THE ARENA _____ ANZURA Volume 11 No 4 The Australian and New Zealand Summer 2004/05 URANTIA Association THE MIND ARENA OF CHOICE 'Mind is your ship, the Adjuster is your pilot, the human will is captain." (page 1217) The Rewards of Isolation In this issue... Readers will recall that the technique of isolation, IUA News separate development, and re-combination is extensively Your IUA Team ................................................ 2 used in the evolutionary process. Atlantic Eden………………….…….…….. 2 IUA Conference 2006………………………… 3 The grand universe itself is divided into the seven superuniverses, each of which is kept so isolated from the Contributions others that not even a message can be transmitted from The making of subinfinite penetrators ... 4 one to another except through the Paradise clearinghouse An artist's impression of stage 1 ..................... 6 of the Master Spirits. Upon the settling of all seven in Study Groups in Australia & New Zealand ............ 8 light and life, the supernniverses will begin to interact with one another directly—and what a stupendous revelation The Lanonandek bestowal ...................... …….……8 that will be. Each of the superuniverses is reflective of a different Master Spirit, and the Master Spirits are very different from one another Each superuniverse will be Urantia within Satania, and the default meant the very surprising to the others, and no doubt their continuation of the isolation. So now we have The Urantia combination will take eons, but the result will be the Book, and the possibility of Agondonter status. completion of Supremacy, which (probably) could not have In addition, however, we have the possibility of been achieved in any other way. evolving a unique way of recombining the various strands Something of the same could be said about the local of our isolation into that planetary culture which ill be universes, but their isolation is not as total as the our very unusual form of light and life.Jt would not be all superuniverses. that surprising to discover that Urantia's form of light and life turns out to be pretty different from that of more normal But a real echo of the technique at the planetary level is seen in the separation of the races. Here, the races are planets, and then again, maybe it will be rather a surprise deliberately planned to repel one another, so that they to the rest of Nebadon. But we won't know that any time migrate to different continents (or fight one another), where soon, of course. they develop their different civilizations. These different It does seem to me that Australia and New Zealand races are then re-combined to bring about a unified culture are particularly well placed to ponder this question. We exhibiting the best characteristics of the separate have experienced geographical isolation from the main civilizations, and uplifted by blending with the violet race. centers of planetary development for most of our history, In these instances we may think of isolation as being only recently coming to think of ourselves as part of the an essential ingredient of evolutionary growth—part of mainstream. And in Australia, (probably more than New the technique of Supremaey. The fact that it has all gone Zealand), we have experienced isolation from one another wrong on Urantia does not alter this conclusion. On normal until fairly recently, as a small population spread over a planets it works. Indeed, it is the very fact that it hasn't very large landmass. It may be true that most of us now worked here (yet) which provides us with the opportunity live in cities with good transport and communication to demonstrate the rewards of isolation in our own way. systems between them, but this is recent. Much of OM history, and certainly our traditions, are stories of the The rebellion isolated Satania within Norlatiadek and ® Registered Mark of TJRANTIA Foundation. Used pursuant to license. THE ARENA lonely struggles of isolated individuals and small groups Side-scan echoes from Eden against an unpredictable landscape, One month after Dennis de Jong enthralled attendees This experience has given us a certain outlook—a at ,ANZURA's 2004 Canberra Conference with preliminary maps and images, Robert Sarmast and his team have perspective on existence—which comes to terms with successfully completed the first stage of their project—to isolation in constructive ways_ The small team struggling discover the hill from which Adam and Eve once looked to achieve some goal, isolated from its fellow men and up out upon the world of their assignment. against vast natural obstacles is the paradigm experience "The 6 day long, privately-funded $200,000 of Australians. I think New Zealanders share this in their expedition has confounded or at least confused own way, though their geography is different. skeptics by bringing back scientific side-scan sonar It doesn't take much of a leap of imagination to see data which supports evidence from previous scans of the Eastern Mediterranean revealing man-made the readers of The Urantia Book in an analogous position. structures (including a 31cm long wall, a walled hill We constitute a tiny proportion of the planetary population, summit and deep trenches) - plus old river beds - scattered hither and yon among the population at large, in exactly the formation and proportions that Plato desperately trying to interest our fellow men in the most himself described for the Acropolis Hill of Atlantis significant body of information to appear on the planet City in his works of 2,400 years ago." for 2000 years. Whether or not Sarmast has discovered the first Eden, The small team, up against the odds, seems to fit. media outlets around the world-wide have picked up the story, and now await release of the new high resolution data gathered during the expedition. Even scientific curiosity has been aroused by the unusual formations detected a mile beneath the waves, half way between ANZURA AGM Cyprus and Syria. More details can be found at: ANZURA held its annual general meeting in Canberra on 10 October 2004. (For ANZLTRA members, see the http://www.discoveryotatlantis.com minutes and the various reports enclosed.) Elections were held for the President and Secretary positions. Vern Verass was re-elected as President and THE ARENA Kathleen Swadling was re-elected as Secretary. Neil PO Box 609, Narrabeen, NSW 2101, Australia Francey resigned his position as Vice President mid-term and William Wentworth was appointed to fill the vacancy. E mail [email protected] So now ANZURA's Governing Board consists of the Web : www-urantia.org.auianzura following personnel: Phone : + 61 2 9970 6200 Fax : + 61 2 9970 6201 President — Vern Verass The Arena is a quarterly publication Vice President — William Wentworth dedicated to the promotion of goodwill and understanding among readers of Secretary — Kathleen Swadling The Urantia Book. Treasurer — Rita Schaad Editorial contributions are welcome. NZ Representative — Marion Steward Subscription rates: In addition to the AGM, the Governing Board also held a continuous email meeting throughout the year. Australia/New Zealand – SA10 per year. (Again, members, see enclosed for minutes of that Other countries – SA15 per year. meeting). The main highlight of the email meeting was Please remit in Australian currency, the creation of a conference committee to take care of the cheques made payable to ANZURA. planning and organisation of the 2006 ILIA conference that's to be held in Sydney. Merindi Swadling was Interpretations and opinions expressed appointed Chair of this committee and the other members are those of the authors and do not are Nigel Nunn, Rita Schaad, Marion Steward, Kathleen necessarily represent those ofANZURA, Swadling, Vern Verass and William Wentworth. Other The Arena, or Urantia Foundation. sub committees will be formed to take care of the various All quotations, unless otherwise indicated, aspects of the planning process. are from The Urantia Book el 1955 and used by permission. page 2 December 2004 THE ARENA Next International Urantia held 14 to 18 July 2006. Although it will be in the middle of our winter, it is a time when people from the Northern Association (IUA) Conference to be Hemisphere take their summer vacations, so an held in Sydney, Australia, July 2006! international conference "down under" will give many readers a good reason to make the long journey and come Yes, it's true! We Aussies and Kiwi's are hosting the and spend their vacation time visiting our great countries. next big international event for the IUA here on our very own home turf! In an effort to make it more affordable for our Australian and New Zealand readers the ANZURA The ILIA holds an international conference once every Governing Board decided at the recent annual general two years. The venues alternate between one of the North meeting not to hold our usual national conference for 2005. American countries and a non-North American country, Therefore we hope there will be a good turnout of Aussies which means that every four years the conference is held and Kiwis who will make a special effort to attend this outside of North America. very special event. We're anticipating the entire At the last meeting of the IUA's Representative conference fee to be around $450. Council, which was held in Chicago last July, the members Here is the initial announcement that has already been asked the ANZURA representatives if they would be sent to the internet discussion groups: prepared to host the international conference for 2006 in Australia. Our representatives gladly accepted the challenge and since then the ANZURA Governing Board have been busy making the preliminary preparations. A conference committee has been formed, a theme has been established, and a suitable and affordable venue has been secured.