As a youth, my religious experience was negligible. Growing up in Alabama, in the “Heart of Dixie,” where the predominantly Christian-based fundamentalism of the deep South was embodied in an iconic billboard on Interstate 65 that depicted the stereotypical red devil warning travelers to “Go to church or the Devil will get you!”, was an unwelcoming spiritual environment to me.
My father’s heart had been embittered toward religion by his experience with Catholic school, so my parents did not attend church or provide any direct spiritual guidance. Despite the absence of any religious foundation at home, I developed a belief in God the Father and a hazy concept of Jesus as the Son of God from my encounters with others outside the home.
Occasionally, I attended church with friends, and I remember on one occasion my dad asking me what the preacher talked about; “choices,” I replied. I did not think too much about the importance of choices then or into my teen years, and I made a lot of dumb unspiritized choices. I realize now the significance of our moment-to-moment spiritized choices to seek and follow God’s will so we can actualize His beautiful plan of perfection for us as individuals and the greater planetary family.
Material mind is the arena in which human personalities live, are self-conscious, make decisions, choose God or forsake him, eternalize or destroy themselves.
— The URANTIA Book, Paper 111, Section 1, Paragraph 3
In the sixth grade, I moved to Birmingham, Alabama and encountered a Sikh family. They owned the local health food store, and their two sons went to my school. These boys withstood much teasing because of their white clothing and turbans, but they were not exotic people from another country, they were white folks like me, who I understand now were likely starseed.[1]
I first heard of the Baha’i and Quaker faiths in high school. My best friend’s mother was Baha’i and another friend’s mother was Quaker, but as a teenager I was not interested in learning about these diverse faiths; I was too immersed in self-gratification. I believe now that these other less mainstream faiths were likely part of my soul’s astral[2] past, as I am a fallen fourth-order starseed[3] soul who has lived many lives on Urantia/Earth.
As spirituality began to have a greater role in my life in my late 20s, I felt a calling and sense of destiny and developed a deep longing to find God. I sensed there must be a greater expanding truth that would overlay the underlying thread of truth and unite all faiths into a single tapestry. I could not find the answers to my growing list of questions within the framework of the dominant society in which I was living.
I started sincerely and actively seeking something, and my search eventually led me to the expanded concepts of truth within the The URANTIA Book (the Fifth Epochal Revelation) and The Cosmic Family volumes (Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation). Finally, my heart and mind found great comfort as I ventured onward and upward into an ever evolving and expanding relationship with the Creator and the living spiritual forces that work so diligently to guide us mortals through the ascension process.
This discovery led me to make a life-changing decision (remember those choices the preacher talked about?) to join Divine Administration[4] enrolling in the University of Ascension Science and the Physics of Rebellion (UASPR) and becoming a Human-Rights Advocate[5] with the goal of helping my planetary brothers and sisters to unite as One Planetary Family. I have been a student of the Fifth and Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation (The URANTIA Book and The Cosmic Family volumes) for more than twenty-five years.
The foundation of our studies at the UASPR is the Fifth and Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation, but we also study and incorporate truths from sacred texts of all faiths including the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Quran to name a few. Truth is ever expanding and evolving, and there is much of eternal value in these sacred texts.
Several years ago, I felt divinely led to explore Islam and read the Quran. I had begun to have an interest in and developed a deepening connection with the peoples of the Middle East, particularly the Iranian people. As I began to learn about their beautifully rich culture and history, past-life memory circuits[6] began to open, not in the way that I remember visiting my grandmother’s house at Christmas time, but ethereal and emotional memories of a more profound spiritual nature.
As a starseed, I was certain I had experienced Persian, Arab, and possibly other Middle Eastern past lives. Even though I had not visited these places in this life, I felt a great love, kinship, and understanding of these people, who have been mostly vilified by the mainstream Western culture and media for their political and theological history.
I had no idea what to expect from the Quran. With the worldwide pandemic of anti-Islamic rhetoric and violent Islamic fundamentalism on the rise, I was curious to see how the Quran would fit into my expanding cosmic consciousness. To my delight, I experienced a richer encounter with the Holy Spirit[7] as well as the Spirit of Truth[8].
My personal encounter with Islam through reading and studying the Quran has brought me much comfort and inner peace. It rekindled a sliver of my soul that had long faded, more greatly activated the Threefold Spirit[9] within me, and further called my fallen soul to attention.
I have no doubt my experience is the reconnection of an astral reality that I carry in my soul from past lives where I have been Muslin. I found the core message that God revealed to Mohammed, submission to Allah, to be the same message found in the Bible and in the Fifth and Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation, which is the importance of adhering to God's commandments and universal laws.
I continue to be profoundly moved when I read the Quran. At times, I even listen to Arabic recitations and allow the beauty of this poetic language to seep into the cracks of my astral body. Any sincere seeker of God/Allah can witness to the beauty of the true core of the Islamic faith and the poetry of the revelation, even when translated into English.
Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth. His light is as a niche containing a lamp, the lamp inside a crystal of star-like brilliance lit from a blessed olive tree, neither of the east nor of the west, the oil of which would well-nigh glow of itself though no fire touched it. Light upon light! Allah guides whom He will to His Light. Allah strikes out parables for men, and Allah knows all things.
Surah Al-Noor, The Light, verse 35
Much of the Quran’s tone and message of warning is familiar to those of us in Divine Administration who are assimilating into the very fabric of our being the ascension science principles[10] found in Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation (The Cosmic Family volumes) that will heal and accelerate the spiritual ascension of our souls during this present Adjudication of the Bright and Morning Star vs. Lucifer[11] taking place on our planet.
The Lucifer Rebellion[12] was a very real “war in heaven” that took place 200,000 years ago. This war of concepts was presented by Lucifer, who at the time was the System Sovereign[13] in charge of nearly 1,000 planets in the administrative system of Satania. Today our world suffers greatly due to the 200,000-year implementation of these concepts on a planetary scale.
We have adopted Lucifer’s battle cry of separation, which has led to the endless proliferation of “isms”, walls, and divisions. We cannot accept another’s different viewpoint or perspective without skepticism and rancor.
As I have come to accept and understand what it means to be a fallen fourth-order starseed, I become more aware of the internal struggle to identify and overcome my dio[14] patterns, hidden faults, and presumptuous sins. At times it is a challenge to maintain the forward momentum of accelerated spiritual growth that I believe God expects of me. This personal struggle and striving to resist and overcome error, sin, and even iniquity is what Muslims call jihad.
In Arabic, the word jihad has depth of meaning and is a beautiful Islamic concept whose higher meaning is the internal struggle against evil, sin, and iniquity that each of us encounters throughout our spiritual ascension. Yet the concept of jihad has been perverted and misrepresented by Caligastia[15] and his army of fallen forces to justify violence against infidels and enemies of Islam.
For fourth-order starseed, this jihad is often daunting as our higher- and lower-selves battle for dominance. But this current life is the life to leave behind all our past mistakes and purify our hearts, minds, and souls.
Though I have never doubted or questioned God’s calling on my life to come to Divine Administration for training to become a leader in the new world to come, I sometimes falter in my dedication to this call by doubting myself and by not trusting Allah to fully surrender all into His hands. Nonetheless, with each new sunrise comes the opportunity to make moment-to-moment choices to lean into in the jihad to overcome my lower self, renew my heart and mind, purify my soul, and let God’s light shine.
Bismillaahir Rahmaanir Raheem,
In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
there is a new world coming.
[1] Starseed are mortals living on Urantia whose first life (or point of origin) was on another planet and most likely another universe. As of 2022, Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation reveals that there are approximately 1 billion starseed on Urantia. See The Cosmic Family, Volume 1 for more information.
[2] Astral body is a composite of all the previous bodies in which a personality has existed at any point in time and space. Each existence has a separate body connected to it. See The Cosmic Family, Volume 1 for more information.
[3] Fourth-order starseed - The Cosmic Family, Volume 1 reveals there are seven orders of starseed, the majority of which are fourth-order starseed. These are souls from other planets and universes who fell to the erroneous concepts and doctrines of self-assertion and unbridled liberty presented in the Lucifer Rebellion 200,000 years ago.
[4] Divine Administration is a group of human mortals called by God to become the future leaders of spiritual concepts on Urantia. They train under the guidance of and work cooperatively with celestial beings of higher dimensions with the goal of implementing a cross-cultural model for higher civilization on Earth that is a reflection of the spiritual administration.
[5] Human-Rights Advocate is a person who has an innate sense that he/she feels called to step out of the predominant system of greed and serve God and humanity to help build and usher in a new paradigm of living, the Kingdom of God on earth.
[6] Memory circuits - the awareness of past life existences, which are opened gradually by the grace and mercy of God. It is important that a soul discover his/her past life existences for true psychospiritual healing to take place in order to return to one’s point of origin or highest spiritual ascension level before the fall.
[7] Holy Spirit - The URANTIA Book reveals that the Holy Spirit is different from the Spirit of Truth and is the spiritual circuit of the Universe Mother Spirit, which is indigenous to each local universe and is confined to the spiritual realm of that creation. See Paper 34 in The URANTIA Book for more about the local Universe Mother Spirit.
[8] Spirit of Truth - Also known as “the Comforter” which was bestowed to Urantia after Jesus’ resurrection. “The coming of the Spirit of Truth purifies the human heart and leads the recipient to formulate a life purpose single to the will of God and the welfare of men.” ~ The URANTIA Book, Paper 194, Section 3, Paragraph 19.
[9] Threefold Spirit - The combined activation and functioning of three separate manifestations of the Paradise Trinity: the Thought Adjuster (a fragment of the Universal Father), the Spirit of Truth, and the Holy Spirit within a mortal. See The Cosmic Family, Volume 1
[10] Ascension science is a universe spiritual science that fuses spirituality with science. The University of Ascension Science and the Physics of Rebellion is the only school on Urantia/Earth that teaches ascension science precept upon precept, concept upon concept to the highest degree.
[11] Adjudication of the Bright and Morning Star vs. Lucifer – The Cosmic Family, Volume 1 reveals this purification or cleansing of Urantia/Earth intensified in 1911, was upstepped in 1989, and will soon be completed with the promised return of Christ Michael (Jesus) to our planet and the beginning of the First Stage of Light and Life. The Adjudication is a combined celestial and mortal judicial process, led by the Bright and Morning Star (Gabriel of Salvington), representing the final determinations and conclusion of the Lucifer Rebellion throughout the planetary system of Satania.
[12] Lucifer Rebellion - At the time, Lucifer, a Primary Lanonandek Son, was the System Sovereign of Satania. Paper 53 of The URANTIA Book provides a detailed explanation about the Lucifer Rebellion. See The Cosmic Family, Volume I for more information about starseed and the effects of the Lucifer Rebellion on Urantia and on planets in other universes.
[13] System Sovereign – A high order of celestial being called a Primary Lanonandek Son who is in charge of the wellbeing and watch care of a grouping of 1,000 planets, referred to as a system. See The URANTIA Book, Paper 45.
[14] dio – not Godly or of divine pattern; adhering to concepts presented in the Lucifer Rebellion.
[15] Caligastia – The former Planetary Prince of Urantia at the time of the Lucifer Rebellion. Caligastia followed Lucifer in a rebellion 200,000 years ago. Although shorn of all administrative powers, Caligastia has been allowed to remain on the planet until his Adjudication is over. The “devil” is none other than Caligastia. See Paper 66 in The URANTIA Book.