Too Deep for Words

By Nigel Nunn, Canberra Conference 2008 on

What two things are Thought Adjusters famous for? The idea behind our theme, “A Moment of Opportunity”, is two sided. Not only is this brief life our moment of opportunity to engage our Thought Adjuster, it also becomes a moment of opportunity for the First Source and Center to become Father of something absolutely unique: us—children “without duplicate in infinity”, will creatures “irreplaceable in all eternity.”[Paper 12:7.9, page 138.4]

The more we appreciate what these Thought Adjusters are, the more we understand what our freewill Personality is, the more extraordinary our mere mortal lives become. Vern’s logo is an attempt to symbolize what’s going on: the zipping together of complementary absolutes, Adjuster and Person.

But remember that little tab which makes it possible for a zipper to work (without which it cannot work!): even though the two sides are perfectly designed, and intended, to come together, it requires that we grip and pull that little mechanism for the plan to work. It requires our freewill choice to start the process of making these two one, the loving and willful
at-one-ment… of baby Person and eternal Adjuster.

The resulting transition of Personality, from mortal to Paradise Finaliter, is an absolute response to the Father’s request for a special addition to His Family: “Let us make mortal man in our own image.”

This technique—of using mortal life to give birth to Paradise Finaliters by a sequence of butterfly-like transformations— must be extraordinary in so many ways, because even Solitary Messengers are impressed:

 

What an adventure! What a romance! […] these personalized and humanized Adjusters, these Adjusterized and eternalized mortals, these mysterious combinations and eternal associations of the highest known manifestation of the essence of the First Source and Center and the lowest form of intelligent life capable of comprehending and attaining the Universal Father. [Paper 112:7.18, page 1239.7]

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New Zealand Corner – 2007

By Marion Steward, Auckland on

From 2007  Autumn  Arena –  New Zealand Corner

Neville Twist has replaced Ian Campbell as New Zealand’s representative on ANZURA. Ian replaced Marion Steward when her term expired last year, but he accepted a position in the UK earlier this year, and the Kiwis decided to appoint Neville in his place. Neville writes that a study group hosted by his wife Trish and himself in December attracted two new readers. It was a great success, but they have not followed up yet.

Neville is in the process of updating listed contacts in New Zealand in preparation for the annual study day in June.

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A Moment of Opportunity

By Nigel Nunn, Canberra on

“What is man, that you are mindful of him?”

Large parts of the Urantia Papers are designed to coordinate our knowledge about more or less familiar things. They expand our understanding in a logical way. But the Papers also contain highlights of pure revelation. For mankind of today, perhaps the most interesting (and intimate) are the revelations about the nature and function of Thought Adjusters, a set of truths that finally explain and make sense of the phenomenon of man. How and why the Father dwells in us is the crucial truth, the conceptual link to motivate and integrate our world. Ignorance of this truth has allowed our cultures to head off on tangents, and repeatedly to spiral down to base evolutionary levels.

So what are the Adjusters, and what on earth are they up to? In Papers 107 – 112, the Revelators tell us everything we could possibly want or need to know about these fragments of the Universal Father. But their description only touches the surface of the experience of our adventure of living with, and becoming, such a being.

“The Adjuster is an absolute essence of an infinite being … ”
[Paper 107.0.6, page 1176:6]

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If He were Incarnate in our Shoes

By Nigel Nunn, Canberra Conference 2008 on

An Invitation

If He were incarnate in our shoes…An opportunity we all share is to allow our Father to work through us, to allow that which we would do to be adjusted to become that which He would do, were He incarnate, and walking in our shoes.“Surely not!” we cry from the dreamscape of the 3rd and 4th psychic circles. But what if we make it to the 1st?

As implied by the Urantia papers and demonstrated by Jesus, maturing into ripe first-circlers is the intended outcome of human life. And once in the first circle, we are only a moment away from at-one-ment with our fragment of the Father. But this mysterious Monitor is as much of the absolute essence of the Father Infinite that can be squeezed into the sorts of shoes we wear. When we get our shoes into the first circle, the Father can really start to walk the walk we walk.

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President’s Reports – Arena 2007

By William Wentworth on

 

2007 Autumn – Presidents Report

William Wentworth

As the national study day comes round in June, it is a good time to reflect on how study groups are developing in Australia. Those of us who participate in study groups can testify to their effectiveness in extending our understanding of the Urantia Book. I couldn’t count the number of times I have been perplexed by a concept I encountered in the book and been given understanding of it during a study group discussion.

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Report on Conference

By William Wentworth, President of ANZURA on

With the passing of another annual conference, this time hosted by the Melbourne Study Group, I found myself reflecting on the importance of the annual conference to me, and I suspect to most of us who had the pleasure of attending.To spend a few days in the company of other Urantia Book readers is so refreshing that it seems to invigorate me for months afterwards. Whatever help we can provide to furthering interest in the revelation, in bringing a spiritual message to our area of influence, to making whatever small improvements in things we can—all of these things are done mostly in isolation from our fellow readers.


As we attempt to live our understanding of the revelation in our daily lives, we do so in a social environment where we must explain and justify our acts and utterances to friends and neighbours who do not understand, and have no interest in the source of our inspiration. We are thus faced daily with the need to guard our tongues, to think and assess before we speak our minds, to calculate whether it is wise to mention this or that controversial point.
And although we do this with joy in the spirit of service, it does result in a certain strain deriving from the frustration of being unable really to share our vision with the world at large.

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Era Before the Urantia Book

By Regina Williamson, Melbourne, on

“You’ve read the script; now do the play!”

  • Why are there so many religions? All of them say the same thing – don’t steal, don’t kill and so on.
  • Why does God allow horrible things to happen?
  • Why is there evil in the world in the first place?
  • If religions contradict themselves which one is the
  • right one? How would we know?
  • What is life all about?
  • Does it have any meaning at all?
  • If I step on an ant is it because it was planned that way?
  • What is it that makes me act either way – good or bad?
  • And the last question: is there life after death?

So many questions.

As a teenager, I was interested in astronomy, I was crazy about it. I often looked at the night sky and wondered what’s really up there, and where it came from. Before falling asleep I had all these “conversations” with myself almost every night and the answer was “I guess I’ll never know.”

After coming to Australia, I became interested in spiritual matters. I read everything I could get my hands on. Because there is no proof, when it comes to believing or not believing, it’s really a personal choice.

Okay, then I believe! As I studied further into it, I discovered so many contractions! Again, I was faced with the choice: to believe or not to believe.

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My Favourite places in The Urantia Book

By Verner Verass, Canberra on

Presentation to ANZURA Annual Conference—Melbourne 2007

My favourite places in the UB begin with the discovery of answers to three basic questions I had when I first began reading it as a 24 year old 34 years ago:

  1. Who is Jesus?
  2. Were Adam and Eve real people and was there ever a Garden of Eden?
  3. Is evolution as I had been taught at school, true? Can science and religion be reconciled?

Who is Jesus?

The first and most important question was eloquently answered after reading less than a page of Paper 120. I experienced a truth recognition response.
From there unfolded the whole picture of our creator parent bestowing himself as a man of the realm to live a normal human life and I came to understand, ‘if God was a man that man would be Jesus’.
In getting to know who Jesus was, a vital component was realizing who he was not. My Christian upbringing had told me he was God’s only begotten son; now I was finding out he is not the Eternal Son the second person of the Paradise Trinity. Paradise Trinity, here was something that needed further investigation.

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A common Metaphysical Vocabulary

By William Wentworth, Australia, presented at conference in Melbourne on

For anyone seeking truth these days there is no shortage of information. In fact, there is a veritable flood of information through which the seeker must wade in order to discover what he needs. There is a multitude of books, periodicals, journals, magazines, newsletters, movies, DVD’s, websites and lectures from doctors, psychologists, philosophers, academics, journalists, priests, therapists, religionists, celebrities—the list goes on.

Some of these sources of information are sincere, others cynical. Some offer good advice, some bad. Some use the language of science and mathematics, others that of analogy and metaphor. Some are partisan and exclusive, others broad and inclusive.

There is such a dazzling array of opinion that the unaided seeker can easily become confused and desperate as he struggles to find useful information to guide him on his way. What does spirit mean? Or Truth, God, soul, nirvana, karma, providence? What about personality? Free will? Cosmic Consciousness? How can spiritual experience be distinguished from emotion? How can the conflicting claims of different traditions be explained? They all seem to disagree on so much, while seeming to be answering the same set of questions.

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How I found The Urantia Book

By Julian McGarry, Tasmania on

Presentation to ANZURA Annual Conference—Melbourne 2007

My very first contact with The Urantia Book was in 1993 when I walked into my local public library in Perth, Western Australia and,  as was my custom, went straight to the “Religion” section. There staring me in the face was this enormous hard-covered blue volume with an intriguing name but no author. I quickly thumbed through it and, drawn by the fascinating chapter headings, immediately decided to borrow it.
I ended up borrowing it three times in a row!

At this point I need to explain why I always looked for books on religion when I went to the library. My search for spiritual truth started when I was only a young boy of 10. My mother, who was raised a Catholic, was also a spiritual seeker and had looked into a variety of religions including Christian Spiritualism and Tibetan Buddhism. I used to read anything that she brought home and would often accompany her to meetings and would attend groups held at our house.

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