Book of the Arc of Bon
Chapter XXVIII
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1. TE-ZEE pursued his researches for a long while, and with many prophets, magicians, seers and priests. Afterward he said:
2. All is vanity; all is falsehood. No man hath answered me aright, as to the origin and destiny of man. Even the angels, or whatsoever they are, can only inform me of the things on earth; they only see as man seeth. And it may be true that these angels are nothing more than Loo Sin said, i.e. the spirit of the magician only. Because his body entereth this trance it seemeth reasonable.
3. Now, therefore, I will put a stop to these magicians and priests; they are of no good under the sun. So Te-zee issued a decree covering his own province, commanding magicians and priests to quit the province, under penalty of death. And they thus departed out of his dominions.
4. Now it so happened that in five other great provinces, the kings did precisely the same, and about the same time. And these were the provinces, to wit: Shan Ji, under king Lung Wan; Gah, under king Loa Kee; Sa-bin-Sowh, under king Ah-ka Ung; Gow Goo, under king Te See-Yong; and these provinces comprised the chief part of Jaffeth. And all these kings issued edicts after the same manner. So that the magicians and seers and priests were obliged to abandon their callings or go beyond these provinces, where dwelt barbarians.
5. Jehovih commanded Chine to go before king Te-zee, and when he had come, the king said unto him: Some years since I heard thee, and thou wert profound. I am delighted thou hast come before me again, that I may question thee.
6. Chine said: When thou heardest me before, the Great Spirit spake through me. Now I am well learned, and He commandeth me to speak of my own knowledge.
7. First, then, I am a man as thou art; yet every man hath a different work. Thou art king of this province, and I am told, moreover, thou art good and wise. I hope thou art. Otherwise my words will not please thee. As for myself, I was sent into the world to mark out this land and name it Chine-ya (Chine-land), and to establish anew those that accept the Great Spirit. For Chine'ya and her people shall remain a different country and different people from all the world.
8. Know then, O king, I come not in vain-boasting that I, Chine, am much or can do much; on the contrary, I say unto thee, I am one of the weakest of men; and yet I have more power than any other man in the world. And yet, mark thee, of myself is there nothing whereof to boast. For I am but as a tool in the hands of Jehovih (Ormazd), and not I myself do anything, but He through me.
9. I look upon thee and see thou hast been questioning magicians and priests, and that thou art unsatisfied. Know then, O king, this is thine error, in not magnifying thy judgment.
10. Thou hast worked with magicians who are under the power of angels of the first resurrection, and even angels below them.
11. All such angels teach on their own individual understanding; as wandering individuals they go about. And their miracles are of the same order, merely individual miracles.
12. He, Whom I teach, worketh miracles, not in a small corner but in the affairs of kingdoms and nations; not through magicians only, but through kings and queens, and even through common people. Thou thyself art an instrument of His hand.
13. Behold, in the same time thou issuest thy decree against magicians and asceticism, even in that same time five other great kings do the same thing! This is a miracle indeed! No man can counterfeit His miracles. Neither flatter thyself that such matters occur by accident. They do not occur by accident; but by Jehovih. For His angels in the second resurrection are organized, and work in mighty armies.
14. Te-zee said: Thou art great, Chine; or else thy sudden philosophy turneth my brain! Go on! How shall we know, first, that there are angels who are really the spirits of the dead? Second, how shall we distinguish betwixt the first and second resurrections?
15. Chine said: Only by seeing and hearing with the natural eyes and ears, and with the spiritual eyes and ears, can any man attain to know anything either on earth or in heaven. When these senses are pure and clear, then a man knoweth that the spirits of the dead do live. For I declare, O king, of a truth, that the spirit of my body hath emerged from my body on many occasions, sometimes going subjectively and sometimes objectively. Neither is this a special creation to me only; but it is that which thousands and tens of thousands can attain to by discipline.
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16. Touching the first and second resurrections, know thou, O king, spirits that dispose individual things, or earthly things; or propose riches or personal gain, or marriage, discanting to this man or that man as to what is good for him as an individual; spirits giving great names, professing to be this or that great person long since dead; all such are deceivers and have not advanced beyond the first resurrection. They deny the I AM, the GREAT SPIRIT, the ALL PERSON. Their highest heaven is re-engraftment on mortals, and the reveling in lust. They flatter thee, telling thee thou wert this or that great man in a former re-incarnation. They labor thee to make profit to their own magician; they are without truth or virtue, and of little wisdom.
17. The second resurrection cometh not to an individual as an individual; it cometh as an army, but not to an individual, but to a kingdom, a nation, a community. For as such angels belong to organized communities in heaven, so doth that organization work with virtuous organizations of mortals.
18. This is wisdom, O king; to get away from the individual self; to become one with an organization, to work with the Great Spirit for the resurrection of men. For as thou makest thyself one with many to this end, so laboreth the Father with thee and them. As thou keepest thyself as an individual self, so do individual angels come to thee as individuals.
19. Individual answereth to individual; the first resurrection to the first; the second to the second. Moreover, the All Person is over all, and worketh each in its own order, unto a great purpose.
20. Think not, O king, I am making a new doctrine; I am but declaring that which was also proclaimed to the ancients. And as many as came forward and had faith were called Jehovih's chosen people, because, forsooth, they chose Him.
21. Judge thou, then, whoso denieth the All Person is not of His order; neither hath such an one the light of the Father in him. But he who hath attained to understand that all things are but one harmonious whole, hath also attained to know what is meant by the term, All Person, for He is All; and, consequently, Ever Present, filling all, extending everywhere.
22. In contradistinction from Him, two philosophies have run parallel, which are darkness and evil. One saith the All is not a person, being void, and less than even the parts thereof; the other saith the only All High is the great angel I worship, who is as a man, and separate from all things.
23. These comprise the foundation of all the doctrines in the world, or that have ever been or ever will be. The latter is idolatry, which is evil; the second, unbelief, which is darkness; and the first is faith, truth, love, wisdom and peace.
24. Under these three heads are all men classified by Jehovih and His angels. And they may be likened to three men looking across a field; one seeth a light and knoweth he seeth it; another hopeth he seeth it, but he only seeth a white leaf; but the third seeth nothing at all.
25. As a witness, therefore, the latter is worthless; the second is a circumstantial witness; but the first is positive, and standeth the highest and firmest of all. He knoweth his Heavenly Father. He seeth Him in the flowers; in the clouds, and in the sunshine; in the fruits and herbs; and in the beasts of the field, and in every creeping thing; and in the stars and moon and earth and sun. In sickness, in health, in sorrow and in rejoicing; verily he findeth Jehovih in all things; he knoweth Jehovih's eye and ear are forever upon him; and he walketh upright in fear, but in truth and faith and pride and rejoicing!
26. Te-zee, the king, asked: Tell me, O Chine, what is the origin and destiny of man?
27. Chine said: The Ever Present quickeneth him into life in his mother's womb; and he is then and there a new creation, his spirit from the Spirit Jehovih, and his body from the earth; a dual being the Father createth him.
28. His destination is everlasting resurrection; in which matter, man can have delightful labor as he riseth upward forever and ever.
29. The king asked: If Jehovih is all the time creating, will not the firmament become too full of angels?
30. Chine said: A thousand men read a book, and yet that book is no fuller of ideas than at first. The corporeal man is not divisible, and, so, filleth a place. Thought, which may be likened unto the soul, is the opposite of this. Ten thousand men may love thy flower-garden, yet thy garden is no fuller because of their love. Exalted souls in the upper heavens are without bulk and substance; and even so are the regions they inhabit, as compared to corporeal things.
31. The king said: I would that I were as thou art! For which matter,
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if thou wilt use thy wand and make me even half as wise, I will give away all my kingdom!
32. Chine said: Thou canst not bargain for Faith, or purchase it, as a coat or as sandals. And yet until Faith is attained there is no resurrection. No bird ever flew from its nest, without first having faith it could fly. And when thou hast Faith thou wilt cast away thy kingdom and choose heavenly treasures instead. Until thou hast attained Faith thou wilt retain thy kingdom. This is a judgment unto the rich man in the same way.
33. Riches and a king's kingdom may be likened to balls of gold tied to a man's feet in deep water; he cannot rise until he cutteth himself loose, and casteth away that which bindeth him. So, also, are men bound in spirit, and until they put their own hands to the matter there is no resurrection for them.
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Urantia Book, 44:0.11 - The Celestial Artisans
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.
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Princess Bride 1987 Wallace Shawn (Vizzini) and Mandy Patinkin (Inigo Montoya)
Vizzini: HE DIDN'T FALL? INCONCEIVABLE.
Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. -
Urantia Book, 117:4.14 - The Finite God
And here is mystery: The more closely man approaches God through love, the greater the reality -- actuality -- of that man. The more man withdraws from God, the more nearly he approaches nonreality -- cessation of existence. When man consecrates his will to the doing of the Father's will, when man gives God all that he has, then does God make that man more than he is.
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Urantia Book, 167:7.4 - The Talk About Angels
"And do you not remember that I said to you once before that, if you had your spiritual eyes anointed, you would then see the heavens opened and behold the angels of God ascending and descending? It is by the ministry of the angels that one world may be kept in touch with other worlds, for have I not repeatedly told you that I have other sheep not of this fold?"
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Urantia Book, Foreword - 0:12.12 - The Trinities
But we know that there dwells within the human mind a fragment of God, and that there sojourns with the human soul the Spirit of Truth; and we further know that these spirit forces conspire to enable material man to grasp the reality of spiritual values and to comprehend the philosophy of universe meanings. But even more certainly we know that these spirits of the Divine Presence are able to assist man in the spiritual appropriation of all truth contributory to the enhancement of the ever-progressing reality of personal religious experience—God-consciousness.
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Urantia Book, 1:4.3 - The Mystery Of God
When you are through down here, when your course has been run in temporary form on earth, when your trial trip in the flesh is finished, when the dust that composes the mortal tabernacle "returns to the earth whence it came"; then, it is revealed, the indwelling "Spirit shall return to God who gave it." There sojourns within each moral being of this planet a fragment of God, a part and parcel of divinity. It is not yet yours by right of possession, but it is designedly intended to be one with you if you survive the mortal existence.
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Urantia Book, 1:4.1 - The Mystery Of God
And the greatest of all the unfathomable mysteries of God is the phenomenon of the divine indwelling of mortal minds. The manner in which the Universal Father sojourns with the creatures of time is the most profound of all universe mysteries; the divine presence in the mind of man is the mystery of mysteries.
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Urantia Book, 1:4.6 - The Mystery Of God
To every spirit being and to every mortal creature in every sphere and on every world of the universe of universes, the Universal Father reveals all of his gracious and divine self that can be discerned or comprehended by such spirit beings and by such mortal creatures. God is no respecter of persons, either spiritual or material. The divine presence which any child of the universe enjoys at any given moment is limited only by the capacity of such a creature to receive and to discern the spirit actualities of the supermaterial world.
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Urantia Book, 11:0.1 - The Eternal Isle Of Paradise
Paradise is the eternal center of the universe of universes and the abiding place of the Universal Father, the Eternal Son, the Infinite Spirit, and their divine co-ordinates and associates. This central Isle is the most gigantic organized body of cosmic reality in all the master universe. Paradise is a material sphere as well as a spiritual abode. All of the intelligent creation of the Universal Father is domiciled on material abodes; hence must the absolute controlling center also be material, literal. And again it should be reiterated that spirit things and spiritual beings are real.
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Urantia Book, 50:6.4 - Planetary Culture
Culture presupposes quality of mind; culture cannot be enhanced unless mind is elevated. Superior intellect will seek a noble culture and find some way to attain such a goal. Inferior minds will spurn the highest culture even when presented to them ready-made.
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Urantia Book, 54:1.6 - True And False Liberty
True liberty is the associate of genuine self-respect; false liberty is the consort of self-admiration. True liberty is the fruit of self-control; false liberty, the assumption of self-assertion. Self-control leads to altruistic service; self-admiration tends towards the exploitation of others for the selfish aggrandizement of such a mistaken individual as is willing to sacrifice righteous attainment for the sake of possessing unjust power over his fellow beings.
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Urantia Book, 54:1.9 - True And False Liberty
How dare the self-willed creature encroach upon the rights of his fellows in the name of personal liberty when the Supreme Rulers of the universe stand back in merciful respect for these prerogatives of will and potentials of personality! No being, in the exercise of his supposed personal liberty, has a right to deprive any other being of those privileges of existence conferred by the Creators and duly respected by all their loyal associates, subordinates, and subjects.
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Urantia Book, 54:1.8 - True And False Liberty
There is no error greater than that species of self-deception which leads intelligent beings to crave the exercise of power over other beings for the purpose of depriving these persons of their natural liberties. The golden rule of human fairness cries out against all such fraud, unfairness, selfishness, and unrighteousness.