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PLANETARY LIFE
Urantia’s evolutionary panorama |
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CEDOMIL VUGRINCIC, M.D., Ph.D. |
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INTRODUCTION Time and space are
indissolubly linked through an innate association, and the planet life
process can unfold only as fast as the natural physical metamorphoses of a
planet, i.e. its geologic evolution, will permit in time. Because the usual human
“yardstick” for time measurement is the length of individual’s life span, the
evolution of the planetary life appears to evolutionary beings as an very
long drawn-out process. The mind evolution is
dependent on, and delayed by, the slow development of physical conditions of
the evolutionary life. The spiritual progress is
dependent on mental expansion of the living beings and it is unfailingly
delayed by creature’s intellectual retardation. This does not mean, however,
that the soul’s spiritual evolution is only dependent on education, culture
or wisdom. The soul may evolve regardless
of its mental culture, but not in the absence of its mental capacity and
desire to survive and to achieve ever-increasing perfection to do the will of
the Father in Although survival may not
depend upon the possession of the knowledge and wisdom, the progression of
evolution most certainly does. Mind is always dominant over
matter, and the spirit is ever correlated with creatures mind. Failure of
these diverse endowments to become coordinated and synchronized is the main
cause of the evolutionary time delays. However, if the individual
really wants to know God the Father, and desires to find him and become like
him, than the evolutionary individual’s survival is assured regardless of the
handicaps of time. Temporary physical status may handicap creatures mind, and
its mental temporary perversity may delay its spiritual attainment, but none
of these obstacles can really defeat the soul’s inner whole-hearted choice
and power of will. When planetary conditions are
ripe, sudden mental evolutions may take place. When mind status evolves sufficiently,
sudden spiritual transformations may occur. When spiritual values receive
proper recognition, then the cosmic meanings become discernable, and
gradually the personality becomes released from the handicaps and limitations
of its time and space. THE COSMIC MIND The On the world like Urantia,
life is under the direct influence of the Creative Spirit of Nebadon,
although the Master Spirits dominate the basic reactions of all creatures
mind, because they are the actual
sources of the intellectual and spiritual mind potentials specialized in the
local universes for function in the lives of those individuals who inhabit the evolutionary worlds of
time and space. There exist in all planetary
personality the quality of “reality response”, the cosmic mind endowment of
all will creatures against a priori assumptions of human planetary science,
philosophy and religion, which responds to certain phases of cosmic reality
just as energy-matter responds to gravity. The cosmic mind responds to
three levels of universe reality, and they are: 1.
CAUSATION- the
reality domain of physical senses. The scientific and mathematical
conclusions based on cosmic discriminations. 2.
DUTY- the philosophical moral reasons of relative right and wrong.
This is judicial conclusions based on cosmic
discrimination. 2.
WORSHIP- the
spiritual, religious experience. The recognition of spirit values, the divine
fellowship and eternal survival. This is the highest insight of cosmic mind
and the reverence form of cosmic discrimination. It is these three cosmic
intuitions that give objective validity and reality to evolutionary creature in its experience
with things, meanings, and values. THE EVOLUTION OF PLANETARY
MIND The evolutionary story of man’s
ascent from seaweed to the lordship of earthly creation is the saga of man’s
continuous struggle of his mind adaptation seeking biological survival. In Paper 7 it was stated that
the formulation of the planetary pre-mind is the joint effort of the Physical Controllers which
work in conjunction with life-impartation ministry of the Seven Master
Spirits through the adjutant mind spirits of the local universe Divine
Minister, and the active ministration of the ordained planetary Life
Carriers. The result of this threefold
activity is the development of organic evolution of life on planet, and the
organism capacity for mind evolution with the mechanisms for intelligent
reaction to external environmental stimuli, and later on, to internal spiritual influences
originating in the mind of the organism itself. The work of these three
ministrations will be examined further in the upcoming papers. THE EVOLUTION OF MIND FORMS The first protoplasmic life
was originally implanted by Life Carriers in three independent places in the
briny oceans waters about 550 million years ago, and all Urantia’s ancestral
life has originated and evolved further from these suitable salt- water
habitats. Man’s primordial ancestors
were literally slime and ooze of the ocean bed in the sluggish and warm-water
bays and lagoons of the vast shore lines of the ancient inland seas. Very few species of the early
types of marine vegetation that participated in those epochal changes, which
resulted in the animal-like borderland organisms are in the existence today. The sponges are the survivors
of one of these early midway types, those organisms through which the gradual
transition from the vegetable to the animal took place. These early transition forms,
while not identical with modern sponges, were much like them, they were true
borderline organisms- neither vegetable nor animal, but they eventually led
to the development of the true animal forms of life. The bacteria, simple vegetable
organisms of a very primitive nature, are very little changed from the early
dawn of life; they have even somewhat retrogressed in their parasitic
behavior. Many of the fungi also
represent a retrograde movement in evolution, being actually plants which
have lost their chlorophyll-making ability and have become more parasitic. The majority of
“disease-causing” bacteria and their auxiliary virus bodies really belong to
this group of renegade parasitic fungi. During the intervening ages,
the entire vast kingdom of plant life has evolved from the ancestors from
which the bacteria have also descended. The higher protozoan type of
animal life soon and suddenly appeared, and from these far-distant times the
ameba, the typical single-cell animal organism has appeared. What this minute creature and
his protozoan cousins are to the animal creation that are bacteria to the
plant kingdom- surviving first early evolutionary species, in a collective
differentiation of planetary life, which have failed subsequently to develop
further. Before long the early single-cell
animal types associated themselves further in communities, first on the plan
of the Volvox and presently along the lines of the Hydra and the jellyfish. Still later there evolved the
starfish, stone lilies, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, centipedes, insects,
spiders, crustaceans, and the closely related groups of earthworms and
leeches, soon followed by the mollusks- the oyster, octopus and snail. Hundreds upon hundreds of
species intervened and perished. Those that have survived but have not progressed
represent the stationary types of early lower animals, survived branches of
the tree of life which have failed to progress. The stage was thus set for the
appearance of the first backboned animals- the fishes. From this fish family there
sprang two unique modifications- the frog and the salamander. It was the FROG which began
that series of progressive differentiations in animal life that finally
culminated in man himself. The frog is one of the
earliest of surviving human-race ancestors, but it also failed to progress,
persisting today as much as in those remote times. The frog is the only species
ancestor of the early dawn races now living on the earth. The frog gave rise to the
Reptilians, now virtually extinct great animal family, which before passing
out of the existence, gave origin to the whole bird family and the numerous
orders of mammals. Probably the greatest single
leap of all pre-human evolution was executed when the reptile became a bird.
The bird types of today- eagles, ducks, pigeons and ostriches, have all
descended long time ago from the reptilian family. The reptilian kingdom, which
has descended from the frog family, is today represented by four surviving divisions:
two non-progressive- snakes and lizards with their cousins alligators and turtles; one
partially progressive- the bird family; and the progressive one- ancestors of mammals and the direct line of descent of the human
species. Reptilian massiveness of the
passing reptilian family is reflected today in the elephant and mastodon,
while their perpetuated peculiar forms are echoed in leaping kangaroos. Only 14 phyla have appeared on
Urantia, the fishes being the last, and no new classes have developed since
birds and mammals. It was from carnivorous
reptilian dinosaur that the placental mammals suddenly sprang. These mammals developed
rapidly and in many different ways, not only as the common modern varieties
but also as the marine types, such as whales and seals, and the air
navigators, like the bat family. MAN has evolved from the
higher mammals derived principally from the western location of the life
implantation in the ancient east-west sheltered seas. The living organisms groups
from the eastern and central locations were progressing in the early periods
favorably toward the attainment of pre-human levels of animal existence. However, as the ages have
passed, the eastern focus of life has failed to attain an satisfactory level
of intelligent pre-human status, having suffered irretrievable, repeated
losses of its highest types of germ plasma that it has lost forever the
ability and power for the rehabilitation and evolution of its human
potentialities. Since the quality of the mind capacity for the development in
the eastern group was so inferior to the other two groups, the Life Carriers, with the
consent of their supervisors, have eliminated these inferior strains of
pre-human evolving life from further progression. Later in the evolution of the
intelligence, the lemur ancestors of the human species were far more advanced
in the coast to southwestern Man has thus evolved, out of
certain western and central life strains, in Asian central to near-eastern
regions. In this way, the life that was
planted on planet Urantia, has evolved until the ice age, when man himself
first appeared and begun his eventful planetary career. The rigors and
climatic severity of the glacial era were in
every way adapted to the purpose of fostering the production of a hardy type
human being with tremendous survival endowment. The appearance of the
primitive man on earth during the ice age, therefore, was not an evolutionary accident but he
has evolved purposefully from the created life design. CONCLUSION The
first organic unit of material life created was the protoplasmic cell which
communally associated
various chemical, electrical and other basic energies. This first primordial unit of
material life was brought into living existence by the creative function of
the Life Carriers which have generated physical electrochemical energy
circuits within material particles created by Physical Controllers and
further catalyzed the “spark of life” initiated by the Holly Spirit of the
Divine Minister. The
chemical formulas used in creating the first protoplasmic cells differ for
each planetary system,
and therefore the techniques of living cell reproduction are slightly
different for each local
universe. In
any case the catalysts of the initial process, the Life Carriers are always
there to initiate the primordial reactions of the material life as the
catalytic instigators of the energy circuits of living
matter. All
the worlds of a local system disclose similar physical kinship, however, each
evolutionary planet
develops its own scale of life and not two worlds are exactly alike in plant
and animal
endowment. Decisions
about the type of systems variations in the planetary life are made after
studies of
evolution of planetary system by these Life Carrier catalysts. Evolutionary
life is initiated often in different number of planetary localities,
sometimes three as
it was on our planet of Urantia. In
the development of any planetary life the vegetable always precedes animal
and develops fully
before animal patterns appear and begin to differentiate. All animal types
always develop from
the basic patterns of the preceding vegetable kingdom; they are not
separately organized as
we could see from the narrative of this paper. REFERENCE : The
Urantia book, The Urantia Foundation |
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