PAPER 56
- UNIVERSAL UNITY
God is unity.
Deity is universally co-ordinated. The universe of
universes is one vast integrated mechanism which is
absolutely controlled by one infinite mind. The
physical, intellectual, and spiritual domains of
universal creation are divinely correlated. The
perfect and imperfect are truly interrelated, and
therefore may the finite evolutionary creature
ascend to Paradise in obedience to the Universal
Father's mandate: "Be you perfect, even as I am
perfect."
The diverse levels
of creation are all unified in the plans and
administration of the Architects of the Master
Universe. To the circumscribed minds of time-space
mortals the universe may present many problems and
situations which apparently portray disharmony and
indicate absence of effective co-ordination; but
those of us who are able to observe wider stretches
of universal phenomena, and who are more experienced
in this art of detecting the basic unity which
underlies creative diversity and of discovering the
divine oneness which overspreads all this
functioning of plurality, better perceive the divine
and single purpose exhibited in all these manifold
manifestations of universal creative energy.
1.
PHYSICAL CO-ORDINATION
The physical or
material creation is not infinite, but it is
perfectly co-ordinated. There are force, energy, and
power, but they are all one in origin. The seven
superuniverses are seemingly dual; the central
universe, triune; but Paradise is of single
constitution. And Paradise is the actual source of
all material universes--past, present, and future.
But this cosmic derivation is an eternity
event; at no time--past, present, or
future--does either space or the material cosmos
come forth from the nuclear Isle of Light. As the
cosmic source, Paradise functions prior to space and
before time; hence would its derivations seem to be
orphaned in time and space did they not emerge
through the Unqualified Absolute, their ultimate
repository in space and their revealer and regulator
in time.
The Unqualified
Absolute upholds the physical universe, while the
Deity Absolute motivates the exquisite overcontrol
of all material reality; and both Absolutes are
functionally unified by the Universal Absolute. This
cohesive correlation of the material universe is
best understood by all personalities--material,
morontia, absonite, or spiritual--by the observation
of the gravity
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response of all
bona fide material reality to the gravity centering
on nether Paradise.
Gravity
unification is universal and unvarying; pure-energy
response is likewise universal and inescapable. Pure
energy (primordial force) and pure spirit are wholly
preresponsive to gravity. These primal forces,
inhering in the Absolutes, are personally controlled
by the Universal Father; hence does all gravity
center in the personal presence of the Paradise
Father of pure energy and pure spirit and in his
supermaterial abode.
Pure energy is the
ancestor of all relative, nonspirit functional
realities, while pure spirit is the potential of the
divine and directive overcontrol of all basic energy
systems. And these realities, so diverse as
manifested throughout space and as observed in the
motions of time, are both centered in the person of
the Paradise Father. In him they are one--must be
unified--because God is one. The Father's
personality is absolutely unified.
In the infinite
nature of God the Father there could not possibly
exist duality of reality, such as physical and
spiritual; but the instant we look aside from the
infinite levels and absolute reality of the personal
values of the Paradise Father, we observe the
existence of these two realities and recognize that
they are fully responsive to his personal presence;
in him all things consist.
The moment you
depart from the unqualified concept of the infinite
personality of the Paradise Father, you must
postulate MIND as the inevitable technique of
unifying the ever-widening divergence of these dual
universe manifestations of the original monothetic
Creator personality, the First Source and
Center--the I AM.
2.
INTELLECTUAL UNITY
The Thought-Father
realizes spirit expression in the Word-Son and
attains reality expansion through Paradise in the
far-flung material universes. The spiritual
expressions of the Eternal Son are correlated with
the material levels of creation by the functions of
the Infinite Spirit, by whose spirit-responsive
ministry of mind, and in whose physical-directive
acts of mind, the spiritual realities of Deity and
the material repercussions of Deity are correlated
the one with the other.
Mind is the
functional endowment of the Infinite Spirit,
therefore infinite in potential and universal in
bestowal. The primal thought of the Universal Father
eternalizes in dual expression: the Isle of Paradise
and his Deity equal, the spiritual and Eternal Son.
Such duality of eternal reality renders the mind
God, the Infinite Spirit, inevitable. Mind is the
indispensable channel of communication between
spiritual and material realities. The material
evolutionary creature can conceive and comprehend
the indwelling spirit only by the ministry of mind.
This infinite and
universal mind is ministered in the universes of
time and space as the cosmic mind; and though
extending from the primitive ministry of the
adjutant spirits up to the magnificent mind of the
chief executive of a universe, even this cosmic mind
is adequately unified in the supervision of the
Seven Master Spirits, who are in turn co-ordinated
with the Supreme Mind of time and space and
perfectly correlated with the all-embracing mind of
the Infinite Spirit.
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3.
SPIRITUAL UNIFICATION
As the universal
mind gravity is centered in the Paradise personal
presence of the Infinite Spirit, so does the
universal spirit gravity center in the Paradise
personal presence of the Eternal Son. The Universal
Father is one, but to time-space he is revealed in
the dual phenomena of pure energy and pure spirit.
Paradise spirit
realities are likewise one, but in all time-space
situations and relations this single spirit is
revealed in the dual phenomena of the spirit
personalities and emanations of the Eternal Son and
the spirit personalities and influences of the
Infinite Spirit and associated creations; and there
is yet a third--pure-spirit fragmentations--the
Father's bestowal of the Thought Adjusters and other
spirit entities which are prepersonal.
No matter on what
level of universe activities you may encounter
spiritual phenomena or contact with spirit beings,
you may know that they are all derived from the God
who is spirit by the ministry of the Spirit Son and
the Infinite Mind Spirit. And this far-flung spirit
functions as a phenomenon on the evolutionary worlds
of time as it is directed from the headquarters of
the local universes. From these capitals of the
Creator Sons come the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of
Truth, together with the ministry of the adjutant
mind-spirits, to the lower and evolving levels of
material minds.
While mind is more
unified on the level of the Master Spirits in
association with the Supreme Being and as the cosmic
mind in subordination to the Absolute Mind, the
spirit ministry to the evolving worlds is more
directly unified in the personalities resident on
the headquarters of the local universes and in the
persons of the presiding Divine Ministers, who are
in turn well-nigh perfectly correlated with the
Paradise gravity circuit of the Eternal Son, wherein
occurs final unification of all time-space spirit
manifestations.
Perfected creature
existence can be attained, sustained, and
eternalized by the fusion of self-conscious mind
with a fragment of the pre-Trinity spirit endowment
of some one of the persons of the Paradise Trinity.
The mortal mind is the creation of the Sons and
Daughters of the Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit
and, when fused with the Thought Adjuster from the
Father, partakes of the threefold spirit endowment
of the evolutionary realms. But these three spirit
expressions become perfectly unified in the
finaliters, even as they were in eternity so unified
in the Universal I AM ere he ever became the
Universal Father of the Eternal Son and the Infinite
Spirit.
Spirit must always
and ultimately become threefold in expression and
Trinity-unified in final realization. Spirit
originates from one source through a threefold
expression; and in finality it must and does attain
its full realization in that divine unification
which is experienced in finding God--oneness with
divinity--in eternity, and by means of the ministry
of the cosmic mind of the infinite expression of the
eternal word of the Father's universal thought.
4.
PERSONALITY UNIFICATION
The Universal
Father is a divinely unified personality; hence will
all his ascendant children who are carried to
Paradise by the rebound momentum of the Thought
Adjusters, who went forth from Paradise to indwell
material mortals
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in obedience to
the Father's mandate, likewise be fully unified
personalities ere they reach Havona.
Personality
inherently reaches out to unify all constituent
realities. The infinite personality of the First
Source and Center, the Universal Father, unifies all
seven constituent Absolutes of Infinity; and the
personality of mortal man, being an exclusive and
direct bestowal of the Universal Father, likewise
possesses the potential of unifying the constituent
factors of the mortal creature. Such unifying
creativity of all creature personality is a
birthmark of its high and exclusive source and is
further evidential of its unbroken contact with this
same source through the personality circuit, by
means of which the personality of the creature
maintains direct and sustaining contact with the
Father of all personality on Paradise.
Notwithstanding
that God is manifest from the domains of the
Sevenfold up through supremacy and ultimacy to God
the Absolute, the personality circuit, centering on
Paradise and in the person of God the Father,
provides for the complete and perfect unification of
all these diverse expressions of divine personality
so far as concerns all creature personalities on all
levels of intelligent existence and in all the
realms of the perfect, perfected, and perfecting
universes.
While God is to
and in the universes all that we have portrayed,
nevertheless, to you and to all other God-knowing
creatures he is one, your Father and their Father.
To personality God cannot be plural. God is Father
to each of his creatures, and it is literally
impossible for any child to have more than one
father.
Philosophically,
cosmically, and with reference to differential
levels and locations of manifestation, you may and
perforce must conceive of the functioning of plural
Deities and postulate the existence of plural
Trinities; but in the worshipful experience of the
personal contact of every worshiping personality
throughout the master universe, God is one; and that
unified and personal Deity is our Paradise parent,
God the Father, the bestower, conservator, and
Father of all personalities from mortal man on the
inhabited worlds to the Eternal Son on the central
Isle of Light.
5. DEITY
UNITY
The oneness, the
indivisibility, of Paradise Deity is existential and
absolute. There are three eternal personalizations
of Deity--the Universal Father, the Eternal Son, and
the Infinite Spirit--but in the Paradise Trinity
they are actually one Deity, undivided and
indivisible.
From the original
Paradise-Havona level of existential reality, two
subabsolute levels have differentiated, and thereon
have the Father, Son, and Spirit engaged in the
creation of numerous personal associates and
subordinates. And while it is inappropriate in this
connection to undertake the consideration of
absonite deity unification on transcendental levels
of ultimacy, it is feasible to look at some features
of the unifying function of the various Deity
personalizations in whom divinity is functionally
manifest to the diverse sectors of creation and to
the different orders of intelligent beings.
The present
functioning of divinity in the superuniverses is
actively manifest in the operations of the Supreme
Creators--the local universe Creator Sons and
Spirits, the superuniverse Ancients of Days, and the
Seven Master Spirits of Paradise. These beings
constitute the first three levels of God the
Sevenfold
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leading inward to
the Universal Father, and this entire domain of God
the Sevenfold is co-ordinating on the first level of
experiential deity in the evolving Supreme Being.
On Paradise and in
the central universe, Deity unity is a fact of
existence. Throughout the evolving universes of time
and space, Deity unity is an achievement.
6.
UNIFICATION OF EVOLUTIONARY DEITY
When the three
eternal persons of Deity function as undivided Deity
in the Paradise Trinity, they achieve perfect unity;
likewise, when they create, either associatively or
severally, their Paradise progeny exhibit the
characteristic unity of divinity. And this divinity
of purpose manifested by the Supreme Creators and
Rulers of the time-space domains eventuates in the
unifying power potential of the sovereignty of
experiential supremacy which, in the presence of the
impersonal energy unity of the universe, constitutes
a reality tension that can be resolved only through
adequate unification with the experiential
personality realities of experiential Deity.
The personality
realities of the Supreme Being come forth from the
Paradise Deities and on the pilot world of the outer
Havona circuit unify with the power prerogatives of
the Almighty Supreme coming up from the Creator
divinities of the grand universe. God the Supreme as
a person existed in Havona before the creation of
the seven superuniverses, but he functioned only on
spiritual levels. The evolution of the Almighty
power of Supremacy by diverse divinity synthesis in
the evolving universes eventuated in a new power
presence of Deity which co-ordinated with the
spiritual person of the Supreme in Havona by means
of the Supreme Mind, which concomitantly translated
from the potential resident in the infinite mind of
the Infinite Spirit to the active functional mind of
the Supreme Being.
The
material-minded creatures of the evolutionary worlds
of the seven superuniverses can comprehend Deity
unity only as it is evolving in this
power-personality synthesis of the Supreme Being. On
any level of existence God cannot exceed the
conceptual capacity of the beings who live on such a
level. Mortal man must, through the recognition of
truth, the appreciation of beauty, and the worship
of goodness, evolve the recognition of a God of love
and then progress through ascending deity levels to
the comprehension of the Supreme. Deity, having been
thus grasped as unified in power, can then be
personalized in spirit to creature understanding and
attainment.
While ascending
mortals achieve power comprehension of the Almighty
on the capitals of the superuniverses and
personality comprehension of the Supreme on the
outer circuits of Havona, they do not actually find
the Supreme Being as they are destined to find the
Paradise Deities. Even the finaliters, sixth-stage
spirits, have not found the Supreme Being, nor are
they likely to until they have achieved
seventh-stage-spirit status, and until the Supreme
has become actually functional in the activities of
the future outer universes.
But when ascenders
find the Universal Father as the seventh level of
God the Sevenfold, they have attained the
personality of the First Person of all deity
levels of personal relationships with universe
creatures.
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7.
UNIVERSAL EVOLUTIONARY REPERCUSSIONS
The steady
progress of evolution in the time-space universes is
accompanied by ever-enlarging revelations of Deity
to all intelligent creatures. The attainment of the
height of evolutionary progress on a world, in a
system, constellation, universe, superuniverse, or
in the grand universe signalizes corresponding
enlargements of deity function to and in these
progressive units of creation. And every such local
enhancement of divinity realization is accompanied
by certain well-defined repercussions of enlarged
deity manifestation to all other sectors of
creation. Extending outward from Paradise, each new
domain of realized and attained evolution
constitutes a new and enlarged revelation of
experiential Deity to the universe of universes.
As the components
of a local universe are progressively settled in
light and life, God the Sevenfold is increasingly
made manifest. Time-space evolution begins on a
planet with the first expression of God the
Sevenfold--the Creator Son-Creative Spirit
association--in control. With the settling of a
system in light, this Son-Spirit liaison attains the
fullness of function; and when an entire
constellation is thus settled, the second phase of
God the Sevenfold becomes more active throughout
such a realm. The completed administrative evolution
of a local universe is attended by new and more
direct ministrations of the superuniverse Master
Spirits; and at this point there also begins that
ever-expanding revelation and realization of God the
Supreme which culminates in the ascender's
comprehension of the Supreme Being while passing
through the worlds of the sixth Havona circuit.
The Universal
Father, the Eternal Son, and the Infinite Spirit are
existential deity manifestations to intelligent
creatures and are not, therefore, similarly expanded
in personality relations with the mind and spirit
creatures of all creation.
It should be noted
that ascending mortals may experience the impersonal
presence of successive levels of Deity long before
they become sufficiently spiritual and adequately
educated to attain experiential personal recognition
of, and contact with, these Deities as personal
beings.
Each new
evolutionary attainment within a sector of creation,
as well as every new invasion of space by divinity
manifestations, is attended by simultaneous
expansions of Deity functional-revelation within the
then existing and previously organized units of all
creation. This new invasion of the administrative
work of the universes and their component units may
not always appear to be executed exactly in
accordance with the technique herewith outlined
because it is the practice to send forth advance
groups of administrators to prepare the way for the
subsequent and successive eras of new administrative
overcontrol. Even God the Ultimate foreshadows his
transcendental overcontrol of the universes during
the later stages of a local universe settled in
light and life.
It is a fact that,
as the creations of time and space are progressively
settled in evolutionary status, there is observed a
new and fuller functioning of God the Supreme
concomitant with a corresponding withdrawing of the
first three manifestations of God the Sevenfold. If
and when the grand universe becomes settled in light
and life, what then will be the future function of
the Creator-Creative
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manifestations of
God the Sevenfold if God the Supreme assumes direct
control of these creations of time and space? Are
these organizers and pioneers of the time-space
universes to be liberated for similar activities in
outer space? We do not know, but we speculate much
concerning these and related matters.
As the frontiers
of experiential Deity are extended out into the
domains of the Unqualified Absolute, we envision the
activity of God the Sevenfold during the earlier
evolutionary epochs of these creations of the
future. We are not all in agreement respecting the
future status of the Ancients of Days and the
superuniverse Master Spirits. Neither do we know
whether or not the Supreme Being will therein
function as in the seven superuniverses. But we all
conjecture that the Michaels, the Creator Sons, are
destined to function in these outer universes. Some
hold that the future ages will witness some closer
form of union between the associated Creator Sons
and Divine Ministers; it is even possible that such
a creator union might eventuate in some new
expression of associate-creator identity of an
ultimate nature. But we really know nothing about
these possibilities of the unrevealed future.
We do know,
however, that in the universes of time and space,
God the Sevenfold provides a progressive approach to
the Universal Father, and that this evolutionary
approach is experientially unified in God the
Supreme. We might conjecture that such a plan must
prevail in the outer universes; on the other hand
the new orders of beings that may sometime inhabit
these universes may be able to approach Deity on
ultimate levels and by absonite techniques. In
short, we have not the slightest concept of what
technique of deity approach may become operative in
the future universes of outer space.
Nevertheless, we
deem that the perfected superuniverses will in some
way become a part of the Paradise-ascension careers
of those beings who may inhabit these outer
creations. It is quite possible that in that future
age we may witness outer-spacers approaching Havona
through the seven superuniverses, administered by
God the Supreme with or without the collaboration of
the Seven Master Spirits.
8. THE
SUPREME UNIFIER
The Supreme Being
has a threefold function in the experience of mortal
man: First, he is the unifier of time-space
divinity, God the Sevenfold; second, he is the
maximum of Deity which finite creatures can actually
comprehend; third, he is mortal man's only avenue of
approach to the transcendental experience of
consorting with absonite mind, eternal spirit, and
Paradise personality.
Ascendant
finaliters, having been born in the local universes,
nurtured in the superuniverses, and trained in the
central universe, embrace in their personal
experiences the full potential of the comprehension
of the time-space divinity of God the Sevenfold
unifying in the Supreme. Finaliters serve
successively in superuniverses other than those of
nativity, thereby superimposing experience upon
experience until the fullness of the sevenfold
diversity of possible creature experience has been
encompassed. Through the ministry of the indwelling
Adjusters the finaliters are enabled to find
the Universal Father, but it is by these techniques
of experience that such finaliters come really to
know the Supreme Being, and they are destined to
the service and the revelation of this
Supreme Deity in and to the future universes of
outer space.
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Bear in mind, all
that God the Father and his Paradise Sons do for us,
we in turn and in spirit have the opportunity to do
for and in the emerging Supreme Being. The
experience of love, joy, and service in the universe
is mutual. God the Father does not need that his
sons should return to him all that he bestows upon
them, but they do (or may) in turn bestow all of
this upon their fellows and upon the evolving
Supreme Being.
All creational
phenomena are reflective of antecedent
creator-spirit activities. Said Jesus, and it is
literally true, "The Son does only those things
which he sees the Father do." In time you mortals
may begin the revelation of the Supreme to your
fellows, and increasingly may you augment this
revelation as you ascend Paradiseward. In eternity
you may be permitted to make increasing revelations
of this God of evolutionary creatures on supreme
levels--even ultimate--as seventh-stage finaliters.
9.
UNIVERSAL ABSOLUTE UNITY
The Unqualified
Absolute and the Deity Absolute are unified in the
Universal Absolute. The Absolutes are co-ordinated
in the Ultimate, conditioned in the Supreme, and
time-space modified in God the Sevenfold. On
subinfinite levels there are three Absolutes,
but in infinity they appear to be one. On
Paradise there are three personalizations of Deity,
but in the Trinity they are one.
The major
philosophic proposition of the master universe is
this: Did the Absolute (the three Absolutes as one
in infinity) exist before the Trinity? and is the
Absolute ancestral to the Trinity? or is the Trinity
antecedent to the Absolute?
Is the Unqualified
Absolute a force presence independent of the
Trinity? Does the presence of the Deity Absolute
connote the unlimited function of the Trinity? and
is the Universal Absolute the final function of the
Trinity, even a Trinity of Trinities?
On first thought,
a concept of the Absolute as ancestor to all
things--even the Trinity--seems to afford transitory
satisfaction of consistency gratification and
philosophic unification, but any such conclusion is
invalidated by the actuality of the eternity of the
Paradise Trinity. We are taught, and we believe,
that the Universal Father and his Trinity associates
are eternal in nature and existence. There is, then,
but one consistent philosophic conclusion, and that
is: The Absolute is, to all universe intelligences,
the impersonal and co-ordinate reaction of the
Trinity (of Trinities) to all basic and primary
space situations, intrauniversal and extrauniversal.
To all personality intelligences of the grand
universe the Paradise Trinity forever stands in
finality, eternity, supremacy, and ultimacy and, for
all practical purposes of personal comprehension and
creature realization, as absolute.
As creature minds
may view this problem, they are led to the final
postulate of the Universal I AM as the primal cause
and the unqualified source of both the Trinity and
the Absolute. When, therefore, we crave to entertain
a personal concept of the Absolute, we revert to our
ideas and ideals of the Paradise Father. When we
desire to facilitate comprehension or to augment
consciousness of this otherwise impersonal Absolute,
we revert to the fact that the Universal Father is
the existential Father of absolute personality; the
Eternal Son is the Absolute Person, though not, in
the experiential sense, the personalization of the
Absolute.
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And then we go on
to envisage the experiential Trinities as
culminating in the experiential personalization of
the Deity Absolute, while conceiving the Universal
Absolute as constituting the universe and the
extrauniverse phenomena of the manifest presence of
the impersonal activities of the unified and
co-ordinated Deity associations of supremacy,
ultimacy, and infinity--the Trinity of Trinities.
God the Father is
discernible on all levels from the finite to the
infinite, and though his creatures from Paradise to
the evolutionary worlds have variously perceived
him, only the Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit
know him as an infinity.
Spiritual
personality is absolute only on Paradise, and the
concept of the Absolute is unqualified only in
infinity. Deity presence is absolute only on
Paradise, and the revelation of God must always be
partial, relative, and progressive until his power
becomes experientially infinite in the space potency
of the Unqualified Absolute, while his personality
manifestation becomes experientially infinite in the
manifest presence of the Deity Absolute, and while
these two potentials of infinity become
reality-unified in the Universal Absolute.
But beyond
subinfinite levels the three Absolutes are
one, and thereby is infinity Deity-realized
regardless of whether any other order of existence
ever self-realizes consciousness of infinity.
Existential status
in eternity implies existential self-consciousness
of infinity, even though another eternity may be
required to experience self-realization of the
experiential potentialities inherent in an infinity
eternity--an eternal infinity.
And God the Father
is the personal source of all manifestations of
Deity and reality to all intelligent creatures and
spirit beings throughout all the universe of
universes. As personalities, now or in the
successive universe experiences of the eternal
future, no matter if you achieve the attainment of
God the Sevenfold, comprehend God the Supreme, find
God the Ultimate, or attempt to grasp the concept of
God the Absolute, you will discover to your eternal
satisfaction that in the consummation of each
adventure you have, on new experiential levels,
rediscovered the eternal God--the Paradise Father of
all universe personalities.
The Universal
Father is the explanation of universal unity as it
must be supremely, even ultimately, realized in the
postultimate unity of absolute values and
meanings--unqualified Reality.
The Master Force
Organizers go out into space and mobilize its
energies to become gravity responsive to the
Paradise pull of the Universal Father; and
subsequently there come the Creator Sons, who
organize these gravity-responding forces into
inhabited universes and therein evolve intelligent
creatures who receive unto themselves the spirit of
the Paradise Father and subsequently ascend to the
Father to become like him in all possible divinity
attributes.
The ceaseless and
expanding march of the Paradise creative forces
through space seems to presage the ever-extending
domain of the gravity grasp of the Universal Father
and the never-ending multiplication of varied types
of intelligent creatures who are able to love God
and be loved by him, and who, by thus becoming
God-knowing, may choose to be like him, may elect to
attain Paradise and find God.
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The universe of
universes is altogether unified. God is one in power
and personality. There is co-ordination of all
levels of energy and all phases of personality.
Philosophically and experientially, in concept and
in reality, all things and beings center in the
Paradise Father. God is all and in all, and no
things or beings exist without him.
10.
TRUTH, BEAUTY, AND GOODNESS
As the worlds
settled in life and light progress from the initial
stage to the seventh epoch, they successively grasp
for the realization of the reality of God the
Sevenfold, ranging from the adoration of the Creator
Son to the worship of his Paradise Father.
Throughout the continuing seventh stage of such a
world's history the ever-progressing mortals grow in
the knowledge of God the Supreme, while they vaguely
discern the reality of the overshadowing ministry of
God the Ultimate.
Throughout this
glorious age the chief pursuit of the ever-advancing
mortals is the quest for a better understanding and
a fuller realization of the comprehensible elements
of Deity--truth, beauty, and goodness. This
represents man's effort to discern God in mind,
matter, and spirit. And as the mortal pursues this
quest, he finds himself increasingly absorbed in the
experiential study of philosophy, cosmology, and
divinity.
Philosophy you
somewhat grasp, and divinity you comprehend in
worship, social service, and personal spiritual
experience, but the pursuit of
beauty--cosmology--you all too often limit to the
study of man's crude artistic endeavors. Beauty,
art, is largely a matter of the unification of
contrasts. Variety is essential to the concept of
beauty. The supreme beauty, the height of finite
art, is the drama of the unification of the vastness
of the cosmic extremes of Creator and creature. Man
finding God and God finding man--the creature
becoming perfect as is the Creator--that is the
supernal achievement of the supremely beautiful, the
attainment of the apex of cosmic art.
Hence materialism,
atheism, is the maximation of ugliness, the climax
of the finite antithesis of the beautiful. Highest
beauty consists in the panorama of the unification
of the variations which have been born of
pre-existent harmonious reality.
The attainment of
cosmologic levels of thought includes:
1. Curiosity.
Hunger for harmony and thirst for beauty. Persistent
attempts to discover new levels of harmonious cosmic
relationships.
2. Aesthetic
appreciation. Love of the beautiful and
ever-advancing appreciation of the artistic touch of
all creative manifestations on all levels of
reality.
3. Ethic
sensitivity. Through the realization of truth
the appreciation of beauty leads to the sense of the
eternal fitness of those things which impinge upon
the recognition of divine goodness in Deity
relations with all beings; and thus even cosmology
leads to the pursuit of divine reality values--to
God-consciousness.
The worlds settled
in light and life are so fully concerned with the
comprehension of truth, beauty, and goodness because
these quality values embrace the revelation of Deity
to the realms of time and space. The meanings of
eternal
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truth make a
combined appeal to the intellectual and spiritual
natures of mortal man. Universal beauty embraces the
harmonious relations and rhythms of the cosmic
creation; this is more distinctly the intellectual
appeal and leads towards unified and synchronous
comprehension of the material universe. Divine
goodness represents the revelation of infinite
values to the finite mind, therein to be perceived
and elevated to the very threshold of the spiritual
level of human comprehension.
Truth is the basis
of science and philosophy, presenting the
intellectual foundation of religion. Beauty sponsors
art, music, and the meaningful rhythms of all human
experience. Goodness embraces the sense of ethics,
morality, and religion--experiential
perfection-hunger.
The existence of
beauty implies the presence of appreciative creature
mind just as certainly as the fact of progressive
evolution indicates the dominance of the Supreme
Mind. Beauty is the intellectual recognition of the
harmonious time-space synthesis of the far-flung
diversification of phenomenal reality, all of which
stems from pre-existent and eternal oneness.
Goodness is the
mental recognition of the relative values of the
diverse levels of divine perfection. The recognition
of goodness implies a mind of moral status, a
personal mind with ability to discriminate between
good and evil. But the possession of goodness,
greatness, is the measure of real divinity
attainment.
The recognition of
true relations implies a mind competent to
discriminate between truth and error. The bestowal
Spirit of Truth which invests the human minds of
Urantia is unerringly responsive to truth--the
living spirit relationship of all things and all
beings as they are co-ordinated in the eternal
ascent Godward.
Every impulse of
every electron, thought, or spirit is an acting unit
in the whole universe. Only sin is isolated and evil
gravity resisting on the mental and spiritual
levels. The universe is a whole; no thing or being
exists or lives in isolation. Self-realization is
potentially evil if it is antisocial. It is
literally true: "No man lives by himself." Cosmic
socialization constitutes the highest form of
personality unification. Said Jesus: "He who would
be greatest among you, let him become server of
all."
Even truth,
beauty, and goodness--man's intellectual approach to
the universe of mind, matter, and spirit--must be
combined into one unified concept of a divine and
supreme ideal. As mortal personality unifies
the human experience with matter, mind, and spirit,
so does this divine and supreme ideal become
power-unified in Supremacy and then personalized as
a God of fatherly love.
All insight into
the relations of the parts to any given whole
requires an understanding grasp of the relation of
all parts to that whole; and in the universe this
means the relation of created parts to the Creative
Whole. Deity thus becomes the transcendental, even
the infinite, goal of universal and eternal
attainment.
Universal beauty
is the recognition of the reflection of the Isle of
Paradise in the material creation, while eternal
truth is the special ministry of the Paradise Sons
who not only bestow themselves upon the mortal races
but even pour out their Spirit of Truth upon all
peoples. Divine goodness is more fully shown forth
in the loving ministry of the manifold personalities
of the Infinite Spirit.
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But love, the sum
total of these three qualities, is man's perception
of God as his spirit Father.
Physical matter is
the time-space shadow of the Paradise energy-shining
of the absolute Deities. Truth meanings are the
mortal-intellect repercussions of the eternal word
of Deity--the time-space comprehension of supreme
concepts. The goodness values of divinity are the
merciful ministries of the spirit personalities of
the Universal, the Eternal, and the Infinite to the
time-space finite creatures of the evolutionary
spheres.
These meaningful
reality values of divinity are blended in the
Father's relation with each personal creature as
divine love. They are co-ordinated in the Son and
his Sons as divine mercy. They manifest their
qualities through the Spirit and his spirit children
as divine ministry, the portrayal of loving mercy to
the children of time. These three divinities are
primarily manifested by the Supreme Being as
power-personality synthesis. They are variously
shown forth by God the Sevenfold in seven differing
associations of divine meanings and values on seven
ascending levels.
To finite man
truth, beauty, and goodness embrace the full
revelation of divinity reality. As this
love-comprehension of Deity finds spiritual
expression in the lives of God-knowing mortals,
there are yielded the fruits of divinity:
intellectual peace, social progress, moral
satisfaction, spiritual joy, and cosmic wisdom. The
advanced mortals on a world in the seventh stage of
light and life have learned that love is the
greatest thing in the universe--and they know that
God is love.
Love is the desire
to do good to others.
[Presented by a
Mighty Messenger visiting on Urantia, by request of
the Nebadon Revelatory Corps and in collaboration
with a certain Melchizedek, the vicegerent Planetary
Prince of Urantia.]
* * * * *
This paper on
Universal Unity is the twenty-fifth of a series of
presentations by various authors, having been
sponsored as a group by a commission of Nebadon
personalities numbering twelve and acting under the
direction of Mantutia Melchizedek. We indited these
narratives and put them in the English language, by
a technique authorized by our superiors, in the year
1934 of Urantia time. |