In our Urantia circles, the universe is often compared to a university, a never-ending career of learning and achievement where eventually students progress to the point where they become the professors. In this analogy, we mere mortals are like kindergarteners just trying to pick up the basics. And no matter how much the adults try to explain it and how much we say we understand, in reality we can never truly understand the great path we have before us any better than five-year-olds can understand the realities of a doctoral study track.
I like to think about the way The Urantia Book fits into this analogy. It’s like a class of kindergartners have been given a detailed textbook on skyscraper architecture, and while many (or even most) kids dismiss it and focus on more age-appropriate reading materials, some small group of us have really gotten into it. We travel across the world to meet with other children to compare and contrast the advantages of single shaft elevator supports to a multi-track system. And some smaller subset of us kids will huddle together and discuss the best chemical composition for anti-corrosion footing pillars in swampy subsoils. All the while our adults just watch us from afar, and laugh occasionally, and encourage us on in our “anachronistic” pursuits.
In this analogy I think the adults are the seraphim.
The seraphim, of course, are our angelic cousins who are poised to guide us on our ascension paths. They will be with us at all of the key steps along the way. We are told that after our material deaths, the morontia soul is entrusted to a seraphic destiny guardian (47.3.3). Transport seraphim take us from sphere to sphere in our ascension (48:2.17). An archangel of Nebadon tells us that seraphic evangels will help us choose our ascension routes through Edentia, Salvington, Uversa, and Havona (48.6.5).
And all of this is a long way down the road, I presume, but the seraphim are performing many of the same functions here on earth. On the intellectual level, they are the interpreters between the mind and morontial. On the spiritual level they are the coordinators between the personal, impersonal and pre-personal ministries (113.3.5).
The Chief of Seraphim tells us:
Seraphim are mind stimulators; they continually seek to promote circle-making decisions in human mind. They do this, not as does the Adjuster, operating from within and through the soul, but rather from the outside inward, working through the social, ethical, and moral environment of human beings. (113:4.1, 1245.1)
Seraphim function as teachers of men by guiding the footsteps of the human personality into paths of new and progressive experiences. To accept the guidance of a seraphim rarely means attaining a life of ease. In following this leading you are sure to encounter, and if you have the courage, to traverse, the rugged hills of moral choosing and spiritual progress. (113:4.3, 1245.3)
For seraphim, the surest way of achieving the Paradise Deities is by successfully guiding a soul of evolutionary origin to the portals of Paradise. Therefore, is the assignment of guardian of destiny the most highly prized seraphic duty. (113:7.7, 1249.1)
In other words, don’t mess this up! Your ascension career is not just about you and your soul. There are seraphim depending upon you so that they can hitch a ride to Havona. So get your act together.
And what are these decisions that the seraphim are setting up for us? What does it all lead to? The best I can explain it: I need to stop thinking about myself as “I” and instead “I” need to start thinking about my soul as I.
So, here’s the thing. The analogy I used earlier about kindergarteners: it doesn’t quite line up with The Urantia Book, because the authors don’t often compare us to young children. They don’t even call us babies. At several points in the book, the authors call us embryos, this life is an embryonic state for the soul.
In Paper 66 a Melchizedek tells us that “During the mortal life in the flesh the soul is of embryonic estate; it is born in the morontia life and experiences growth through the successive morontia worlds” (66:4.9).
Just as an embryo has the ultimate desired destiny to develop into a healthy and independent infant, so too do we have the ultimate desired destiny to develop into a fully formed soul and then to transfer our seat of identity into this soul. As children our identity is our body, but as adults we often transfer this identity into our minds. Descartes’s “I think therefore I am” represents this step, but this is not enough. The human mind will cease to exist. It is the soul that continues. We must create and nurture this soul but then also transfer our seat of identity away from our bodies and our minds and into this soul.
A Solitary Messenger says:
The material self, the ego-entity of human identity, is dependent during the physical life on the continuing function of the material life vehicle, on the continued existence of the unbalanced equilibrium of energies and intellect which, on Urantia, has been given the name life. But selfhood of survival value, selfhood that can transcend the experience of death, is only evolved by establishing a potential transfer of the seat of the identity of the evolving personality from the transient life vehicle—the material body—to the more enduring and immortal nature of the morontia soul and on beyond to those levels whereon the soul becomes infused with, and eventually attains the status of, spirit reality. This actual transfer from material association to morontia identification is effected by the sincerity, persistence, and steadfastness of the God-seeking decisions of the human creature. 112:2.20 (1229.7)
Ok, we’ve got a lot to unpack here, because normally in a study group I would read this paragraph, nod appreciatively and then move along to the next section, but no more, because–– heads up––I think this is my new favorite paragraph from The Urantia Book.
So long to my obsession with the idea that there is a hidden paper on “Happiness” spread throughout the book that you need a search engine to find. Be gone!
Welcome to this everblooming arrangement of words given to us by a Solitary Messenger. So lately when I’ve been reading The Urantia Book I’ve begun to think more and more about the authors and what their experiences were like trying to write this book. And some of the authors are really good, they are really flowery with the language, indulging in the rhythms and eccentricities of human expression. And some of them are, well, a little dry. A little far removed. Their words are just missing something.
And so, at first glance I think this author might not be the best.
First off, this entire paragraph is just three sentences, each chock-full of clauses, which just sounds clunky to our ears. Make this paragraph perhaps seven sentences, and we might understand the concepts a little better.
Next, the word “life” is used four times in one paragraph, three times in the first sentence alone. I was taught at a pretty young age to break out a thesaurus if I need to use the same word twice. And look at how she’s using “life”:
“The material self, the ego-entity of human identity, is dependent during the physical life on the continuing function of the material life vehicle” …material life vehicle… doesn’t she know the word body?
But that’s fine, because it’s the second sentence that contains the meat of the message. “But selfhood of survival value, selfhood that can transcend the experience of death, is only evolved by establishing a potential transfer of the seat of the identity of the evolving personality from the transient life vehicle—the material body—to the more….” Ok, wait, so she does know the word “body.”
She knows the word body, but she’s still using the term material life vehicle? This is a choice. Is it possible that this Solitary Messenger isn’t someone who is bad at human languages, but is in fact a master of them, and that she might even be a little bored, and so is showing off a little? What do we make then of this third use of life in this sentence? The third life is italicized. “…the material life vehicle, on the continued existence of the unbalanced equilibrium of energies and intellect which, on Urantia, has been given the name life.” (bold emphasis added)
I think she’s making fun of us. I think she’s saying “Can you believe these humans? They take the unbalanced equilibrium of energies and intellect and they call it life! Can you believe this?” and then she looks around for another Solitary Messenger to share a laugh with but doesn’t find one, because, you know, solitary. But still, I think she’s making fun of us. This is sarcasm, this italicized life. Sarcasm, in The Urantia Book. Twenty-five years ago when James Woodward told me I should be less sarcastic and more sincere, I should have told him to hang out with more Solitary Messengers.
So sentence one, she’s making fun of us. Excellent!
Sentence two: “But selfhood of survival value, selfhood that can transcend the experience of death, is only evolved by establishing a potential transfer of the seat of the identity of the evolving personality from the transient life vehicle—the material body—to the more enduring and immortal nature of the morontia soul and on beyond to those levels whereon the soul becomes infused with, and eventually attains the status of, spirit reality.” Sentence two is about how we need to transfer the seat of identity from the body to the soul and then maybe be prepared for further transfers of identity down the line. How do we do this?
Welcome to the third sentence: “This actual transfer from material association to morontia identification is effected by the sincerity, persistence, and steadfastness of the God-seeking decisions of the human creature.”
Sincerity.
This author is using sarcasm to highlight the importance of sincerity in our God seeking decisions. She wins. Give her all of the awards. Because of course sarcasm and cleverness are not fruits of the spirit, but they are fun tools we get to use to highlight those things which are.
In Paper 5 we’re told the proofs are forthcoming and abundant in the manifestation of the fruits of the spirit in our lives.
So how do we know if we are truly in line with sincerity, persistence, and steadfastness? Well, this is where the Spirit of Truth comes in.
In Paper 143 we are told that the Spirit of Truth is “the constant spiritual renewing of your mind” (143:2.4).
As you align your mind with the Spirit of Truth you begin to produce more of the fruits of the spirit which is proof that you are identifying more with that growing soul and less with the temporal body. We stop seeing religion as a club we belong to and instead see it as it is described in Paper 100, religion as a spiritual reaction to the universe. Religion is the spirit-tinted glasses through which we see the world. Where God is not a doctrine in our minds, but has become a living presence in our souls, which is how the midwayers describe the mindset of the followers of Jesus (194:4.2.)
Your seraphim place you in positions where you get to make soul-growing decisions. Your actions begin to produce the fruits which show your greater identity with the soul. And whenever we are in doubt, we are told that in every dark hour, at every crossroad in the forward struggle, the Spirit of Truth will always speak, saying, “This is the way” (34:7.8).
That’s it. Now go forth and ponder and discuss the best chemical composition for anti-corrosion footing pillars in swampy subsoils.
Please and thank you.
This article was adapted from a presentation Chris Wood presented March, 2024 in Baltimore, Maryland. Chris has been actively involved with the Urantia community since 1998 and served as president of Urantia Association International from 2013 until 2021. He and his wife Alice live in Green Bay, Wisconsin and their two children have four grandparents who read and study The Urantia Book.