God's Book of Ben
Chapter IV
1. MAN said: What, then, shall I believe? If great learning have not proven anything real; if science is based on falsehood, and if there be no natural laws, shall I not give up my judgment? Whatever is at variance with my judgment, shall I not turn away from it?
2. It hath been said: The soul of man never dieth. No one can know this, save Jehovih.
3. It hath been said: Jehovih is a person. No one can know this, for His magnitude is incomprehensible.
4. Is the soul of man made of oxygen or hydrogen? Give me light that is real. I can say of what man's mortal body is made.
5. Jehovih said: My divisions are not as man's divisions. Behold, I create one thing within another. Neither space, nor place, nor time, nor eternity standeth in My way. The soul is es.
6. Man inquired: If the dwelling-place for the spirits of the dead be up in the firmament, how is it created? What resteth it upon?
7. And how dwelleth the soul of man in heaven? If the es-man hath feet and legs, how doth he walk?
8. Hath his arms changed into wings? Or rideth he on the lightnings?
9. God said: Already goeth thy soul thitherward, but it can not take thy body with it. Thy corporeal judgment can not cope with spiritual things.
10. As thought traveleth, so is it with the spirit of the dead. When thou hast quit thy corporeal body, behold thy spirit will be free; whithersoever thou desirest to go thou shalt go.
11. Nevertheless thou shalt go only as thought goeth. And when thou hast arrived at the place, thou shalt fashion, from the surroundings, thine own form, hands and arms, and feet and legs, perfectly.
12. The Gods build not only themselves, but plateaux for the inhabitation of millions and millions of other souls risen from the earth.
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13. Man said: Alas, me! Why was I born in darkness?
14. Why was I not created knowing all things from my youth up?
15. Why did not the Creator send His angels with me every day, to satisfy my craving for light from the Almighty?
16. Kosmon answered: Hadst thou not craved for light, thou hadst not been delighted to receive light. Hadst thou been created with knowledge, thou couldst not be an acquirer of knowledge.
17. Had the Creator given thee angels to be forever giving thee light, then they would be slaves.
18. Liberty is the boon of men and angels; the desire for liberty causeth the soul of man to come out of darkness.
19. Whoso feeleth that he hath no need of exertion, groweth not in spirit. He hath no honor on the earth or in the heavens thereof.
20. Man said: This is my comfort. Man nowadays is not so foolish as the ancients.
21. They worshipped before idols of stone and wood.
22. They built temples and pyramids so costly that they ruined themselves.
23. Seffas said: O vain man! In the day thou abusest the ancients, thou sendest thy son to college, and enforcest him to study the ancients.
24. Thy standing armies hold the nations of the earth in misery greater than did the temples and pyramids. And as for drunkenness and dissolute habits, and for selfishness, thou art worse than the ancients.
25. God said: O man, turn thou from the dead past; learn from the Ever Living Present!
26. What is thy wisdom for the raising up of the poor and the distressed, more than was that of the ancients?
27. Is it better for thee to hold up a book and say: Behold a most sacred and holy book! than for the ancients to say: Behold a sacred and holy temple!
28. Seffas said: Consider the established things; in one age one thing; in another age another thing.
29. To make man break away from all the past, and live by the Light of the Ever Present, is this not the wisest labor?
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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.