The Urantia Book

48. The Morontia Life

6. Morontia World Seraphim - Transition Ministers

^48.6.1 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.

^48.6.2 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.

^48.6.3 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:

^48.6.4 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.

^48.6.5 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.

^48.6.6 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.

^48.6.7 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.

^48.6.8 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:

^48.6.9 The Gods are my caretakers; I shall not stray;

^48.6.10 Side by side they lead me in the beautiful paths and glorious refreshing of life everlasting.

^48.6.11 I shall not, in this Divine Presence, want for food nor thirst for water.

^48.6.12 Though I go down into the valley of uncertainty or ascend up into the worlds of doubt,

^48.6.13 Though I move in loneliness or with the fellows of my kind,

^48.6.14 Though I triumph in the choirs of light or falter in the solitary places of the spheres,

^48.6.15 Your good spirit shall minister to me, and your glorious angel will comfort me.

^48.6.16 Though I descend into the depths of darkness and death itself,

^48.6.17 I shall not doubt you nor fear you,

^48.6.18 For I know that in the fullness of time and the glory of your name

^48.6.19 You will raise me up to sit with you on the battlements on high.

^48.6.20 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.

^48.6.21 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.

^48.6.22 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.

^48.6.23 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.

^48.6.24 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.

^48.6.25 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.”

^48.6.26 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.

^48.6.27 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.

^48.6.28 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.

^48.6.29 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.

^48.6.30 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.

^48.6.31 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.

^48.6.32 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 rectification 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.

^48.6.33 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.

^48.6.34 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.

^48.6.35 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?

^48.6.36 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.

^48.6.37 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.

7. Morontia Mota

^48.7.1 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.

^48.7.2 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:

^48.7.3 1. A display of specialized skill does not signify possession of spiritual capacity. Cleverness is not a substitute for true character.

^48.7.4 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.

^48.7.5 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.

^48.7.6 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.

^48.7.7 5. Difficulties may challenge mediocrity and defeat the fearful, but they only stimulate the true children of the Most Highs.

^48.7.8 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.

^48.7.9 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.

^48.7.10 8. Effort does not always produce joy, but there is no happiness without intelligent effort.

^48.7.11 9. Action achieves strength; moderation eventuates in charm.

^48.7.12 10. Righteousness strikes the harmony chords of truth, and the melody vibrates throughout the cosmos, even to the recognition of the Infinite.

^48.7.13 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.

^48.7.14 12. The greatest affliction of the cosmos is never to have been afflicted. Mortals only learn wisdom by experiencing tribulation.

^48.7.15 13. Stars are best discerned from the lonely isolation of experiential depths, not from the illuminated and ecstatic mountain tops.

^48.7.16 14. Whet the appetites of your associates for truth; give advice only when it is asked for.

^48.7.17 15. Affectation is the ridiculous effort of the ignorant to appear wise, the attempt of the barren soul to appear rich.

^48.7.18 16. You cannot perceive spiritual truth until you feelingly experience it, and many truths are not really felt except in adversity.

^48.7.19 17. Ambition is dangerous until it is fully socialized. You have not truly acquired any virtue until your acts make you worthy of it.

^48.7.20 18. Impatience is a spirit poison; anger is like a stone hurled into a hornet's nest.

^48.7.21 19. Anxiety must be abandoned. The disappointments hardest to bear are those which never come.

^48.7.22 20. Only a poet can discern poetry in the commonplace prose of routine existence.

^48.7.23 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.

^48.7.24 22. The evolving soul is not made divine by what it does, but by what it strives to do.

^48.7.25 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.

^48.7.26 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.

^48.7.27 25. Greatness lies not so much in possessing strength as in making a wise and divine use of such strength.

^48.7.28 26. Knowledge is possessed only by sharing; it is safeguarded by wisdom and socialized by love.

^48.7.29 27. Progress demands development of individuality; mediocrity seeks perpetuation in standardization.

^48.7.30 28. The argumentative defense of any proposition is inversely proportional to the truth contained.

^48.7.31 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

^48.8.1 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.

^48.8.2 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 administration 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.

^48.8.3 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.

^48.8.4 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.

^48.8.5 [Presented by an Archangel of Nebadon.]