INTRODUCTION: What is the soul?

These lessons will explore various aspects of the soul and its connection to man including these:

• Your Thought Adjuster initiates and fosters the growth of your soul.
• Your soul is not physical but morontial in nature.
• Soul consciousness leads to God-Consciousness.
• The destiny of your soul.
• Your soul grows as you do the Father’s will.
• The Spirit of Truth and Seraphic guidance stimulate soul growth.
• Worship and prayer promote your soul’s growth.
• Your soul grows through loving ministry and wise living. 

But before we begin, we must acknowledge a very real and significant obstacle to taking this wholesome and stimulating adventure of soul discovery, and that is the paucity of words and meanings about the soul in the English language. For this reason it is necessary to begin this course by developing a core vocabulary, and an associated set of meanings and concepts.

Glossary

Mansion worlds (a.k.a. Heaven)
Jesus alluded to the mansion worlds when he said: "In my Father's house are many mansions." This was a reference to special planets, created by design, to be used for universe administration and education. These mansion worlds are where mortal survivors are resurrected and resume their lives just where they left off when overtaken by mortal death. While we do not yet know the exact astronomical location of these mansion worlds, we are told that they provide resurrection services for up to 1000 inhabited planets in our nearby region of galactic space. There are 7 of these mansion worlds (sometimes referred to as the 7 Heavens) and they are part of a larger system of 57 special planets known as architectural spheres, each one serving a special purpose. The Heaven conceived by most of our prophets is the first of these 7 mansion worlds, the first destination point from Earth, and where the resurrections occur. It is often referred to as Mansonia #1. These 7 mansion worlds are each about the size of Earth. Some others, known as transition worlds, are about 10 times the size of Earth (about the size of Jupiter), and the main one, the headquarter sphere known as Jerusem is about 100 times the size of Earth, making it nearly as big as our sun! We have designed a simple diagram of how we speculate these planets might be arranged in relation to each other, although they most certainly are spaced much further apart. The numerous descriptions provided in the Urantia Book form the basis for this drawing. Journey to mansion worlds.pdf . Note: there is a second page with written descriptions after the drawing.

Morontia
The universe consists of three degrees, or stages, of reality manifestation: matter, morontia, and spirit. The word morontia (or morontial) refers to both an energy/matter type and a state of being that lies between the material physical realm of mortal life and the purely spirit realm. A useful comparison would be:

• Matter relates to physical,
• morontia relates to mind,
• spirit relates to values.

The soul is constituted of morontia energy patterns and grows through the development of mota. The morontia reality, the domain of the soul, is a transition between the mortal estate and the subsequent spirit status of surviving human beings. The Urantia Book has much to say about the morontia reality in Paper 48.

Mota
Mota is a supermaterial and superphilosophical reality sensitivity which has for its substance knowledge-reason, and for its essence faith-insight. Science works with reason, religion works with faith, and the soul works with mota. Mota is the unifying technique of soul growth.

The lower planes of morontia mota join directly with the higher levels of human philosophy, but Mota is more than just 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. The Urantia Book provides an interesting look at morontia mota.

Soul
The remainder of this INTRODUCTION will give a more in depth definition of the soul and its related concepts.

Thought Adjuster
The term Thought Adjuster refers to that divine Spirit fragment coming from the Creator, the Universal Father, to indwell mortal man, to encourage him, to uplift him, and to guide him towards the Father and eternal life. The Urantia Book has extensive explanations of Thought Adjusters in Part III, papers 107 to 112.

Nature of the soul

We must first understand the fundamental concept of what the soul actually is. The soul can be thought of as a growing embryo — like a foetus — an unborn child that is growing within you. You are the mother of this growing child and therefore it is important that you care for your own health (both mental and physical) because of the consequence it may have on the growing child within you. You would put the very best of who you are into the care of this unborn child knowing she will be wholly dependent on you for all her needs when she is born. You are planning for the future of this child's life and wanting the very best for her life experiences.

The soul, which is a morontia reality, can be viewed in a similar fashion. It is wholly dependent on you for its development and therefore it is beneficial for you to take great care in the decisions you make in life, both great and small. The soul is the very best part of who you are and what you are becoming. Therefore, this unborn soul is really you! It is the "you" who will pick-up and live life in the next phase of your ascendant career (after the resurrection) on the mansion worlds of Heaven. Wouldn't you want to build the very best "you" there could be while you are living in this world? This is what is meant by "Lay Up Treasures in Heaven".

Nurture of the soul

By knowing the process for nurturing your soul, and how these processors work together, you may become more effective in growing a weightier (richer, more mature) soul by making conscious decisions where you determine the quality of your experiences — what goes into your soul. These lessons are designed to stimulate you to think about the pediatric care of your soul — the unborn you — and what you are feeding your nascent soul, and how you are nurturing it.

There are three primary soul processors — the mind, the heart, and the Thought Adjuster (TA). Each of them play an important part in determining what experiences, meanings, and values are harvested for soul building and eternal survival. The order in which these three processors are listed here is sequential to the order in which all experiences are processed — from the physical aspect of human awareness (the brain and the five senses), to the emotional center (the heart), to the spiritual operator (the TA). All three are necessary and all three work together in accordance with the free will prerogatives established by the Father which assures relative untethered and diverse experience harvesting.

These three soul processors will be discussed in LESSON 4.

Soul food

In the short duration of time spent in earth life, it is wise to give thought to the value of your experiences and to maximize your time in building the best you there can be.

As with any well prepared traveler, it is beneficial to plan ahead for a long journey and pack things that you would most likely need when visiting a new land. Your "backpack" is the embryonic soul, it is the container for all those worthwhile experiences that will help you to navigate and explore this new Heavenly land you will surely visit. Because you are traveling light, you would not pack unnecessary items that would weigh you down. Knowing that you are not always adept at deciding what to take and what to leave, your "Smart Assistant" and "GPS" the Thought Adjuster (TA), knows the way and proficiently filters your check list of items deemed necessary for the journey.

So, what should you bring? Imagine what it will be like to visit this new land. What are the people like there? What are the customs? What's the weather like? What is the economy like? Are there any dangers? Imagine this heaven-like place and think about what you would need to actually live there.

If you think about only the very best experiences you had in life, the joys of life that you retain fond memory of, those are the things that will serve you in your next stage of life on those Heavenly abodes, the mansion worlds. 

When life experience encompasses true Love in any way, shape, or form, it is sure to make the check list and be included in your backpack, your soul. Pack wisely and choose to experience life in a way that will progressively serve you in your present life and in your future career. You won't regret it!

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