The Urantia Book
PAPER 113
SERAPHIC GUARDIANS OF DESTINY
Presented by the Chief of Seraphim stationed on Urantia.
113:0.1 HAVING presented the narratives of the
Ministering Spirits of Time and the Messenger Hosts of Space, we
come to the consideration of the guardian angels, seraphim
devoted to the ministry to individual mortals, for whose
elevation and perfection all of the vast survival scheme of
spiritual progression has been provided. In past ages on
Urantia, these destiny guardians were about the only group of
angels that had recognition. The planetary seraphim are indeed
ministering spirits sent forth to do service for those who shall
survive. These attending seraphim have functioned as the
spiritual helpers of mortal man in all the great events of the
past and the present. In many a revelation "the word was spoken
by angels"; many of the mandates of heaven have been "received
by the ministry of angels."
113:0.2 Seraphim are the traditional angels of
heaven; they are the ministering spirits who live so near you
and do so much for you. They have ministered on Urantia since
the earliest times of human intelligence.
1. THE GUARDIAN ANGELS
113:1.1 The teaching about guardian angels is
not a myth; certain groups of human beings do actually have
personal angels. It was in recognition of this that Jesus, in
speaking of the children of the heavenly kingdom, said: "Take
heed that you despise not one of these little ones, for I say to
you, their angels do always behold the presence of the spirit of
my Father."
113:1.2 Originally, the seraphim were
definitely assigned to the separate Urantia races. But since the
bestowal of Michael, they are assigned in accordance with human
intelligence, spirituality, and destiny. Intellectually, mankind
is divided into three classes:
113:1.3 1. The subnormal minded -- those who
do not exercise normal will power; those who do not make average
decisions. This class embraces those who cannot comprehend God;
they lack capacity for the intelligent worship of Deity. The
subnormal beings of Urantia have a corps of seraphim, one
company, with one battalion of cherubim, assigned to minister to
them and to witness that justice and mercy are extended to them
in the life struggles of the sphere.
113:1.4 2. The average, normal type of human
mind. From the standpoint of seraphic ministry, most men and
women are grouped in seven classes in accordance with their
status in making the circles of human progress and spiritual
development.
113:1.5 3. The supernormal minded -- those of
great decision and undoubted potential of spiritual achievement;
men and women who enjoy more or less contact with their
indwelling Adjusters; members of the various reserve corps of
destiny. No matter in what circle a human happens to be, if such
an individual becomes enrolled in any of the several reserve
corps of destiny, right then and there, personal seraphim are
assigned, and from that time until the earthly career is
finished, that mortal will enjoy the continuous ministry and
unceasing watchcare of a guardian angel. Also, when any human
being makes the supreme decision, when there is a real
betrothal with the Adjuster, a personal guardian is immediately
assigned to that soul.
113:1.6 In the ministry to so-called normal
beings, seraphic assignments are made in accordance with the
human attainment of the circles of intellectuality and
spirituality. You start out in your mind of mortal investment in
the seventh circle and journey inward in the task of
self-understanding, self-conquest, and self-mastery; and circle
by circle you advance until (if natural death does not terminate
your career and transfer your struggles to the mansion worlds)
you reach the first or inner circle of relative contact and
communion with the indwelling Adjuster.
113:1.7 Human beings in the initial or seventh
circle have one guardian angel with one company of assisting
cherubim assigned to the watchcare and custody of one thousand
mortals. In the sixth circle, a seraphic pair with one company
of cherubim is assigned to guide these ascending mortals in
groups of five hundred. When the fifth circle is attained, human
beings are grouped in companies of approximately one hundred,
and a pair of guardian seraphim with a group of cherubim is
placed in charge. Upon attainment of the fourth circle, mortal
beings are assembled in groups of ten, and again charge is given
to a pair of seraphim, assisted by one company of cherubim.
113:1.8 When a mortal mind breaks through the
inertia of animal legacy and attains the third circle of human
intellectuality and acquired spirituality, a personal angel (in
reality two) will henceforth be wholly and exclusively devoted
to this ascending mortal. And thus these human souls, in
addition to the ever-present and increasingly efficient
indwelling Thought Adjusters, receive the undivided assistance
of these personal guardians of destiny in all their efforts to
finish the third circle, traverse the second, and attain the
first.
2. THE DESTINY GUARDIANS
113:2.1 Seraphim are not known as guardians of
destiny until such time as they are assigned to the association
of a human soul who has realized one or more of three
achievements: has made a supreme decision to become Godlike, has
entered the third circle, or has been mustered into one of the
reserve corps of destiny.
113:2.2 In the evolution of races a guardian
of destiny is assigned to the very first being who attains the
requisite circle of conquest. On Urantia the first mortal to
secure a personal guardian was Rantowoc, a wise man of the red
race of long ago.
113:2.3 All angelic assignments are made from
a group of volunteering seraphim, and these appointments are
always in accordance with human needs and with regard to the
status of the angelic pair -- in the light of seraphic
experience, skill, and wisdom. Only seraphim of long service,
the more experienced and tested types, are assigned as destiny
guards. Many guardians have gained much valuable experience on
those worlds which are of the non-Adjuster fusion series. Like
the Adjusters, the seraphim attend these beings for a single
lifetime and then are liberated for new assignment. Many
guardians on Urantia have had this previous practical experience
on other worlds.
113:2.4 When human beings fail to survive,
their personal or group guardians may repeatedly serve in
similar capacities on the same planet. The seraphim develop a
sentimental regard for individual worlds and entertain a special
affection for certain races and types of mortal creatures with
whom they have been so closely and intimately associated.
113:2.5 The angels develop an abiding
affection for their human associates; and you would, if you
could only visualize the seraphim, develop a warm affection for
them. Divested of material bodies, given spirit forms, you would
be very near the angels in many attributes of personality. They
share most of your emotions and experience some additional ones.
The only emotion actuating you which is somewhat difficult for
them to comprehend is the legacy of animal fear that bulks so
large in the mental life of the average inhabitant of Urantia.
The angels really find it hard to understand why you will so
persistently allow your higher intellectual powers, even your
religious faith, to be so dominated by fear, so thoroughly
demoralized by the thoughtless panic of dread and anxiety.
113:2.6 All seraphim have individual names,
but in the records of assignment to world service they are
frequently designated by their planetary numbers. At the
universe headquarters they are registered by name and number.
The destiny guardian of the human subject used in this
contactual communication is number 3 of group 17, of company
126, of battalion 4, of unit 384, of legion 6, of host 37, of
the 182,314th seraphic army of Nebadon. The current planetary
assignment number of this seraphim on Urantia and to this human
subject is 3,641,852.
113:2.7 In the ministry of personal
guardianship, the assignment of angels as destiny guardians,
seraphim always volunteer their services. In the city of this
visitation a certain mortal was recently admitted to the reserve
corps of destiny, and since all such humans are personally
attended by guardian angels, more than one hundred qualified
seraphim sought the assignment. The planetary director selected
twelve of the more experienced individuals and subsequently
appointed the seraphim whom they selected as best adapted to
guide this human being through his life journey. That is, they
selected a certain pair of equally qualified seraphim; one of
this seraphic pair will always be on duty.
113:2.8 Seraphic tasks may be unremitting, but
either of the angelic pair can discharge all ministering
responsibilities. Like cherubim, seraphim usually serve in
pairs, but unlike their less advanced associates, the seraphim
sometimes work singly. In practically all their contacts with
human beings they can function as individuals. Both angels are
required only for communication and service on the higher
circuits of the universes.
113:2.9 When a seraphic pair accept guardian
assignment, they serve for the remainder of the life of that
human being. The complement of being (one of the two angels)
becomes the recorder of the undertaking. These complemental
seraphim are the recording angels of the mortals of the
evolutionary worlds. The records are kept by the pair of
cherubim (a cherubim and a sanobim) who are always associated
with the seraphic guardians, but these records are always
sponsored by one of the seraphim.
113:2.10 For purposes of rest and recharging
with the life energy of the universe circuits, the guardian is
periodically relieved by her complement, and during her absence
the associated cherubim functions as the recorder, as is also
the case when the complemental seraphim is similarly absent.
3. RELATION TO OTHER SPIRIT INFLUENCES
113:3.1 One of the most important things a
destiny guardian does for her mortal subject is to effect a
personal co-ordination of the numerous impersonal spirit
influences which indwell, surround, and impinge upon the mind
and soul of the evolving material creature. Human beings are
personalities, and it is exceedingly difficult for nonpersonal
spirits and prepersonal entities to make direct contact with
such highly material and discretely personal minds. In the
ministry of the guarding angel all of these influences are more
or less unified and made more nearly appreciable by the
expanding moral nature of the evolving human personality.
113:3.2 More especially can and does this
seraphic guardian correlate the manifold agencies and influences
of the Infinite Spirit, ranging from the domains of the physical
controllers and the adjutant mind-spirits up to the Holy Spirit
of the Divine Minister and to the Omnipresent Spirit presence of
the Paradise Third Source and Center. Having thus unified and
made more personal these vast ministries of the Infinite Spirit,
the seraphim then undertakes to correlate this integrated
influence of the Conjoint Actor with the spirit presences of the
Father and the Son.
113:3.3 The Adjuster is the presence of the
Father; the Spirit of Truth, the presence of the Sons. These
divine endowments are unified and co-ordinated on the lower
levels of human spiritual experience by the ministry of the
guardian seraphim. The angelic servers are gifted in combining
the love of the Father and the mercy of the Son in their
ministry to mortal creatures.
113:3.4 And herein is revealed the reason why
the seraphic guardian eventually becomes the personal custodian
of the mind patterns, memory formulas, and soul realities of the
mortal survivor during that interval between physical death and
morontia resurrection. None but the ministering children of the
Infinite Spirit could thus function in behalf of the human
creature during this phase of transition from one level of the
universe to another and higher level. Even when you engage in
your terminal transition slumber, when you pass from time to
eternity, a high supernaphim likewise shares the transit with
you as the custodian of creature identity and the surety of
personal integrity.
113:3.5 On the spiritual level, seraphim make
personal many otherwise impersonal and prepersonal ministries of
the universe; they are co-ordinators. On the intellectual level
they are the correlators of mind and morontia; they are
interpreters. And on the physical level they manipulate
terrestrial environment through their liaison with the Master
Physical Controllers and through the co-operative ministry of
the midway creatures.
113:3.6 This is a recital of the manifold and
intricate function of an attending seraphim; but how does such a
subordinate angelic personality, created but a little above the
universe level of humanity, do such difficult and complex
things? We do not really know, but we conjecture that this
phenomenal ministry is in some undisclosed manner facilitated by
the unrecognized and unrevealed working of the Supreme Being,
the actualizing Deity of the evolving universes of time and
space. Throughout the entire realm of progressive survival in
and through the Supreme Being, seraphim are an essential part of
continuing mortal progression.
4. SERAPHIC DOMAINS OF ACTION
113:4.1 The guardian seraphim are not mind,
though they do spring from the same source that also gives
origin to mortal mind, the Creative Spirit. Seraphim are mind
stimulators; they continually seek to promote circle-making
decisions in human mind. They do this, not as does the Adjuster,
operating from within and through the soul, but rather from the
outside inward, working through the social, ethical, and moral
environment of human beings. Seraphim are not the divine
Adjuster lure of the Universal Father, but they do function as
the personal agency of the ministry of the Infinite Spirit.
113:4.2 Mortal man, subject to Adjuster
leading, is also amenable to seraphic guidance. The Adjuster is
the essence of man's eternal nature; the seraphim is the teacher
of man's evolving nature -- in this life the mortal mind, in the
next the morontia soul. On the mansion worlds you will be
conscious and aware of seraphic instructors, but in the first
life men are usually unaware of them.
113:4.3 Seraphim function as teachers of men
by guiding the footsteps of the human personality into paths of
new and progressive experiences. To accept the guidance of a
seraphim rarely means attaining a life of ease. In following
this leading you are sure to encounter, and if you have the
courage, to traverse, the rugged hills of moral choosing and
spiritual progress.
113:4.4 The impulse of worship largely
originates in the spirit promptings of the higher mind
adjutants, reinforced by the leadings of the Adjuster. But the
urge to pray so often experienced by God-conscious mortals very
often arises as the result of seraphic influence. The guarding
seraphim is constantly manipulating the mortal environment for
the purpose of augmenting the cosmic insight of the human
ascender to the end that such a survival candidate may acquire
enhanced realization of the presence of the indwelling Adjuster
and thus be enabled to yield increased co-operation with the
spiritual mission of the divine presence.
113:4.5 While there is apparently no
communication between the indwelling Adjusters and the
encompassing seraphim, they always seem to work in perfect
harmony and exquisite accord. The guardians are most active at
those times when the Adjusters are least active, but their
ministry is in some manner strangely correlated. Such superb
co-operation could hardly be either accidental or incidental.
113:4.6 The ministering personality of the
guardian seraphim, the God presence of the indwelling Adjuster,
the encircuited action of the Holy Spirit, and the
Son-consciousness of the Spirit of Truth are all divinely
correlated into a meaningful unity of spiritual ministry in and
to a mortal personality. Though hailing from different sources
and different levels, these celestial influences are all
integrated in the enveloping and evolving presence of the
Supreme Being.
5. SERAPHIC MINISTRY TO MORTALS
113:5.1 Angels do not invade the sanctity of
the human mind; they do not manipulate the will of mortals;
neither do they directly contact with the indwelling Adjusters.
The guardian of destiny influences you in every possible manner
consistent with the dignity of your personality; under no
circumstances do these angels interfere with the free action of
the human will. Neither angels nor any other order of universe
personality have power or authority to curtail or abridge the
prerogatives of human choosing.
113:5.2 Angels are so near you and care so
feelingly for you that they figuratively "weep because of your
willful intolerance and stubbornness." Seraphim do not shed
physical tears; they do not have physical bodies; neither do
they possess wings. But they do have spiritual emotions, and
they do experience feelings and sentiments of a spiritual nature
which are in certain ways comparable to human emotions.
113:5.3 The seraphim act in your behalf quite
independent of your direct appeals; they are executing the
mandates of their superiors, and thus they function regardless
of your passing whims or changing moods. This does not imply
that you may not make their tasks either easier or more
difficult, but rather that angels are not directly concerned
with your appeals or with your prayers.
113:5.4 In the life of the flesh the
intelligence of angels is not directly available to mortal men.
They are not overlords or directors; they are simply guardians.
The seraphim guard you; they do not seek directly to
influence you; you must chart your own course, but these angels
then act to make the best possible use of the course you have
chosen. They do not (ordinarily) arbitrarily intervene in the
routine affairs of human life. But when they receive
instructions from their superiors to perform some unusual
exploit, you may rest assured that these guardians will find
some means of carrying out these mandates. They do not,
therefore, intrude into the picture of human drama except in
emergencies and then usually on the direct orders of their
superiors. They are the beings who are going to follow you for
many an age, and they are thus receiving an introduction to
their future work and personality association.
113:5.5 Seraphim are able to function as
material ministers to human beings under certain circumstances,
but their action in this capacity is very rare. They are able,
with the assistance of the midway creatures and the physical
controllers, to function in a wide range of activities in behalf
of human beings, even to make actual contact with mankind, but
such occurrences are very unusual. In most instances the
circumstances of the material realm proceed unaltered by
seraphic action, although occasions have arisen, involving
jeopardy to vital links in the chain of human evolution, in
which seraphic guardians have acted, and properly, on their own
initiative.
6. GUARDIAN ANGELS AFTER DEATH
113:6.1 Having told you something of the
ministry of seraphim during natural life, I will endeavor to
inform you about the conduct of the guardians of destiny at the
time of the mortal dissolution of their human associates. Upon
your death, your records, identity specifications, and the
morontia entity of the human soul -- conjointly evolved by the
ministry of mortal mind and the divine Adjuster -- are
faithfully conserved by the destiny guardian together with all
other values related to your future existence, everything that
constitutes you, the real you, except the identity of continuing
existence represented by the departing Adjuster and the
actuality of personality.
113:6.2 The instant the pilot light in the
human mind disappears, the spirit luminosity which seraphim
associate with the presence of the Adjuster, the attending angel
reports in person to the commanding angels, successively, of the
group, company, battalion, unit, legion, and host; and after
being duly registered for the final adventure of time and space,
such an angel receives certification by the planetary chief of
seraphim for reporting to the Evening Star (or other lieutenant
of Gabriel) in command of the seraphic army of this candidate
for universe ascension. And upon being granted permission from
the commander of this highest organizational unit, such a
guardian of destiny proceeds to the first mansion world and
there awaits the consciousizing of her former ward in the flesh.
113:6.3 In case the human soul fails of
survival after having received the assignment of a personal
angel, the attending seraphim must proceed to the headquarters
of the local universe, there to witness to the complete records
of her complement as previously reported. Next she goes before
the tribunals of the archangels, to be absolved from blame in
the matter of the survival failure of her subject; and then she
goes back to the worlds, again to be assigned to another mortal
of ascending potentiality or to some other division of seraphic
ministry.
113:6.4 But angels minister to evolutionary
creatures in many ways aside from the services of personal and
group guardianship. Personal guardians whose subjects do not go
immediately to the mansion worlds do not tarry there in idleness
awaiting the dispensational roll calls of judgment; they are
reassigned to numerous ministering missions throughout the
universe.
113:6.5 The guardian seraphim is the custodial
trustee of the survival values of mortal man's slumbering soul
as the absent Adjuster is the identity of such an immortal
universe being. When these two collaborate in the resurrection
halls of mansonia in conjunction with the newly fabricated
morontia form, there occurs the reassembly of the constituent
factors of the personality of the mortal ascender.
113:6.6 The Adjuster will identify you; the
guardian seraphim will repersonalize you and then re-present you
to the faithful Monitor of your earth days.
113:6.7 And even so, when a planetary age
ends, when those in the lower circles of mortal achievement are
forgathered, it is their group guardians who reassemble them in
the resurrection halls of the mansion spheres, even as your
record tells: "And he shall send his angels with a great voice
and shall gather together his elect from one end of the realm to
another."
113:6.8 The technique of justice demands that
personal or group guardians shall respond to the dispensational
roll call in behalf of all nonsurviving personalities. The
Adjusters of such nonsurvivors do not return, and when the rolls
are called, the seraphim respond, but the Adjusters make no
answer. This constitutes the "resurrection of the unjust," in
reality the formal recognition of the cessation of creature
existence. This roll call of justice always immediately follows
the roll call of mercy, the resurrection of the sleeping
survivors. But these are matters which are of concern to none
but the supreme and all-knowing Judges of survival values. Such
problems of adjudication do not really concern us.
113:6.9 Group guardians may serve on a planet
age after age and eventually become custodians of the slumbering
souls of thousands upon thousands of sleeping survivors. They
can so serve on many different worlds in a given system since
the resurrection response occurs on the mansion worlds.
113:6.10 All personal and group guardians in
the system of Satania who went astray in the Lucifer rebellion,
notwithstanding that many sincerely repented of their folly, are
to be detained on Jerusem until the final adjudication of the
rebellion. Already have the Universal Censors arbitrarily taken
from these disobedient and unfaithful guardians all aspects of
their soul trusts and lodged these morontia realities for
safekeeping in the custody of volunteer seconaphim.
7. SERAPHIM AND THE ASCENDANT CAREER
113:7.1 It is indeed an epoch in the career of
an ascending mortal, this first awakening on the shores of the
mansion world; there, for the first time, actually to see your
long-loved and ever-present angelic companions of earth days;
there also to become truly conscious of the identity and
presence of the divine Monitor who so long indwelt your mind on
earth. Such an experience constitutes a glorious awakening, a
real resurrection.
113:7.2 On the morontia spheres the attending
seraphim (there are two of them) are your open companions. These
angels not only consort with you as you progress through the
career of the transition worlds, in every way possible assisting
you in the acquirement of morontia and spirit status, but they
also avail themselves of the opportunity to advance by study in
the extension schools for evolutionary seraphim maintained on
the mansion worlds.
113:7.3 The human race was created just a
little lower than the more simple types of the angelic orders.
Therefore will your first assignment of the morontia life be as
assistants to the seraphim in the immediate work awaiting at the
time you attain personality consciousness subsequent to your
liberation from the bonds of the flesh.
113:7.4 Before leaving the mansion worlds, all
mortals will have permanent seraphic associates or guardians.
And as you ascend the morontia spheres, eventually it is the
seraphic guardians who witness and certify the decrees of your
eternal union with the Thought Adjusters. Together they have
established your personality identities as children of the flesh
from the worlds of time. Then, with your attainment of the
mature morontia estate, they accompany you through Jerusem and
the associated worlds of system progress and culture. After that
they go with you to Edentia and its seventy spheres of advanced
socialization, and subsequently will they pilot you to the
Melchizedeks and follow you through the superb career of the
universe headquarters worlds. And when you have learned the
wisdom and culture of the Melchizedeks, they will take you on to
Salvington, where you will stand face to face with the Sovereign
of all Nebadon. And still will these seraphic guides follow you
through the minor and major sectors of the superuniverse and on
to the receiving worlds of Uversa, remaining with you until you
finally enseconaphim for the long Havona flight.
113:7.5 Some of the destiny guardians of
attachment during the mortal career follow the course of the
ascending pilgrims through Havona. The others bid their
long-time mortal associates a temporary farewell, and then,
while these mortals traverse the circles of the central
universe, these guardians of destiny achieve the circles of
Seraphington. And they will be in waiting on the shores of
Paradise when their mortal associates awaken from the last
transit sleep of time into the new experiences of eternity. Such
ascending seraphim subsequently enter upon divergent services in
the finaliter corps and in the Seraphic Corps of Completion.
113:7.6 Man and angel may or may not be
reunited in eternal service, but wherever seraphic assignment
may take them, the seraphim are always in communication with
their former wards of the evolutionary worlds, the ascendant
mortals of time. The intimate associations and the affectionate
attachments of the realms of human origin are never forgotten
nor ever completely severed. In the eternal ages men and angels
will co-operate in the divine service as they did in the career
of time.
113:7.7 For seraphim, the surest way of
achieving the Paradise Deities is by successfully guiding a soul
of evolutionary origin to the portals of Paradise. Therefore is
the assignment of guardian of destiny the most highly prized
seraphic duty.
113:7.8 Only destiny guardians are mustered
into the primary or mortal Corps of the Finality, and such pairs
have engaged in the supreme adventure of identity at-oneness;
the two beings have achieved spiritual bi-unification on
Seraphington prior to their reception into the finaliter corps.
In this experience the two angelic natures, so complemental in
all universe functions, achieve ultimate spirit two-in-oneness,
repercussing in a new capacity for the reception of, and fusion
with, a non-Adjuster fragment of the Paradise Father. And so do
some of your loving seraphic associates in time also become your
finaliter associates in eternity, children of the Supreme and
perfected sons of the Paradise Father.
113:7.9
Presented by the Chief of Seraphim stationed on Urantia.
