of existence, and they are created to function in 70 diverse orders of personality. Each of these orders of univitatia exhibits 10 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 10 satellites which swing around each of the major Edentia worlds.

^43:7.3 These 700 minor worlds are technical spheres of practical education in the working of the entire local universe and are open to all classes of intelligent beings. These training schools of special skill and technical knowledge are not conducted exclusively for ascending mortals, although morontia students constitute by far the largest group of all those who attend these courses of training. When you are received on any one of the 70 major worlds of social culture, you are immediately given clearance for each of the 10 surrounding satellites.

^43:7.4 In the various courtesy colonies, ascending morontia mortals predominate among the reversion directors, but the univitatia represent the largest group associated with the Nebadon corps of celestial artisans. In all Orvonton no extra-Havona beings excepting the Uversa abandonters can equal the univitatia in artistic skill, social adaptability, and co-ordinating cleverness.

^43:7.5 These citizens of the constellation are not actually members of the artisan corps, but they freely work with all groups and contribute much to making the constellation worlds the chief spheres for the realization of the magnificent artistic possibilities of transition culture. They do not function beyond the confines of the constellation headquarters worlds.

^43:8.1 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. All these Edentia spheres are energized directly by the universal space currents, and their enormous power systems, both material and morontial, are expertly supervised and distributed by the constellation centres, assisted by a competent corps of Master Physical Controllers and Morontia Power Supervisors.

^43:8.2 The time spent on the 70 training worlds of transition morontia culture associated with the Edentia age of mortal ascension, is the most settled period in an ascending mortal’s career up to the status of a finaliter; this is really the typical morontia life. While you are re-keyed[2] [2]
  re-keyed, In 1955 text: rekeyed. The only other occurrence of re-keyed is in hyphenated form 48:2.21 in the text. Words formed with the “re-” prefix, fall under the same general Chicago Manual of Style rule, but this instance is covered by an exception: “a) When the first vowel of the added word would ... suggest mispronunciation, the hyphen is retained.” In this case, the un-hyphenated form appears to indicate that the first syllable is pronounced with a short e, causing the reader to stumble. Insertion of the hyphen resolves the problem.


[Закрыть] 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.

^43:8.3 Your sojourn on Edentia and its associated spheres will be chiefly occupied with the mastery of group ethics, the secret of pleasant and profitable interrelationship between the various universe and superuniverse orders of intelligent personalities.

^43:8.4 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 co-ordinated undertakings; but now on the constellation training worlds you are to achieve the real socialization of your evolving morontia personality. This supernal cultural acquirement consists in learning how to:

^43:8.5 1. Live happily and work effectively with 10 diverse fellow morontians, while 10 such groups are associated in companies of 100 and then federated in corps of 1,000.

^43:8.6 2. Abide joyfully and co-operate heartily with 10 univitatia, who, though similar intellectually to morontia beings, are very different in every other way. And then must you function with this group of 10 as it co-ordinates with 10 other families, which are in turn confederated into a corps of 1,000 univitatia.

^43:8.7 3. Achieve simultaneous adjustment to both fellow morontians and these host univitatia. Acquire the ability voluntarily and effectively to co-operate with your own order of beings in close working association with a somewhat dissimilar group of intelligent creatures.

^43:8.8 4. While thus socially functioning with beings like and unlike yourself, achieve intellectual harmony with, and make vocational adjustment to, both groups of associates.

^43:8.9 5. While attaining satisfactory socialization of the personality on 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. The reversion directors contribute much to this latter attainment through their group-play activities.

^43:8.10 6. Adjust all of these various socialization techniques to the furtherance of the progressive co-ordination of the Paradise-ascension career; augment universe insight by enhancing the ability to grasp the eternal goal-meanings concealed within these seemingly insignificant time-space activities.

^43:8.11 7. And then, climax all of these procedures of multisocialization 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.

^43:8.12 ¶ We have portrayed Edentia socialization as an association of a morontia mortal with a univitatia family group consisting of 10 intellectually dissimilar individuals concomitant with a similar association with 10 fellow morontians. But on the first seven major worlds only one ascending mortal lives with 10 univitatia. On the second group of seven major worlds two mortals abide with each native group of ten, and so on up until, on the last group of seven major spheres, 10 morontia beings are domiciled with 10 univitatia. As you learn how better to socialize with the univitatia, you will practise such improved ethics in your relations with your fellow morontia progressors.

^43:8.13 As ascending mortals you will enjoy your sojourn on the progress worlds of Edentia, but you will not experience that personal thrill of satisfaction which characterizes your initial contact with universe affairs on the system headquarters or your farewell touch with these realities on the final worlds of the universe capital.

^43:9.1 After graduation from world number 70, ascending mortals take up residence on Edentia. Ascenders now, for the first time, attend the “assemblies of Paradise” and hear the story of their far-flung career as it is depicted by the Faithful of Days, the first of the Supreme Trinity-origin Personalities they have met.

^43:9.2 ¶ This entire sojourn on the constellation training worlds, culminating in Edentia citizenship, is a period of true and heavenly bliss for the morontia progressors. Throughout your sojourn on the system worlds you were evolving from a near-animal to a morontia creature; you were more material than spiritual. On the Salvington spheres you will be evolving from a morontia being to the status of a true spirit; you will be more spiritual than material. But on Edentia, ascenders are midway between their former and their future estates, midway in their passage from evolutionary animal to ascending spirit. During your whole stay on Edentia and its worlds you are “as the angels”; you are constantly progressing but all the while maintaining a general and a typical morontia status.

^43:9.3 This constellation sojourn of an ascending mortal is the most uniform and stabilized epoch in the entire career of morontia progression. This experience constitutes the prespirit socialization training of the ascenders. It is analogous to the prefinaliter spiritual experience of Havona and to the preabsonite training on Paradise.

^43:9.4 ¶ Ascending mortals on Edentia are chiefly occupied with the assignments on the 70 progressive univitatia worlds. They also serve in varied capacities on Edentia itself, mainly in conjunction with the constellation program concerned with group, racial, national, and planetary welfare. The Most Highs are not so much engaged in fostering individual advancement on the inhabited worlds; they rule in the kingdoms of men rather than in the hearts of individuals.

^43:9.5 And on that day when you are prepared to leave Edentia for the Salvington career, you will pause and look back on one of the most beautiful and most refreshing of all your epochs of training this side of Paradise. But the glory of it all augments as you ascend inward and achieve increased capacity for enlarged appreciation of divine meanings and spiritual values.

^43:9.6 [Sponsored by Malavatia Melchizedek.]

PAPER № 44
THE CELESTIAL ARTISANS

Archangel

^44:0.1 Among the courtesy colonies of the various divisional and universe headquarters worlds[1] [1]
  worlds, In 1955 text comma after worlds. This is the only one of the committee's recommendations that allows the reasonableness of the original but recommends the change because all publishers have long since adopted the change.


[Закрыть] may be found the unique order of composite personalities denominated the celestial artisans. These beings are the master artists and artisans of the morontia and lower spirit realms. They are the spirits and semispirits who are engaged in morontia embellishment and in spiritual beautification. Such artisans are distributed throughout the grand universe – on the headquarters worlds of the superuniverses, the local universes, the constellations, and systems, as well as on all spheres settled in light and life; but their chief realm of activity is in the constellations and especially on the 770 worlds surrounding each headquarters sphere.

^44:0.2 Though their work may be almost incomprehensible to the material mind, it should be understood that the morontia and spirit worlds are not without their high arts and supernal cultures.

^44:0.3 ¶ The celestial artisans are not created as such; they are a selected and recruited corps of beings composed of certain teacher personalities native to the central universe and their volunteer pupils drawn from the ascending mortals and numerous other celestial groups. The original teaching corps of these artisans was sometime assigned by the Infinite Spirit in collaboration with the Seven Master Spirits and consisted of 7,000 Havona instructors, 1,000 to each of the seven divisions of artisans. With such a nucleus to start with, there has developed through the ages this brilliant body of skillful workers in spirit and morontia affairs.

^44:0.4 Any morontia personality or spirit entity is eligible for admission to the corps of the celestial artisans; that is, any being below the rank of inherent divine sonship. Ascending sons of God from the evolutionary spheres may, after their arrival on the morontia worlds, apply for admission to the artisan corps and, if sufficiently gifted, may choose such a career for a longer or shorter period. But no one may enlist with the celestial artisans for less than one millennium, 1,000 years of superuniverse time.

^44:0.5 All celestial artisans are registered on the superuniverse headquarters but are directed by morontia supervisors on the local universe capitals. They are commissioned in the following seven major divisions of activity by the central corps of morontia supervisors functioning on the headquarters world of each local universe:

^44:0.6 1. Celestial Musicians.

^44:0.7 2. Heavenly Reproducers.

^44:0.8 3. Divine Builders.

^44:0.9 4. Thought Recorders.

^44:0.10 5. Energy Manipulators.

^44:0.11 6. Designers and Embellishers.

^44:0.12 7. Harmony Workers.

^44:0.13 ¶ The original teachers of these seven groups all hailed from the perfect worlds of Havona, and Havona contains the patterns, the pattern studies, for all phases and forms of spirit artistry. While it is a gigantic task to undertake to transfer these arts of Havona to the worlds of space, the celestial artisans have improved in technique and execution from age to age. As in all other phases of the ascending career those who are most advanced in any line of endeavour are required constantly to impart their superior knowledge and skill to their less favoured fellows.

^44:0.14 You will first begin to glimpse these transplanted arts of Havona on the mansion worlds, and their beauty and your appreciation of their beauty will heighten and brighten until you stand in the spirit halls of Salvington and behold the inspiring masterpieces of the supernal artists of the spirit realms.

^44:0.15 ¶ All these activities of the morontia and spirit worlds 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 freely pass 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.

^44:0.16 I cannot, with exclusive spirit vision, perceive the building in which this narrative is being translated and recorded. A Divine Counsellor from Uversa who chances to stand by my side perceives still less of these purely material creations. 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 building is not exactly real to me, a spirit being, but it is, of course, very real and very serviceable to material mortals.

^44:0.17 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 the 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 the flesh. After attainment of the higher spirit levels the ascenders are able to recognize material, morontia, and spirit realities.

^44:0.18 There is also here with me a Mighty Messenger from Uversa, an ascendant Adjuster-fused, onetime 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 estates.

^44:0.19 All this is made possible in the experience of ascending mortals by the action of the indwelling Thought Adjusters. Through their retention of the duplicates of your entire life’s experiences, you are assured of never losing any true attribute you once had; and these Adjusters are going through with you, as a part of you, in reality, as you.

^44:0.20 But I almost despair of being able to convey to the material mind the nature of the work of the celestial artisans. I am under the necessity of constantly perverting thought and distorting language in an effort to unfold to the mortal mind the reality of these morontia transactions and near-spirit phenomena. Your comprehension is incapable of grasping, and your language is inadequate for conveying, the meaning, value, and relationship of these semispirit activities. And I proceed with this effort to enlighten the human mind concerning these realities with the full understanding of the utter impossibility of my being very successful in such an undertaking.

^44:0.21 ¶ I can do no more than attempt to sketch a crude parallelism between mortal material activities and the manifold functions of the celestial artisans. If the Urantia races were more advanced in art and other cultural accomplishments, then could I go that much farther in an effort to project the human mind from the things of matter to those of morontia. About all I can hope to accomplish is to make emphatic the fact of the reality of these transactions of the morontia and the spirit worlds.