What I liked was certain comparatives in religious insight and religious teachings.
In studying belief and the evolution of revelation and belief, what remains consistent between teachings is viable.
The need to know and the means to know keep evolving.
I like the way they describe it from their perspective.
I don't know if you believe in a race or races of people that exist beyond the comprehensive reality of earth life but if you did, to listen to a point of view that is supposedly given after having traversed earth life into greater experience of reality and living within an alternate construct still having its own natural laws to maintain levels of successive evolution and experience makes sense to me.

It sort of picks up where Seth, in the Jane Roberts books I read back in the mid 70's left off. Going into greater detail.

What I found useful was tuning in to the information and playing with resonance.
A Wise man once taught me that if it ain't true in the heart then set it aside and seek that which resonates.
The first time I read the Urantia book about 6 years ago I could hardly read it. I've found that on occasion I can pick up a book that I read once before and got nothing out of and get something I didn't notice before.
It's the same with the Upanishads and the Bible.
If you can filter through the crap, what stands out is resonating at levels that are not often comprehended when you are in a certain state of mind that prevents you from being objective.

Part III is an easy read.(for me)
I suppose I should mention that the Urantia book has a lot of truth mixed with fabrication, and so when reading it I think one has to be inspired to look for Truth rather than just accepting what has been written as Truth.

I don't believe any people exist except on Earth. Nobody can be certain, but I have a hunch we are alone in the universe. Some life had to be the first to arise and it may be here that it did.

life..........is a mirage.

is it ever not a mirage?

IMO no. I find life to be nothing more than a classification.

How about outside the confinement of conceptualization, like when experiencing astral projection or expanded consciousness?

Expanded consciousness to me seems as much an illusion as my current consciousness, unless by expanded you mean my consciousness has become a vaccuume of sorts, in which case I would not be conscious.

I concur with you wholeheartedly. We are the first. And all we got is NOW. And I also believe that's all we need.

What about panspermia? I thought that was gaining a little weight since it was discovered that the Moon was bombarded millions of years ago by a wave of asteroids which had been flung out of orbit from the resonance of Jupiter.

It was simply a hypothesis because every rock they brought back from the Moon had the same geological age, which seemed strange. But they eventually found moon rock on the Earth that correlated the same date. Obviously we weren't bombarded like the Moon because of Earths atmosphere.

Panspermia merely shifts the problem of the origin of life elsewhere. Earth is the best place for life to originate because it is the only known planet with liquid water.

Expanded consciousness will always be an illusion when perceiving within conceptual reality. It doesn't make much sense to say there would be no consciousness when experiencing an expanded sate of consciousness.

On the contrary, consciousness, expanded or not, is the only thing that we can know directly. If consciousness itself is an illusion, then there is no hope of ever knowing anything for sure.

The fact that I am conscious could never be an illusion, based on my own personal experience.

And then there is the fact that I could become either less conscious or more conscious. If this is what you mean by consciousness, that is.

Becoming more conscious is a good interpretation of expanded consciousness, but of course it could never cut it.

Consciousness is what one experiences when one is conscious. It is a thing that can be observed (sort of) as well as experienced. Consciousness expansion can result from consciousness expanding drugs. Some say meditation can do that as well. Others say that meditation is something to be done when consciousness has already been expanded by drugs.

Like those couple of times I blew myself up on acid and had to integrate the experience through meditation!

I'm followin ya

or should I have said, re-integrate myself

If this is an illusion, how could we ever know it?

If this (consciousness) is an illusion, what is the illusion and what might the actual nature of "us" be? (And I don't mean the nature of the physical world, cos we already know that what we see is not what is there, though we don't quite know what IS there yet).

Seems like "expanded consciousness" has too many definitions to be useful. It's bad enough having no useful definitions for mind, consciousness, thought and life, but let's at least deal with them first, eh, before getting into science fiction.

(By the way, chilli highs are almost mystical.)

If you believe the senses are not capable of such an ability there would be no opening for the awareness.
If you a have a belief that it is possible you would have to find a way around the ego and its other beliefs in what is possible and impossible, to open yourself to the reality of knowledge and experience beyond illusion.

But then how are you defining illusion and how do you apply it to the relative?