Urantia Book Paper 32 The Evolution Of Local Universes
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Subjects Archive The Urantia Book Urantia Book PART II: The Local Universe :
The Evolution Of Local Universes Administration Of The Local Universe The Local
Universe Mother Spirit The Local Universe Sons Of God The Life Carriers
Personalities Of The Local Universe Ministering Spirits Of The Local Universe
The Seraphic Hosts The Ascending Sons Of God Physical Aspects Of The Local
Universe Energy--mind And Matter The Constellations The Celestial Artisans The
Local System Administration The Local System Headquarters The Seven Mansion
Worlds The Morontia Life The Inhabited Worlds The Planetary Princes The
Planetary Adams Planetary Mortal Epochs The Lucifer Rebellion Problems Of The
Lucifer Rebellion The Spheres Of Light And Life Universal Unity
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Paper 32 The Evolution Of Local Universes
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Introduction
A LOCAL universe is the handiwork of a Creator Son of the Paradise order of
Michael. It comprises one hundred constellations, each embracing one hundred
systems of inhabited worlds. Each system will eventually contain approximately
one thousand inhabited spheres.
These universes of time and space are all evolutionary. The creative plan of
the Paradise Michaels always proceeds along the path of gradual evolvement and
progressive development of the physical, intellectual, and spiritual natures
and capacities of the manifold creatures who inhabit the varied orders of
spheres comprising such a local universe.
Urantia belongs to a local universe whose sovereign is the God-man of Nebadon,
Jesus of Nazareth and Michael of Salvington. And all of Michael's plans for
this local universe were fully approved by the Paradise Trinity before he ever
embarked upon the supreme adventure of space.
The Sons of God may choose the realms of their creator activities, but these
material creations were originally projected and planned by the Paradise
Architects of the Master Universe.
1. PHYSICAL EMERGENCE OF UNIVERSES
The preuniverse manipulations of space-force and the primordial energies are
the work of the Paradise Master Force Organizers; but in the superuniverse
domains, when emergent energy becomes responsive to local or linear gravity,
they retire in favor of the power directors of the superuniverse concerned.
These power directors function alone in the prematerial and postforce phases of
a local universe creation. There is no opportunity for a Creator Son to begin
universe organization until the power directors have effected the mobilization
of the space-energies sufficiently to provide a material foundation--literal
suns and material spheres--for the emerging universe.
The local universes are all approximately of the same energy potential, though
they differ greatly in physical dimensions and may vary in visible-matter
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content from time to time. The power charge and potential-matter endowment of a
local universe are determined by the manipulations of the power directors and
their predecessors as well as by the Creator Son's activities and by the
endowment of the inherent physical control possessed by his creative associate.
The energy charge of a local universe is approximately one
one-hundred-thousandth of the force endowment of its superuniverse. In the case
of Nebadon, your local universe, the mass materialization is a trifle less.
Physically speaking, Nebadon possesses all of the physical endowment of energy
and matter that may be found in any of the Orvonton local creations. The only
physical limitation upon the developmental expansion of the Nebadon universe
consists in the quantitative charge of space-energy held captive by the gravity
control of the associated powers and personalities of the combined universe
mechanism.
When energy-matter has attained a certain stage in mass materialization, a
Paradise Creator Son appears upon the scene, accompanied by a Creative Daughter
of the Infinite Spirit. Simultaneously with the arrival of the Creator Son,
work is begun upon the architectural sphere which is to become the headquarters
world of the projected local universe. For long ages such a local creation
evolves, suns become stabilized, planets form and swing into their orbits,
while the work of creating the architectural worlds which are to serve as
constellation headquarters and system capitals continues.
2. UNIVERSE ORGANIZATION
The Creator Sons are preceded in universe organization by the power directors
and other beings originating in the Third Source and Center. From the energies
of space, thus previously organized, Michael, your Creator Son, established the
inhabited realms of the universe of Nebadon and ever since has been
painstakingly devoted to their administration. From pre-existent energy these
divine Sons materialize visible matter, project living creatures, and with the
co-operation of the universe presence of the Infinite Spirit, create a diverse
retinue of spirit personalities.
These power directors and energy controllers who long preceded the Creator Son
in the preliminary physical work of universe organization later serve in
magnificent liaison with this Universe Son, forever remaining in associated
control of those energies which they originally organized and circuitized. On
Salvington there now function the same one hundred power centers who
co-operated with your Creator Son in the original formation of this local
universe.
The first completed act of physical creation in Nebadon consisted in the
organization of the headquarters world, the architectural sphere of Salvington,
with its satellites. From the time of the initial moves of the power centers
and physical controllers to the arrival of the living staff on the completed
spheres of Salvington, there intervened a little over one billion years of your
present planetary time. The construction of Salvington was immediately followed
by the creation of the one hundred headquarters worlds of the projected
constellations and the ten thousand headquarters spheres of the projected local
systems of planetary control and administration, together with their
architectural satellites. Such architectural worlds are designed to accommodate
both physical and spiritual personalities as well as the intervening morontia
or transition stages of being.
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Salvington, the headquarters of Nebadon, is situated at the exact energy-mass
center of the local universe. But your local universe is not a single
astronomic system, though a large system does exist at its physical center.
Salvington is the personal headquarters of Michael of Nebadon, but he will not
always be found there. While the smooth functioning of your local universe no
longer requires the fixed presence of the Creator Son at the capital sphere,
this was not true of the earlier epochs of physical organization. A Creator Son
is unable to leave his headquarters world until such a time as gravity
stabilization of the realm has been effected through the materialization of
sufficient energy to enable the various circuits and systems to counterbalance
one another by mutual material attraction.
Presently, the physical plan of a universe is completed, and the Creator Son,
in association with the Creative Spirit, projects his plan of life creation;
whereupon does this representation of the Infinite Spirit begin her universe
function as a distinct creative personality. When this first creative act is
formulated and executed, there springs into being the Bright and Morning Star,
the personification of this initial creative concept of identity and ideal of
divinity. This is the chief executive of the universe, the personal associate
of the Creator Son, one like him in all aspects of character, though markedly
limited in the attributes of divinity.
And now that the right-hand helper and chief executive of the Creator Son has
been provided, there ensues the bringing into existence of a vast and wonderful
array of diverse creatures. The sons and daughters of the local universe are
forthcoming, and soon thereafter the government of such a creation is provided,
extending from the supreme councils of the universe to the fathers of the
constellations and the sovereigns of the local systems--the aggregations of
those worlds which are designed subsequently to become the homes of the varied
mortal races of will creatures; and each of these worlds will be presided over
by a Planetary Prince.
And then, when such a universe has been so completely organized and so
repletely manned, does the Creator Son enter into the Father's proposal to
create mortal man in their divine image.
The organization of planetary abodes is still progressing in Nebadon, for this
universe is, indeed, a young cluster in the starry and planetary realms of
Orvonton. At the last registry there were 3,840,101 inhabited planets in
Nebadon, and Satania, the local system of your world, is fairly typical of
other systems.
Satania is not a uniform physical system, a single astronomic unit or
organization. Its 619 inhabited worlds are located in over five hundred
different physical systems. Only five have more than two inhabited worlds, and
of these only one has four peopled planets, while there are forty-six having
two inhabited worlds.
The Satania system of inhabited worlds is far removed from Uversa and that
great sun cluster which functions as the physical or astronomic center of the
seventh superuniverse. From Jerusem, the headquarters of Satania, it is over
two hundred thousand light-years to the physical center of the superuniverse of
Orvonton, far, far away in the dense diameter of the Milky Way. Satania is on
the periphery of the local universe, and Nebadon is now well out towards the
edge of Orvonton. From the outermost system of inhabited worlds to the center
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of the superuniverse is a trifle less than two hundred and fifty thousand
light-years.
The universe of Nebadon now swings far to the south and east in the
superuniverse circuit of Orvonton. The nearest neighboring universes are:
Avalon, Henselon, Sanselon, Portalon, Wolvering, Fanoving, and Alvoring.
But the evolution of a local universe is a long narrative. Papers dealing with
the superuniverse introduce this subject, those of this section, treating of
the local creations, continue it, while those to follow, touching upon the
history and destiny of Urantia, complete the story. But you can adequately
comprehend the destiny of the mortals of such a local creation only by a
perusal of the narratives of the life and teachings of your Creator Son as he
once lived the life of man, in the likeness of mortal flesh, on your own
evolutionary world.
3. THE EVOLUTIONARY IDEA
The only creation that is perfectly settled is Havona, the central universe,
which was made directly by the thought of the Universal Father and the word of
the Eternal Son. Havona is an existential, perfect, and replete universe,
surrounding the home of the eternal Deities, the center of all things. The
creations of the seven superuniverses are finite, evolutionary, and
consistently progressive.
The physical systems of time and space are all evolutionary in origin. They are
not even physically stabilized until they are swung into the settled circuits
of their superuniverses. Neither is a local universe settled in light and life
until its physical possibilities of expansion and development have been
exhausted, and until the spiritual status of all its inhabited worlds has been
forever settled and stabilized.
Except in the central universe, perfection is a progressive attainment. In the
central creation we have a pattern of perfection, but all other realms must
attain that perfection by the methods established for the advancement of those
particular worlds or universes. And an almost infinite variety characterizes
the plans of the Creator Sons for organizing, evolving, disciplining, and
settling their respective local universes.
With the exception of the deity presence of the Father, every local universe
is, in a certain sense, a duplication of the administrative organization of the
central or pattern creation. Although the Universal Father is personally
present in the residential universe, he does not indwell the minds of the
beings originating in that universe as he does literally dwell with the souls
of the mortals of time and space. There seems to be an all-wise compensation in
the adjustment and regulation of the spiritual affairs of the far-flung
creation. In the central universe the Father is personally present as such but
absent in the minds of the children of that perfect creation; in the universes
of space the Father is absent in person, being represented by his Sovereign
Sons, while he is intimately present in the minds of his mortal children, being
spiritually represented by the prepersonal presence of the Mystery Monitors
that reside in the minds of these will creatures.
On the headquarters of a local universe there reside all those creator and
creative personalities who represent self-contained authority and
administrative autonomy except the personal presence of the Universal Father.
In the local
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universe there are to be found something of everyone and someone of almost
every class of intelligent beings existing in the central universe except the
Universal Father. Although the Universal Father is not personally present in a
local universe, he is personally represented by its Creator Son, sometime
vicegerent of God and subsequently supreme and sovereign ruler in his own
right.
The farther down the scale of life we go, the more difficult it becomes to
locate, with the eye of faith, the invisible Father. The lower creatures--and
sometimes even the higher personalities--find it difficult always to envisage
the Universal Father in his Creator Sons. And so, pending the time of their
spiritual exaltation, when perfection of development will enable them to see
God in person, they grow weary in progression, entertain spiritual doubts,
stumble into confusion, and thus isolate themselves from the progressive
spiritual aims of their time and universe. In this way they lose the ability to
see the Father when beholding the Creator Son. The surest safeguard for the
creature throughout the long struggle to attain the Father, during this time
when inherent conditions make such attainment impossible, is tenaciously to
hold on to the truth-fact of the Father's presence in his Sons. Literally and
figuratively, spiritually and personally, the Father and the Sons are one. It
is a fact: He who has seen a Creator Son has seen the Father.
The personalities of a given universe are settled and dependable, at the start,
only in accordance with their degree of kinship to Deity. When creature origin
departs sufficiently far from the original and divine Sources, whether we are
dealing with the Sons of God or the creatures of ministry belonging to the
Infinite Spirit, there is an increase in the possibility of disharmony,
confusion, and sometimes rebellion--sin.
Excepting perfect beings of Deity origin, all will creatures in the
superuniverses are of evolutionary nature, beginning in lowly estate and
climbing ever upward, in reality inward. Even highly spiritual personalities
continue to ascend the scale of life by progressive translations from life to
life and from sphere to sphere. And in the case of those who entertain the
Mystery Monitors, there is indeed no limit to the possible heights of their
spiritual ascent and universe attainment.
The perfection of the creatures of time, when finally achieved, is wholly an
acquirement, a bona fide personality possession. While the elements of grace
are freely admixed, nevertheless, the creature attainments are the result of
individual effort and actual living, personality reaction to the existing
environment.
The fact of animal evolutionary origin does not attach stigma to any
personality in the sight of the universe as that is the exclusive method of
producing one of the two basic types of finite intelligent will creatures. When
the heights of perfection and eternity are attained, all the more honor to
those who began at the bottom and joyfully climbed the ladder of life, round by
round, and who, when they do reach the heights of glory, will have gained a
personal experience which embodies an actual knowledge of every phase of life
from the bottom to the top.
In all this is shown the wisdom of the Creators. It would be just as easy for
the Universal Father to make all mortals perfect beings, to impart perfection
by his divine word. But that would deprive them of the wonderful experience of
the adventure and training associated with the long and gradual inward climb,
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an experience to be had only by those who are so fortunate as to begin at the
very bottom of living existence.
In the universes encircling Havona there are provided only a sufficient number
of perfect creatures to meet the need for pattern teacher guides for those who
are ascending the evolutionary scale of life. The experiential nature of the
evolutionary type of personality is the natural cosmic complement of the
ever-perfect natures of the Paradise-Havona creatures. In reality, both perfect
and perfected creatures are incomplete as regards finite totality. But in the
complemental association of the existentially perfect creatures of the
Paradise-Havona system with the experientially perfected finaliters ascending
from the evolutionary universes, both types find release from inherent
limitations and thus may conjointly attempt to reach the sublime heights of the
ultimate of creature status.
These creature transactions are the universe repercussions of actions and
reactions within the Sevenfold Deity, wherein the eternal divinity of the
Paradise Trinity is conjoined with the evolving divinity of the Supreme
Creators of the time-space universes in, by, and through the power-actualizing
Deity of the Supreme Being.
The divinely perfect creature and the evolutionary perfected creature are equal
in degree of divinity potential, but they differ in kind. Each must depend on
the other to attain supremacy of service. The evolutionary superuniverses
depend on perfect Havona to provide the final training for their ascending
citizens, but so does the perfect central universe require the existence of the
perfecting superuniverses to provide for the full development of its descending
inhabitants.
The two prime manifestations of finite reality, innate perfection and evolved
perfection, be they personalities or universes, are co-ordinate, dependent, and
integrated. Each requires the other to achieve completion of function, service,
and destiny.
4. GOD'S RELATION TO A LOCAL UNIVERSE
Do not entertain the idea that, since the Universal Father has delegated so
much of himself and his power to others, he is a silent or inactive member of
the Deity partnership. Aside from personality domains and Adjuster bestowal, he
is apparently the least active of the Paradise Deities in that he allows his
Deity co-ordinates, his Sons, and numerous created intelligences to perform so
much in the carrying out of his eternal purpose. He is the silent member of the
creative trio only in that he never does aught which any of his co-ordinate or
subordinate associates can do.
God has full understanding of the need of every intelligent creature for
function and experience, and therefore, in every situation, be it concerned
with the destiny of a universe or the welfare of the humblest of his creatures,
God retires from activity in favor of the galaxy of creature and Creator
personalities who inherently intervene between himself and any given universe
situation or creative event. But notwithstanding this retirement, this
exhibition of infinite co-ordination, there is on God's part an actual,
literal, and personal participation in these events by and through these
ordained agencies and personalities. The Father is working in and through all
these channels for the welfare of all his far-flung creation.
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As regards the policies, conduct, and administration of a local universe, the
Universal Father acts in the person of his Creator Son. In the
interrelationships of the Sons of God, in the group associations of the
personalities of origin in the Third Source and Center, or in the relationship
between any other creatures, such as human beings--as concerns such
associations the Universal Father never intervenes. The law of the Creator Son,
the rule of the Constellation Fathers, the System Sovereigns, and the Planetary
Princes--the ordained policies and procedures for that universe--always
prevail. There is no division of authority; never is there a cross working of
divine power and purpose. The Deities are in perfect and eternal unanimity.
The Creator Son rules supreme in all matters of ethical associations, the
relations of any division of creatures to any other class of creatures or of
two or more individuals within any given group; but such a plan does not mean
that the Universal Father may not in his own way intervene and do aught that
pleases the divine mind with any individual creature throughout all creation,
as pertains to that individual's present status or future prospects and as
concerns the Father's eternal plan and infinite purpose.
In the mortal will creatures the Father is actually present in the indwelling
Adjuster, a fragment of his prepersonal spirit; and the Father is also the
source of the personality of such a mortal will creature.
These Thought Adjusters, the bestowals of the Universal Father, are
comparatively isolated; they indwell human minds but have no discernible
connection with the ethical affairs of a local creation. They are not directly
co-ordinated with the seraphic service nor with the administration of systems,
constellations, or a local universe, not even with the rule of a Creator Son,
whose will is the supreme law of his universe.
The indwelling Adjusters are one of God's separate but unified modes of contact
with the creatures of his all but infinite creation. Thus does he who is
invisible to mortal man manifest his presence, and could he do so, he would
show himself to us in still other ways, but such further revelation is not
divinely possible.
We can see and understand the mechanism whereby the Sons enjoy intimate and
complete knowledge regarding the universes of their jurisdiction; but we cannot
fully comprehend the methods whereby God is so fully and personally conversant
with the details of the universe of universes, although we at least can
recognize the avenue whereby the Universal Father can receive information
regarding, and manifest his presence to, the beings of his immense creation.
Through the personality circuit the Father is cognizant--has personal
knowledge--of all the thoughts and acts of all the beings in all the systems of
all the universes of all creation. Though we cannot fully grasp this technique
of God's communion with his children, we can be strengthened in the assurance
that the "Lord knows his children," and that of each one of us "he takes note
where we were born."
In your universe and in your heart the Universal Father is present, spiritually
speaking, by one of the Seven Master Spirits of central abode and,
specifically, by the divine Adjuster who lives and works and waits in the
depths of the mortal mind.
God is not a self-centered personality; the Father freely distributes himself
to his creation and to his creatures. He lives and acts, not only in the
Deities,
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but also in his Sons, whom he intrusts with the doing of everything that it is
divinely possible for them to do. The Universal Father has truly divested
himself of every function which it is possible for another being to perform.
And this is just as true of mortal man as of the Creator Son who rules in God's
stead at the headquarters of a local universe. Thus we behold the outworking of
the ideal and infinite love of the Universal Father.
In this universal bestowal of himself we have abundant proof of both the
magnitude and the magnanimity of the Father's divine nature. If God has
withheld aught of himself from the universal creation, then of that residue he
is in lavish generosity bestowing the Thought Adjusters upon the mortals of the
realms, the Mystery Monitors of time, who so patiently indwell the mortal
candidates for life everlasting.
The Universal Father has poured out himself, as it were, to make all creation
rich in personality possession and potential spiritual attainment. God has
given us himself that we may be like him, and he has reserved for himself of
power and glory only that which is necessary for the maintenance of those
things for the love of which he has thus divested himself of all things else.
5. THE ETERNAL AND DIVINE PURPOSE
There is a great and glorious purpose in the march of the universes through
space. All of your mortal struggling is not in vain. We are all part of an
immense plan, a gigantic enterprise, and it is the vastness of the undertaking
that renders it impossible to see very much of it at any one time and during
any one life. We are all a part of an eternal project which the Gods are
supervising and outworking. The whole marvelous and universal mechanism moves
on majestically through space to the music of the meter of the infinite thought
and the eternal purpose of the First Great Source and Center.
The eternal purpose of the eternal God is a high spiritual ideal. The events of
time and the struggles of material existence are but the transient scaffolding
which bridges over to the other side, to the promised land of spiritual reality
and supernal existence. Of course, you mortals find it difficult to grasp the
idea of an eternal purpose; you are virtually unable to comprehend the thought
of eternity, something never beginning and never ending. Everything familiar to
you has an end.
As regards an individual life, the duration of a realm, or the chronology of
any connected series of events, it would seem that we are dealing with an
isolated stretch of time; everything seems to have a beginning and an end. And
it would appear that a series of such experiences, lives, ages, or epochs, when
successively arranged, constitutes a straightaway drive, an isolated event of
time flashing momentarily across the infinite face of eternity. But when we
look at all this from behind the scenes, a more comprehensive view and a more
complete understanding suggest that such an explanation is inadequate,
disconnected, and wholly unsuited properly to account for, and otherwise to
correlate, the transactions of time with the underlying purposes and basic
reactions of eternity.
To me it seems more fitting, for purposes of explanation to the mortal mind, to
conceive of eternity as a cycle and the eternal purpose as an endless circle, a
cycle of eternity in some way synchronized with the transient material cycles
of time. As regards the sectors of time connected with, and forming a part of,
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the cycle of eternity, we are forced to recognize that such temporary epochs
are born, live, and die just as the temporary beings of time are born, live,
and die. Most human beings die because, having failed to achieve the spirit
level of Adjuster fusion, the metamorphosis of death constitutes the only
possible procedure whereby they may escape the fetters of time and the bonds of
material creation, thereby being enabled to strike spiritual step with the
progressive procession of eternity. Having survived the trial life of time and
material existence, it becomes possible for you to continue on in touch with,
even as a part of, eternity, swinging on forever with the worlds of space
around the circle of the eternal ages.
The sectors of time are like the flashes of personality in temporal form; they
appear for a season, and then they are lost to human sight, only to reappear as
new actors and continuing factors in the higher life of the endless swing
around the eternal circle. Eternity can hardly be conceived as a straightaway
drive, in view of our belief in a delimited universe moving over a vast,
elongated circle around the central dwelling place of the Universal Father.
Frankly, eternity is incomprehensible to the finite mind of time. You simply
cannot grasp it; you cannot comprehend it. I do not completely visualize it,
and even if I did, it would be impossible for me to convey my concept to the
human mind. Nevertheless, I have done my best to portray something of our
viewpoint, to tell you somewhat of our understanding of things eternal. I am
endeavoring to aid you in the crystallization of your thoughts about these
values which are of infinite nature and eternal import.
There is in the mind of God a plan which embraces every creature of all his
vast domains, and this plan is an eternal purpose of boundless opportunity,
unlimited progress, and endless life. And the infinite treasures of such a
matchless career are yours for the striving!
The goal of eternity is ahead! The adventure of divinity attainment lies before
you! The race for perfection is on! whosoever will may enter, and certain
victory will crown the efforts of every human being who will run the race of
faith and trust, depending every step of the way on the leading of the
indwelling Adjuster and on the guidance of that good spirit of the Universe
Son, which so freely has been poured out upon all flesh.
[Presented by a Mighty Messenger temporarily attached to the Supreme Council of
Nebadon and assigned to this mission by Gabriel of Salvington.]
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Subjects Archive The Urantia Book Urantia Book PART II: The Local Universe :
The Evolution Of Local Universes Administration Of The Local Universe The Local
Universe Mother Spirit The Local Universe Sons Of God The Life Carriers
Personalities Of The Local Universe Ministering Spirits Of The Local Universe
The Seraphic Hosts The Ascending Sons Of God Physical Aspects Of The Local
Universe Energy--mind And Matter The Constellations The Celestial Artisans The
Local System Administration The Local System Headquarters The Seven Mansion
Worlds The Morontia Life The Inhabited Worlds The Planetary Princes The
Planetary Adams Planetary Mortal Epochs The Lucifer Rebellion Problems Of The
Lucifer Rebellion The Spheres Of Light And Life Universal Unity
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