The Urantia Book says that the “universe is one vast school.”
For many children and young people, education is one of their few opportunities to emerge from poverty and become self-sustaining and self-actualized members of society. Education is one pillar of society that must be universal, well-financed, fully accessible, and high quality in order for every young person to enter adulthood on as level of a playing field as possible.
As educators and students return to classrooms around many parts of the world this time of year, we offer these quotes from The Urantia Book that honor the pivotal role educators play in our society and its ongoing evolution.
2:7.12 (43.5) The real purpose of all universe education is to effect the better co-ordination of the isolated child of the worlds with the larger realities of his expanding experience.
16:6.11 (192.7) It is the purpose of education to develop and sharpen these innate endowments of the human mind; of civilization to express them; of life experience to realize them; of religion to ennoble them; and of personality to unify them.
25:3.12 (278.3) The higher a creature’s education, the more respect he has for the knowledge, experience, and opinions of others.
37:6.2 (412.2) The entire universe is one vast school.
46:5.29 (526.4) There is great education value in mingling with diverse groups of personalities, orders very different from one’s own fellows.
71:7.1 (806.1) The purpose of education should be acquirement of skill, pursuit of wisdom, realization of selfhood, and attainment of spiritual values.
71:7.2 (806.2) In the ideal state, education continues throughout life, and philosophy sometime becomes the chief pursuit of its citizens.
71:7.3 (806.3) Education will jump to new levels of value with the passing of the purely profit-motivated system of economics. Education has too long been localistic, militaristic, ego exalting, and success seeking; it must eventually become world-wide, idealistic, self-realizing, and cosmic grasping.
71:7.4 (806.4) Education recently passed from the control of the clergy to that of lawyers and businessmen. Eventually it must be given over to the philosophers and the scientists. Teachers must be free beings, real leaders, to the end that philosophy, the search for wisdom, may become the chief educational pursuit.
71:7.5 (806.5) Education is the business of living; it must continue throughout a lifetime so that mankind may gradually experience the ascending levels of mortal wisdom, which are:
1. The knowledge of things.
2. The realization of meanings.
3. The appreciation of values.
4. The nobility of work-duty.
5. The motivation of goals-morality.
6. The love of service-character.
7. Cosmic insight-spiritual discernment.
71:2.7 (802.1) Education of public opinion is the only safe and true method of accelerating civilization; force is only a temporary expedient, and cultural growth will increasingly accelerate as bullets give way to ballots.
81:6.24 (909.5) The human baby is born without an education; therefore man possesses the power, by controlling the educational training of the younger generation, greatly to modify the evolutionary course of civilization.
81:6.35 (910.8) No national civilization long endures unless its educational methods and religious ideals inspire a high type of intelligent patriotism and national devotion. Without this sort of intelligent patriotism and cultural solidarity, all nations tend to disintegrate as a result of provincial jealousies and local self-interests.
82:0.2 (913.2) While religious, social, and educational institutions are all essential to the survival of cultural civilization, the family is the master civilizer. A child learns most of the essentials of life from his family and the neighbors.
88:6.7 (972.7) Gradually science is removing the gambling element from life. But if modern methods of education should fail, there would be an almost immediate reversion to the primitive beliefs in magic. These superstitions still linger in the minds of many so-called civilized people. Language contains many fossils which testify that the race has long been steeped in magical superstition, such words as spellbound, ill-starred, possessions, inspiration, spirit away, ingenuity, entrancing, thunderstruck, and astonished. And intelligent human beings still believe in good luck, the evil eye, and astrology.
90:2.9 (988.5) Ever and anon, true prophets and teachers arose to denounce and expose shamanism….And they will ever continue to appear to challenge the shamans or priests of any age who oppose general education and attempt to thwart scientific progress.
100:1.2 (1094.4) Some persons are too busy to grow and are therefore in grave danger of spiritual fixation. Provision must be made for growth of meanings at differing ages, in successive cultures, and in the passing stages of advancing civilization. The chief inhibitors of growth are prejudice and ignorance.
100:1.3 (1094.5) Give every developing child a chance to grow his own religious experience; do not force a ready-made adult experience upon him. Remember, year-by-year progress through an established educational regime does not necessarily mean intellectual progress, much less spiritual growth…. Real educational growth is indicated by enhancement of ideals, increased appreciation of values, new meanings of values, and augmented loyalty to supreme values.
100:1.4 (1094.6) The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole.
102:3.1 (1121.3) Intellectual deficiency or educational poverty unavoidably handicaps higher religious attainment because such an impoverished environment of the spiritual nature robs religion of its chief channel of philosophic contact with the world of scientific knowledge.
114:6.11 (1256.1) 7. The angels of enlightenment. Urantia is now receiving the help of the third corps of seraphim dedicated to the fostering of planetary education. These angels are occupied with mental and moral training as it concerns individuals, families, groups, schools, communities, nations, and whole races.
195:10.16 (2086.2) The great hope of Urantia lies in the possibility of a new revelation of Jesus ….
195:10.17 (2086.3) Even secular education could help in this great spiritual renaissance if it would pay more attention to the work of teaching youth how to engage in life planning and character progression. The purpose of all education should be to foster and further the supreme purpose of life, the development of a majestic and well-balanced personality. There is great need for the teaching of moral discipline in the place of so much self-gratification. Upon such a foundation religion may contribute its spiritual incentive to the enlargement and enrichment of mortal life, even to the security and enhancement of life eternal.