Evening Entertainment – Two Skits

By Nigel Nunn as some light Entertainment one Evening at the Conference in Melbourne on

Immanuel’s Bar & the Parable of the Womb

 

A Life Carrier, a Lanonandek and a Melchizedek walk into a bar. Actually, Immanuel’s Bar on Salvington is just ’round from the gate’ and into Michael’s Northern Hall.  Immanuel, as usual, is behind the bar polishing glasses.

“Welcome lads!” he says as they enter.  “What’ll it be?”

“The usual, thanks,” they reply.

“Righto – a pint of material light for our Life Carrier friend, a snifter of intellectual insight for our young Lanonandek, and two fingers of spirit luminosity for the Professor.”

The three thank him, and settle back.  It’s been a long day.

Now Life carriers are always animated, but Immanuel notices that this particular chap is beaming.  “Things going well, are they?” prompts Immanuel.

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The Lanonandek Dilemma

By Nigel Nunn, Canberra on

The Lanonandeks of Nebadon are part of Michael’s innovative solution to a common local universe problem: how best to manage those first crucial steps his ascendant mortal children must take as they launch towards their finaliter destiny?

Michael’s elder Melchizedek and Vorondadek sons form an ideal team for maintaining the integrity of Nebadon, but not so much for interacting with his ascending mortals. For this role he created his Lanonandek sons, whose nature allows them to “better understand, and draw near to” his ascending children. The result was a brilliance at managing mortal and morontia affairs, but there was a cost. As a “lower” order of sonship, their choices and plans are not constrained by that higher perspective which makes clear the true purposes of Nebadon. Michael can explain to them their context and responsibilities, their seniors can confirm these truths, but a young Lanonandek, like the mortals for whom he cares, find himself in a position that requires the exercise of faith.

In such a far-flung universe of universes there is always great danger of succumbing to the error of the circumscribed viewpoint, to the evil inherent in a segmentalized conception of reality and divinity.
[Paper 19:1.4, page 215.1, a Divine Counselor]

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Highlights of the Conference – Personal Impressions

By By Kathleen Swadling, Australia, IC Sydney on

UAI Conference 2006 – Sydney Australia

Reward of Isolation – Small Teams in Deep Waters

The rewards of isolation certainly paid off for readers “down under” who had the pleasure of hosting the recent UAI Conference in Sydney.  Readers in Australia rarely get the opportunity to fraternise with the international reader community because of our geographic isolation; we are far away from everywhere.  The expense of travel is more often than not the sole inhibiting factor.  What a treat it was to have so many readers visit our shores and to form enduring friendships with readers from around the world.  There really is no substitute for person-to-person interaction; great things can and do happen when personalities come together.

A written account such as this on the conference can barely scratch the surface of conveying the actual experience – you really had to be there to understand the breadth and depth of such an event.  Subsequent issues of the UAI Journal will publish the plenary speeches that were given at the conference, so I will simply share some of my personal impressions with you here.

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Here and Now

By Mark Bloomfield on

Presented at the 2006 Urantia Association International conference in Sydney

……..the ‘Mother of all Missions’ as per the written word

Having largely shunned the conference circuit in favour of my solitary field work the repeated requests that I speak about working in ‘isolation’ at the Sydney conference as supposedly one of the ‘smallest teams’ in the ‘deepest waters’ this movement could offer were as often met with “Careful what you wish for.”

The years of apparent isolation hand seeding over 8000 Urantia Books into learning centres the world over with several times that number still in prospect was apparently supposed to qualify me to speak in this regard. The bush pilot days saving African elephants from the ivory poachers, my time with Mother Teresa of Calcutta and all the free mass cataract operations in South Asia also probably didn’t help my chances of slipping under the radar this time round.

The free evening schools in North India and later along the Thai/Burma border which recently helped facilitate the creation of Freeschools World Literacy (www.freeschoolsworld.com) that aims to wipe world illiteracy clean out by century’s end didn’t exactly keep me out of the spotlight either. The irregular decision to attend the conference was however more down to wanting to see a few old friends plus an idle curiosity as to this movement’s own take in regard to apparent isolation.

Not being one for rehearsed set speeches having only ever tried to speak as the occasion serves, I had by the final conference day when I was due to speak heard many perspectives on this issue of course. My own tried to reflect how massively I felt the world could be uplifted if only this movement were to better balance it’s socializing in Heaven’s Garden with service in Hell’s Kitchen:

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Worship in Isolation – Touching the Source

By Michael Hanian, presentation at UAI's International conference in Sydney on

Dear friends,

 

Let me first express my deep gratitude to those anonymous benefactors, who have made my participation in this Conference possible.

* * *

The title of this talk is Worship in Isolation – Touching the Source. It is structured so that –

– we’ll first touch the fact-meaning-value sequence as applied to this topic, that is, we’ll consider the facts of isolation, we shall try to extract different meanings from this fact, and we’ll look at its spiritual values;

– then we shall look at faith in an adverse planetary environment: we’ll see how easy it is to lose faith, and we’ll consider what it takes to regain it;

– and last, we’ll look at the sinuosities of our attitude towards the Source of all true and lasting values: from the state of complete ignorance of the Source, to the first attempts to touch it, to finally becoming one with it.

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The Indwelling Spirit in Study Groups.

By Geatan Charland, Canada-IC Sydney on

This method of studying The Urantia Book in groups, while being very effective in enhancing perceptions of the Indwelling Spirit in the realm of the super-consciousness does not pretend to be better or replace any other methods that may be in use throughout the many study groups of The Urantia Book now in existence.

This method has evolved with the help of many and through actual experiences during the long years of research to find ways to perceive the spiritual truths that lie in the writings of The Urantia Book, in the understanding of others and most importantly in the realm of the super-consciousness where the Indwelling Spirit manifests itself.

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Isolation as an Evolutionary Technique

By William Wentworth, Australia, presented at UAI International Conference in Sydney- on

Urantia book readers in Australia well understand that isolation is not highly regarded by the revelators.  They are at pains to point out the danger of personal isolation and the failure to socialize one’s spiritual impulses.  Their emphasis is on service, community and social interaction rather than isolation and self contemplation.

Nevertheless, the creators make use of isolation as part of the cycle of growth which moves from interaction to isolation and back again, in a demonstration of progress, in  which isolation has an essential part to play.

When we were developing the theme for this conference, we saw a parallel between the situation of Urantia Book readers and the Australia/New Zealand experience.  Just as Urantia is isolated in Nebadon, and Nebadon itself is remote in Orvonton, so are students of the Urantia Book thinly scattered throughout the populations in which they live.  And just so are Australia and New Zealand isolated from the major centers of civilization of our planet.
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Personality in Transition— the individual blossoms

By Nigel Nunn, Canberra, presented at IC Sydney on

The Urantia Papers describe themselves as the fifth epochal revelation of truth to this world; the aim of this short presentation is to shine the light of this fifth epochal insight upon what the Urantia Papers call

“Personality”

Almost 3,000 years ago a poet in Palestine whispered to his God:

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

Even today this remains a really good question. Why should the Author of Reality be interested in us ? What’s another planet-full of mortals to the Creator of an eternal infinity? Well, recently, via the Urantia Papers, an answer has been given. An answer appropriate for the age ahead; an answer sufficient for scientists, philosophers and mystics alike. This answer is centered upon the idea of family, and involves an unimaginable transition,

The love of the Father absolutely individualizes each personality as a unique child of the Universal Father, a child without duplicate in infinity, a will creature irreplaceable in all eternity. [Paper 12:7.9, page 138.4]

As family is central, and since families are made of persons, then for us to appreciate this answer we will need first to understand what the Urantia Papers mean by personality, and we will need also to glimpse (at least the outlines of) this unimaginable transition. But have we already hit a problem? How are we to imagine the unimaginable? The author of Paper 115 hints at the way forward,

Man must think in a mortal universe frame, but that does not mean that he cannot envision other and higher frames within which thought can take place.
[Paper 115:1.2, page 1260.3]

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The Rewards of Isolation – some Musings

By Nigel Nunn, Canberra on

Readers will recall that the technique of isolation, separate development, and re-combination is extensively used in the evolutionary process.

The grand universe itself is divided into the seven superuniverses, each of which is kept so isolated from the others that not even a message can be transmitted from one to another except through the Paradise clearinghouse of the master spirits.  Upon the settling of all seven in light and life, the superuniverses will begin to interact with one another directly—and what a stupendous revelation that will be.  Each of the superuniverses is reflective of a different master spirit, and the master spirits are very different from one another.  Each superuniverse will be very surprising to the others, and no doubt their combination will take eons, but the result will be the completion of Supremacy, which (probably) could not have been achieved in any other way.

Something of the same could be said about the local universes, but their isolation is not as total as the superuniverses.

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