PAPER 12
THE UNIVERSE OF UNIVERSES
12:0.1 The immensity of the far-flung creation of the Universal Father is utterly beyond the grasp of finite imagination; the enormousness of the master universe staggers the concept of even my order of being. But the mortal mind can be taught much about the plan and arrangement of the universes; you can know something of their physical organization and marvelous administration; you may learn much about the various groups of intelligent beings who inhabit the seven super-universes of time and the central universe of eternity.
12:0.2 In principle, that is, in eternal potential, we conceive of material creation as being infinite because the Universal Father is actually infinite, but as we study and observe the total material creation, we know that at any given moment in time it is limited, although to your finite minds it is comparatively limitless, virtually boundless.
12:0.3 We are convinced, from the study of physical law and from the observation of the starry realms, that the infinite Creator is not yet manifest in finality of cosmic expression, that much of the cosmic potential of the Infinite is still self-contained and unrevealed. To created beings the master universe might appear to be almost infinite, but it is far from finished; there are still physical limits to the material creation, and the experiential revelation of the eternal purpose is still in progress.
12:1
SPACE LEVELS OF
THE MASTER UNIVERSE
12:1.1 The universe of universes is not an infinite plane, a boundless cube, nor a limitless circle; it certainly has dimensions. The laws of physical organization and administration prove conclusively that the whole vast aggregation of force-energy and matter-power functions ultimately as a space unit, as an organized and coordinated whole. The observable behavior of the material creation constitutes evidence of a physical universe of definite limits. The final proof of both a circular and delimited universe is afforded by the, to us, well-known fact that all forms of basic energy ever swing around the curved path of the space levels of the master universe in obedience to the incessant and absolute pull of Paradise gravity.
12:1.2 The successive space levels of the master universe constitute the major divisions of pervaded space—total creation, organized and partially inhabited or yet to be organized and inhabited. If the master universe were not a series of elliptical space levels of lessened resistance to motion, alternating with zones of relative quiescence, we conceive that some of the cosmic energies would be observed to shoot off on an infinite range, off on a straight-line path into trackless space; but we never find force, energy, or matter thus behaving; ever they whirl, always swinging onward in the tracks of the great space circuits.
12:1.3 Proceeding outward from Paradise through the horizontal extension of pervaded space, the master universe is existent in six concentric ellipses, the space levels encircling the central Isle:
1.The Central Universe— Havona.
2.The Seven Super-universes.
3.The First Outer Space Level.
4.The Second Outer Space Level.
5.The Third Outer Space Level.
6.The Fourth and Outermost Space Level.
12:1.4 Havona, the central universe, is not a time creation; it is an eternal existence. This never-beginning, never-ending universe consists of one billion spheres of sublime perfection and is surrounded by the enormous dark gravity bodies. At the center of Havona is the stationary and absolutely stabilized Isle of Paradise, surrounded by its twenty-one satellites. Owing to the enormous encircling masses of the dark gravity bodies about the fringe of the central universe, the mass content of this central creation is far in excess of the total known mass of all seven sectors of the grand universe.
12:1.5 The Paradise-Havona System, the eternal universe encircling the eternal Isle, constitutes the perfect and eternal nucleus of the master universe; all seven of the super-universes and all regions of outer space revolve in established orbits around the gigantic central aggregation of the Paradise satellites and the Havona spheres.
12:1.6 The Seven Super-universes are not primary physical organizations; nowhere do their boundaries divide a nebular family, neither do they cross a local universe, a prime creative unit. Each super-universe is simply a geographic space clustering of approximately one seventh of the organized and partially inhabited post-Havona creation, and each is about equal in the number of local universes embraced and in the space encompassed. Nebadon, your local universe, is one of the newer creations in Orvonton, the seventh super-universe.
12:1.7 The Grand Universe is the present organized and inhabited creation. It consists of the seven super-universes, with an aggregate evolutionary potential of around seven trillion inhabited planets, not to mention the eternal spheres of the central creation. But this tentative estimate takes no account of architectural administrative spheres, neither does it include the outlying groups of unorganized universes. The present ragged edge of the grand universe, its uneven and unfinished periphery, together with the tremendously unsettled condition of the whole astronomical plot, suggests to our star students that even the seven super-universes are, as yet, uncompleted. As we move from within, from the divine center outward in any one direction, we do, eventually, come to the outer limits of the organized and inhabited creation; we come to the outer limits of the grand universe. And it is near this outer border, in a far-off corner of such a magnificent creation, that your local universe has its eventful existence.
12:1.8 The Outer Space Levels. Far out in space, at an enormous distance from the seven inhabited super-universes, there are assembling vast and unbelievably stupendous circuits of force and materializing energies. Between the energy circuits of the seven super-universes and this gigantic outer belt of force activity, there is a space zone of comparative quiet, which varies in width but averages about four hundred thousand light-years. These space zones are free from star dust—cosmic fog. Our students of these phenomena are in doubt as to the exact status of the space-forces existing in this zone of relative quiet which encircles the seven super-universes. But about one-half million light-years beyond the periphery of the present grand universe we observe the beginnings of a zone of an unbelievable energy action which increases in volume and intensity for over twenty-five million light-years. These tremendous wheels of energizing forces are situated in the first outer space level, a continuous belt of cosmic activity encircling the whole of the known, organized, and inhabited creation.
12:1.9 Still greater activities are taking place beyond these regions, for the Uversa physicists have detected early evidence of force manifestations more than fifty million light-years beyond the outermost ranges of the phenomena in the first outer space level. These activities undoubtedly presage the organization of the material creations of the second outer space level of the master universe.
12:1.10 The central universe is the creation of eternity; the seven super-universes are the creations of time; the four outer space levels are undoubtedly destined to eventuate-evolve the ultimacy of creation. And there are those who maintain that the Infinite can never attain full expression short of infinity; and therefore do they postulate an additional and unrevealed creation beyond the fourth and outermost space level, a possible ever-expanding, never-ending universe of infinity. In theory we do not know how to limit either the infinity of the Creator or the potential infinity of creation, but as it exists and is administered, we regard the master universe as having limitations, as being definitely delimited and bounded on its outer margins by open space.
12:2
THE DOMAINS OF
THE UNQUALIFIED ABSOLUTE
12:2.1 When Urantia astronomers peer through their increasingly powerful telescopes into the mysterious stretches of outer space and there behold the amazing evolution of almost countless physical universes, they should realize that they are gazing upon the mighty outworking of the unsearchable plans of the Architects of the Master Universe. True, we do possess evidences which are suggestive of the presence of certain Paradise personality influences here and there throughout the vast energy manifestations now characteristic of these outer regions, but from the larger viewpoint the space regions extending beyond the outer borders of the seven super-universes are generally recognized as constituting the domains of the Unqualified Absolute.
12:2.2 Although the unaided human eye can see only two or three nebulae outside the borders of the super-universe of Orvonton, your telescopes literally reveal millions upon millions of these physical universes in process of formation. Most of the starry realms visually exposed to the search of your present-day telescopes are in Orvonton, but with photographic technique the larger telescopes penetrate far beyond the borders of the grand universe into the domains of outer space, where untold universes are in process of organization. And there are yet other millions of universes beyond the range of your present instruments.
12:2.3 In the not-distant future, new telescopes will reveal to the wondering gaze of Urantian astronomers no less than 375 million new galaxies in the remote stretches of outer space. At the same time these more powerful telescopes will disclose that many island universes formerly believed to be in outer space are really a part of the galactic system of Orvonton. The seven super-universes are still growing; the periphery of each is gradually expanding; new nebulae are constantly being stabilized and organized; and some of the nebulae which Urantian astronomers regard as extra-galactic are actually on the fringe of Orvonton and are traveling along with us.
12:2.4 The Uversa star students observe that the grand universe is surrounded by the ancestors of a series of starry and planetary clusters which completely encircle the present inhabited creation as concentric rings of outer universes upon universes. The physicists of Uversa calculate that the energy and matter of these outer and uncharted regions already equal many times the total material mass and energy charge embraced in all seven super-universes. We are informed that the metamorphosis of cosmic force in these outer space levels is a function of the Paradise force organizers. We also know that these forces are ancestral to those physical energies which at present activate the grand universe. The Orvonton power directors, however, have nothing to do with these far-distant realms, neither are the energy movements therein discernibly connected with the power circuits of the organized and inhabited creations.
12:2.5 We know very little of the significance of these tremendous phenomena of outer space. A greater creation of the future is in process of formation. We can observe its immensity, we can discern its extent and sense its majestic dimensions, but otherwise we know little more about these realms than do the astronomers of Urantia. As far as we know, no material beings on the order of humans, no angels or other spirit creatures, exist in this outer ring of nebulae, suns, and planets. This distant domain is beyond the jurisdiction and administration of the super-universe governments.
12:2.6 Throughout Orvonton it is believed that a new type of creation is in process, an order of universes destined to become the scene of the future activities of the assembling Corps of the Finality; and if our conjectures are correct, then the endless future may hold for all of you the same enthralling spectacles that the endless past has held for your seniors and predecessors.
12:3
UNIVERSAL GRAVITY
12:3.1 All forms of force-energy—material, mindal, or spiritual—are alike subject to those grasps, those universal presences, which we call gravity. Personality also is responsive to gravity—to the Father's exclusive circuit; but though this circuit is exclusive to the Father, he is not excluded from the other circuits; the Universal Father is infinite and acts over all four absolute-gravity circuits in the master universe:
1.The Personality Gravity of the Universal Father.
2.The Spirit Gravity of the Eternal Son.
3.,The Mind Gravity of the Conjoint Actor.
4.The Cosmic Gravity of the Isle of Paradise.
12:3.2 These four circuits are not related to the nether Paradise force center; they are neither force, energy, nor power circuits. They are absolute presence circuits and like God are independent of time and space.
12:3.3 In this connection it is interesting to record certain observations made on Uversa during recent millenniums by the corps of gravity researchers. This expert group of workers has arrived at the following conclusions regarding the different gravity systems of the master universe:
12:3.4 1. Physical Gravity. Having formulated an estimate of the summation of the entire physical-gravity capacity of the grand universe, they have laboriously effected a comparison of this finding with the estimated total of absolute gravity presence now operative. These calculations indicate that the total gravity action on the grand universe is a very small part of the estimated gravity pull of Paradise, computed on the basis of the gravity response of basic physical units of universe matter. These investigators reach the amazing conclusion that the central universe and the surrounding seven super-universes are at the present time making use of only about five per cent of the active functioning of the Paradise absolute-gravity grasp. In other words: At the present moment about ninety-five per cent of the active cosmic-gravity action of the Isle of Paradise, computed on this totality theory, is engaged in controlling material systems beyond the borders of the present organized universes. These calculations all refer to absolute gravity; linear gravity is an interactive phenomenon which can be computed only by knowing the actual Paradise gravity.
12:3.5 2. Spiritual Gravity. By the same technique of comparative estimation and calculation these researchers have explored the present reaction capacity of spirit gravity and, with the co-operation of Solitary Messengers and other spirit personalities, have arrived at the summation of the active spirit gravity of the Second Source and Center. And it is most instructive to note that they find about the same value for the actual and functional presence of spirit gravity in the grand universe that they postulate for the present total of active spirit gravity. In other words: At the present time practically the entire spirit gravity of the Eternal Son, computed on this theory of totality, is observable as functioning in the grand universe. If these findings are dependable, we may conclude that the universes now evolving in outer space are at the present time wholly nonspiritual. And if this is true, it would satisfactorily explain why spirit-endowed beings are in possession of little or no information about these vast energy manifestations aside from knowing the fact of their physical existence.
12:3.6 3. Mind Gravity. By these same principles of comparative computation these experts have attacked the problem of mind-gravity presence and response. The mind unit of estimation was arrived at by averaging three material and three spiritual types of mentality, although the type of mind found in the power directors and their associates proved to be a disturbing factor in the effort to arrive at a basic unit for mind-gravity estimation. There was little to impede the estimation of the present capacity of the Third Source and Center for mind-gravity function in accordance with this theory of totality. Although the findings in this instance are not so conclusive as in the estimates of physical and spirit gravity, they are, comparatively considered, very instructive, even intriguing. These investigators deduce that about eighty-five per cent of the mind-gravity response to the intellectual drawing of the Conjoint Actor takes origin in the existing grand universe. This would suggest the possibility that mind activities are involved in connection with the observable physical activities now in progress throughout the realms of outer space. While this estimate is probably far from accurate, it accords, in principle, with our belief that intelligent force organizers are at present directing universe evolution in the space levels beyond the present outer limits of the grand universe. Whatever the nature of this postulated intelligence, it is apparently not spirit-gravity responsive.
12:3.7 But all these computations are at best estimates based on assumed laws. We think they are fairly reliable. Even if a few spirit beings were located in outer space, their collective presence would not markedly influence calculations involving such enormous measurements.
12:3.8 Personality Gravity is noncomputable. We recognize the circuit, but we cannot measure either qualitative or quantitative realities responsive thereto.
12:4
SPACE AND MOTION
12:4.1 All units of cosmic energy are in primary revolution, are engaged in the execution of their mission, while swinging around the universal orbit. The universes of space and their component systems and worlds are all revolving spheres, moving along the endless circuits of the master universe space levels. Absolutely nothing is stationary in all the master universe except the very center of Havona, the eternal Isle of Paradise, the center of gravity.
12:4.2 The Unqualified Absolute is functionally limited to space, but we are not so sure about the relation of this Absolute to motion. Is motion inherent therein? We do not know. We know that motion is not inherent in space; even the motions of space are not innate. But we are not so sure about the relation of the Unqualified to motion. Who, or what, is really responsible for the gigantic activities of force-energy transmutations now in progress out beyond the borders of the present seven super-universes?Concerning the origin of motion we have the following opinions:
1. 12:4.3 We think the Conjoint Actor initiates motion in space.
2. 12:4.4 If the Conjoint Actor produces the motions of space, we cannot prove it.
3. 12:4.5 The Universal Absolute does not originate initial motion but does equalize and control all of the tensions originated by motion.
12:4.6 In outer space the force organizers are apparently responsible for the production of the gigantic universe wheels which are now in process of stellar evolution, but their ability so to function must have been made possible by some modification of the space presence of the Unqualified Absolute.
12:4.7 Space is, from the human viewpoint, nothing—negative; it exists only as related to something positive and nonspatial. Space is, however, real. It contains and conditions motion. It even moves. Space motions may be roughly classified as follows:
1. 12:4.8 Primary motion—space respiration, the motion of space itself.
2. 12:4.9 Secondary motion—the alternate directional swings of the successive space levels.
3. 12:4.10 Relative motions—relative in the sense that they are not evaluated with Paradise as a base point. Primary and secondary motions are absolute, motion in relation to unmoving Paradise.
4. 12:4.11 Compensatory or correlating movement designed to co-ordinate all other motions.
12:4.12 The present relationship of your sun and its associated planets, while disclosing many relative and absolute motions in space, tends to convey the impression to astronomic observers that you are comparatively stationary in space, and that the surrounding starry clusters and streams are engaged in outward flight at ever-increasing velocities as your calculations proceed outward in space. But such is not the case. You fail to recognize the present outward and uniform expansion of the physical creations of all pervaded space. Your own local creation (Nebadon) participates in this movement of universal outward expansion. The entire seven super-universes participate in the two-billion-year cycles of space respiration along with the outer regions of the master universe.
12:4.13 When the universes expand and contract, the material masses in pervaded space alternately move against and with the pull of Paradise gravity. The work that is done in moving the material energy mass of creation is space work but not power-energy work.
12:4.14 Although your spectroscopic estimations of astronomic velocities are fairly reliable when applied to the starry realms belonging to your super-universe and its associate super-universes, such reckonings with reference to the realms of outer space are wholly unreliable. Spectral lines are displaced from the normal towards the violet by an approaching star; likewise these lines are displaced towards the red by a receding star. Many influences interpose to make it appear that the recessional velocity of the external universes increases at the rate of more than one hundred miles a second for every million light-years increase in distance. By this method of reckoning, subsequent to the perfection of more powerful telescopes, it will appear that these far-distant systems are in flight from this part of the universe at the unbelievable rate of more than thirty thousand miles a second. But this apparent speed of recession is not real; it results from numerous factors of error embracing angles of observation and other time-space distortions.
12:4.15 But the greatest of all such distortions arises because the vast universes of outer space in the realms next to the domains of the seven super-universes, seem to be revolving in a direction opposite to that of the grand universe. That is, these myriads of nebulae and their accompanying suns and spheres are at the present time revolving clockwise about the central creation. The seven super-universes revolve about Paradise in a counterclockwise direction. It appears that the second outer universe of galaxies, like the seven super-universes, revolves counterclockwise about Paradise. And the astronomic observers of Uversa think they detect evidence of revolutionary movements in a third outer belt of far-distant space which are beginning to exhibit directional tendencies of a clockwise nature.
12:4.16 It is probable that these alternate directions of successive space processions of the universes have something to do with the intra-master universe gravity technique of the Universal Absolute, which consists of a co-ordination of forces and an equalization of space tensions. Motion as well as space is a complement or equilibrant of gravity.
12:5
SPACE AND TIME
12:5.1 Like space, time is a bestowal of Paradise, but not in the same sense, only indirectly. Time comes by virtue of motion and because mind is inherently aware of sequentiality. From a practical viewpoint, motion is essential to time, but there is no universal time unit based on motion except in so far as the Paradise-Havona standard day is arbitrarily so recognized. The totality of space respiration destroys its local value as a time source.
12:5.2 Space is not infinite, even though it takes origin from Paradise; not absolute, for it is pervaded by the Unqualified Absolute. We do not know the absolute limits of space, but we do know that the absolute of time is eternity.
12:5.3 Time and space are inseparable only in the time-space creations, the seven super-universes. Non-temporal space (space without time) theoretically exists, but the only truly non-temporal place is Paradise area. Non-spatial time (time without space) exists in mind of the Paradise level of function.
12:5.4 The relatively motionless midspace zones impinging on Paradise and separating pervaded from unpervaded space are the transition zones from time to eternity, hence the necessity of Paradise pilgrims becoming unconscious during this transit when it is to culminate in Paradise citizenship. Time-conscious visitors can go to Paradise without thus sleeping, but they remain creatures of time.
12:5.5 Relationships to time do not exist without motion in space, but consciousness of time does. Sequentiality can consciousize time even in the absence of motion. Man's mind is less time-bound than space-bound because of the inherent nature of mind. Even during the days of the earth life in the flesh, though man's mind is rigidly space-bound, the creative human imagination is comparatively time free. But time itself is not genetically a quality of mind.
12:5.6 There are three different levels of time cognizance:
1. 12:5.7 Mind-perceived time—consciousness of sequence, motion, and a sense of duration.
2.12:5.8 Spirit-perceived time—insight into motion Godward and the awareness of the motion of ascent to levels of increasing divinity.
3.12:5.9 Personality creates a unique time sense out of insight into Reality plus a consciousness of presence and an awareness of duration.
12:5.10 Unspiritual animals know only the past and live in the present. Spirit-indwelt man has powers of prevision (insight); he may visualize the future. Only forward-looking and progressive attitudes are personally real. Static ethics and traditional morality are just slightly super-animal. Nor is stoicism a high order of self-realization. Ethics and morals become truly human when they are dynamic and progressive, alive with universe reality.
12:5.11 The human personality is not merely a concomitant of time-and-space events; the human personality can also act as the cosmic cause of such events.
12:6
UNIVERSAL OVER-CONTROL
12:6.1 The universe is non-static. Stability is not the result of inertia but rather the product of balanced energies, cooperative minds, coordinated morontias, spirit over-control, and personality unification. Stability is wholly and always proportional to divinity.
12:6.2 In the physical control of the master universe the Universal Father exercises priority and primacy through the Isle of Paradise; God is absolute in the spiritual administration of the cosmos in the person of the Eternal Son. Concerning the domains of mind, the Father and the Son function coordinately in the Conjoint Actor.
12:6.3 The Third Source and Center assists in the maintenance of the equilibrium and co-ordination of the combined physical and spiritual energies and organizations by the absoluteness of his grasp of the cosmic mind and by the exercise of his inherent and universal physical- and spiritual-gravity complements. Whenever and wherever there occurs a liaison between the material and the spiritual, such a mind phenomenon is an act of the Infinite Spirit. Mind alone can inter-associate the physical forces and energies of the material level with the spiritual powers and beings of the spirit level.
12:6.4 In all your contemplation of universal phenomena, make certain that you take into consideration the interrelation of physical, intellectual, and spiritual energies, and that due allowance is made for the unexpected phenomena attendant upon their unification by personality and for the unpredictable phenomena resulting from the actions and reactions of experiential Deity and the Absolutes.
12:6.5 The universe is highly predictable only in the quantitative or gravity-measurement sense; even the primal physical forces are not responsive to linear gravity, nor are the higher mind meanings and true spirit values of ultimate universe realities. Qualitatively, the universe is not highly predictable as regards new associations of forces, either physical, mindal, or spiritual, although many such combinations of energies or forces become partially predictable when subjected to critical observation. When matter, mind, and spirit are unified by creature personality, we are unable fully to predict the decisions of such a freewill being.
12:6.6 All phases of primordial force, nascent spirit, and other non-personal ultimate's appear to react in accordance with certain relatively stable but unknown laws and are characterized by a latitude of performance and an elasticity of response which are often disconcerting when encountered in the phenomena of a circumscribed and isolated situation. What is the explanation of this unpredictable freedom of reaction disclosed by these emerging universe actualities? These unknown, unfathomable unpredictables—whether pertaining to the behavior of a primordial unit of force, the reaction of an unidentified level of mind, or the phenomenon of a vast pre-universe in the making in the domains of outer space—probably disclose the activities of the Ultimate and the presence-performances of the Absolutes, which antedate the function of all universe Creators.
12:6.7 We do not really know, but we surmise that such amazing versatility and such profound co-ordination signify the presence and performance of the Absolutes, and that such diversity of response in the face of apparently uniform causation discloses the reaction of the Absolutes, not only to the immediate and situational causation, but also to all other related causation's throughout the entire master universe.
12:6.8 Individuals have their guardians of destiny; planets, systems, constellations, universes, and super-universes each have their respective rulers who labor for the good of their domains. Havona and even the grand universe are watched over by those entrusted with such high responsibilities. But who fosters and cares for the fundamental needs of the master universe as a whole, from Paradise to the fourth and outermost space level? Existentially such over-care is probably attributable to the Paradise Trinity,but from an experiential viewpoint the appearance of the post-Havona universes is dependent on:
1.The Absolutes in potential.
2.The Ultimate in direction.
3.The Supreme in evolutionary co-ordination.
4.The Architects of the Master Universe in administration prior to the appearance of specific rulers.
12:6.9 The Unqualified Absolute pervades all space. We are not altogether clear as to the exact status of the Deity and Universal Absolutes, but we know the latter functions wherever the Deity and Unqualified Absolutes function. The Deity Absolute may be universally present but hardly space present. The Ultimate is, or sometime will be, space present to the outer margins of the fourth space level. We doubt that the Ultimate will ever have a space presence beyond the periphery of the master universe, but within this limit the Ultimate is progressively integrating the creative organization of the potentials of the three Absolutes.
12:7
THE PART AND THE WHOLE
12:7.1 There is operative throughout all time and space and with regard to all reality of whatever nature an inexorable and impersonal law which is equivalent to the function of a cosmic providence. Mercy characterizes God's attitude of love for the individual; impartiality motivates God's attitude toward the total. The will of God does not necessarily prevail in the part—the heart of any one personality—but his will does actually rule the whole, the universe of universes.
12:7.2 In all his dealings with all his beings it is true that the laws of God are not inherently arbitrary. To you, with your limited vision and finite viewpoint, the acts of God must often appear to be dictatorial and arbitrary. The laws of God are merely the habits of God, his way of repeatedly doing things; and he ever does all things well. You observe that God does the same thing in the same way, repeatedly, simply because that is the best way to do that particular thing in a given circumstance; and the best way is the right way, and therefore does infinite wisdom always order it done in that precise and perfect manner. You should also remember that nature is not the exclusive act of Deity; other influences are present in those phenomena which man calls nature.
12:7.3 It is repugnant to the divine nature to suffer any sort of deterioration or ever to permit the execution of any purely personal act in an inferior way. It should be made clear, however, that, if, in the divinity of any situation, in the extremity of any circumstance, in any case where the course of supreme wisdom might indicate the demand for different conduct—if the demands of perfection might for any reason dictate another method of reaction, a better one, then and there would the all-wise God function in that better and more suitable way. That would be the expression of a higher law, not the reversal of a lower law.
12:7.4 God is not a habit-bound slave to the chronicity of the repetition of his own voluntary acts. There is no conflict among the laws of the Infinite; they are all perfections of the infallible nature; they are all the unquestioned acts expressive of faultless decisions. Law is the unchanging reaction of an infinite, perfect, and divine mind. The acts of God are all volitional notwithstanding this apparent sameness. In God there "is no variableness neither shadow of changing." But all this which can be truly said of the Universal Father cannot be said with equal certainty of all his subordinate intelligence's or of his evolutionary creatures.
12:7.5 Because God is changeless, therefore can you depend, in all ordinary circumstances, on his doing the same thing in the same identical and ordinary way. God is the assurance of stability for all created things and beings. He is God; therefore he changes not.
12:7.6 And all this steadfastness of conduct and uniformity of action is personal, conscious, and highly volitional, for the great God is not a helpless slave to his own perfection and infinity. God is not a self-acting automatic force; he is not a slavish law-bound power. God is neither a mathematical equation nor a chemical formula. He is a freewill and primal personality. He is the Universal Father, a being surcharged with personality and the universal fount of all creature personality.
12:7.7 The will of God does not uniformly prevail in the heart of the God-seeking material mortal, but if the time frame is enlarged beyond the moment to embrace the whole of the first life, then does God's will become increasingly discernible in the spirit fruits which are borne in the lives of the spirit-led children of God. And then, if human life is further enlarged to include the morontia experience, the divine will is observed to shine brighter and brighter in the spiritualizing acts of those creatures of time who have begun to taste the divine delights of experiencing the relationship of the personality of man with the personality of the Universal Father.
12:7.8 The Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man present the paradox of the part and the whole on the level of personality. God loves each individual as an individual child in the heavenly family. Yet God thus loves every individual; he is no respecter of persons, and the universality of his love brings into being a relationship of the whole, the universal brotherhood.
12:7.9 The love of the Father absolutely individualizes each personality as a unique child of the Universal Father, a child without duplicate in infinity, a will creature irreplaceable in all eternity. The Father's love glorifies each child of God, illuminating each member of the celestial family, sharply silhouetting the unique nature of each personal being against the impersonal levels that lie outside the fraternal circuit of the Father of all. The love of God strikingly portrays the transcendent value of each will creature, unmistakably reveals the high value which the Universal Father has placed upon each and every one of his children from the highest creator personality of Paradise status to the lowest personality of will dignity among the savage tribes of men in the dawn of the human species on some evolutionary world of time and space.
12:7.10 This very love of God for the individual brings into being the divine family of all individuals, the universal brotherhood of the freewill children of the Paradise Father. And this brotherhood, being universal, is a relationship of the whole. Brotherhood, when universal, discloses not the each relationship, but the all relationship. Brotherhood is a reality of the total and therefore discloses qualities of the whole in contradistinction to qualities of the part.
12:7.11 Brotherhood constitutes a fact of relationship between every personality in universal existence. No person can escape the benefits or the penalties that may come as a result of relationship to other persons. The part profits or suffers in measure with the whole. The good effort of each man benefits all men; the error or evil of each man augments the tribulation of all men. As moves the part, so moves the whole. As the progress of the whole, so the progress of the part. The relative velocities of part and whole determine whether the part is retarded by the inertia of the whole or is carried forward by the momentum of the cosmic brotherhood.
12:7.12 It is a mystery that God is a highly personal self-conscious being with residential headquarters, and at the same time personally present in such a vast universe and personally in contact with such a well-nigh infinite number of beings. That such a phenomenon is a mystery beyond human comprehension should not in the least lessen your faith. Do not allow the magnitude of the infinity, the immensity of the eternity, and the grandeur and glory of the matchless character of God to overawe, stagger, or discourage you; for the Father is not very far from any one of you; he dwells within you, and in him do we all literally move, actually live, and veritably have our being.
12:7.13 Even though the Paradise Father functions through his divine creators and his creature children, he also enjoys the most intimate inner contact with you, so sublime, so highly personal, that it is even beyond my comprehension—that mysterious communion of the Father fragment with the human soul and with the mortal mind of its actual indwelling. Knowing what you do of these gifts of God, you therefore know that the Father is in intimate touch, not only with his divine associates, but also with his evolutionary mortal children of time. The Father indeed abides on Paradise, but his divine presence also dwells in the minds of men.
12:7.14 Even though the spirit of a Son be poured out upon all flesh, even though a Son once dwelt with you in the likeness of mortal flesh, even though the seraphim personally guard and guide you, how can any of these divine beings of the Second and Third Centers ever hope to come as near to you or to understand you as fully as the Father, who has given a part of himself to be in you, to be your real and divine, even your eternal, self?
12:8
MATTER, MIND, AND SPIRIT
12:8.1 "God is spirit," but Paradise is not. The material universe is always the arena wherein take place all spiritual activities; spirit beings and spirit ascenders live and work on physical spheres of material reality.
12:8.2 The bestowal of cosmic force, the domain of cosmic gravity, is the function of the Isle of Paradise. All original force-energy proceeds from Paradise, and the matter for the making of untold universes now circulates throughout the master universe in the form of a super-gravity presence which constitutes the force-charge of pervaded space.
12:8.3 Whatever the transformations of force in the outlying universes, having gone out from Paradise, it journeys on subject to the never-ending, ever-present, unfailing pull of the eternal Isle, obediently and inherently swinging on forever around the eternal space paths of the universes. Physical energy is the one reality which is true and steadfast in its obedience to universal law. Only in the realms of creature volition has there been deviation from the divine paths and the original plans. Power and energy are the universal evidences of the stability, constancy, and eternity of the central Isle of Paradise.
12:8.4 The bestowal of spirit and the spiritualization of personalities, the domain of spiritual gravity, is the realm of the Eternal Son. And this spirit gravity of the Son, ever drawing all spiritual realities to himself, is just as real and absolute as is the all-powerful material grasp of the Isle of Paradise. But material-minded man is naturally more familiar with the material manifestations of a physical nature than with the equally real and mighty operations of a spiritual nature which are discerned only by the spiritual insight of the soul.
12:8.5 As the mind of any personality in the universe becomes more spiritual—Godlike—it becomes less responsive to material gravity. Reality, measured by physical-gravity response, is the antithesis of reality as determined by quality of spirit content. Physical-gravity action is a quantitative determiner of non-spirit energy; spiritual-gravity action is the qualitative measure of the living energy of divinity.
12:8.6 What Paradise is to the physical creation, and what the Eternal Son is to the spiritual universe, the Conjoint Actor is to the realms of mind—the intelligent universe of material, morontial, and spiritual beings and personalities.
12:8.7 The Conjoint Actor reacts to both material and spiritual realities and therefore inherently becomes the universal minister to all intelligent beings, beings who may represent a union of both the material and spiritual phases of creation. The endowment of intelligence, the ministry to the material and the spiritual in the phenomenon of mind, is the exclusive domain of the Conjoint Actor, who thus becomes the partner of the spiritual mind, the essence of the morontia mind, and the substance of the material mind of the evolutionary creatures of time.
12:8.8 Mind is the technique whereby spirit realities become experiential to creature personalities. And in the last analysis the unifying possibilities of even human mind, the ability to co-ordinate things, ideas, and values, is supermaterial.
12:8.9 Though it is hardly possible for the mortal mind to comprehend the seven levels of relative cosmic reality, the human intellect should be able to grasp much of the meaning of three functioning levels of finite reality:
1.12:8.10 Matter. Organized energy which is subject to linear gravity except as it is modified by motion and conditioned by mind.
2.12:8.11 Mind. Organized consciousness which is not wholly subject to material gravity, and which becomes truly liberated when modified by spirit.
3.12:8.12 Spirit. The highest personal reality. True spirit is not subject to physical gravity but eventually becomes the motivating influence of all evolving energy systems of personality dignity.
12:8.13 The goal of existence of all personalities is spirit; material manifestations are relative, and the cosmic mind intervenes between these universal opposites. The bestowal of mind and the ministration of spirit are the work of the associate persons of Deity, the Infinite Spirit and the Eternal Son. Total Deity reality is not mind but spirit-mind—mind-spirit unified by personality. Nevertheless the absolutes of both the spirit and the thing converge in the person of the Universal Father.
12:8.14 On Paradise the three energies, physical, mindal, and spiritual, are co-ordinate. In the evolutionary cosmos energy-matter is dominant except in personality, where spirit, through the mediation of mind, is striving for the mastery. Spirit is the fundamental reality of the personality experience of all creatures because God is spirit. Spirit is unchanging, and therefore, in all personality relations, it transcends both mind and matter, which are experiential variables of progressive attainment.
12:8.15 In cosmic evolution matter becomes a philosophic shadow cast by mind in the presence of spirit luminosity of divine enlightenment, but this does not invalidate the reality of matter-energy. Mind, matter, and spirit are equally real, but they are not of equal value to personality in the attainment of divinity. Consciousness of divinity is a progressive spiritual experience.
12:8.16 The brighter the shining of the spiritualized personality (the Father in the universe, the fragment of potential spirit personality in the individual creature), the greater the shadow cast by the intervening mind upon its material investment. In time, man's body is just as real as mind or spirit, but in death, both mind (identity) and spirit survive while the body does not. A cosmic reality can be nonexistent in personality experience. And so your Greek figure of speech—the material as the shadow of the more real spirit substance—does have a philosophic significance.
12:9
PERSONAL REALITIES
12:9.1 Spirit is the basic personal reality in the universes, and personality is basic to all progressing experience with spiritual reality. Every phase of personality experience on every successive level of universe progression swarms with clues to the discovery of alluring personal realities. Man's true destiny consists in the creation of new and spirit goals and then in responding to the cosmic allurements of such supernal goals of non-material value.
12:9.2 Love is the secret of beneficial association between personalities. You cannot really know a person as the result of a single contact. You cannot appreciatingly know music through mathematical deduction, even though music is a form of mathematical rhythm. The number assigned to a telephone subscriber does not in any manner identify the personality of that subscriber or signify anything concerning his character.
12:9.3 Mathematics, material science, is indispensable to the intelligent discussion of the material aspects of the universe, but such knowledge is not necessarily a part of the higher realization of truth or of the personal appreciation of spiritual realities. Not only in the realms of life but even in the world of physical energy, the sum of two or more things is very often something more than, or something different from, the predictable additive consequences of such unions. The entire science of mathematics, the whole domain of philosophy, the highest physics or chemistry, could not predict or know that the union of two gaseous hydrogen atoms with one gaseous oxygen atom would result in a new and qualitatively super-additive substance—liquid water. The understanding knowledge of this one physio-chemical phenomenon should have prevented the development of materialistic philosophy and mechanistic cosmology.
12:9.4 Technical analysis does not reveal what a person or a thing can do. For example: Water is used effectively to extinguish fire. That water will put out fire is a fact of everyday experience, but no analysis of water could ever be made to disclose such a property. Analysis determines that water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen; a further study of these elements discloses that oxygen is the real supporter of combustion and that hydrogen will itself freely burn.
12:9.5 Your religion is becoming real because it is emerging from the slavery of fear and the bondage of superstition. Your philosophy struggles for emancipation from dogma and tradition. Your science is engaged in the agelong contest between truth and error while it fights for deliverance from the bondage of abstraction, the slavery of mathematics, and the relative blindness of mechanistic materialism.
12:9.6 Mortal man has a spirit nucleus. The mind is a personal-energy system existing around a divine spirit nucleus and functioning in a material environment. Such a living relationship of personal mind and spirit constitutes the universe potential of eternal personality. Real trouble, lasting disappointment, serious defeat, or inescapable death can come only after self-concepts presume fully to displace the governing power of the central spirit nucleus, thereby disrupting the cosmic scheme of personality identity.
12:9.7 [Presented by a Perfector of Wisdom acting by authority of the Ancients of Days. ]
PAPER 13:
THE SACRED SPHERES OF PARADISE
13:0.1 Between the central Isle of Paradise and the innermost of the Havona planetary circuits there are situated in space three lesser circuits of special spheres. The innermost circuit consists of the seven secret spheres of the Universal Father; the second group is composed of the seven luminous worlds of the Eternal Son; in the outermost are the seven immense spheres of the Infinite Spirit, the executive-headquarters worlds of the Seven Master Spirits.
13:0.2 These three seven-world circuits of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are spheres of un-excelled grandeur and un-imagined glory. Even their material or physical construction is of an order unrevealed to you. Each circuit is diverse in material, and each world of each circuit is different excepting the seven worlds of the Son, which are alike in physical constitution. All twenty-one are enormous spheres, and each group of seven is differently eternalized. As far as we know they have always been; like Paradise they are eternal. There exists neither record nor tradition of their origin.
13:0.3 The seven secret spheres of the Universal Father, circulating about Paradise in close proximity to the eternal Isle, are highly reflective of the spiritual luminosity of the central shining of the eternal Deities, shedding this light of divine glory throughout Paradise and even upon the seven circuits of Havona.
13:0.4 On the seven sacred worlds of the Eternal Son there appear to take origin the impersonal energies of spirit luminosity. No personal being may sojourn on any of these seven shining realms. With spiritual glory they illuminate all Paradise and Havona, and they directionize pure spirit luminosity to the seven super-universes. These brilliant spheres of the second circuit likewise emit their light (light without heat) to Paradise and to the billion worlds of the seven-circuited central universe.
13:0.5 The seven worlds of the Infinite Spirit are occupied by the Seven Master Spirits, who preside over the destinies of the seven super-universes, sending forth the spiritual illumination of the Third Person of Deity to these creations of time and space. And all Havona, but not the Isle of Paradise, is bathed in these spiritualizing influences.
13:0.6 Although the worlds of the Father are ultimate status spheres for all Father-endowed personalities, this is not their exclusive function. Many beings and entities other than personal sojourn on these worlds. Each world in the circuit of the Father and the circuit of the Spirit has a distinct type of permanent citizenship, but we think the Son's worlds are inhabited by uniform types of other-than-personal beings. Father fragments are among the natives of Divinington; the other orders of permanent citizenship are unrevealed to you.
13:0.7 The twenty-one Paradise satellites serve many purposes in both central and super-universes not disclosed in these narratives. You are able to understand so little of the life of these spheres that you cannot hope to gain anything like a consistent view of them, either as to nature or function; thousands of activities are there going on which are unrevealed to you. These twenty-one spheres embrace the potentials of the function of the master universe. These papers afford only a fleeting glimpse of certain circumscribed activities pertaining to the present universe age of the grand universe—rather, one of the seven sectors of the grand universe.
13:1
THE SEVEN SACRED WORLDS
OF THE FATHER
13:1.1 The Father's circuit of sacred life spheres contains the only inherent personality secrets in the universe of universes. These satellites of Paradise, the innermost of the three circuits, are the only forbidden domains concerned with personality in the central universe. Nether Paradise and the worlds of the Son are likewise closed to personalities, but neither of those realms is in any way directly concerned with personality.
13:1.2 The Paradise worlds of the Father are directed by the highest order of the Stationary Sons of the Trinity, the Trinitized Secrets of Supremacy. Of these worlds I can tell little; of their manifold activities I may tell less. Such information concerns only those beings who function thereon and go forth therefrom. And though I am somewhat familiar with six of these special worlds, never have I landed on Divinington; that world is wholly forbidden to me.
13:1.3 One of the reasons for the secrecy of these worlds is because each of these sacred spheres enjoys a specialized representation, or manifestation, of the Deities composing the Paradise Trinity; not a personality, but a unique presence of Divinity which can only be appreciated and comprehended by those particular groups of intelligence's resident on, or admissible to, that particular sphere. The Trinitized Secrets of Supremacy are the personal agents of these specialized and impersonal presences of Divinity. And the Secrets of Supremacy are highly personal beings, superbly endowed and marvelously adapted to their exalted and exacting work.
13:1.4 1. DIVININGTON. This world is, in a unique sense, the "bosom of the Father," the personal-communion sphere of the Universal Father, and thereon is a special manifestation of his divinity. Divinington is the Paradise rendezvous of the Thought Adjusters, but it is also the home of numerous other entities, personalities, and other beings taking origin in the Universal Father. Many personalities besides the Eternal Son are of direct origin by the solitary acts of the Universal Father. Only the Father fragments and those personalities and other beings of direct and exclusive origin in the Universal Father fraternize and function on this abode.
13:1.5 The secrets of Divinington include the secret of the bestowal and mission of Thought Adjusters. Their nature, origin, and the technique of their contact with the lowly creatures of the evolutionary worlds is a secret of this Paradise sphere. These amazing transactions do not personally concern the rest of us, and therefore do the Deities deem it proper to withhold certain features of this great and divine ministry from our full understanding. In so far as we come in contact with this phase of divine activity, we are permitted full knowledge of these transactions, but concerning the intimate details of this great bestowal we are not fully informed.
13:1.6 This sphere also holds the secrets of the nature, purpose, and activities of all other forms of Father fragments, of the Gravity Messengers, and of hosts of other beings unrevealed to you. It is highly probable that those truths pertaining to Divinington which are withheld from me, if revealed, would merely confuse and handicap me in my present work, and still again, perhaps they are beyond the conceptual capacity of my order of being.
13:1.7 2. SONARINGTON. This sphere is the "bosom of the Son," the personal receiving world of the Eternal Son. It is the Paradise headquarters of the descending and ascending Sons of God when, and after, they are fully accredited and finally approved. This world is the Paradise home for all Sons of the Eternal Son and of his co-ordinate and associate Sons. There are numerous orders of divine sonship attached to this supernal abode which have not been revealed to mortals since they are not concerned with the plans of the ascension scheme of human spiritual progression through the universes and on to Paradise.
13:1.8 The secrets of Sonarington include the secret of the incarnation of the divine Sons. When a Son of God becomes a Son of Man, is literally born of woman, as occurred on your world nineteen hundred years ago, it is a universal mystery. It is occurring right along throughout the universes, and it is a Sonarington secret of divine sonship. The Adjusters are a mystery of God the Father. The incarnation of the divine Sons is a mystery of God the Son; it is a secret locked up in the seventh sector of Sonarington, a realm penetrated by none save those who have personally passed through this unique experience. Only those phases of incarnation having to do with your ascension career have been brought to your notice. There are many other phases of the mystery of the incarnation of the Paradise Sons of unrevealed types on missions of universe service which are undisclosed to you. And there are still other Sonarington mysteries.
13:1.9 3. SPIRITINGTON. This world is the "bosom of the Spirit," the Paradise home of the high beings that exclusively represent the Infinite Spirit. Here forgather the Seven Master Spirits and certain of their offspring from all universes. At this celestial abode may also be found numerous unrevealed orders of spirit personalities, beings assigned to the manifold activities of the universe not associated with the plans of up-stepping the mortal creatures of time to the Paradise levels of eternity.
13:1.10 The secrets of Spiritington involve the impenetrable mysteries of reflectivity. We tell you of the vast and universal phenomenon of reflectivity, more particularly as it is operative on the headquarters worlds of the seven super-universes, but we never fully explain this phenomenon, for we do not fully understand it. Much, very much, we do comprehend, but many basic details are still mysterious to us. Reflectivity is a secret of God the Spirit. You have been instructed concerning reflectivity functions in relation to the ascension scheme of mortal survival, and it does so operate, but reflectivity is also an indispensable feature of the normal working of numerous other phases of universe occupation. This endowment of the Infinite Spirit is also utilized in channels other than those of intelligence gathering and information dissemination. And there are other secrets of Spiritington.
13:1.11 4. VICEGERINGTON. This planet is the "bosom of the Father and the Son" and is the secret sphere of certain unrevealed beings who take origin by the acts of the Father and the Son. This is also the Paradise home of many glorified beings of complex ancestry, those whose origin is complicated because of the many diverse techniques operative in the seven super-universes. Many groups of beings forgather on this world whose identity has not been revealed to Urantia mortals.
13:1.12 The secrets of Vicegerington include the secrets of trinitization, and trinitization constitutes the secret of authority to represent the Trinity, to act as vicegerents of the Gods. Authority to represent the Trinity attaches only to those beings, revealed and unrevealed, who are trinitized, created, eventuated, or eternalized by any two or all three of the Paradise Trinity. Personalities brought into being by the trinitizing acts of certain types of glorified creatures represent no more than the conceptual potential mobilized in that trinitization, albeit such creatures may ascend the path of Deity embrace open to all of their kind.
13:1.13 Nontrinitized beings do not fully understand the technique of trinitization by either two or three Creators or by certain creatures. You will never fully understand such a phenomenon unless, in the far-distant future of your glorified career, you should essay and succeed in such an adventure, because otherwise these secrets of Vicegerington will always be forbidden you. But to me, a high Trinity-origin being, all sectors of Vicegerington are open. I fully understand, and just as fully and sacredly protect, the secret of my origin and destiny.
13:1.14 There are still other forms and phases of trinitization which have not been brought to the notice of the Urantia peoples, and these experiences, in their personal aspects, are duly protected in the secret sector of Vicegerington.
13:1.15 5. SOLITARINGTON. This world is the "bosom of the Father and the Spirit" and is the rendezvous of a magnificent host of unrevealed beings of origin in the conjoint acts of the Universal Father and the Infinite Spirit, beings who partake of the traits of the Father in addition to their Spirit inheritance.
13:1.16 This is also the home of the Solitary Messengers and of other personalities of the super-angelic orders. You know of very few of these beings; there are vast numbers of orders unrevealed on Urantia. Because they are domiciled on the fifth world, it does not necessarily follow that the Father had aught to do with the creation of Solitary Messengers or their super-angelic associates, but in this universe age he does have to do with their function. During the present universe age this is also the status sphere of the Universe Power Directors.
13:1.17 There are numerous additional orders of spirit personalities, beings unknown to mortal man, who look upon Solitarington as their Paradise home sphere. It should be remembered that all divisions and levels of universe activities are just as fully provided with spirit ministers as is the realm concerned with helping mortal man ascend to his divine Paradise destiny.
13:1.18 The secrets of Solitarington. Besides certain secrets of trinitization, this world holds the secrets of the personal relation of the Infinite Spirit with certain of the higher offspring of the Third Source and Center. On Solitarington are held the mysteries of the intimate association of numerous unrevealed orders with the spirits of the Father, of the Son, and of the Spirit, with the threefold spirit of the Trinity, and with the spirits of the Supreme, the Ultimate, and the Supreme-Ultimate.
13:1.19 6. SERAPHINGTON. This sphere is the "bosom of the Son and the Spirit" and is the home world of the vast hosts of unrevealed beings created by the Son and the Spirit. This is also the destiny sphere of all ministering orders of the angelic hosts, including supernaphim, seconaphim, and seraphim. There also serve in the central and outlying universes many orders of superb spirits who are not " ministering spirits to those who shall be heirs of salvation. " All these spirit workers in all levels and realms of universe activities look upon Seraphington as their Paradise home.
13:1.20 The secrets of Seraphington involve a threefold mystery, only one of which I may mention—the mystery of seraphic transport. The ability of various orders of seraphim and allied spirit beings to envelop within their spirit forms all orders of non-material personalities and to carry them away on lengthy interplanetary journeys, is a secret locked up in the sacred sectors of Seraphington. The transport seraphim comprehend this mystery, but they do not communicate it to the rest of us, or perhaps they cannot. The other mysteries of Seraphington pertain to the personal experiences of types of spirit servers as yet not revealed to mortals. And we refrain from discussing the secrets of such closely related beings because you can almost comprehend such near orders of existence, and it would be akin to betrayal of trust to present even our partial knowledge of such phenomena.
13:1.21 7. ASCENDINGTON. This unique world is the "bosom of the Father, Son, and Spirit," the rendezvous of the ascendant creatures of space, the receiving sphere of the pilgrims of time who are passing through the Havona universe on their way to Paradise. Ascendington is the actual Paradise home of the ascendant souls of time and space until they attain Paradise status. You mortals will spend most of your Havona "vacations" on Ascendington. During your Havona life Ascendington will be to you what the reversion directors were during the local and super-universe ascension. Here you will engage in thousands of activities which are beyond the grasp of mortal imagination. And as on every previous advance in the Godward ascent, your human self will here enter into new relationships with your divine self.
13:1.22 The secrets of Ascendington include the mystery of the gradual and certain building up in the material and mortal mind of a spiritual and potentially immortal counterpart of character and identity. This phenomenon constitutes one of the most perplexing mysteries of the universes—the evolution of an immortal soul within the mind of a mortal and material creature.
13:1.23 You will never fully understand this mysterious transaction until you reach Ascendington. And that is just why all Ascendington will be open to your wondering gaze. One seventh of Ascendington is forbidden to me—that sector concerned with this very secret which is (or will be) the exclusive experience and possession of your type of being. This experience belongs to your human order of existence. My order of personality is not directly concerned with such transactions. It is therefore forbidden to me and eventually revealed to you. But even after it is revealed to you, for some reason it forever remains your secret. You do not reveal it to us nor to any other order of beings. We know about the eternal fusion of a divine Adjuster and an immortal soul of human origin, but the ascendant finaliters know this very experience as an absolute reality.
13:2
FATHER-WORLD RELATIONSHIPS
13:2.1 These home worlds of the diverse orders of spiritual beings are tremendous and stupendous spheres, and they are equal to Paradise in their matchless beauty and superb glory. They are rendezvous worlds, reunion spheres, serving as permanent cosmic addresses. As finaliters you will be domiciled on Paradise, but Ascendington will be your home address at all times, even when you enter service in outer space. Through all eternity you will regard Ascendington as your home of sentimental memories and reminiscent recollections. When you become seventh-stage spirit beings, possibly you will give up your residential status on Paradise.
13:2.2 If outer universes are in the making, if they are to be inhabited by time creatures of ascension potential, then we infer that these children of the future will also be destined to look upon Ascendington as their Paradise home world.
13:2.3 Ascendington is the only sacred sphere that will be unreservedly open to your inspection as a Paradise arrival. Vicegerington is the only sacred sphere that is wholly and unreservedly open to my scrutiny. Though its secrets are concerned in my origin, in this universe age I do not regard Vicegerington as my home. Trinity-origin beings and trinitized beings are not the same.
13:2.4 The Trinity-origin beings do not fully share the Father's worlds; they have their sole homes on the Isle of Paradise in close proximity to the Most Holy Sphere. They often appear on Ascendington, the "bosom of the Father-Son-Spirit," where they fraternize with their brethren who have come up from the lowly worlds of space.
13:2.5 You might assume that Creator Sons, being of Father-Son origin, would regard Vicegerington as their home, but such is not the case in this universe age of the function of God the Sevenfold. And there are many similar problems that will perplex you, for you are sure to encounter many difficulties as you attempt to understand these things which are so near Paradise. Nor can you successfully reason out these questions; you know so little. And if you knew more about the Father's worlds, you would simply encounter more difficulties until you knew all about them. Status on any of these secret worlds is acquired by service as well as by nature of origin, and the successive universe ages may and do redistribute certain of these personality groupings.
13:2.6 The worlds of the inner circuit are really fraternal or status worlds more than actual residential spheres. Mortals will attain some status on each of the Father's worlds save one. For example: When you mortals attain Havona, you are granted clearance for Ascendington, where you are most welcome, but you are not permitted to visit the other six sacred worlds. Subsequent to your passage through the Paradise regime and after your admission to the Corps of the Finality, you are granted clearance for Sonarington since you are sons of God as well as ascenders—and you are even more. But there will always remain one seventh of Sonarington, the sector of the incarnation secrets of the divine Sons, which will not be open to your scrutiny. Never will those secrets be revealed to the ascendant sons of God.
13:2.7 Eventually you will have full access to Ascendington and relative access to the other spheres of the Father except Divinington. But even when you are granted permission to land on five additional secret spheres, after you have become a finaliter, you will not be allowed to visit all sectors of such worlds. Nor will you be permitted to land on the shores of Divinington, the "bosom of the Father," though you shall surely stand repeatedly at the " right hand of the Father. " Never throughout all eternity will there arise any necessity for your presence on the world of the Thought Adjusters.
13:2.8 These rendezvous worlds of spirit life are forbidden ground to the extent that we are asked not to negotiate entrance to those phases of these spheres which are wholly outside our realms of experience. You may become creature perfect even as the Universal Father is deity perfect, but you may not know all the experiential secrets of all other orders of universe personalities. When the Creator has an experiential personality secret with his creature, the Creator preserves that secret in eternal confidence.
13:2.9 All these secrets are supposedly known to the collective body of the Trinitized Secrets of Supremacy. These beings are fully known only by their special world groups; they are little comprehended by other orders. After you attain Paradise, you will know and ardently love the ten Secrets of Supremacy who direct Ascendington. Excepting Divinington, you will also achieve a partial understanding of the Secrets of Supremacy on the other worlds of the Father, though not so perfectly as on Ascendington.
13:2.10 The Trinitized Secrets of Supremacy, as their name might suggest, are related to the Supreme; they are likewise related to the Ultimate and to the future Supreme-Ultimate. These Secrets of Supremacy are the secrets of the Supreme and also the secrets of the Ultimate, even the secrets of the Supreme-Ultimate.
13:3
THE SACRED WORLDS OF
THE ETERNAL SON
13:3.1 The seven luminous spheres of the Eternal Son are the worlds of the seven phases of pure-spirit existence. These shining orbs are the source of the threefold light of Paradise and Havona, their influence being largely, but not wholly, confined to the central universe.
13:3.2 Personality is not present on these Paradise satellites; therefore is there little concerning these pure-spirit abodes which can be presented to the mortal and material personality. We are taught that these worlds teem with the otherwise-than-personal life of the beings of the Eternal Son. We infer that these entities are being assembled for ministry in the projected new universes of outer space. The Paradise philosophers maintain that each Paradise cycle, about two billion years of Urantia time, witnesses the creation of additional reserves of these orders on the secret worlds of the Eternal Son.
13:3.3 As far as I am informed, no personality has ever been on any one of these spheres of the Eternal Son. I have never been assigned to visit one of these worlds in all my long experience in and out of Paradise. Even the personalities cocreated by the Eternal Son do not go to these worlds. We infer that all types of impersonal spirits—regardless of parentage—are admitted to these spirit homes. As I am a person and have a spirit form, no doubt such a world would seem empty and deserted even if I were permitted to pay it a visit. High spirit personalities are not given to the gratification of purposeless curiosity, purely useless adventure. There is at all times altogether too much intriguing and purposeful adventure to permit the development of any great interest in those projects which are either futile or unreal.
13:4
THE WORLDS OF
THE INFINITE SPIRIT
13:4.1 Between the inner circuit of Havona and the shining spheres of the Eternal Son there circle the seven orbs of the Infinite Spirit, worlds inhabited by the offspring of the Infinite Spirit, by the trinitized sons of glorified created personalities, and by other types of unrevealed beings concerned with the effective administration of the many enterprises of the various realms of universe activities.
13:4.2 The Seven Master Spirits are the supreme and ultimate representatives of the Infinite Spirit. They maintain their personal stations, their power focuses, on the periphery of Paradise, but all operations concerned with their management and direction of the grand universe are conducted on and from these seven special executive spheres of the Infinite Spirit. The Seven Master Spirits are, in reality, the mind-spirit balance wheel of the universe of universes, an all-embracing, all-encompassing, and all-coordinating power of central location.
13:4.3 From these seven special spheres the Master Spirits operate to equalize and stabilize the cosmic-mind circuits of the grand universe. They also have to do with the differential spiritual attitude and presence of the Deities throughout the grand universe. Physical reactions are uniform, unvarying, and always instantaneous and automatic. But experiential spiritual presence is in accordance with the underlying conditions or states of spiritual receptivity inherent in the individual minds of the realms.
13:4.4 Physical authority, presence, and function are unvarying in all the universes, small or great. The differing factor in spiritual presence, or reaction, is the fluctuating differential in its recognition and reception by will creatures. Whereas the spiritual presence of absolute and existential Deity is in no manner whatever influenced by attitudes of loyalty or disloyalty on the part of created beings, at the same time it is true that the functioning presence of sub-absolute and experiential Deity is definitely and directly influenced by the decisions, choices, and will-attitudes of such finite creature beings—by the loyalty and devotion of the individual being, planet, system, constellation, or universe. But this spiritual presence of divinity is not whimsical nor arbitrary; its experiential variance is inherent in the freewill endowment of personal creatures.
13:4.5 The determiner of the differential of spiritual presence exists in your own hearts and minds and consists in the manner of your own choosing, in the decisions of your minds, and in the determination of your own wills. This differential is inherent in the freewill reactions of intelligent personal beings, beings whom the Universal Father has ordained shall exercise this liberty of choosing. And the Deities are ever true to the ebb and flow of their spirits in meeting and satisfying the conditions and demands of this differential of creature choice, now bestowing more of their presence in response to a sincere desire for the same and again withdrawing themselves from the scene as their creatures decide adversely in the exercise of their divinely bestowed freedom of choice. And thus does the spirit of divinity become humbly obedient to the choosing of the creatures of the realms.
13:4.6 The executive abodes of the Seven Master Spirits are, in reality, the Paradise headquarters of the seven super-universes and their correlated segments in outer space. Each Master Spirit presides over one super-universe, and each of these seven worlds is exclusively assigned to one of the Master Spirits. There is literally no phase of the sub-Paradise administration of the seven super-universes which is not provided for on these executive worlds. They are not so exclusive as the spheres of the Father or those of the Son, and though residential status is limited to native beings and those who work thereon, these seven administrative planets are always open to all beings who desire to visit them, and who can command the necessary means of transit.
13:4.7 To me, these executive worlds are the most interesting and intriguing spots outside of Paradise. In no other place in the wide universe can one observe such varied activities, involving so many different orders of living beings, having to do with operations on so many diverse levels, occupations at once material, intellectual, and spiritual. When I am accorded a period of release from assignment, if I chance to be on Paradise or in Havona, I usually proceed to one of these busy worlds of the Seven Master Spirits, there to inspire my mind with such spectacles of enterprise, devotion, loyalty, wisdom, and effectiveness. Nowhere else can I observe such an amazing inter-association of personality performances on all seven levels of universe reality. And I am always stimulated by the activities of those who well know how to do their work, and who so thoroughly enjoy doing it.
13:4.8 [Presented by a Perfector of Wisdom commissioned thus to function by the Ancients of Days on Uversa. ]
Next: Paper 14:The Central and Divine Universe
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