Teacher-Brother Dave's initial comments: I am presenting some of my Topical Studies from the fully public domain, 2097 page, Fifth Epochal Revelation of Truth and with my added comments. The Revealed text is free of copyright, so you may freely share individually these supernal quotes with your friends and relatives. But my order of selections, font types for emphasis and my added comments are Copyright 2022 by Dave@PureChristians.org All Rights Reserved. Contact me first about using the whole Study or group of Studies.
[My added comments of explanation below are in these square brackets]
Topical Study number 146
"How to facilitate further progress in the Brotherhood of Man."
Part 5
Compiled Sept. 04, 2023 by Dave@PureChristians.org
Prayer...is the most potent spiritual-growth stimulus. 91:8.11-.13
PAPER 91 The Evolution of Prayer
8. Praying as a Personal Experience
91:8.11 God answers man’s prayer by giving him an increased revelation of truth, an enhanced appreciation of beauty, and an augmented concept of goodness. Prayer is a subjective gesture, but it contacts with mighty objective realities on the spiritual levels of human experience; it is a meaningful reach by the human for superhuman values. It is the most potent spiritual-growth stimulus.
91:8.12 Words are irrelevant to prayer; they are merely the intellectual channel in which the river of spiritual supplication may chance to flow. The word value of a prayer is purely autosuggestive in private devotions and sociosuggestive in group devotions. God answers the soul’s attitude, not the words.
91:8.13 Prayer is not a technique of escape from conflict but rather a stimulus to growth in the very face of conflict. Pray only for values, not things; for growth, not for gratification.
...greater enlightenment [should] deliver educated mortals from all dependence on intermediaries in communion with Deity. 92:7.11
PAPER 92 The Later Evolution of Religion
7. The Further Evolution of Religion
92:7.11 Religious meanings progress in self-consciousness when the child transfers his ideas of omnipotence from his parents to God. And the entire religious experience of such a child is largely dependent on whether fear or love has dominated the parent-child relationship. Slaves have always experienced great difficulty in transferring their master-fear into concepts of God-love. Civilization, science, and advanced religions must deliver mankind from those fears born of the dread of natural phenomena. And so should greater enlightenment deliver educated mortals from all dependence on intermediaries in communion with Deity. [God and you are directly connected at all times and in all places ! No "saints" and no ecclesiastical clergy needed !]
True religion must ever be, at one and the same time, the eternal foundation and the guiding star of all ENDURING civilizations. 92:7.15
92:7.15 True religion must ever be, at one and the same time, the eternal foundation and the guiding star of all enduring civilizations.
92:7.16 [Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.]
[Now we should present to all religions and faiths:]...not the gospel about Jesus, but the living, spiritual reality of the gospel of Jesus. 94:12.7
PAPER 94 The Melchizedek Teachings in the Orient
12. The God Concept of Buddhism
94:12.7 All Urantia [Earth] is waiting for the proclamation of the ennobling message of [Jesus Christ] Michael, unencumbered by the accumulated doctrines and dogmas of nineteen centuries of contact with the religions of evolutionary origin. The hour is striking for presenting to Buddhism, to Christianity, to Hinduism, even to the peoples of all faiths, not the gospel about Jesus, but the living, spiritual reality of the gospel of Jesus.
[Micah & Obadiah]...boldly denounced the priest-ridden ritual of the Hebrews and fearlessly attacked the whole sacrificial system. 97:5.4-.6
PAPER 97 Evolution of the God Concept Among the Hebrews
5. The First Isaiah
97:5.4 This Isaiah was followed by Micah and Obadiah, who confirmed and embellished his soul-satisfying gospel. And these two brave messengers boldly denounced the priest-ridden ritual of the Hebrews and fearlessly attacked the whole sacrificial system.
97:5.5 Micah denounced “the rulers who judge for reward and the priests who teach for hire and the prophets who divine for money.” He taught of a day of freedom from superstition and priestcraft, saying: “But every man shall sit under his own vine, and no one shall make him afraid, for all people will live, each one according to his understanding of God.”
97:5.6 Ever the burden of Micah’s message was: “Shall I come before God with burnt offerings? Will the Lord be pleased with a thousand rams or with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown me, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God?” And it was a great age; these were indeed stirring times when mortal man heard, and some even believed, such emancipating messages more than two and a half millenniums ago. And but for the stubborn resistance of the priests, these teachers would have overthrown the whole bloody ceremonial of the Hebrew ritual of worship.
Mankind is on the march toward a new and unrevealed planetary destiny. [Dangerous changes years 1935 to 2935 !] 99:1.1-.3
PAPER 99 The Social Problems of Religion
1. Religion and Social Reconstruction
99:1.1 Mechanical inventions and the dissemination of knowledge are modifying civilization; certain economic adjustments and social changes are imperative if cultural disaster is to be avoided. This new and oncoming social order will not settle down complacently for a millennium. [Years 1935 -2935 !] The human race must become reconciled to a procession of changes, adjustments, and readjustments. Mankind is on the march toward a new and unrevealed planetary destiny.
99:1.2 Religion must become a forceful influence for moral stability and spiritual progression functioning dynamically in the midst of these ever-changing conditions and never-ending economic adjustments.
99:1.3 Urantia society can never hope to settle down as in past ages. The social ship has steamed out of the sheltered bays of established tradition and has begun its cruise upon the high seas of evolutionary destiny; and the soul of man, as never before in the world’s history, needs carefully to scrutinize its charts of morality and painstakingly to observe the compass of religious guidance. The paramount mission of religion as a social influence is to stabilize the ideals of mankind during these dangerous times of transition from one phase of civilization to another, from one level of culture to another.
Only the real religion of personal spiritual experience can function helpfully & creatively in the present crisis of civilization. 99:2.1
2. Weakness of Institutional Religion
99:2.1 Institutional religion cannot afford inspiration and provide leadership in this impending world-wide social reconstruction and economic reorganization because it has unfortunately become more or less of an organic part of the social order and the economic system which is destined to undergo reconstruction. Only the real religion of personal spiritual experience can function helpfully and creatively in the present crisis of civilization.
The kingdom of heaven ... is an exclusively spiritual brotherhood of God-knowing individuals. 99:3.2
3. Religion and the Religionist
99:3.2 [Definitive !] The kingdom of heaven is neither a social nor economic order; it is an exclusively spiritual brotherhood of God-knowing individuals. True, such a brotherhood is in itself a new and amazing social phenomenon attended by astounding political and economic repercussions.
Together with children, religion is the great unifier of family life, provided it is a living and growing faith. 99:4.2
Family life cannot be had without children; ... [!!!] 99:4.2
4. Transition Difficulties
99:4.2 Social leadership is transformed by spiritual insight; religion prevents all collective movements from losing sight of their true objectives. Together with children, religion is the great unifier of family life, provided it is a living and growing faith. Family life cannot be had without children; it can be lived without religion, but such a handicap enormously multiplies the difficulties of this intimate human association. During the early decades of the twentieth century, family life, next to personal religious experience, suffers most from the decadence consequent upon the transition from old religious loyalties to the emerging new meanings and values.
Jesus sought to restore man’s dignity when he declared that all men [all humans] are the children of God. 99:5.5
5. Social Aspects of Religion
99:5.5 The doctrine of the total depravity of man destroyed much of the potential of religion for effecting social repercussions of an uplifting nature and of inspirational value. Jesus sought to restore man’s dignity when he declared that all men are the children of God. [All humans -- males and females equally -- are spiritually classified as sons of God. That is also stated by Jesus in the following two paragraph selections:]
PAPER 140 The Ordination of the Twelve
10. The Evening After the Consecration
140:10.7 After Jesus and Matthew had finished talking, Simon Zelotes asked, “But, Master, are ALL men the sons of God?” And Jesus answered: “Yes, Simon, [--->] all men are the sons of God, and that is the good news you are going to proclaim.” But the apostles could not grasp such a doctrine; it was a new, strange, and startling announcement. And it was because of his desire to impress this truth upon them that Jesus taught his followers to treat all men as their brothers.
PAPER 193 Final Appearances and Ascension
1. The Appearance at Sychar
193:1.2 [Jesus:] “Peace be upon you. You rejoice to know that I am the resurrection and the life, but this will avail you nothing unless you are first born of the eternal spirit, thereby coming to possess, by faith, the gift of eternal life. If you are the faith sons of my Father, you shall never die; you shall not perish. The gospel of the kingdom has taught you that [--->] all men are the sons of God. And this good news concerning the love of the heavenly Father for his children on earth must be carried to all the world. The time has come when you worship God neither on Gerizim nor at Jerusalem, but where you are, as you are, in spirit and in truth. It is your faith that saves your souls. Salvation is the gift of God to all who believe they are his sons. But be not deceived; while salvation is the free gift of God and is bestowed upon all who accept it by faith, there follows the experience of bearing the fruits of this spirit life as it is lived in the flesh. The acceptance of the doctrine of the fatherhood of God implies that you also freely accept the associated truth of the brotherhood of man. And if man is your brother, he is even more than your neighbor, whom the Father requires you to love as yourself. Your brother, being of your own family, you will not only love with a family affection, but you will also serve as you would serve yourself. And you will thus love and serve your brother because you, being my brethren, have been thus loved and served by me. Go, then, into all the world telling this good news to all creatures of every race, tribe, and nation. My spirit shall go before you, and I will be with you always.”
Goals rather than creeds should unify religionists. 99:5.7
PAPER 99 The Social Problems of Religion
5. Social Aspects of Religion
99:5.7 Just as certainly as men share their religious beliefs, they create a religious group of some sort which eventually creates common goals. Someday religionists will get together and actually effect co-operation on the basis of unity of ideals and purposes rather than attempting to do so on the basis of psychological opinions and theological beliefs. Goals rather than creeds should unify religionists. Since true religion is a matter of personal spiritual experience, it is inevitable that each individual religionist must have his own and personal interpretation of the realization of that spiritual experience. Let the term “faith” stand for the individual’s relation to God rather than for the creedal formulation of what some group of mortals have been able to agree upon as a common religious attitude. “Have you faith? Then have it to yourself.”
It is far better to have a religion without a church than a church without religion. 99:6.1
6. Institutional Religion
99:6.1 Sectarianism is a disease of institutional religion, and dogmatism is an enslavement of the spiritual nature. It is far better to have a religion without a church than a church without religion. The religious turmoil of the twentieth century does not, in and of itself, betoken spiritual decadence. Confusion goes before growth as well as before destruction.
[I add: Today, and growing fast, there are worldwide probably several million small home-family spiritual fellowship and religious study groups; they are secret in countries with dictators who want to murder Christians. "Priesthood of all believers !"]
The goal of human self-realization should be spiritual, not material. 100:2.6
PAPER 100 Religion in Human Experience
2. Spiritual Growth
100:2.6 The goal of human self-realization should be spiritual, not material. The only realities worth striving for are divine, spiritual, and eternal. Mortal man is entitled to the enjoyment of physical pleasures and to the satisfaction of human affections; he is benefited by loyalty to human associations and temporal institutions; but these are not the eternal foundations upon which to build the immortal personality which must transcend space, vanquish time, and achieve the eternal destiny of divine perfection and finaliter service.
Man’s sole contribution to growth is the mobilization of the total powers of his personality—living faith. 100:3.7
3. Concepts of Supreme Value
100:3.7 Man cannot cause growth, but he can supply favorable conditions. Growth is always unconscious, be it physical, intellectual, or spiritual. Love thus grows; it cannot be created, manufactured, or purchased; it must grow. Evolution is a cosmic technique of growth. Social growth cannot be secured by legislation, and moral growth is not had by improved administration. Man may manufacture a machine, but its real value must be derived from human culture and personal appreciation. Man’s sole contribution to growth is the mobilization of the total powers of his personality—living faith.
Spiritual growth yields lasting joy, peace which passes all understanding. 100:4.3
4. Problems of Growth
100:4.3 But the great problem of religious living consists in the task of unifying the soul powers of the personality by the dominance of LOVE. Health, mental efficiency, and happiness arise from the unification of physical systems, mind systems, and spirit systems. Of health and sanity man understands much, but of happiness he has truly realized very little. The highest happiness is indissolubly linked with spiritual progress. Spiritual growth yields lasting joy, peace which passes all understanding.
If you could only know your fellows, you would eventually fall in love with them. 100:4.5
100:4.5 In the mind’s eye conjure up a picture of one of your primitive ancestors of cave-dwelling times—a short, misshapen, filthy, snarling hulk of a man standing, legs spread, club upraised, breathing hate and animosity as he looks fiercely just ahead. Such a picture hardly depicts the divine dignity of man. But allow us to enlarge the picture. In front of this animated human crouches a saber-toothed tiger. Behind him, a woman and two children. Immediately you recognize that such a picture stands for the beginnings of much that is fine and noble in the human race, but the man is the same in both pictures. Only, in the second sketch you are favored with a widened horizon. You therein discern the motivation of this evolving mortal. His attitude becomes praiseworthy because you understand him. If you could only fathom the motives of your associates, how much better you would understand them. If you could only know your fellows, you would eventually fall in love with them.
Love is only born of thoroughgoing understanding of your neighbor’s motives and sentiments. 100:4.6
100:4.6 You cannot truly love your fellows by a mere act of the will. Love is only born of thoroughgoing understanding of your neighbor’s motives and sentiments. It is not so important to love all men today as it is that each day you learn to love one more human being. If each day or each week you achieve an understanding of one more of your fellows, and if this is the limit of your ability, then you are certainly socializing and truly spiritualizing your personality. Love is infectious, and when human devotion is intelligent and wise, love is more catching than hate. But only genuine and unselfish love is truly contagious. If each mortal could only become a focus of dynamic affection, this benign virus of love would soon pervade the sentimental emotion-stream of humanity to such an extent that all civilization would be encompassed by love, and that would be the realization of the brotherhood of man.
The Apostle Paul experienced just such a sudden and spectacular conversion that eventful day on the Damascus road. 100:5.3-.4
5. Conversion and Mysticism
100:5.3 It should be made clear that professions of loyalty to the supreme ideals—the psychic, emotional, and spiritual awareness of God-consciousness—may be a natural and gradual growth or may sometimes be experienced at certain junctures, as in a crisis. The Apostle Paul experienced just such a sudden and spectacular conversion that eventful day on the Damascus road. [A bright Spirit Luminosity came down upon Saul -->Paul when he was on the Damascus Road. He asked "Lord ! Who are You ?" He received "I AM JESUS ..." That was a sudden Spirit Transformation. Saul changed his name to Paul.] Gautama Siddhartha had a similar experience the night he sat alone and sought to penetrate the mystery of final truth. Many others have had like experiences, [Blaise Pascal, Charles Finney, and others have experienced Jesus here in Spirit and have written some on that ineffable experience,] and many true believers have progressed in the spirit without sudden conversion.
100:5.4 Most of the spectacular phenomena associated with so-called religious conversions are entirely psychologic in nature, but now and then there do occur experiences which are also spiritual in origin. When the mental mobilization is absolutely total on any level of the psychic upreach toward spirit attainment, when there exists perfection of the human motivation of loyalties to the divine idea, then there very often occurs a ***sudden down-grasp of the indwelling spirit to synchronize with the concentrated and consecrated purpose of the superconscious mind of the believing mortal. [!!!] And it is such experiences of unified intellectual and spiritual phenomena that constitute the conversion which consists in factors over and above purely psychologic involvement.
Topical Study number 146
"How to facilitate further progress in the Brotherhood of Man."
Part 6
Compiled Sept. 06, 2023 by Dave@PureChristians.org
But true religion is a living love, a life of service. Genuine religion ... does add new meanings to all of life; ... 100:6.5
PAPER 100 Religion in Human Experience
6. Marks of Religious Living
100:6.5 But true religion is a living love, a life of service. The religionist’s detachment from much that is purely temporal and trivial never leads to social isolation, and it should not destroy the sense of humor. Genuine religion takes nothing away from human existence, but it does add new meanings to all of life; it generates new types of enthusiasm*, zeal, and courage. It may even engender the spirit of the crusader, which is more than dangerous if not controlled by spiritual insight and loyal devotion to the commonplace social obligations of human loyalties.
*Note: Enthusiasm originally meant, around the beginning of the 17th century, "God within" and "within God". In the 18th century it was also used for secular things. Now it just has secular definitions in the major dictionaries. Godless secular humanism is a major problem today.
Even evolutionary religion ... is a genuine experience. But revelatory religion is EXCELLENT as well as genuine. 100:6.8-.9
100:6.8 Even evolutionary religion is all of this in loyalty and grandeur because it is a genuine experience. But revelatory religion is EXCELLENT as well as genuine. The new loyalties of enlarged spiritual vision create new levels of love and devotion, of service and fellowship; and all this enhanced social outlook produces an enlarged consciousness of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.
100:6.9 The characteristic difference between evolved and revealed religion is a new quality of divine wisdom which is added to purely experiential human wisdom. But it is experience in and with the human religions that develops the capacity for subsequent reception of increased bestowals of divine wisdom and cosmic insight.
He [Jesus Christ] enters the human mind to elevate, transform, and transfigure it. 100:7.18
7. The Acme of Religious Living
100:7.18 Jesus was the perfectly unified human personality. And today, as in Galilee, he continues to unify mortal experience and to co-ordinate human endeavors. He unifies life, ennobles character, and simplifies experience. He enters the human mind to elevate, transform, and transfigure it. It is literally true: “If any man has Christ Jesus within him, he is a new creature; old things are passing away; behold, all things are becoming new.”
100:7.19 [Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.]
Religion is the experiencing of divinity in the consciousness of a moral being of evolutionary origin; ... 101:1.1
Paper 101 The Real Nature of Religion
1. True Religion
101:1.1 True religion is not a system of philosophic belief which can be reasoned out and substantiated by natural proofs, neither is it a fantastic and mystic experience of indescribable feelings of ecstasy which can be enjoyed only by the romantic devotees of mysticism. Religion is not the product of reason, but viewed from within, it is altogether reasonable. Religion is not derived from the logic of human philosophy, but as a mortal experience it is altogether logical. Religion is the experiencing of divinity in the consciousness of a moral being of evolutionary origin; it represents true experience with eternal realities in time, the realization of spiritual satisfactions while yet in the flesh.
Such [spiritual/] religious experiences result from ... the combined operations of the Adjuster and the Spirit of Truth ...101:1.3
101:1.3 The divine spirit makes contact with mortal man, not by feelings or emotions, but in the realm of the highest and most spiritualized thinking. It is your THOUGHTS, not your feelings, that lead you Godward. [We do have a Thought Adjuster, but not a "Feeling Adjuster" !] The divine nature may be perceived only with the eyes of the mind. But the mind that really discerns God, hears the indwelling Adjuster, is the pure mind. “Without holiness no man may see the Lord.” All such inner and spiritual communion is termed spiritual insight. Such religious experiences result from the impress made upon the mind of man by the combined operations of the Adjuster and the Spirit of Truth as they function amid and upon the ideas, ideals, insights, and spirit strivings of the evolving sons of God.
Revelation as an epochal phenomenon is periodic; as a personal human experience it is continuous. 101:2.12
2. The Fact of Religion
101:2.12 Revelation as an epochal phenomenon is periodic; as a personal human experience it is continuous. Divinity functions in mortal personality as the Adjuster gift of the Father, as the Spirit of Truth of the Son, and as the Holy Spirit of the Universe Spirit, while these three supermortal endowments are unified in human experiential evolution as the ministry of the Supreme.
Through the appropriation of the faith of Jesus, mortal man can foretaste in time the realities of eternity. 101:6.17
6. Progressive Religious Experience
101:6.17 Through the appropriation of the faith of Jesus, mortal man can foretaste in time the realities of eternity. Jesus made the discovery, in human experience, of the Final Father, and his brothers in the flesh of mortal life can follow him along this same experience of Father discovery. They can even attain, as they are, the same satisfaction in this experience with the Father as did Jesus as he was. New potentials were actualized in the universe of Nebadon consequent upon the terminal bestowal of [Jesus Christ] Michael, and one of these was the new illumination of the path of eternity that leads to the Father of all, and which can be traversed even by the mortals of material flesh and blood in the initial life on the planets of space. Jesus was and is the new and living way whereby man can come into the divine inheritance which the Father has decreed shall be his for but the asking. In Jesus there is abundantly demonstrated both the beginnings and endings of the faith experience of humanity, even of divine humanity.
Beliefs may become group possessions, but faith must be personal. ... only in the heart of the individual religionist. 101:8.2
8. Faith and Belief
101:8.2 Belief is always limiting and binding; faith is expanding and releasing. Belief fixates, faith liberates. But living religious faith is more than the association of noble beliefs; it is more than an exalted system of philosophy; it is a living experience concerned with spiritual meanings, divine ideals, and supreme values; it is God-knowing and man-serving. Beliefs may become group possessions, but faith must be personal. Theologic beliefs can be suggested to a group, but faith can rise up only in the heart of the individual religionist.
The more of science you know, the less sure you can be; the more of religion you HAVE, the more certain you are. 102:1.3
PAPER 102 The Foundations of Religious Faith
1. Assurances of Faith
102:1.3 Owing to the isolation of rebellion, the revelation of truth on Urantia has all too often been mixed up with the statements of partial and transient cosmologies. Truth remains unchanged from generation to generation, but the associated teachings about the physical world vary from day to day and from year to year. Eternal truth should not be slighted because it chances to be found in company with obsolete ideas regarding the material world. The more of science you know, the less sure you can be; the more of religion you HAVE, the more certain you are.
... religious practitioners live and carry on as if already in the presence of the Eternal. 102:2.3
2. Religion and Reality
102:2.3 It is difficult to identify and analyze the factors of a religious experience, but it is not difficult to observe that such religious practitioners live and carry on as if already in the presence of the Eternal. Believers react to this temporal life as if immortality already were within their grasp. In the lives of such mortals there is a valid originality and a spontaneity of expression that forever segregate them from those of their fellows who have imbibed only the wisdom of the world. Religionists seem to live in effective emancipation from harrying haste and the painful stress of the vicissitudes inherent in the temporal currents of time; they exhibit a stabilization of personality and a tranquillity of character not explained by the laws of physiology, psychology, and sociology.
... the living God is the divine light whose interruptions constitute the creation shadows of all space. 102:6.2
6. The Certainty of Religious Faith
102:6.2 The gods of primitive men may have been no more than shadows of themselves; the living God is the divine light whose interruptions constitute the creation shadows of all space.
... the individual becomes God-knowing only by faith, through personal experience. 102:6.4+.5
6. The Certainty of Religious Faith
102:6.4 Faith transforms the philosophic God of probability into the saving God of certainty in the personal religious experience. Skepticism may challenge the theories of theology, but confidence in the dependability of personal experience affirms the truth of that belief which has grown into faith.
102:6.5 Convictions about God may be arrived at through wise reasoning, but the individual becomes God-knowing only by faith, through personal experience. In much that pertains to life, probability must be reckoned with, but when contacting with cosmic reality, certainty may be experienced when such meanings and values are approached by living faith. The God-knowing soul dares to say, “I know,” even when this knowledge of God is questioned by the unbeliever who denies such certitude because it is not wholly supported by intellectual logic. To every such doubter the believer only replies, “How do you know that I do not know?”
Materialism cheapens human life; the gospel of Jesus tremendously enhances and supernally exalts every mortal. 102:6.10
102:6.10 Organic evolution is a fact; purposive or progressive evolution is a truth which makes consistent the otherwise contradictory phenomena of the ever-ascending achievements of evolution. The higher any scientist progresses in his chosen science, the more will he abandon the theories of materialistic fact in favor of the cosmic truth of the dominance of the Supreme Mind. Materialism cheapens human life; the gospel of Jesus tremendously enhances and supernally exalts every mortal. Mortal existence must be visualized as consisting in the intriguing and fascinating experience of the realization of the reality of the meeting of the human upreach and the divine and saving downreach.
“I know what I have experienced because I am a son of I AM.” 102:7.7-.10
7. The Certitude of the Divine
102:7.7 If science, philosophy, or sociology dares to become dogmatic in contending with the prophets of true religion, then should God-knowing men reply to such unwarranted dogmatism with that more farseeing dogmatism of the certainty of personal spiritual experience, “I know what I have experienced because I am a son of I AM.” If the personal experience of a faither is to be challenged by dogma, then this faith-born son of the experiencible Father may reply with that unchallengeable dogma, the statement of his actual sonship with the Universal Father.
102:7.8 Only an unqualified reality, an absolute, could dare consistently to be dogmatic. Those who assume to be dogmatic must, if consistent, sooner or later be driven into the arms of the Absolute of energy, the Universal of truth, and the Infinite of love.
102:7.9 If the nonreligious approaches to cosmic reality presume to challenge the certainty of faith on the grounds of its unproved status, then the spirit experiencer can likewise resort to the dogmatic challenge of the facts of science and the beliefs of philosophy on the grounds that they are likewise unproved; they are likewise experiences in the consciousness of the scientist or the philosopher.
102:7.10 Of God, the most inescapable of all presences, the most real of all facts, the most living of all truths, the most loving of all friends, and the most divine of all values, we have the right to be the most certain of all universe experiences.
And that is religion, even the highest yet revealed in the universe of Nebadon—the earth life of Jesus of Nazareth. 102:8.7+.8
8. The Evidences of Religion
102:8.7 But religion is never enhanced by an appeal to the so-called miraculous. The quest for miracles is a harking back to the primitive religions of magic. True religion has nothing to do with alleged miracles, and never does revealed religion point to miracles as proof of authority. Religion is ever and always rooted and grounded in personal experience. And your highest religion, the life of Jesus, was just such a personal experience: man, mortal man, seeking God and finding him to the fullness during one short life in the flesh, while in the same human experience there appeared God seeking man and finding him to the full satisfaction of the perfect soul of infinite supremacy. And that is religion, even the highest yet revealed in the universe of Nebadon—the earth life of Jesus of Nazareth.
102:8.8 [Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.]
The Thought Adjuster is the cosmic window...[to]...faith-glimpse the certainties and divinities of limitless Deity, the Universal Father. 103:0.1
PAPER 103 The Reality of Religious Experience
0. Introduction
103:0.1 All of man’s truly religious reactions are sponsored by the early ministry of the adjutant of worship and are censored by the adjutant of wisdom. Man’s first supermind endowment is that of personality encircuitment in the Holy Spirit of the Universe Creative Spirit; and long before either the bestowals of the divine Sons or the universal bestowal of the Adjusters, this influence functions to enlarge man’s viewpoint of ethics, religion, and spirituality. Subsequent to the bestowals of the Paradise Sons the liberated Spirit of Truth makes mighty contributions to the enlargement of the human capacity to perceive religious truths. As evolution advances on an inhabited world, the Thought Adjusters increasingly participate in the development of the higher types of human religious insight. The Thought Adjuster is the cosmic window through which the finite creature may faith-glimpse the certainties and divinities of limitless Deity, the Universal Father. [Also see the following two paragraphs:]
169:4.13 Jesus is the spiritual lens in human likeness which makes visible to the material creature Him who is invisible. He is your elder brother who, in the flesh, makes KNOWN to you a Being of infinite attributes whom not even the celestial hosts can presume fully to understand. But all of this must consist in the personal experience of the INDIVIDUAL BELIEVER. God who is spirit can be known only as a spiritual experience. God can be revealed to the finite sons of the material worlds, by the divine Son of the spiritual realms, only as a FATHER. You can know the Eternal as a Father; you can worship him as the God of universes, the infinite Creator of all existences.
108:4.2 While not subordinate to, co-ordinate with, or apparently related to, the work of the universe of universes, though acting independently in the minds of the children of men, unceasingly do these mysterious presences urge the creatures of their indwelling toward divine ideals, always luring them upward toward the purposes and aims of a future and better life. These Mystery Monitors are continually assisting in the establishment of the spiritual dominion of Michael throughout the universe of Nebadon while mysteriously contributing to the stabilization of the sovereignty of the Ancients of Days in Orvonton. The Adjusters are the will of God, and since the Supreme Creator children of God also personally embody that same will, it is inevitable that the actions of Adjusters and the sovereignty of the universe rulers should be mutually interdependent. Though apparently unconnected, the Father presence of the Adjusters and the Father sovereignty of Michael of Nebadon must be diverse manifestations of the same divinity. <--- !
It lifts man out of himself and beyond himself when he once fully realizes ...[in]... him something which is eternal and divine. 103:5.9
PAPER 103 The Reality of Religious Experience
5. The Origin of Ideals
103:5.9 It lifts man out of himself and beyond himself when he once fully realizes that there lives and strives within him something which is eternal and divine. And so it is that a living faith in the superhuman origin of our ideals validates our belief that we are the sons of God and makes real our altruistic convictions, the feelings of the brotherhood of man.
Religious experience IS the spiritual content of religion. ...the spiritual experience of personal religion remains ... [true.] 103:9.1
9. The Essence of Religion
103:9.1 Theology deals with the intellectual content of religion, metaphysics (revelation with the philosophic aspects. Religious experience IS the spiritual content of religion. Notwithstanding the mythologic vagaries and the psychologic illusions of the intellectual content of religion, the metaphysical assumptions of error and the techniques of self-deception, the political distortions and the socioeconomic perversions of the philosophic content of religion, the spiritual experience of personal religion remains genuine and valid.
... such a faith-trust ... to depend upon the absolute love of the infinite Father of the universe of universes. 103:9.5
103:9.5 Although religious experience is a purely spiritual subjective phenomenon, such an experience embraces a positive and living faith attitude toward the highest realms of universe objective reality. The ideal of religious philosophy is such a faith-trust as would lead man unqualifiedly to depend upon the absolute love of the infinite Father of the universe of universes. Such a genuine religious experience far transcends the philosophic objectification of idealistic desire; it actually takes salvation for granted and concerns itself only with learning and doing the will of the Father in Paradise. The earmarks of such a religion are: faith in a supreme Deity, hope of eternal survival, and love, especially of one’s fellows.
Faith leads to knowing God, not merely to a mystical feeling of the divine presence. 103:9.11-.13
103:9.11 Faith leads to knowing God, not merely to a mystical feeling of the divine presence. Faith must not be overmuch influenced by its emotional consequences. True religion is an experience of believing and knowing as well as a satisfaction of feeling.
103:9.12 There is a reality in religious experience that is proportional to the spiritual content, and such a reality is transcendent to reason, science, philosophy, wisdom, and all other human achievements. The convictions of such an experience are unassailable; the logic of religious living is incontrovertible; the certainty of such knowledge is superhuman; the satisfactions are superbly divine, the courage indomitable, the devotions unquestioning, the loyalties supreme, and the destinies final—eternal, ultimate, and universal.
103:9.13 [Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.]
Topical Study number 146
"How to facilitate further progress in the Brotherhood of Man."
Part 7
Compiled Sept. 08, 2023 by Dave@PureChristians.org
The quest for God is endless! 106:7.5+.6
PAPER 106 Universe Levels of Reality
7. Finality of Destiny
106:7.5 No matter how much you may grow in Father comprehension, your mind will always be staggered by the unrevealed infinity of the Father-I AM, the unexplored vastness of which will always remain unfathomable and incomprehensible throughout all the cycles of eternity. No matter how much of God you may attain, there will always remain much more of him, the existence of which you will not even suspect. And we believe that this is just as true on transcendental levels as it is in the domains of finite existence. The quest for God is endless!
106:7.6 Such inability to attain God in a final sense should in no manner discourage universe creatures; indeed, you can and do attain Deity levels of the Sevenfold, the Supreme, and the Ultimate, which mean to you what the infinite realization of God the Father means to the Eternal Son and to the Conjoint Actor in their absolute status of eternity existence. Far from harassing the creature, the infinity of God should be the supreme assurance that throughout all endless futurity an ascending personality will have before him the possibilities of personality development and Deity association which even eternity will neither exhaust nor terminate.
...living the will of God is the eternal passport to the endless possibility of infinity itself. 106:9.11-.13
9. Existential Infinite Unification
106:9.11 Sooner or later all universe personalities begin to realize that the final quest of eternity is the endless exploration of infinity, the never-ending voyage of discovery into the absoluteness of the First Source and Center. Sooner or later we all become aware that all creature growth is proportional to Father identification. We arrive at the understanding that living the will of God is the eternal passport to the endless possibility of infinity itself. Mortals will sometime realize that success in the quest of the Infinite is directly proportional to the achievement of Fatherlikeness, and that in this universe age the realities of the Father are revealed within the qualities of divinity. And these qualities of divinity are personally appropriated by universe creatures in the experience of living divinely, and to live divinely means actually to live the will of God.
106:9.12 To material, evolutionary, finite creatures, a life predicated on the living of the Father’s will leads directly to the attainment of spirit supremacy in the personality arena and brings such creatures one step nearer the comprehension of the Father-Infinite. Such a Father life is one predicated on truth, sensitive to beauty, and dominated by goodness. Such a God-knowing person is inwardly illuminated by worship and outwardly devoted to the wholehearted service of the universal brotherhood of all personalities, a service ministry which is filled with mercy and motivated by love, while all these life qualities are unified in the evolving personality on ever-ascending levels of cosmic wisdom, self-realization, God-finding, and Father worship.
106:9.13 [Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.]
...he who is indwelt by a divine Adjuster is indwelt by the Paradise Father. 107:0.3+.4
PAPER 107 Origin and Nature of Thought Adjusters
0. Introduction
107:0.3 God, having commanded man to be perfect, even as he is perfect, has descended as the Adjuster to become man’s experiential partner in the achievement of the supernal destiny which has been thus ordained. The fragment of God which indwells the mind of man is the absolute and unqualified assurance that man can find the Universal Father in association with this divine Adjuster, which came forth from God to find man and sonship him even in the days of the flesh.
107:0.4 Any mortal who has seen a Creator Son [our Jesus Christ Michael here in Spirit] has seen the Universal Father, and he who is indwelt by a divine Adjuster is indwelt by the Paradise Father. Every mortal who is consciously or unconsciously following the leading of his indwelling Adjuster is living in accordance with the will of God. Consciousness of Adjuster presence is consciousness of God’s presence. Eternal fusion of the Adjuster with the evolutionary soul of man is the factual experience of eternal union with God as a universe associate of Deity.
... spirit luminosity ... that “true light which lights every man who comes into the world.” [John 1:9] 107:4.5
4. Nature and Presence of Adjusters
107:4.5 There is a characteristic light, a spirit luminosity, which accompanies this divine presence, and which has become generally associated with Thought Adjusters. In the universe of Nebadon this Paradise luminosity is widespreadly known as the “pilot light”; on Uversa it is called the “light of life.” On Urantia [Earth] this phenomenon has sometimes been referred to as that “true light which lights every man who comes into the world.” [John 1:9]
Can you really realize the true significance of the Adjuster’s indwelling? 107:4.7
107:4.7 Can you really realize the true significance of the Adjuster’s indwelling? Do you really fathom what it means to have an absolute fragment of the absolute and infinite Deity, the Universal Father, indwelling and fusing* with your finite mortal natures? When mortal man fuses with an actual fragment of the existential Cause of the total cosmos, no limit can ever be placed upon the destiny of such an unprecedented and unimaginable partnership. In eternity, man will be discovering not only the infinity of the objective Deity but also the unending potentiality of the subjective fragment of this same God. Always will the Adjuster be revealing to the mortal personality the wonder of God, and never can this supernal revelation come to an end, for the Adjuster is of God and as God to mortal man. [Note: * "fusing" is used only once in The Urantia Book. I think that means a continuing, evolving process. We are now in a temporary union with our Adjuster !]
PAPER 40 The Ascending Sons of God
7. Father-Fused Mortals
40:7.5 Fusion with a fragment of the Universal Father is equivalent to a divine validation of eventual Paradise attainment, and such Adjuster-fused mortals are the only class of human beings who all traverse the Havona circuits and find God on Paradise. To the Adjuster-fused mortal the career of universal service is wide open. What dignity of destiny and glory of attainment await every one of you! Do you fully appreciate what has been done for you? Do you comprehend the grandeur of the heights of eternal achievement which are spread out before you?—even you who now trudge on in the lowly path of life through your so-called “vale of tears”?
PAPER 107 Origin and Nature of Thought Adjusters
5. Adjuster Mindedness
107:5.1 Evolutionary mortals are prone to look upon mind as a cosmic mediation between spirit and matter, for that is indeed the principal ministry of mind as discernible by you. Hence it is quite difficult for humans to perceive that Thought Adjusters have minds, for Adjusters are fragmentations of God on an absolute level of reality which is not only prepersonal but also prior to all energy and spirit divergence. On a monistic level antecedent to energy and spirit differentiation there could be no mediating function of mind, for there are no divergencies to be mediated.
Thought Adjusters are not true personalities; they are TRUE REALITIES, ... they are the divine presence. 107:7.1
7. Adjusters and Personality
107:7.1 Thought Adjusters are not personalities, but they are real entities; they are truly and perfectly individualized, although they are never, while indwelling mortals, actually personalized. Thought Adjusters are not true personalities; they are TRUE REALITIES, realities of the purest order known in the universe of universes—they are the divine presence. Though not personal, these marvelous fragments of the Father are commonly referred to as beings and sometimes, in view of the spiritual phases of their present ministry to mortals, as spirit entities.
... the Father presence of the Adjusters and the Father sovereignty of Michael of Nebadon ... [are] ... the same divinity. 108:4.1+.2 and 20:10.4
PAPER 108 Mission and Ministry of Thought Adjusters
4. Relation to Other Spiritual Influences
108:4.1 Apart from possible co-ordination with other Deity fragments, the Adjusters are quite alone in their sphere of activity in the mortal mind. The Mystery Monitors eloquently bespeak the fact that, though the Father may have apparently resigned the exercise of all direct personal power and authority throughout the grand universe, notwithstanding this act of abnegation in behalf of the Supreme Creator children of the Paradise Deities, the Father has certainly reserved to himself the unchallengeable right to be present in the minds and souls of his evolving creatures to the end that he may so act as to draw all creature creation to himself, co-ordinately with the spiritual gravity of the Paradise Sons. Said your Paradise bestowal Son when yet on Urantia, “I, if I am lifted up, will draw all men.” This spiritual drawing power of the Paradise Sons and their creative associates we recognize and understand, but we do not so fully comprehend the methods of the all-wise Father’s functioning in and through these Mystery Monitors that live and work so valiantly within the human mind.
108:4.2 While not subordinate to, co-ordinate with, or apparently related to, the work of the universe of universes, though acting independently in the minds of the children of men, unceasingly do these mysterious presences urge the creatures of their indwelling toward divine ideals, always luring them upward toward the purposes and aims of a future and better life. These Mystery Monitors are continually assisting in the establishment of the spiritual dominion of Michael throughout the universe of Nebadon while mysteriously contributing to the stabilization of the sovereignty of the Ancients of Days in Orvonton. The Adjusters are the will of God, and since the Supreme Creator children of God also personally embody that same will, it is inevitable that the actions of Adjusters and the sovereignty of the universe rulers should be mutually interdependent. Though apparently unconnected, the Father presence of the Adjusters and the Father sovereignty of Michael of Nebadon must be diverse manifestations of the same divinity.
PAPER 20 The Paradise Sons of God
10. United Ministry of the Paradise Sons
... As the Father of a local universe, a Creator Son portrays the infinite character of the Universal Father. ... 20:10.4
Adjusters ... in the minds [of Urantians] ... really to consummate a probationary union with the animal-origin beings of earth. 108:6.1+.5+.8
PAPER 108 Mission and Ministry of Thought Adjusters
6. God in Man
108:6.1 It is indeed a marvel of divine condescension for the exalted and perfect Adjusters to offer themselves for actual existence in the minds of material creatures, such as the mortals of Urantia, really to consummate a probationary union [now !] with the animal-origin beings of earth.
108:6.5 These faithful custodians of the future career unfailingly duplicate every mental creation with a spiritual counterpart; they are thus slowly and surely re-creating you as you really are (only spiritually for resurrection on the survival worlds. And all of these exquisite spirit re-creations are being preserved in the emerging reality of your evolving and immortal soul, your morontia self. These realities are actually there, notwithstanding that the Adjuster is seldom able to exalt these duplicate [soul] creations sufficiently to exhibit them to the light of consciousness.
108:6.8 You humans have begun an endless unfolding of an almost infinite panorama, a limitless expanding of never-ending, ever-widening spheres of opportunity for exhilarating service, matchless adventure, sublime uncertainty, and boundless attainment. When the clouds gather overhead, your faith should accept the fact of the presence of the indwelling Adjuster, and thus you should be able to look beyond the mists of mortal uncertainty into the clear shining of the sun of eternal righteousness on the beckoning heights of the mansion worlds of Satania. [our system.]
The Adjuster looks beforehand to the time of actual fusion and reckons the union as an event of fact. 109:2.4
PAPER 109 Relation of Adjusters to Universe Creatures
2. Self-Acting Adjusters
109:2.4 #3. Has a subject who has made the supreme decision, has entered into a solemn and sincere betrothal with the Adjuster. The Adjuster looks beforehand to the time of actual fusion and reckons the union as an event of fact.
Many, however, who fail of Adjuster fusion do survive as Spirit-fused ascenders. 109:3.2
3. Relation of Adjusters to Mortal Types
109:3.2 On certain primitive worlds (the series one group the Adjuster indwells the mind of the creature as an experiential training, chiefly for self-culture and progressive development. Virgin Adjusters are usually sent to such worlds during the earlier times when primitive men are arriving in the valley of decision, but when comparatively few will elect to ascend the moral heights beyond the hills of self-mastery and character acquirement to attain the higher levels of emerging spirituality. (Many, however, who fail of Adjuster fusion do survive as Spirit-fused ascenders. The Adjusters receive valuable training and acquire wonderful experience in transient association with primitive minds, and they are able subsequently to utilize this experience for the benefit of superior beings on other worlds. NOTHING OF SURVIVAL VALUE IS EVER LOST IN ALL THE WIDE UNIVERSE.
[human minds are] ... adjusted to the key of the contactual tones of the spiritual level of the present and the future. 109:5.1
PAPER 109 Relation of Adjusters to Universe Creatures
5. Material Handicaps to Adjuster Indwelling
109:5.1 Supreme and self-acting Adjusters are often able to contribute factors of spiritual import to the human mind when it flows freely in the liberated but controlled channels of creative imagination. At such times, and sometimes during sleep, the Adjuster is able to arrest the mental currents, to stay the flow, and then to divert the idea procession; and all this is done in order to effect deep spiritual transformations in the higher recesses of the superconsciousness. Thus are the forces and energies of mind more fully adjusted to the key of the contactual tones of the spiritual level of the present and the future.
The activities of Adjusters in your local universe are directed by the Personalized Adjuster of [our Jesus Christ] Michael of Nebadon ... 109:6.4
6. The Persistence of True Values
109:6.4 The activities of Adjusters in your local universe are directed by the Personalized Adjuster of Michael of Nebadon, that very Monitor who guided him step by step when he lived his human life in the flesh of Joshua ben Joseph. Faithful to his trust was this extraordinary Adjuster, and wisely did this valiant Monitor direct the human nature, ever guiding the mortal mind of the Paradise Son in the choosing of the path of the Father’s perfect will. This Adjuster had previously served with Machiventa Melchizedek in the days of Abraham and had engaged in tremendous exploits both previous to this indwelling and between these bestowal experiences.
Personalized Thought Adjusters ... combine the Creator and creature experience—existential and experiential. 109:7.2-.5
7. Destiny of Personalized Adjusters
109:7.2 Personalized Thought Adjusters are the untrammeled, unassigned, and sovereign stabilizers and compensators of the far-flung universe of universes. They combine the Creator and creature experience—existential and experiential. They are conjoint time and eternity beings. They associate the prepersonal and the personal in universe administration.
109:7.3 Personalized Adjusters are the all-wise and powerful executives of the Architects of the Master Universe. They are the personal agents of the full ministry of the Universal Father—personal, prepersonal, and superpersonal. They are the personal ministers of the extraordinary, the unusual, and the unexpected throughout all the realms of the transcendental absonite spheres of the domain of God the Ultimate, even to the levels of God the Absolute.
109:7.4 They are the exclusive beings of the universes who embrace within their being all the known relationships of personality; they are omnipersonal—they are before personality, they are personality, and they are after personality. They minister the personality of the Universal Father as in the eternal past, the eternal present, and the eternal future.
109:7.5 Existential personality on the order of the infinite and absolute, the Father bestowed upon the Eternal Son, but he chose to reserve for his own ministry the experiential personality of the type of the Personalized Adjuster bestowed upon the existential prepersonal Adjuster; and they are thus both destined to the future eternal superpersonality of the transcendental ministry of the absonite realms of the Ultimate, the Supreme-Ultimate, even to the levels of the Ultimate-Absolute.
Topical Study number 146
"How to facilitate further progress in the Brotherhood of Man."
Part 8
Compiled Sept. 11, 2023 by Dave@PureChristians.org
The Adjusters [God's will indwelling you] respect your sovereignty of personality; THEY ARE ALWAYS SUBSERVIENT TO YOUR WILL. 110:2.1+.2
PAPER 110 Relation of Adjusters to Individual Mortals
2. Adjusters and Human Will
110:2.1 When Thought Adjusters indwell human minds, they bring with them the model careers, the ideal lives, as determined and foreordained by themselves and the Personalized Adjusters of Divinington, which have been certified by the Personalized Adjuster of Urantia.[Earth.] Thus they begin work with a definite and predetermined plan for the intellectual and spiritual development of their human subjects, but it is not incumbent upon any human being to accept this plan. You are all subjects of predestination, but it is not foreordained that you must accept this divine predestination; you are at full liberty to reject any part or all of the Thought Adjusters’ program. It is their mission to effect such mind changes and to make such spiritual adjustments as you may willingly and intelligently authorize, to the end that they may gain more influence over the personality directionization; but under no circumstances do these divine Monitors ever take advantage of you or in any way arbitrarily influence you in your choices and decisions. The Adjusters respect your sovereignty of personality; THEY ARE ALWAYS SUBSERVIENT TO YOUR WILL. [!!! Thus, we should desire to learn and to do God's perfect will always better without end.]
110:2.2 They are persistent, ingenious, and perfect in their methods of work, but they never do violence to the volitional selfhood of their hosts. No human being will ever be spiritualized by a divine Monitor against his will; survival is a gift of the Gods which must be desired by the creatures of time. In the final analysis, whatever the Adjuster has succeeded in doing for you, the records will show that the transformation has been accomplished with your co-operative consent; you will have been a WILLING PARTNER with the Adjuster in the attainment of every step of the tremendous transformation of the ascension career.
Mind is your ship, the Adjuster is your pilot, the human will is captain. 111:1.9 107:4.5
PAPER 111 The Adjuster and the Soul
1. The Mind Arena of Choice
111:1.9 Mind is your ship, the Adjuster is your pilot, the human will is captain. The master of the mortal vessel should have the wisdom to trust the divine pilot to guide the ascending soul into the morontia harbors of eternal survival. Only by selfishness, slothfulness, and sinfulness can the will of man reject the guidance of such a loving pilot and eventually wreck the mortal career upon the evil shoals of rejected mercy and upon the rocks of embraced sin. With your consent, this faithful pilot will safely carry you across the barriers of time and the handicaps of space to the very source of the divine mind and on beyond, even to the Paradise Father of Adjusters.
107:4.5 There is a characteristic light, a spirit luminosity, which accompanies this divine presence, and which has become generally associated with Thought Adjusters. In the universe of Nebadon this Paradise luminosity is widespreadly known as the “pilot light”; on Uversa it is called the “light of life.” On Urantia this phenomenon has sometimes been referred to as that “true light which lights every man who comes into the world.”
Personality is inherently creative, but it thus functions only in the inner life of the individual. 111:4.3-.5
4. The Inner Life
111:4.3 The advances of true civilization are all born in this inner world of mankind. It is only the inner life that is truly creative. Civilization can hardly progress when the majority of the youth of any generation devote their interests and energies to the materialistic pursuits of the sensory or outer world.
111:4.4 The inner and the outer worlds have a different set of values. Any civilization is in jeopardy when three quarters of its youth enter materialistic professions and devote themselves to the pursuit of the sensory activities of the outer world. Civilization is in danger when youth neglect to interest themselves in ethics, sociology, eugenics [Positive human evolution], philosophy, the fine arts, religion, and cosmology.
111:4.5 Only in the higher levels of the superconscious mind as it impinges upon the spirit realm of human experience can you find those higher concepts in association with effective master patterns which will contribute to the building of a better and more enduring civilization. Personality is inherently creative, but it thus functions only in the inner life of the individual.
... the creature’s positive affirmation: “It is MY will that [FATHER,] YOUR will be done.” 111:5.6
5. The Consecration of Choice
111:5.6 This choosing of the Father’s will is the spiritual finding of the spirit Father by mortal man, even though an age must pass before the creature son may actually stand in the factual presence of God on Paradise. This choosing does not so much consist in the negation of creature will—“Not my will but yours be done”—as it consists in the creature’s positive affirmation: “It is MY will that YOUR will be done.” And if this choice is made, sooner or later will the God-choosing son find inner union (fusion with the indwelling God fragment, while this same perfecting son will find supreme personality satisfaction in the worship communion of the personality of man and the personality of his Maker, two personalities whose creative attributes have eternally joined in self-willed mutuality of expression—the birth of another eternal partnership of the will of man and the will of God.
The finite world was made by an infinite Creator—it is the handiwork of his divine Sons—and therefore it must be good. 111:6.3
6. The Human Paradox
111:6.3 The problem of sin is not self-existent in the finite world. The fact of finiteness is not evil or sinful. The finite world was made by an infinite Creator—it is the handiwork of his divine Sons—and therefore it must be good. It is the misuse, distortion, and perversion of the finite that gives origin to evil and sin.
Only religious confidence—living faith—can sustain man amid such difficult and perplexing problems. 111: 6.8
111:6.8 It is only natural that mortal man should be harassed by feelings of insecurity as he views himself inextricably bound to nature while he possesses spiritual powers wholly transcendent to all things temporal and finite. Only religious confidence—living faith—can sustain man amid such difficult and perplexing problems.
Why do you not aid the Adjuster in the task of showing you the spiritual counterpart of all these strenuous material efforts? 111:7.2+.3
7. The Adjuster’s Problem
111:7.2 May I admonish you to heed the distant echo of the Adjuster’s faithful call to your soul? The indwelling Adjuster cannot stop or even materially alter your career struggle of time; the Adjuster cannot lessen the hardships of life as you journey on through this world of toil. The divine indweller can only patiently forbear while you fight the battle of life as it is lived on your planet; but you could, if you only would—as you work and worry, as you fight and toil—permit the valiant Adjuster to fight with you and for you. You could be so comforted and inspired, so enthralled and intrigued, if you would only allow the Adjuster constantly to bring forth the pictures of the real motive, the final aim, and the eternal purpose of all this difficult, uphill struggle with the commonplace problems of your present material world.
111:7.3 Why do you not aid the Adjuster in the task of showing you the spiritual counterpart of all these strenuous material efforts? [Your perfecting soul in God and cosmic glory !] Why do you not allow the Adjuster to strengthen you with the spiritual truths of cosmic power while you wrestle with the temporal difficulties of creature existence? Why do you not encourage the heavenly helper to cheer you with the clear vision of the eternal outlook of universal life as you gaze in perplexity at the problems of the passing hour? Why do you refuse to be enlightened and inspired by the universe viewpoint while you toil amidst the handicaps of time and flounder in the maze of uncertainties which beset your mortal life journey? Why not allow the Adjuster to spiritualize your thinking, even though your feet must tread the material paths of earthly endeavor?
... there is one part of you that remains absolutely unaltered, and that is personality—permanence in the presence of change. 112:0.1
PAPER 112 Personality Survival
0. Introduction
112:0.1 The evolutionary planets are the spheres of human origin, the initial worlds of the ascending mortal career. Urantia is your starting point; here you and your divine Thought Adjuster are joined in temporary union. [NOW !!] You have been endowed with a perfect guide; therefore, if you will sincerely run the race of time and gain the final goal of faith, the reward of the ages shall be yours; you will be eternally united with your indwelling Adjuster. Then will begin your real life, the ascending life, to which your present mortal state is but the vestibule. Then will begin your exalted and progressive mission as finaliters in the eternity which stretches out before you. And throughout all of these successive ages and stages of evolutionary growth, there is one part of you that remains absolutely unaltered, and that is personality—permanence in the presence of change.
The universe fact of God’s becoming man has forever changed all meanings and altered all values of human personality. 112:2.7
2. The Self
112:2.7 The universe fact of God’s becoming man [Christ Michael's Incarnation here] has forever changed all meanings and altered all values of human personality. In the true meaning of the word, love connotes mutual regard of whole personalities, whether human or divine or human AND divine. Parts of the self may function in numerous ways—thinking, feeling, wishing—but only the co-ordinated attributes of the whole personality are focused in intelligent action; and all of these powers are associated with the spiritual endowment of the mortal mind when a human being sincerely and unselfishly loves another being, human or divine.
The possession of personality identifies man as a spiritual being ... [!!!] 112:2.9
112:2.9 The possession of personality identifies man as a spiritual being since the unity of selfhood and the self-consciousness of personality are endowments of the supermaterial world. The very fact that a mortal materialist can deny the existence of supermaterial realities in and of itself demonstrates the presence, and indicates the working, of spirit synthesis and cosmic consciousness in his human mind.
Thinking surrenders to wisdom, and wisdom is lost in enlightened and reflective worship. 112:2.11
112:2.11 As mind pursues reality to its ultimate analysis, matter vanishes to the material senses but may still remain real to mind. When spiritual insight pursues that reality which remains after the disappearance of matter and pursues it to an ultimate analysis, it vanishes to mind, but the insight of spirit can still perceive cosmic realities and supreme values of a spiritual nature. Accordingly does science give way to philosophy, while philosophy must surrender to the conclusions inherent in genuine spiritual experience. Thinking surrenders to wisdom, and wisdom is lost in enlightened and reflective worship.
Man’s personality is eternal but with regard to identity a conditioned eternal reality. 112:5.2
5. Survival of the Human Self
112:5.2 That which comes from the Father is like the Father eternal, and this is just as true of personality, which God gives by his own freewill choice, as it is of the divine Thought Adjuster, an actual fragment of God. Man’s personality is eternal but with regard to identity a conditioned eternal reality. Having appeared in response to the Father’s will, personality will attain Deity destiny, but man must choose whether or not he will be present at the attainment of such destiny. In default of such choice, personality attains experiential Deity directly, becoming a part of the Supreme Being. The cycle is foreordained, but man’s participation therein is optional, personal, and experiential.
[as to your survival,] ... the universe governments invariably rule in the personal interests of that individual ... 112:5.7+.8
112:5.7 If ever there is doubt as to the advisability of advancing a human identity to the mansion worlds, the universe governments invariably rule in the personal interests of that individual; they unhesitatingly advance such a soul to the status of a transitional being, while they continue their observations of the emerging morontia intent and spiritual purpose. Thus divine justice is certain of achievement, and divine mercy is accorded further opportunity for extending its ministry.
112:5.8 The governments of Orvonton and Nebadon do not claim absolute perfection for the detail working of the universal plan of mortal repersonalization, but they do claim to, and actually do, manifest patience, tolerance, understanding, and merciful sympathy. We had rather assume the risk of a system rebellion than to court the hazard of depriving one struggling mortal from any evolutionary world of the eternal joy of pursuing the ascending career.
[Your immortal soul] ... is the conjoint child of the ... human you in liaison with the divine you, the Adjuster. 112:5.12
112:5.12 There is something real, something of human evolution, something additional to the Mystery Monitor, which survives death. This newly appearing entity is the soul, and it survives the death of both your physical body and your material mind. This entity is the conjoint child of the combined life and efforts of the human you in liaison with the divine you, the Adjuster. This child of human and divine parentage constitutes the surviving element of terrestrial origin; it is the morontia self, the immortal soul.
... you shall someday serve [as] children of the Supreme God of experience and divine sons of the Paradise Father ... 112:7.19
7. Adjuster Fusion
112:7.19 True it is, you mortals are of earthly, animal origin; your frame is indeed dust. But if you actually will, if you really desire, surely the heritage of the ages is yours, and you shall someday serve throughout the universes in your true characters—children of the Supreme God of experience and divine sons of the Paradise Father of all personalities.
...seraphim then [will] correlate this integrated influence of the Conjoint Actor with the spirit presences of the Father and the Son. 113:3.2+.3
PAPER 113 Seraphic Guardians of Destiny
3. Relation to Other Spirit Influences
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.
The Adjuster is the essence of man’s eternal nature; the seraphim is the teacher of man’s evolving nature ... 113:4.2
4. Seraphic Domains of Action
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.
And so do some of your loving seraphic associates in time also become your finaliter associates in eternity, ... 113:7.8+.9
7. Seraphim and the Ascendant Career
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.} [Important to note: Our Chief of Seraphim down here is a high Primary Supernaphim from Paradise !]
This uniqueness in your plan of supervision is due to a number of unusual circumstances: 114:0.4 -.11
PAPER 114 Seraphic Planetary Government
0. Introduction
114:0.4 Urantia is not without proper and effective supervision from the system, constellation, and universe rulers. But the planetary government is unlike that of any other world in the Satania system, even in all Nebadon. This uniqueness in your plan of supervision is due to a number of unusual circumstances:
114:0.5 #1. The life modification status of Urantia.
114:0.6 #2. The exigencies of the Lucifer rebellion. [200,000 years ago until Jesus permantly removed Lucifer and Satan in A.D. 30]
114:0.7 #3. The disruptions of the Adamic default. [[37,000 years ago]
114:0.8 #4. The irregularities growing out of the fact that Urantia was one of the bestowal worlds of the Universe Sovereign. [our Jesus Christ] Michael of Nebadon is the Planetary Prince of Urantia. [A.D 30 - on]
114:0.9 #5. The special function of the twenty-four planetary directors.
114:0.10 #6. The location on the planet of an archangels’ circuit.
114:0.11 #7. The more recent designation of the onetime incarnated Machiventa Melchizedek as vicegerent Planetary Prince.
Still others, including this narrator, [our Chief of Seraphim] look for Melchizedek’s appearance any day or hour. 114:1.4
1. The Sovereignty of Urantia
114:1.4 Some believe that Machiventa [Melchizedek] will not come to take personal direction of Urantian affairs until the end of the current dispensation. Others hold that the vicegerent Prince may not come, as such, until Michael sometime returns to Urantia as he promised when still in the flesh. Still others, including this narrator, [Our Paradise Primary Supernaphim here as the Chief of Seraphim on Urantia !] look for Melchizedek’s appearance any day or hour. [I think that a major visitation and change of Urantia's Spiritual Government is likely to happen May 18, A.D. 30 which is a millennial dispensation.]
Planetary isolation is ... of little concern to individual mortals since the pouring out of the Spirit of Truth upon all flesh ... 114:5.4
5. The Planetary Government
114:5.4 This rather loosely organized and somewhat personally administered planetary government is more than expectedly effective because of the timesaving assistance of the archangels and their ever-ready circuit, which is so frequently utilized in planetary emergencies and administrative difficulties. Technically, the planet is still spiritually isolated in the Norlatiadek circuits, but in an emergency this handicap can now be circumvented through utilization of the archangels’ circuit. Planetary isolation is, of course, of little concern to individual mortals since the pouring out of the Spirit of Truth upon all flesh nineteen hundred years ago. [A.D 30 - on. The Adjuster -- God's will -- and the Father-Son Union Spirit of Truth now indwell the souls and the minds of all normal -- and slightly or better moral -- humans worldwide !]
Your isolated world is not forgotten in the counsels of the universe. 114:7.17
7. The Reserve Corps of Destiny
114:7.17 Your isolated world is not forgotten in the counsels of the universe. Urantia is not a cosmic orphan stigmatized by sin and shut away from divine watchcare by rebellion. From Uversa to Salvington and on down to Jerusem, even in Havona and on Paradise, they all know we are here; and you mortals now dwelling on Urantia are just as lovingly cherished and just as faithfully watched over as if the sphere had never been betrayed by a faithless Planetary Prince, even more so. It is eternally true, “the Father himself loves you.”
Topical Study number 146
"How to facilitate further progress in the Brotherhood of Man."
Part 9
Compiled Sept. 13, 2023 by Dave@PureChristians.org
With God the Supreme, ... one must DO something as well as BE something. 115:0.1
PAPER 115 The Supreme Being
0. Introduction
115:0.1 With God the Father, sonship is the great relationship. With God the Supreme, achievement is the prerequisite to status—one must do something as well as be something.
The realms of the finite exist by virtue of the eternal purpose of God. ... because God so willed. 115:1.4
1. Relativity of Concept Frames
115:1.4 The realms of the finite exist by virtue of the eternal purpose of God. Finite creatures, high and low, may propound theories, and have done so, as to the necessity of the finite in the cosmic economy, but in the last analysis it exists because God so willed. The universe cannot be explained, neither can a finite creature offer a rational reason for his own individual existence without appealing to the prior acts and pre-existent volition of ancestral beings, Creators or procreators.
The idea of the infinite-eternal, the eternal-infinite, is unqualified in extent and absolute in fact. 115:3.1
3. Original, Actual, and Potential
115:3.1 The absolute cosmos is conceptually without limit; to define the extent and nature of this primal reality is to place qualifications upon infinity and to attenuate the pure concept of eternity. The idea of the infinite-eternal, the eternal-infinite, is unqualified in extent and absolute in fact. There is no language in the past, present, or future of Urantia adequate to express the reality of infinity or the infinity of reality. Man, a finite creature in an infinite cosmos, must content himself with distorted reflections and attenuated conceptions of that limitless, boundless, never-beginning, never-ending existence the comprehension of which is really beyond his ability.
While infinity is on the one hand UNITY, on the other it is DIVERSITY without end or limit. 115:3.4
115:3.4 It is only man’s distance from infinity that causes this concept to be expressed as one word. While infinity is on the one hand UNITY, on the other it is DIVERSITY without end or limit. Infinity, as it is observed by finite intelligences, is the maximum paradox of creature philosophy and finite metaphysics. Though man’s spiritual nature reaches up in the worship experience to the Father who is infinite, man’s intellectual comprehension capacity is exhausted by the maximum conception of the Supreme Being. Beyond the Supreme, concepts are increasingly names; less and less are they true designations of reality; more and more do they become the creature’s projection of finite understanding toward the superfinite.
... growth is the nature of the Sevenfold, the Supreme, and the Ultimate. 115:3.9 & .10
115:3.9 The interassociation of the Original, the Actual, and the Potential yields the tensions within infinity which result in the possibility for all universe growth; and growth is the nature of the Sevenfold, the Supreme, and the Ultimate.
115:3.10 In the association of the Deity, Universal, and Unqualified Absolutes, potentiality is absolute while actuality is emergent; in the association of the Second, Third, and Paradise Sources and Centers, actuality is absolute while potentiality is emergent; in the originality of the First Source and Center, we cannot say that either actuality or potentiality is either existent or emergent — THE FATHER IS.
The man lives in every child, and the morontia progressor is resident in the mature God-knowing man. 115:3.16
115:3.16 The final dynamics of the cosmos have to do with the continual transfer of reality from potentiality to actuality. In theory, there may be an end to this metamorphosis, but in fact, such is impossible since the Potential and the Actual are both encircuited in the Original (the I AM, and this identification makes it forever impossible to place a limit on the developmental progression of the universe. Whatsoever is identified with the I AM can never find an end to progression since the actuality of the potentials of the I AM is absolute, and the potentiality of the actuals of the I AM is also absolute. Always will actuals be opening up new avenues of the realization of hitherto impossible potentials—every human decision not only actualizes a new reality in human experience but also opens up a new capacity for human growth. The man lives in every child, and the morontia progressor is resident in the mature God-knowing man.
Experiential growth implies creature-Creator partnership—God and man in association. 116:0.3
PAPER 116 The Almighty Supreme
0. Introduction
116:0.3 Experiential growth implies creature-Creator partnership—God and man in association. Growth is the earmark of experiential Deity: Havona did not grow; Havona is and always has been; it is existential like the everlasting Gods who are its source. But growth characterizes the grand universe.
... mind never ceases to progress—it is the experiential technique of endless progress. [!!!] 116:1.5
1. The Supreme Mind
116:1.5 We really know less about the mind of Supremacy than about any other aspect of this evolving Deity. It is unquestionably active throughout the grand universe and is believed to have a potential destiny of master universe function which is of vast extent. But this we do know: Whereas physique may attain completed growth, and whereas spirit may achieve perfection of development, mind never ceases to progress—it is the experiential technique of endless progress. The Supreme is an experiential Deity and therefore never achieves completion of mind attainment.
... the indwelling fragments of the Universal Father actually unify the evolving creatures with God on Paradise. 116:3.4
3. The Almighty and Paradise Deity
116:3.4 #3. The indwelling presences of the First Source and Center. Mind unifies spirit causations with energy reactions; bestowal ministry unifies divinity descensions with creature ascensions; and the indwelling fragments of the Universal Father actually unify the evolving creatures with God on Paradise. There are many such presences of the Father which indwell numerous orders of personalities, and in mortal man these divine fragments of God are the Thought Adjusters. The Mystery Monitors are to human beings what the Paradise Trinity is to the Supreme Being. The Adjusters are absolute foundations, and upon absolute foundations freewill choice can cause to be evolved the divine reality of an eternaliter [that word is only found here] nature, finaliter nature in the case of man, Deity nature in God the Supreme.
When the bestowal Sons reveal new ways for man to find God, they are not creating these paths of divinity attainment ... 116:4.10
4. The Almighty and the Supreme Creators
116:4.10 When the bestowal Sons reveal new ways for man to find God, they are not creating these paths of divinity attainment; rather are they illuminating the everlasting highways of progression which lead through the presence of the Supreme to the person of the Paradise Father.
The grand universe is ... also a magnificent and responsive living organism. 116:7.1
7. The Living Organism of the Grand Universe
116:7.1 The grand universe is not only a material creation of physical grandeur, spirit sublimity, and intellectual magnitude, it is also a magnificent and responsive living organism. There is actual life pulsating throughout the mechanism of the vast creation of the vibrant cosmos. The physical reality of the universes is symbolic of the perceivable reality of the Almighty Supreme; and this material and living organism is penetrated by intelligence circuits, even as the human body is traversed by a network of neural sensation paths. This physical universe is permeated by energy lanes which effectively activate material creation, even as the human body is nourished and energized by the circulatory distribution of the assimilable energy products of nourishment. The vast universe is not without those co-ordinating centers of magnificent overcontrol which might be compared to the delicate chemical-control system of the human mechanism. But if you only knew something about the physique of a power center, we could, by analogy, tell you so much more about the physical universe.
... the sublime synthesis of almighty power with the spirit person of the evolving God of all creatures, the Supreme Being. 116:7.6
116:7.6 Man’s urge for Paradise perfection, his striving for God-attainment, creates a genuine divinity tension in the living cosmos which can only be resolved by the evolution of an immortal soul; this is what happens in the experience of a single mortal creature. But when all creatures and all Creators in the grand universe likewise strive for God-attainment and divine perfection, there is built up a profound cosmic tension which can only find resolution in the sublime synthesis of almighty power with the spirit person of the evolving God of all creatures, the Supreme Being.
The union of Paradise perfection and time-space experience yields a new meaning value on deity levels of reality. 117:1.5
PAPER 117 God the Supreme
1. Nature of the Supreme Being
117:1.5 In the Supreme Being, Creator and creature are united in one Deity whose will is expressive of one divine personality. And this will of the Supreme is something more than the will of either creature or Creator, even as the sovereign will of the Master Son of Nebadon is now something more than a combination of the will of divinity and humanity. The union of Paradise perfection and time-space experience yields a new meaning value on deity levels of reality.
Said Jesus: “I am the living way,” and so he is the living way from the material level of self-consciousness to the spiritual level of God-consciousness. 117:3.3
3. Significance of the Supreme to Universe Creatures
117:3.1 The cosmic reality variously designated as the Supreme Being, God the Supreme, and the Almighty Supreme, is the complex and universal synthesis of the emerging phases of all finite realities. The far-flung diversification of eternal energy, divine spirit, and universal mind attains finite culmination in the evolution of the Supreme, who is the sum total of all finite growth, self-realized on deity levels of finite maximum completion.
117:3.2 The Supreme is the divine channel through which flows the creative infinity of the triodities that crystallizes into the galactic panorama of space, against which takes place the magnificent personality drama of time: the spirit conquest of energy-matter through the mediation of mind.
117:3.3 Said Jesus: “I am the living way,” and so he is the living way from the material level of self-consciousness to the spiritual level of God-consciousness. And even as he is this living way of ascension from the self to God, so is the Supreme the living way from finite consciousness to transcendence of consciousness, even to the insight of absonity.
117:3.4 Your Creator Son can actually be such a living channel from humanity to divinity since he has personally experienced the fullness of the traversal of this universe path of progression, from the true humanity of Joshua ben Joseph, the Son of Man, to the Paradise divinity of Michael of Nebadon, the Son of the infinite God. Similarly can the Supreme Being function as the universe approach to the transcendence of finite limitations, for he is the actual embodiment and personal epitome of all creature evolution, progression, and spiritualization. Even the grand universe experiences of the descending personalities from Paradise are that part of his experience which is complemental to his summation of the ascending experiences of the pilgrims of time.
... once the soul comes into being, it begins to grow in and of itself. 117:3.6
117:3.6 Mortal man, being a creature, is not exactly like the Supreme Being, who is deity, but man’s evolution does in some ways resemble the growth of the Supreme. Man consciously grows from the material 4. The Finite Godtoward the spiritual by the strength, power, and persistency of his own decisions; he also grows as his Thought Adjuster develops new techniques for reaching down from the spiritual to the morontial soul levels; and once the soul comes into being, [at the first moral decision] it begins to grow in and of itself.
... when man gives God all that he HAS, then does God make that man more than he is. 117:4.14
4. The Finite God
117:4.14 God’s gifts—his bestowal of reality—are not divorcements from himself; he does not alienate creation from himself, but he has set up tensions in the creations circling Paradise. God first loves man and confers upon him the potential of immortality—eternal reality. And as man loves God, so does man become eternal in actuality. And here is mystery: The more closely man approaches God through love, the greater the reality—actuality—of that man. The more man withdraws from God, the more nearly he approaches nonreality—cessation of existence. When man consecrates his will to the doing of the Father’s will, when man gives God all that he HAS, then does God make that man more than he is.
These two attuned minds, the human and the divine, will become glorified in union with the experiential mind of the then actualized Supreme Being. 117:5.3
5. The Oversoul of Creation
117:5.3 The evolving immortal soul of man, the joint creation of the material mind and the Adjuster, ascends as such to Paradise and subsequently, when mustered into the Corps of the Finality, becomes allied in some new way with the spirit-gravity circuit of the Eternal Son by a technique of experience known as FINALITER TRANSCENDATION. Such finaliters thus become acceptable candidates for experiential recognition as personalities of God the Supreme. And when these mortal intellects in the unrevealed future assignments of the Corps of the Finality attain the seventh stage of spirit existence, such dual minds will become triune. These two attuned minds, the human and the divine, will become glorified in union with the experiential mind of the then actualized Supreme Being.
117:5.4 In the eternal future, God the Supreme will be actualized—creatively expressed and spiritually portrayed—in the spiritualized mind, the immortal soul, of ascendant man, even as the Universal Father was so revealed in the earth life of Jesus.
... you will still be guided in your Paradise ascent by the comforting directive spirit of the Paradise bestowal Sons of God. 117:5.9
117:5.9 While such spiritual influences as the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of Truth are local universe ministrations, their guidance is not wholly confined to the geographic limitations of a given local creation. As the ascending mortal passes beyond the boundaries of his local universe of origin, he is not entirely deprived of the ministry of the Spirit of Truth which has so constantly taught and guided him through the philosophic mazes of the material and morontial worlds, in every crisis of ascension unfailingly directing the Paradise pilgrim, ever saying: “This is the way.” When you leave the domains of the local universe, through the ministry of the spirit of the emerging Supreme Being and through the provisions of superuniverse reflectivity, you will still be guided in your Paradise ascent by the comforting directive spirit of the Paradise bestowal Sons of God.
The finite of time contains within itself the seeds of eternity ... 117:5:14
117:5.14 The evolving Supreme will eventually compensate finite creatures for their inability ever to achieve more than limited experience contact with the universe of universes. Creatures can attain the Paradise Father, but their evolutionary minds, being finite, are incapable of really understanding the infinite and absolute Father. But since all creature experiencing registers in, and is a part of, the Supreme, when all creatures attain the final level of finite existence, and after total universe development makes possible their attainment of God the Supreme as an actual divinity presence, then, inherent in the fact of such contact, is contact with total experience. The finite of time contains within itself the seeds of eternity; and we are taught that, when the fullness of evolution witnesses the exhaustion of the capacity for cosmic growth, the total finite will embark upon the absonite phases of the eternal career in quest of the Father as Ultimate.
As God is your divine Father, so is the Supreme your divine Mother ...117:6.2
6. The Quest for the Supreme
117:6.2 If you truly desire to find God, you cannot help having born in your minds the consciousness of the Supreme. As God is your divine Father, so is the Supreme your divine Mother, in whom you are nurtured throughout your lives as universe creatures. “How universal is the Supreme—he is on all sides! The limitless things of creation depend on his presence for life, and none are refused.”
... when they [Thought Adjusters] experience the transactions of time in the universes of space, they become like the Supreme. 117:6.3
117:6.3 What Michael is to Nebadon, the Supreme is to the finite cosmos; his Deity is the great avenue through which the love of the Father flows outward to all creation, and he is the great avenue through which finite creatures pass inward in their quest of the Father, who is love. Even Thought Adjusters are related to him; in original nature and divinity they are like the Father, but when they experience the transactions of time in the universes of space, they become like the Supreme.
The mother influence dominates the human personality throughout the local universe childhood of the growing soul. 117:6.5
117:6.5 The morontia soul of an evolving mortal is really the son of the Adjuster action of the Universal Father and the child of the cosmic reaction of the Supreme Being, the Universal Mother. The mother influence dominates the human personality throughout the local universe childhood of the growing soul. The influence of the Deity parents becomes more equal after the Adjuster fusion and during the superuniverse career, but when the creatures of time begin the traversal of the central universe of eternity, the Father nature becomes increasingly manifest, attaining its height of finite manifestation upon the recognition of the Universal Father and the admission into the Corps of the Finality.
Men all too often forget that God is the greatest experience in human existence. 117:6.9 + .10
117:6.9 Men all too often forget that God is the greatest experience in human existence. Other experiences are limited in their nature and content, but the experience of God has no limits save those of the creature’s comprehension capacity, and this very experience is in itself capacity enlarging. When men search for God, they are searching for everything. When they find God, they have found everything. The search for God is the unstinted bestowal of love attended by amazing discoveries of new and greater love to be bestowed.
117:6.10 All true love is from God, and man receives the divine affection as he himself bestows this love upon his fellows. Love is dynamic. It can never be captured; it is alive, free, thrilling, and always moving. Man can never take the love of the Father and imprison it within his heart. The Father’s love can become real to mortal man only by passing through that man’s personality as he in turn bestows this love upon his fellows. The great circuit of love is from the Father, through sons to brothers, and hence to the Supreme. The love of the Father appears in the mortal personality by the ministry of the indwelling Adjuster. Such a God-knowing son reveals this love to his universe brethren, and this fraternal affection is the essence of the love of the Supreme.
The fruits of the spirit are the substance of the Supreme as he is realizable in human experience. 117:6.17 and 193:2.2
117:6.17 Despite the fact that you cannot, in this universe age, personally find him as you can and will find the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, nevertheless, the Paradise ascent and subsequent universe career will gradually create in your consciousness the recognition of the universe presence and the cosmic action of the God of all experience. The fruits of the spirit are the substance of the Supreme as he is realizable in human experience.
193:2.2 [Jesus:] " ... Salvation is the free gift of God, but those who are born of the spirit will immediately begin to show forth the fruits of the spirit in loving service to their fellow creatures. And the fruits of the divine spirit which are yielded in the lives of spirit-born and God-knowing mortals are: loving service, unselfish devotion, courageous loyalty, sincere fairness, enlightened honesty, undying hope, confiding trust, merciful ministry, unfailing goodness, forgiving tolerance, and enduring peace." ...
... the Father walks beside [you] each step of the way, while the very way that he is traversing is the presence of the Supreme. 117:6.27
117:6.25 Men do not find the Supreme suddenly and spectacularly as an earthquake tears chasms into the rocks, but they find him slowly and patiently as a river quietly wears away the soil beneath.
117:6.26 When you find the Father, you will find the great cause of your spiritual ascent in the universes; when you find the Supreme, you will discover the great result of your career of Paradise progression.
117:6.27 But no God-knowing mortal can ever be lonely in his journey through the cosmos, for he knows that the Father walks beside him each step of the way, while the very way that he is traversing is the presence of the Supreme.
[How about also the Presence of our Universe Creator Son and His Creative Spirit Partner? Earlier in this Paper we have read this:]
117:5.9 While such spiritual influences as the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of Truth are local universe ministrations, their guidance is not wholly confined to the geographic limitations of a given local creation. As the ascending mortal passes beyond the boundaries of his local universe of origin, he is not entirely deprived of the ministry of the Spirit of Truth which has so constantly taught and guided him through the philosophic mazes of the material and morontial worlds, in every crisis of ascension unfailingly directing the Paradise pilgrim, ever saying: “This is the way.” When you leave the domains of the local universe, through the ministry of the spirit of the emerging Supreme Being and through the provisions of superuniverse reflectivity, you will still be guided in your Paradise ascent by the comforting directive spirit of the Paradise bestowal Sons of God.
This concept implies the actual [future] sovereignty of the Supreme in the [then unified] grand universe. 117:7.13 - .15
7. The Future of the Supreme
117:7.13 The present goal of the superuniverses is to become, as they are and within their potentials, perfect, even as is Havona. This perfection pertains to physical and spiritual attainment, even to administrative, governmental, and fraternal development. It is believed that, in the ages to come, the possibilities for disharmony, maladjustment, and misadaptation will be eventually exhausted in the superuniverses. The energy circuits will be in perfect balance and in complete subjugation to mind, while spirit, in the presence of personality, will have achieved the dominance of mind.
117:7.14 It is conjectured that at this far-distant time the spirit person of the Supreme and attained power of the Almighty will have achieved co-ordinate development, and that both, as unified in and by the Supreme Mind, will factualize as the Supreme Being, a completed actuality in the universes—an actuality which will be observable by all creature intelligences, reacted to by all created energies, co-ordinated in all spiritual entities, and experienced by all universe personalities.
117:7.15 This concept implies the actual sovereignty of the Supreme in the grand universe. It is altogether likely that the present Trinity administrators will continue as his vicegerents, but we believe that the present demarcations between the seven superuniverses will gradually disappear, and that the entire grand universe will function as a perfected whole.
The next Topical Study 146 Part 10 is on the left column of the Home page.
