Teacher-Brother Dave's initial comments: I am presenting some of my Topical Studies from the fully public domain, 2097 page, Fifth Epochal Revelation of Truth and with my added comments. The Revealed text is free of copyright, so you may freely share individually these supernal quotes with your friends and relatives. But my order of selections, font types for emphasis and my added comments are Copyright 2022 by Dave@PureChristians.org All Rights Reserved. Contact me first about using the whole Study or group of Studies.
[My added comments of explanation below are in these square brackets]
Topical Study number 141
"Our Progressive Growth Toward God's Will"
Part 1
Compiled Jan. 13, 2023 by Dave@PureChristians.org
FOREWORD
IV. Universe Reality
IV. Universe Reality
0:4.7 #1. Actual and Potential. Realities existing in fullness of expression in contrast to those which carry undisclosed capacity for growth. The Eternal Son is an absolute spiritual actuality; mortal man is very largely an unrealized spiritual potentiality.
PART I. The Central And Superuniverses Papers 1 - 31 Pages 21 - 355
PAPER 1. The Universal Father
1. The Father's Name
1:1.1 Of all the names by which God the Father is known throughout the universes, those which designate him as the First Source and the Universe Center are most often encountered. The First Father is known by various names in different universes and in different sectors of the same universe. The names which the creature assigns to the Creator are much dependent on the creature’s concept of the Creator. The First Source and Universe Center has never revealed himself by name, only by nature. If we believe that we are the children of this Creator, it is only natural that we should eventually call him Father. But this is the name of our own choosing, and it grows out of the recognition of our personal relationship with the First Source and Center.
PAPER 4. God's Relation to the Universe
2. God and Nature
4:2.6 Nature, on your world, is a qualification of the laws of perfection by the evolutionary plans of the local universe. What a travesty to worship nature because it is in a limited, qualified sense pervaded by God; because it is a phase of the universal and, therefore, divine power! Nature also is a manifestation of the unfinished, the incomplete, the imperfect outworkings of the development, growth, and progress of a universe experiment in cosmic evolution.
3. God's Unchanging Character
4:3.4 God repents of nothing he has ever done, now does, or ever will do. He is all-wise as well as all-powerful. Man’s wisdom grows out of the trials and errors of human experience; God’s wisdom consists in the unqualified perfection of his infinite universe insight, and this divine foreknowledge effectively directs the creative free will.
PAPER 5. God's Relation to the Individual
3. True Worship
5:3.7 Sincere worship connotes the mobilization of all the powers of the human personality under the dominance of the evolving soul and subject to the divine directionization of the associated Thought Adjuster. [God's eternally perfect and unchanging will indwelling all, slightly or better, moral humans.] The mind of material limitations can never become highly conscious of the real significance of true worship. Man’s realization of the reality of the worship experience is chiefly determined by the developmental status of his evolving immortal soul. The spiritual growth of the soul takes place wholly independently of the intellectual self-consciousness. [You as the higher soul reality you may survive the physical death of your temporary body. Whether you survive as a perfecting soul or not, God's unchanging will and your unchanging pesonality are both eternal realities, no matter if you soul survive or not. There is no barbaric "hell"; as God is infinite lavish love and mercy; and we are all now in the perfecting Family of God !]
5. The Consciousness of God
5:5.13 Eternal survival of personality is wholly dependent on the choosing of the mortal mind, whose decisions determine the survival potential of the immortal soul. When the mind believes God and the soul knows God, and when, with the fostering Adjuster, they all desire God, then is survival assured. Limitations of intellect, curtailment of education, deprivation of culture, impoverishment of social status, even inferiority of the human standards of morality resulting from the unfortunate lack of educational, cultural, and social advantages, cannot invalidate the presence of the divine spirit in such unfortunate and humanly handicapped but believing individuals. The indwelling of the Mystery Monitor [Thought Adjuster, God's indwelling will within you] constitutes the inception and insures the possibility of the potential of growth and survival of the immortal soul.
6. The God of Personality
5:6.8 Having thus provided for the growth of the immortal soul and having liberated man’s inner self from the fetters of absolute dependence on antecedent causation, the Father stands aside. Now, man having thus been liberated from the fetters of causation response, at least as pertains to eternal destiny, and provision having been made for the growth of the immortal self, the soul, it remains for man [All male and all female humans are spiritually clasified as sons of God. The daughters of God are thed many types of angels.] himself to will the creation or to inhibit the creation of this surviving and eternal self which is his for the choosing. No other being, force, creator, or agency in all the wide universe of universes can interfere to any degree with the absolute sovereignty of the mortal free will, as it operates within the realms of choice, regarding the eternal destiny of the personality of the choosing mortal. As pertains to eternal survival, God has decreed the sovereignty of the material and mortal will, and that decree is absolute. [You may know and state: "I am a divinely beloved son of I AM in His Personality Circuit !]
PAPER 8. The Infinite Spirit
1. The God of Action
8:1.11 It is enough of a reach of the material mind of the children of time to conceive of the Father in eternity. We know that any child can best relate himself to reality by first mastering the relationships of the child-parent situation and then by enlarging this concept to embrace the family as a whole. Subsequently the growing mind of the child will be able to adjust to the concept of family relations, to relationships of the community, the race, and the world, and then to those of the universe, the superuniverse, even the universe of universes.[Now and eternally in God the Father-Infinite's Infinite Eternal Cosmos being revealed to us in long stages !]
PAPER 9. Relation of the Infinite Spirit to the Universe
4. The Absolute Mind
9:4.6 Mind transmutes the values of spirit into the meanings of intellect; volition [will] has power to bring the meanings of mind to fruit in both the material and spiritual domains. The Paradise ascent involves a relative and differential growth in spirit, mind, and energy. The personality is the unifier of these components of experiential individuality.
PAPER 19. The Co-ordinate Trinity-Origin Beings
2. The Perfectors of Wisdom
19:6.2 During your long sojourn on the billion worlds of Havona [surrounding and preparing us for eternal Paradise Residence and more!] culture you will develop an eternal friendship for these superb beings. And how deep is that friendship which grows up between the lowest personal creature from the worlds of space and these high personal beings native to the perfect spheres of the central universe! Ascending mortals, in their long and loving association with the Havona natives, do much to compensate for the spiritual impoverishment of the earlier stages of mortal progression. At the same time, through their contacts with ascending pilgrims, the Havoners gain an experience which to no small extent overcomes the experiential handicap of having always lived a life of divine perfection. The good to both ascending mortal and Havona native is great and mutual.
PAPER 28. Ministering Spirits of the Superuniverses
6. The Tertiary Seconaphim
28:6.5 #2. The Memory of Mercy. These are the actual, full and replete, living records of the mercy which has been extended to individuals and races by the tender ministrations of the instrumentalities of the Infinite Spirit in the mission of adapting the justice of righteousness to the status of the realms, as disclosed by the portrayals of the Significance of Origins. The Memory of Mercy discloses the moral debt of the children of mercy—their spiritual liabilities—to be set down against their assets of the saving provision established by the Sons of God. [Our Sovereign Creator Son of God Jesus Christ Michael. "Michael" is a high Title which means: HE Who IS Just Like GOD" ] In revealing the Father’s pre-existent mercy, the Sons of God establish the necessary credit to insure the survival of all. And then, in accordance with the findings of the Significance of Origins, a mercy credit is established for the survival of each rational creature, a credit of lavish proportions and one of sufficient grace to insure the survival of every soul who really desires divine citizenship. [Thank You our local universe Creator Father-Son Jesus !]
28:6.8 The mercy reflectors, with their tertiary associates, engage in numerous superuniverse ministries, including the teaching of the ascending creatures. Among many other things the Significances of Origins teach these ascenders how to apply spirit ethics, and following such training, the Memories of Mercy teach them how to be truly merciful. While the spirit techniques of mercy ministry are beyond your concept, you should even now understand that mercy is a quality of growth. You should realize that there is a great reward of personal satisfaction in being first just, next fair, then patient, then kind. And then, on that foundation, if you choose and have it in your heart, you can take the next step and really show mercy; but you cannot exhibit mercy in and of itself. These steps must be traversed; otherwise there can be no genuine mercy. There may be patronage, condescension, or charity—even pity—but not mercy. True mercy comes only as the beautiful climax to these preceding adjuncts to group understanding, mutual appreciation, fraternal fellowship, spiritual communion, and divine harmony.
28:6.18 The universal economy is based on intake and output; throughout the eternal career you will never encounter monotony of inaction or stagnation of personality. Progress is made possible by inherent motion, advancement grows out of the divine capacity for action, and achievement is the child of imaginative adventure. But inherent in this capacity for achievement is the responsibility of ethics, the necessity for recognizing that the world and the universe are filled with a multitude of differing types of beings. All of this magnificent creation, including yourself, was not made just for you. This is not an egocentric universe. The Gods have decreed, “It is more blessed to give than to receive,” and said your Master Son, “He who would be greatest among you let him be server of all.”
28:6.22 The estimate of greatness varies from sphere to sphere. To be great is to be Godlike. And since the quality of greatness is wholly determined by the content of goodness, it follows that, even in your present human estate, if you can through grace become good, you are thereby becoming great. The more steadfastly you behold, and the more persistently you pursue, the concepts of divine goodness, the more certainly will you grow in greatness, in true magnitude of genuine survival character.
PART II. The Local Universe Papers 32-56 pages 357 - 649
PAPER 34. The Local Universe Mother Spirit
6. The Spirit in Man
34:6.2 Although Divinity may be plural in manifestation, in human experience Deity is singular, always one. Neither is spiritual ministry plural in human experience. Regardless of plurality of origin, all spirit influences are one in function. Indeed they are one, being the spirit ministry of God the Sevenfold in and to the creatures of the grand universe; and as creatures grow in appreciation of, and receptivity for, this unifying ministry of the spirit, it becomes in their experience the ministry of God the Supreme.
PAPER 36. The Life Carriers
5. The Seven Adjutant Mind-Spirits [from our Holy Spirit]
36:5.9 #4. The spirit of knowledge —the curiosity-mother of adventure and discovery, the scientific spirit; the guide and faithful associate of the spirits of courage and counsel; the urge to direct the endowments of courage into useful and progressive paths of growth.
PAPER 39. The Seraphic Hosts
4. Administrator Seraphim
39:4.12 These seraphim teach the fruitfulness of patience: That stagnation is certain death, but that overrapid growth is equally suicidal; that as a drop of water from a higher level falls to a lower and, flowing onward, passes ever downward through a succession of short falls, so ever upward is progress in the morontia and spirit worlds—and just as slowly and by just such gradual stages.
PAPER 47. The Seven Mansion Worlds
4. The Second Mansion World
47:4.6 Though you have morontia [soul] bodies, you continue, through all seven of these worlds, to eat, drink, and rest. You partake of the morontia order of food, a kingdom of living energy unknown on the material worlds. Both food and water are fully utilized in the morontia body; there is no residual waste. Pause to consider: Mansonia number one is a very material sphere, presenting the early beginnings of the morontia regime. You are still a near human and not far removed from the limited viewpoints of mortal life, but each world discloses definite progress. From sphere to sphere you grow less material, more intellectual, and slightly more spiritual. The spiritual progress is greatest on the last three of these seven progressive worlds. [After the first seven probationary mansion worlds, we will ascend up through all 570 of the soul reality worlds (heavens) in our local universe of Nebadon, all made by Jesus for us !]
8. The Sixth Mansion World
47:8.7 During the sojourn on world number six the mansion world students achieve a status which is comparable with the exalted development characterizing those evolutionary worlds which have normally progressed beyond the initial stage of light and life. The organization of society on this mansonia is of a high order. The shadow of the mortal nature grows less and less as these worlds are ascended one by one. You are becoming more and more adorable as you leave behind the coarse vestiges of planetary animal origin. “Coming up through great tribulation” serves to make glorified mortals very kind and understanding, very sympathetic and tolerant.
PAPER 48. The Morontia Life
6. Morontia World Seraphim—Transition Ministers
48:6.32 These angels are all in the chain of recorders extending from the lowest to the highest custodians of the facts of time and the truths of eternity. Some day they will teach you to seek truth as well as fact, to expand your soul as well as your mind. Even now you should learn to water the garden of your heart as well as to seek for the dry sands of knowledge. Forms are valueless when lessons are learned. No chick may be had without the shell, and no shell is of any worth after the chick is hatched. But sometimes error is so great that its rectification by revelation would be fatal to those slowly emerging truths which are essential to its experiential overthrow. When children have their ideals, do not dislodge them; let them grow. And while you are learning to think as men, you should also be learning to pray as children.
PART III. The History of Urantia Papers 57 - 119 Pages 651 - 1321
PAPER 68. The Dawn of Civilization
2. Factors in Social Progression
68:2.5 History is but the record of man’s agelong food struggle. Primitive man only thought when he was hungry; food saving was his first self-denial, self-discipline. With the growth of society, food hunger ceased to be the only incentive for mutual association. Numerous other sorts of hunger, the realization of various needs, all led to the closer association of mankind. But today society is top-heavy with the overgrowth of supposed human needs. Occidental civilization of the twentieth century groans wearily under the tremendous overload of luxury and the inordinate multiplication of human desires and longings. Modern society is enduring the strain of one of its most dangerous phases of far-flung interassociation and highly complicated interdependence.
4. Evolution of the Mores
68:4.7 The survival of a society depends chiefly on the progressive evolution of its mores. The process of custom evolution grows out of the desire for experimentation; new ideas are put forward—competition ensues. A progressing civilization embraces the progressive idea and endures; time and circumstance finally select the fitter group for survival. But this does not mean that each separate and isolated change in the composition of human society has been for the better. No! indeed no! for there have been many, many retrogressions in the long forward struggle of Urantia civilization.
PAPER 70. The Evolution of Human Government
3. Early Human Associations
70:3.5 The absence of a common language has always impeded the growth of peace groups, but money has become the universal language of modern trade. Modern society is largely held together by the industrial market. The gain motive is a mighty civilizer when augmented by the desire to serve.
PAPER 71. Development of the State
2. The Evolution of Representative Government
71:2.7 Public opinion, common opinion, has always delayed society; nevertheless, it is valuable, for, while retarding social evolution, it does preserve civilization. Education of public opinion is the only safe and true method of accelerating civilization; force is only a temporary expedient, and cultural growth will increasingly accelerate as bullets give way to ballots. Public opinion, the mores, is the basic and elemental energy in social evolution and state development, but to be of state value it must be nonviolent in expression.
3. The Ideals of Statehood
71:3.10 The ideals of statehood must be attained by evolution, by the slow growth of civic consciousness, the recognition of the obligation and privilege of social service. At first men assume the burdens of government as a duty, following the end of the administration of political spoilsmen, but later on they seek such ministry as a privilege, as the greatest honor. The status of any level of civilization is faithfully portrayed by the caliber of its citizens who volunteer to accept the responsibilities of statehood.
PAPER 81. Development of Modern Civilization
6. The Maintenance of Civilization
81:6.12 You are sometimes shocked at the ravages of war, but you should recognize the necessity for producing large numbers of mortals so as to afford ample opportunity for social and moral development; with such planetary fertility there soon occurs the serious problem of overpopulation. Most of the [trillions of] inhabited worlds are small. Urantia is average, perhaps a trifle undersized. The optimum stabilization of national population enhances culture and prevents war. And it is a wise nation which knows when to cease growing. [Today, China and India are seriously overpopulated.]
81:6.16 #6. Effectiveness of language. The spread of civilization must wait upon language. Live and growing languages insure the expansion of civilized thinking and planning. During the early ages important advances were made in language. Today, there is great need for further linguistic development to facilitate the expression of evolving thought. [It is necessary now to rapidly use one standard world language. That is rapidly becoming American English.]
PAPER 83. The Marriage Institution
1. Marriage as a Societal Institution
83:1.4 The family, which grows out of marriage, is itself a stabilizer of the marriage institution together with the property mores. Other potent factors in marriage stability are pride, vanity, chivalry, duty, and religious convictions. But while marriages may be approved or disapproved on high, they are hardly made in heaven. The human family is a distinctly human institution, an evolutionary development. Marriage is an institution of society, not a department of the church. True, religion should mightily influence it but should not undertake exclusively to control and regulate it.
PAPER 84. Marriage and Family Life
7. The Ideals of Family Life
84:7.26 Civilization regards the parents as assuming all duties, the child as having all the rights. Respect of the child for his parents arises, not in knowledge of the obligation implied in parental procreation, but naturally grows as a result of the care, training, and affection which are lovingly displayed in assisting the child to win the battle of life. The true parent is engaged in a continuous service-ministry which the wise child comes to recognize and appreciate.
84:7.27 In the present industrial and urban era the marriage institution is evolving along new economic lines. Family life has become more and more costly, while children, who used to be an asset, have become economic liabilities. But the security of civilization itself still rests on the growing willingness of one generation to invest in the welfare of the next and future generations. And any attempt to shift parental responsibility to state or church will prove suicidal to the welfare and advancement of civilization.
84:7.28 Marriage, with children and consequent family life, is stimulative of the highest potentials in human nature and simultaneously provides the ideal avenue for the expression of these quickened attributes of mortal personality. The family provides for the biologic perpetuation of the human species. The home is the natural social arena wherein the ethics of blood brotherhood may be grasped by the growing children. The family is the fundamental unit of fraternity in which parents and children learn those lessons of patience, altruism, tolerance, and forbearance which are so essential to the realization of brotherhood among all men.
8. Dangers of Self-Gratification
84:8.6 [Very important:] Let man enjoy himself; let the human race find pleasure in a thousand and one ways; let evolutionary mankind explore all forms of legitimate self-gratification, the fruits of the long upward biologic struggle. Man has well earned some of his present-day joys and pleasures. But look you well to the goal of destiny! Pleasures are indeed suicidal if they succeed in destroying property, which has become the institution of self-maintenance; and self-gratifications have indeed cost a fatal price if they bring about the collapse of marriage, the decadence of family life, and the destruction of the home—man’s supreme evolutionary acquirement and civilization’s only hope of survival. [!!]
84:8.7 {Presented by the Chief of Seraphim [a high, Paradise level, Primary Supernaphim !] stationed on Urantia.}
PAPER 87. The Ghost Cults
7. Nature of Cultism
87:7.3 Notwithstanding that the cult [a neutral term which means only a small religious or social group] has always retarded social progress, it is regrettable that so many modern believers in moral standards and spiritual ideals have no adequate symbolism—no cult of mutual support—nothing to belong to. But a religious cult cannot be manufactured; it must grow. And those of no two groups will be identical unless their rituals are arbitrarily standardized by authority. [which infringes upon our God - given personal religious and social liberties !!]
87:7.5 In the past, truth has grown rapidly and expanded freely when the cult has been elastic, the symbolism expansile. Abundant truth and an adjustable cult have favored rapidity of social progression. A meaningless cult vitiates religion when it attempts to supplant philosophy and to enslave reason; a genuine cult grows.
87:7.8 No cult can endure and contribute to the progress of social civilization and individual spiritual attainment unless it is based on the biologic, sociologic, and religious significance of the home. A surviving cult must symbolize that which is permanent in the presence of unceasing change; it must glorify that which unifies the stream of ever-changing social metamorphosis. It must recognize true meanings, exalt beautiful relations, and glorify the good values of real nobility.
87:7.10 But a cult—a symbolism of rituals, slogans, or goals—will not function if it is too complex. And there must be the demand for devotion, the response of loyalty. Every effective religion unerringly develops a worthy symbolism, and its devotees would do well to prevent the crystallization of such a ritual into cramping, deforming, and stifling stereotyped ceremonials which can only handicap and retard all social, moral, and spiritual progress. No cult can survive if it retards moral growth and fails to foster spiritual progress. The cult is the skeletal structure around which grows the living and dynamic body of personal spiritual experience—true religion.
PAPER 99. The Social Problems of Religion
4. Transition Difficulties
99:4.2 Social leadership is transformed by spiritual insight; religion prevents all collective movements from losing sight of their true objectives. Together with children, religion is the great unifier of family life, provided it is a living and growing faith. Family life cannot be had without children; it can be lived without religion, but such a handicap enormously multiplies the difficulties of this intimate human association. During the early decades of the twentieth century, family life, next to personal religious experience, suffers most from the decadence consequent upon the transition from old religious loyalties to the emerging new meanings and values.
7. Religion's Contribution
99:7.1 Though churches and all other religious groups should stand aloof from all secular activities, at the same time religion must do nothing to hinder or retard the social co-ordination of human institutions. Life must continue to grow in meaningfulness; man must go on with his reformation of philosophy and his clarification of religion.
Topical Study number 141
"Our Progressive Growth Toward God's Will"
Part 2
Compiled Jan. 16, 2023 by Dave@PureChristians.org
PAPER 100. Religion in Human Experience
1. Religious Growth
100:1.2 Some persons are too busy to grow and are therefore in grave danger of spiritual fixation. Provision must be made for growth of meanings at differing ages, in successive cultures, and in the passing stages of advancing civilization. The chief inhibitors of growth are prejudice and ignorance.
100:1.3 Give every developing child a chance to grow his own religious experience; do not force a ready-made adult experience upon him. Remember, year-by-year progress through an established educational regime does not necessarily mean intellectual progress, much less spiritual growth. Enlargement of vocabulary does not signify development of character. Growth is not truly indicated by mere products but rather by progress. Real educational growth is indicated by enhancement of ideals, increased appreciation of values, new meanings of values, and augmented loyalty to supreme values.
100:1.4 Children are permanently impressed only by the loyalties of their adult associates; precept or even example is not lastingly influential. Loyal persons are growing persons, and growth is an impressive and inspiring reality. Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole.
100:1.7 Religion cannot be bestowed, received, loaned, learned, or lost. It is a personal experience which grows proportionally to the growing quest for final values. Cosmic growth thus attends on the accumulation of meanings and the ever-expanding elevation of values. But nobility itself is always an unconscious growth.
3. Concepts of Supreme Value
100:3.2 To the religionist the word God becomes a symbol signifying the approach to supreme reality and the recognition of divine value. [The Spirit Values are: Love, mercy, Service Ministry, Truth, Beauty and Goodness.] Human likes and dislikes do not determine good and evil; moral values do not grow out of wish fulfillment or emotional frustration.
100:3.7 Man cannot cause growth, but he can supply favorable conditions. Growth is always unconscious, be it physical, intellectual, or spiritual. Love thus grows; it cannot be created, manufactured, or purchased; it must grow. Evolution is a cosmic technique of growth. Social growth cannot be secured by legislation, and moral growth is not had by improved administration. Man may manufacture a machine, but its real value must be derived from human culture and personal appreciation. Man’s sole contribution to growth is the mobilization of the total powers of his personality—living faith.
4. Problems of Growth
100:4.4 In physical life the senses tell of the existence of things; mind discovers the reality of meanings; but the spiritual experience reveals to the individual the true values of life. These high levels of human living are attained in the supreme love of God and in the unselfish love of man. If you love your fellow men, you must have discovered their values. Jesus loved men so much because he placed such a high value upon them. You can best discover values in your associates by discovering their motivation. If someone irritates you, causes feelings of resentment, you should sympathetically seek to discern his viewpoint, his reasons for such objectionable conduct. If once you understand your neighbor, you will become tolerant, and this tolerance will grow into friendship and ripen into love.
PAPER 102. The Foundations of Religious Faith
2. Religion and Reality
102:2.7 Evolutionary man does not naturally relish hard work. To keep pace in his life experience with the impelling demands and the compelling urges of a growing religious experience means incessant activity in spiritual growth, intellectual expansion, factual enlargement, and social service. There is no real religion apart from a highly active personality. Therefore do the more indolent of men often seek to escape the rigors of truly religious activities by a species of ingenious self-deception through resorting to a retreat to the false shelter of stereotyped [and ecclesiastical] religious doctrines and dogmas. But true religion is alive. Intellectual crystallization of religious concepts is the equivalent of spiritual death. You cannot conceive of religion without ideas, but when religion once becomes reduced only to an idea, it is no longer religion; it has become merely a species of human philosophy.
7. The Certitude of the Divine
102:7.1 The Universal Father, being self-existent, is also self-explanatory; he actually lives in every rational mortal. But you cannot be sure about God unless you know him; sonship is the only experience which makes fatherhood certain. The universe is everywhere undergoing change. A changing universe is a dependent universe; such a creation cannot be either final or absolute. A finite universe is wholly dependent on the Ultimate and the Absolute. The universe and God are not identical; one is cause, the other effect. The cause is absolute, infinite, eternal, and changeless; the effect, [Supreme] time-space and [higher Ultimate] transcendental but ever changing, always growing.
102:7.4 True, many apparently religious traits can grow out of nonreligious roots. Man can, intellectually, deny God and yet be morally good, loyal, filial, honest, and even idealistic. Man may graft many purely [secular] humanistic branches onto his basic spiritual nature and thus apparently prove his contentions in behalf of a godless religion, but such an experience is devoid of survival values, God-knowingness and God-ascension. In such a mortal experience only social fruits are forthcoming, not spiritual. The graft determines the nature of the fruit, notwithstanding that the living sustenance is drawn from the roots of original divine endowment of both mind and spirit.
PAPER 103. The Reality of Religious Experience
2. Religion and the Individual
103:2.1 Religion is functional in the human mind and has been realized in experience prior to its appearance in human consciousness. A child has been in existence about nine months before it experiences birth. [A fully human child at conception - on !!] But the “birth” of religion is not sudden; it is rather a gradual emergence. Nevertheless, sooner or later there is a “birth day.” You do not enter the kingdom of heaven unless you have been “born again”—born of the Spirit. Many spiritual births are accompanied by much anguish of spirit and marked psychological perturbations, as many physical births are characterized by a “stormy labor” and other abnormalities of “delivery.” Other spiritual births are a natural and normal growth of the recognition of supreme values with an enhancement of spiritual experience, albeit no religious development occurs without conscious effort and positive and individual determinations. Religion is never a passive experience, a negative attitude. What is termed the “birth of religion” is not directly associated with so-called conversion experiences which usually characterize religious episodes occurring later in life as a result of mental conflict, emotional repression, and temperamental upheavals.
103:2.10 Man tends to identify the urge to be self-serving with his ego—himself. In contrast he is inclined to identify the will to be altruistic with some influence outside himself—God. And indeed is such a judgment right, for all such nonself desires do actually have their origin in the leadings of the indwelling Thought Adjuster, and this Adjuster is a fragment of God. [The pure will of God indwells you !] The impulse of the spirit Monitor is realized in human consciousness as the urge to be altruistic, fellow-creature minded. At least this is the early and fundamental experience of the child mind. When the growing child fails of personality unification, the altruistic drive may become so overdeveloped as to work serious injury to the welfare of the self. A misguided conscience can become responsible for much conflict, worry, sorrow, and no end of human unhappiness.
4. Spiritual Communion
103:4.2 When primitive man felt that his communion with God had been interrupted, he resorted to [usually blood] sacrifice of some kind in an effort to make atonement, to restore friendly relationship. The hunger and thirst for righteousness leads to the discovery of truth, and truth augments ideals, and this creates new problems for the individual religionists, for our ideals tend to grow by geometrical progression, while our ability to live up to them is enhanced only by arithmetical progression.
5. The Origin of Ideals
103:5.5 Human happiness is achieved only when the ego desire of the self and the altruistic urge of the higher self (divine spirit) are co-ordinated and reconciled by the unified will of the integrating and supervising [human] personality. The mind of evolutionary man is ever confronted with the intricate problem of refereeing the contest between the natural expansion of emotional impulses and the moral growth of unselfish urges predicated on spiritual insight—genuine religious reflection.
103:5.11 But man is not saved or ennobled by pressure. Spirit growth springs from within the evolving soul. Pressure may deform the personality, but it never stimulates growth. Even educational pressure is only negatively helpful in that it may aid in the prevention of disastrous experiences. Spiritual growth is greatest where all external pressures are at a minimum. “Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” Man develops best when the pressures of home, community, church, and state are least. But this must not be construed as meaning that there is no place in a progressive society for home, social institutions, church, and state.
6. Philosophic Co-ordination
103:6.7 Your difficulty in arriving at a more harmonious co-ordination between science and religion is due to your utter ignorance of the intervening domain of the morontia [soul] world of things and beings. The local universe consists of three degrees, or stages, of reality manifestation: matter, morontia, and spirit. The morontia angle of approach erases all divergence between the findings of the physical sciences and the functioning of the spirit of religion. Reason is the understanding technique of the sciences; faith is the insight technique of religion; mota is the [higher philosophy] technique of the morontia level. Mota is a supermaterial reality sensitivity which is beginning to compensate incomplete growth, having for its substance knowledge-reason and for its essence faith-insight. Mota is a superphilosophical reconciliation of divergent reality perception which is nonattainable by material personalities; it is predicated, in part, on the experience of having survived the material life of the flesh. But many mortals have recognized the desirability of having some method of reconciling the interplay between the widely separated domains of science and religion; and metaphysics is the result of man’s unavailing attempt to span this well-recognized chasm. But human metaphysics has proved more confusing than illuminating. Metaphysics stands for man’s well-meant but futile effort to compensate for the absence of the mota of morontia.
7. Science and Religion
103:7.6 Logic is the technique of philosophy, its method of expression. Within the domain of true science, reason is always amenable to genuine logic; within the domain of true religion, faith is always logical from the basis of an inner viewpoint, even though such faith may appear to be quite unfounded from the inlooking viewpoint of the scientific approach. From outward, looking within, the universe may appear to be material; from within, looking out, the same universe appears to be wholly spiritual. Reason grows out of material awareness, faith out of spiritual awareness, but through the mediation of a philosophy strengthened by revelation, logic may confirm both the inward and the outward view, thereby effecting the stabilization of both science and religion. Thus, through common contact with the logic of philosophy, may both science and religion become increasingly tolerant of each other, less and less skeptical.
PAPER 104. Growth of the Trinity Concept
3. Trinities and Triunities
104:3.2 Mortal man is passing through a great age of expanding horizons and enlarging concepts on Urantia, [Earth] and his cosmic philosophy must accelerate in evolution to keep pace with the expansion of the intellectual arena of human thought. As the cosmic consciousness of mortal man expands, he perceives the interrelatedness of all that he finds in his material science, intellectual philosophy, and spiritual insight. Still, with all this belief in the unity of the cosmos, man perceives the diversity of all existence. In spite of all concepts concerning the immutability of Deity, man perceives that he lives in a universe of constant change and experiential growth. Regardless of the realization of the survival of spiritual values, man has ever to reckon with the mathematics and premathematics of force, energy, and power.
PAPER 105. Deity and Reality
1. The Philosophic Concept of the I AM
105:1.8 Infinity is indeed remote from the experience level of mortal comprehension, but even in this age on Urantia your concepts of infinity are growing, and they will continue to grow throughout your endless careers stretching onward into future eternity. Unqualified infinity is meaningless to the finite creature, but infinity is capable of self-limitation and is susceptible of reality expression to all levels of universe existences. And the face which the Infinite turns toward all universe personalities is the face of a Father, the Universal Father of love. [I am a Divinely Beloved son of I AM GOD; and so are you !]
5. Promulgation of Finite Reality
105:5.5 With the appearance of relative and qualified reality there comes into being a new cycle of reality—the growth cycle—a majestic downsweep from the heights of infinity to the domain of the finite, forever swinging inward to Paradise and Deity, always seeking those high destinies commensurate with an infinity source.
PAPER 106. Universe Levels of Reality
7. Finality of Destiny
106:7.5 [Important !] No matter how much you may grow in Father comprehension, your mind will always be staggered by the unrevealed infinity of the Father-I AM, the unexplored vastness of which will always remain unfathomable and incomprehensible throughout all the cycles of eternity. No matter how much of God you may attain, there will always remain much more of him, the existence of which you will not even suspect. And we believe that this is just as true on transcendental levels as it is in the domains of finite existence. The quest for God is endless!
9. Existential Infinite Unification
106:9.11 Sooner or later all universe personalities begin to realize that the final quest of eternity is the endless exploration of infinity, the never-ending voyage of discovery into the absoluteness of the First Source and Center. [God the Universal Father on Paradise and Omnipresent.] Sooner or later we all become aware that all creature growth is proportional to Father identification. We arrive at the understanding that living the will of God is the eternal passport to the endless possibility of infinity itself. Mortals will sometime realize that success in the quest of the Infinite is directly proportional to the achievement of Fatherlikeness, and that in this universe age the realities of the Father are revealed within the qualities of divinity. And these qualities of divinity are personally appropriated by universe creatures in the experience of living divinely, and to live divinely means actually to live the will of God.
PAPER 107. Origin and Nature of Thought Adjusters
107:0.7 On the evolutionary worlds, will creatures traverse three general developmental stages of being: From the arrival of the Adjuster to comparative full growth, about twenty years of age on Urantia, the Monitors are sometimes designated Thought Changers. From this time to the attainment of the age of discretion, about forty years, the Mystery Monitors are called Thought Adjusters. From the attainment of discretion to deliverance from the flesh, they are often referred to as Thought Controllers. These three phases of mortal life have no connection with the three stages of Adjuster progress in mind duplication and soul evolution.
PAPER 109. Relation of Adjusters to Universe Creatures
0. Introduction
109:0.1 The Thought Adjusters are the children of the universe career, and indeed the virgin Adjusters must gain experience while mortal creatures grow and develop. As the personality of the human child expands for the struggles of evolutionary existence, so does the Adjuster wax great in the rehearsals of the next stage of ascending life. As the child acquires adaptative versatility for his adult activities through the social and play life of early childhood, so does the indwelling Adjuster achieve skill for the next [higher soul reality] stage of cosmic life by virtue of the preliminary mortal planning and rehearsing of those activities which have to do with the morontia career. Human existence constitutes a period of practice which is effectively utilized by the Adjuster in preparing for the increased responsibilities and the greater opportunities of a future life. But the Adjuster’s efforts, while living within you, are not so much concerned with the affairs of temporal life and planetary existence. Today, the Thought Adjusters are, as it were, rehearsing the realities of the universe career in the evolving minds of human beings.
5. Material Handicaps to Adjuster Indwelling
109:5.4 The great problem of life is the adjustment of the ancestral tendencies of living to the demands of the spiritual urges initiated by the divine presence of the Mystery Monitor. While in the universe and superuniverse careers no man can serve two masters, in the life you now live on Urantia every man must perforce serve two masters. He must become adept in the art of a continuous human temporal compromise while he yields spiritual allegiance to but one master; and this is why so many falter and fail, grow weary and succumb to the stress of the evolutionary struggle. [God our Father is absolutely all loving and lavishly merciful. If you try to become more Godlike but fail many times, that still does grow your struggling soul a little more toward becoming more Godlike. Always pray that God's will is done by you; and not your selfish lower animal nature.]
PAPER 110. Relation of Adjusters to Individual Mortals
3. Co-operation with the Adjuster
110:3.2 The success of your Adjuster in the enterprise of piloting you through the mortal life and bringing about your survival depends not so much on the theories of your beliefs as upon your decisions, determinations, and steadfast faith. All these movements of personality growth become powerful influences aiding in your advancement because they help you to co-operate with the Adjuster; they assist you in ceasing to resist. Thought Adjusters succeed or apparently fail in their terrestrial undertakings just in so far as mortals succeed or fail to co-operate with the scheme whereby they are to be advanced along the ascending path of perfection attainment. The secret of survival is wrapped up in the supreme human desire to be Godlike and in the associated willingness to do and be any and all things which are essential to the final attainment of that overmastering desire.
6. The Seven Psychic Circles
110:6.1 The sum total of personality realization on a material world is contained within the successive conquest of the seven psychic circles of mortal potentiality. Entrance upon the seventh circle marks the beginning of true human personality function. Completion of the first circle denotes the relative maturity of the mortal being. Though the traversal of the seven circles of cosmic growth does not equal fusion with the Adjuster, the mastery of these circles marks the attainment of those steps which are preliminary to Adjuster fusion.
110:6.2 The Adjuster is your equal partner in the attainment of the seven circles — the achievement of comparative mortal maturity. The Adjuster ascends the circles with you from the seventh to the first but progresses to the status of supremacy and self-activity quite independent of the active co-operation of the mortal mind.
110:6.4 When the development of the intellectual nature proceeds faster than that of the spiritual, such a situation renders communication with the Thought Adjuster both difficult and dangerous. Likewise, overspiritual development tends to produce a fanatical and perverted interpretation of the spirit leadings of the divine indweller. Lack of spiritual capacity makes it very difficult to transmit to such a material intellect the spiritual truths resident in the higher superconsciousness. It is to the mind of perfect poise, housed in a body of clean habits, stabilized neural energies, and balanced chemical function — when the physical, mental, and spiritual powers are in triune harmony of development — that a maximum of light and truth can be imparted with a minimum of temporal danger or risk to the real welfare of such a being. By such a balanced growth does man ascend the circles of planetary progression one by one, from the seventh to the first.
110:6.7 It is difficult precisely to define the seven levels of human progression, for the reason that these levels are personal; they are variable for each individual and are apparently determined by the growth capacity of each human being. The conquest of these levels of cosmic evolution is reflected in three ways:
110:6.8 #1. Adjuster attunement. The spiritizing mind nears the Adjuster presence proportional to circle attainment.
110:6.9 #2. Soul evolution. The emergence of the morontia soul indicates the extent and depth of circle mastery.
110:6.10 #3. Personality reality. The degree of selfhood reality is directly determined by circle conquest. Persons become more real as they ascend from the seventh to the first level of mortal existence.
110:6.11 As the circles are traversed, the child of material evolution is growing into the mature human of immortal potentiality. The shadowy reality of the embryonic [soul] nature of a seventh circler is giving way to the clearer manifestation of the emerging morontia [soul reality] nature of a local universe citizen.
110:6.12 While it is impossible precisely to define the seven levels, or psychic circles, of human growth, it is permissible to suggest the minimum and maximum limits of these stages of maturity realization:
110:6.13 The seventh circle. This level is entered when human beings develop the powers of personal choice, individual decision, moral responsibility, and the capacity for the attainment of spiritual individuality. This signifies the united function of the seven adjutant mind-spirits under the direction of the spirit of wisdom, the encircuitment of the mortal creature in the influence of the Holy Spirit, and, on Urantia, the first functioning of the Spirit of Truth, [of Jesus Christ here with us !!] together with the reception of a Thought Adjuster in the mortal mind. Entrance upon the seventh circle constitutes a mortal creature a truly potential citizen of the local universe.
110:6.14 The third circle. The Adjuster’s work is much more effective after the human ascender attains the third circle and receives a personal seraphic guardian of destiny. While there is no apparent concert of effort between the Adjuster and the seraphic guardian, nonetheless there is to be observed an unmistakable improvement in all phases of cosmic achievement and spiritual development subsequent to the assignment of the personal seraphic attendant. When the third circle is attained, the Adjuster endeavors to morontiaize [soul duplicate] the mind of man during the remainder of the mortal life span, to make the remaining circles, and achieve the final stage of the divine-human association before natural death dissolves the unique partnership.
110:6.15 The first circle. The Adjuster cannot, ordinarily, speak directly and immediately with you until you attain the first and final circle of progressive mortal achievement. This level represents the highest possible realization of mind-Adjuster relationship in the human experience prior to the liberation of the evolving morontia soul from the habiliments of the material body. Concerning mind, emotions, and cosmic insight, this achievement of the first psychic circle is the nearest possible approach of material mind and spirit Adjuster in human experience.
110:6.16 Perhaps these psychic circles of mortal progression would be better denominated cosmic levels — actual meaning grasps and value realizations of progressive approach to the morontia consciousness of initial relationship of the evolutionary soul with the emerging Supreme Being. And it is this very relationship that makes it forever impossible fully to explain the significance of the cosmic circles to the material mind. These circle attainments are only relatively related to God-consciousness. A seventh or sixth circler can be almost as truly God-knowing — sonship conscious — as a second or first circler, but such lower circle beings are far less conscious of experiential relation to the Supreme Being, universe citizenship. The attainment of these cosmic circles will become a part of the ascenders’ experience on the [first seven morontial] mansion worlds if they fail of such achievement before natural death.
110:6.17 The motivation of faith makes experiential the full realization of man’s sonship with God, but action, completion of decisions, is essential to the evolutionary attainment of consciousness of progressive kinship with the cosmic actuality of the Supreme Being. Faith transmutes potentials to actuals in the spiritual world, but potentials become actuals in the finite realms of the Supreme only by and through the realization of choice-experience. But choosing to do the will of God joins spiritual faith to material decisions in personality action and thus supplies a divine and spiritual fulcrum for the more effective functioning of the human and material leverage of God-hunger. Such a wise co-ordination of material and spiritual forces greatly augments both cosmic realization of the Supreme and morontia comprehension of the Paradise Deities.
110:6.18 The mastery of the cosmic circles is related to the quantitative growth of the morontia soul, the comprehension of supreme meanings. But the qualitative status of this immortal soul is wholly dependent on the grasp of living faith upon the Paradise-potential fact-value that mortal man is a son of the eternal God. Therefore does a seventh circler go on to the mansion worlds to attain further quantitative realization of cosmic growth just as does a second or even a first circler.
110:6.19 There is only an indirect relation between cosmic-circle attainment and actual spiritual religious experience; such attainments are reciprocal and therefore mutually beneficial. Purely spiritual development may have little to do with planetary material prosperity, but circle attainment always augments the potential of human success and mortal achievement.
110:6.20 From the seventh to the third circle there occurs increased and unified action of the seven adjutant mind-spirits in the task of weaning the mortal mind from its dependence on the realities of the material life mechanisms preparatory to increased introduction to morontia levels of experience. From the third circle onward the adjutant influence progressively diminishes. [God's indwelling Spirit Will (volition) should control the higher soul you to control thed lower mind you to control the lowest human body you. Your unchanging personality unifies all these levels of You -- Your I am a Divinely Beloved Son of I AM GOD !]
110:6.21 The seven circles embrace mortal experience extending from the highest purely animal level to the lowest actual contactual morontia level of self-consciousness as a personality experience. The mastery of the first cosmic circle signalizes the attainment of premorontia mortal maturity and marks the termination of the conjoint ministry of the adjutant mind-spirits as an exclusive influence of mind action in the human personality. Beyond the first circle, mind becomes increasingly akin to the intelligence of the morontia stage of evolution, the conjoined ministry of the cosmic mind and the superadjutant endowment of the Creative Spirit of a local universe. [She is the source of the seven adjutant mind circuits. She is also the co-equal Spirit Partner of our Universe Creator Son Jesus Christ. They are always here loving and guiding us !]
110:6.22 The great days in the individual careers of Adjusters are: first, when the human subject breaks through into the third psychic circle, thus insuring the Monitor’s self-activity and increased range of function (provided the indweller was not already self-acting); then, when the human partner attains the first psychic circle, and they are thereby enabled to intercommunicate, at least to some degree; and last, when they are finally and eternally fused.
Topical Study number 141
"Our Progressive Growth Toward God's Will"
Part 3
Compiled Jan. 18, 2023 by Dave@PureChristians.org
PAPER 111. The Adjuster and the Soul
0. Introduction
[Paper:Section.Paragraph (numbers)]
111:0.2 The concept of a soul and of an indwelling spirit is not new to Urantia; [Earth;] it has frequently appeared in the various systems of planetary beliefs. Many of the Oriental as well as some of the Occidental faiths have perceived that man is divine in heritage as well as human in inheritance. The feeling of the inner presence in addition to the external omnipresence of Deity has long formed a part of many Urantian religions. Men have long believed that there is something growing within the human nature, something vital that is destined to endure beyond the short span of temporal life.
3. The Evolving Soul
111:3.2 During the life in the flesh the evolving soul is enabled to reinforce the supermaterial decisions of the mortal mind. The soul, being supermaterial, does not of itself function on the material level of human experience. Neither can this subspiritual soul, without the collaboration of some spirit of Deity, such as the Adjuster, function above the morontia [soul] level. Neither does the soul make final decisions until death or translation divorces it from material association with the mortal mind except when and as this material mind delegates such authority freely and willingly to such a morontia soul of associated function. During life the mortal will, the personality power of decision-choice, is resident in the material mind circuits; as terrestrial mortal growth proceeds, this self, with its priceless [personality] powers of choice, becomes increasingly identified with the emerging morontia-soul entity; after death and following the mansion world resurrection, the human personality is completely identified with the morontia self. The soul is thus the embryo of the future morontia vehicle of [forever unique, unchanging] personality identity. [I am of I AM GOD's Eternal Personality Circuit !]
111:3.4 Both the human mind and the divine Adjuster are conscious of the presence and differential nature of the evolving soul—the Adjuster fully, the mind partially. The soul becomes increasingly conscious of both the mind and the Adjuster as associated identities, proportional to its own evolutionary growth. The soul partakes of the qualities of both the human mind and the divine spirit but persistently evolves toward augmentation of spirit control and divine dominance through the fostering of a mind function whose meanings seek to co-ordinate with true spirit value. [The Spirit Values are: Love, Mercy, Service Ministry to all, Truth, Beauty, and Goodness; as Revealed in the Godly Life and Teachings of our universe Sovereign Creator Jesus Christ.]
6. The Human Paradox
111:6.1 Many of the temporal troubles of mortal man grow out of his twofold relation to the cosmos. Man is a part of nature—he exists in nature—and yet he is able to transcend nature. Man is finite, but he is indwelt by a spark of infinity. Such a dual situation not only provides the potential for evil but also engenders many social and moral situations fraught with much uncertainty and not a little anxiety. [Pray and strive for evermore increasing SELF-CONTROL ! Desire God's perfect indwelling will to contine to make you more Godly in all of your thoughts and deeds !]
PAPER 112. Personality Survival
0.Introduction
112:0.1 The evolutionary planets are the spheres of human origin, the initial worlds of the ascending mortal career. Urantia is your starting point; here you and your divine Thought Adjuster are joined in temporary union. [!!] You have been endowed with a perfect guide; therefore, if you will sincerely run the race of time and gain the final goal of faith, the reward of the ages shall be yours; you will be eternally united with your indwelling Adjuster. Then will begin your real life, the ascending life, to which your present mortal state is but the vestibule. Then will begin your exalted and progressive mission as [Paradise] finaliters in the eternity which stretches out before you. And throughout all of these successive ages and stages of evolutionary growth, there is one part of you that remains absolutely unaltered, and that is personality — permanence in the presence of change.
112:0.15 #13. Personality may survive mortal death with identity in the surviving soul. The Adjuster and the personality are changeless; the relationship between them (in the soul) is nothing but change, continuing evolution; and if this change (growth) ceased, the soul would cease.
5. Survival of the Human Self
112:5.6 Though the cosmic circles of personality growth must eventually be attained, if, through no fault of your own, the accidents of time and the handicaps of material existence prevent your mastering these levels on your native planet, if your intentions and desires are of survival value, there are issued the decrees of probation extension. You will be afforded additional time in which to prove yourself. [Jesus has made the next seven mansion world heavens probationary for younger human-inhabited worlds such as ours. They all start out with primitive savage animalistic humans for the first few million years of slow evolution. Our planet is very young. The first humans, named Andon and Fonta, were created here a little less than one million years ago. Many older planets, having humans for billions of years, are far more advanced. They will not visit us here until we long have progressed in Godliness.]
6. The Morontia [Soul] Self
112:6.3 To a certain extent, the appearance of the material body-form is responsive to the character of the personality identity; the physical body does, to a limited degree, reflect something of the inherent nature of the personality. Still more so does the morontia form. In the physical life, mortals may be outwardly beautiful though inwardly unlovely; in the morontia life, and increasingly on its higher levels, the personality form will vary directly in accordance with the nature of the inner person. On the spiritual level, outward form and inner nature begin to approximate complete identification, which grows more and more perfect on higher and higher spirit levels. [There is about one trillion years of progressive ascension up through just over one billion spiritual Heavens to become Spirit-perfected and then an eternal Resident on Paradise and the endless exploration of the Infinity of God the Universal Father I AM ! What a glorious eternal Destiny we have !]
7. Adjuster Fusion
112:7.6 On the evolutionary worlds, selfhood is material; it is a thing in the universe and as such is subject to the laws of material existence. It is a fact in time and is responsive to the vicissitudes thereof. Survival decisions must here be formulated. In the morontia state the self has become a new and more enduring universe reality, and its continuing growth is predicated on its increasing attunement to the mind and spirit circuits of the universes. Survival decisions are now being confirmed. When the self attains the spiritual level, it has become a secure value in the universe, and this new value is predicated upon the fact that survival decisions have been made, which fact has been witnessed by eternal fusion with the Thought Adjuster. And having achieved the status of a true universe value, the creature becomes liberated in potential for the seeking of the highest universe value—God.
112:7.9 Has the triumphant Adjuster won personality by the magnificent service to humanity, or has the valiant human acquired immortality through sincere efforts to achieve Adjusterlikeness? It is neither; but they together have achieved the evolution of a member of one of the unique orders of the ascending personalities of [the space-time evolving God] the Supreme, one who will ever be found serviceable, faithful, and efficient, a candidate for further growth and development, ever ranging upward and never ceasing the supernal ascent until the seven circuits of Havona [one billion Spirit-level worlds] have been traversed and the onetime soul of earthly origin stands in worshipful recognition of the actual personality of the Father on Paradise.
PAPER 114. Seraphic [Angels] Planetary Government
7. The Reserve Corps of Destiny
114:7.15 But it is true that you can have, at best, only a meager idea of an ideal planetary government. Since the early times of the [first] Planetary Prince, [He came here 500,000 years ago; and he defaulted 200,000 years ago by joining the Lucifer and Satan rebellion. Jesus Christ removed all of them May 18, A.D. 30 - on !!!] Urantia has suffered from the miscarriage of the divine plan of [slow and steady, not radical] world growth and racial development. The loyal inhabited worlds of [our system] are not governed as is Urantia. Nevertheless, compared with the other isolated worlds, your planetary governments have not been so inferior; only one or two worlds may be said to be worse, and a few may be slightly better, but the majority are on a plane of equality with you.
PAPER 115. The Supreme Being
2. The Absolute Basis for Supremacy
115:2.4 The apparent method whereby the possibilities of the cosmos are brought into actual existence varies from level to level, being experiential evolution in the [Supreme level] finite and experiential eventuation in the [higher Ultimate level] absonite. Existential infinity is indeed unqualified in all-inclusiveness, and this very all-inclusiveness must, perforce, encompass even the possibility for evolutionary finite experiencing. And the possibility for such experiential growth becomes a universe actuality through triodity relationships impinging upon and in the Supreme. [On Triodity, See 104:5 and 115: sections 2 -6. Very advanced Theology for long-term readers of this 2097 page comprehensive Fifth Epochal Revelation of Truth.]
3. Original, Actual, and Potential
115:3.9 The interassociation of the Original, the Actual, and the Potential yields the tensions within infinity which result in the possibility for all universe growth; and growth is the nature of the Sevenfold, the Supreme, and the Ultimate. [The Original Paradise-Eternity level is Infinite in God the Father-Infinite I AM !]
115:3.16 The final dynamics of the cosmos have to do with the continual transfer of reality from potentiality to actuality. In theory, there may be an end to this metamorphosis, but in fact, such is impossible since the Potential and the Actual are both encircuited in the Original (the I AM), and this identification makes it forever impossible to place a limit on the developmental progression of the universe. Whatsoever is identified with the I AM can never find an end to progression since the actuality of the potentials of the I AM is absolute, and the potentiality of the actuals of the I AM is also absolute. Always will actuals be opening up new avenues of the realization of hitherto impossible potentials—every human decision not only actualizes a new reality in human experience but also opens up a new capacity for human growth. The man lives in every child, [and in the sperm-egg union,] and the morontia [soul] progressor is resident in the mature God-knowing man. [Tremendous Revelation !]
115:3.17 Statics in growth can never appear in the total cosmos since the basis for growth—the absolute actuals—is unqualified, and since the possibilities for growth—the absolute potentials—are unlimited. From a practical viewpoint the philosophers of the universe have come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as an end.
4. Sources of Supreme Reality
115:4.1 Any consideration of the origins of God the Supreme must begin with the [Eternal] Paradise Trinity, for the Trinity is original Deity while the Supreme is derived Deity. Any consideration of the growth of the Supreme must give consideration to the existential triodities, for they encompass all absolute actuality and all infinite potentiality (in conjunction with the First Source and Center). And the evolutionary Supreme is the culminating and personally volitional focus of the transmutation—the transformation—of potentials to actuals in and on the finite level of existence. The two triodities, actual and potential, encompass the totality of the interrelationships of growth in the universes.
115:4.2 The source of the Supreme is in the Paradise Trinity—eternal, actual, and undivided Deity. The Supreme is first of all a spirit person, and this spirit person stems from the Trinity. But the Supreme is secondly a Deity of growth—evolutionary growth—and this growth derives from the two triodities, actual and potential.
115:4.6 Supreme reality, which is total finite reality, is in process of dynamic growth between the unqualified potentials of outer space and the unqualified actuals at the center of all things. The finite domain thus factualizes through the co-operation of the absonite agencies of Paradise and the Supreme Creator Personalities of time. [our Creator Son Jesus Christ.] The act of maturing the qualified possibilities of the three great potential Absolutes is the absonite function of the Architects of the Master Universe and their transcendental associates. And when these eventualities have attained to a certain point of maturation, the Supreme Creator Personalities emerge from Paradise to engage in the agelong task of bringing the evolving universes into factual being. [Our eternal Creator Son of God Jesus Christ, left eternal Paradise about 400 billion years ago to start creating our local universe of Nebadon. Our recent cosmologists and astronomers now have rejected the old, false "Big Bang Theory", and have discovered a much older and vastly larger universe !! See "New Physics" online.]
115:4.7 The growth of Supremacy derives from the triodities; the spirit person of the Supreme, from the Trinity; but the power prerogatives of the Almighty are predicated on the divinity successes of God the Sevenfold, [beginning with our Sovereign Creator Son of God Jesus Christ Michael. "Michael" is a high Title of Jesus which means: "HE Who IS Just Like GOD"] while the conjoining of the power prerogatives of the Almighty Supreme with the spirit person of God the Supreme takes place by virtue of the ministry of the Conjoint Actor, [God the Infinite Spirit -- the Third Person of the Paradise Trinity -- when Acting for the Father-Son Union] who bestowed the mind of the Supreme as the conjoining factor in this evolutionary Deity.
5. Relation of the Supreme to the Paradise Trinity
115:5.1 The Supreme Being is absolutely dependent on the existence and action of the Paradise Trinity for the reality of his personal and spirit nature. While the growth of the Supreme is a matter of triodity relationship, the spirit personality of God the Supreme is dependent upon, and is derived from, the Paradise Trinity, which ever remains as the absolute center-source of perfect and infinite stability around which the evolutionary growth of the Supreme progressively unfolds.
6. Relation of the Supreme to the Triodities
115:6.3 The Supreme Being embraces possibilities for cosmic ministry that are not apparently manifested in the Eternal Son, the Infinite Spirit, or the nonpersonal realities of the Isle of Paradise. This statement is made with due regard for the absoluteness of these three basic actualities, but the growth of the Supreme is not only predicated on these actualities of Deity and Paradise but is also involved in developments within the Deity, Universal, and Unqualified Absolutes.
115:6.4 The Supreme not only grows as the Creators and creatures of the evolving universes attain to Godlikeness, but this finite Deity also experiences growth as a result of the creature and Creator mastery of the finite possibilities of the grand universe. The motion of the Supreme is twofold: intensively toward Paradise and Deity and extensively toward the limitlessness of the Absolutes of potential.
7. The Nature of the Supreme
115:7.1 In the Deity of the Supreme the Father-I AM has achieved relatively complete liberation from the limitations inherent in infinity of status, eternity of being, and absoluteness of nature. But God the Supreme has been freed from all existential limitations only by having become subject to experiential qualifications of universal function. In attaining capacity for experience, the finite God also becomes subject to the necessity therefor; in achieving liberation from eternity, the Almighty encounters the barriers of time; and the Supreme could only know growth and development as a consequence of partiality of existence and incompleteness of nature, nonabsoluteness of being.
115:7.2 All this must be according to the Father’s plan, which has predicated finite progress upon effort, creature achievement upon perseverance, and personality development upon faith. [Faith is a precious Gift from God !] By thus ordaining the experience-evolution of the Supreme, the Father has made it possible for finite creatures to exist in the universes and, by experiential progression, sometime to attain the divinity of Supremacy.
115:7.3 Including the Supreme and even the Ultimate, all reality, excepting the unqualified values of the seven Absolutes, is relative. The fact of Supremacy is predicated on Paradise power, Son personality, and Conjoint action, but the growth of the Supreme is involved in the Deity Absolute, the Unqualified Absolute, and the Universal Absolute. And this synthesizing and unifying Deity—God the Supreme—is the personification of the finite shadow cast athwart the grand universe by the infinite unity of the unsearchable nature of the Paradise Father, the First Source and Center. [The deep mystery of the Three Absolutes which are One Absolute in Paradise-Eternity. In our distant future on Paradise we will fully know this and much more without end !]
PAPER 116. The Almighty Supreme
0. Introduction
116:0.3 Experiential growth implies creature-Creator partnership—God and man in association. Growth is the earmark of experiential Deity: Havona did not grow; Havona is and always has been; it is existential like the everlasting Gods who are its source. But growth characterizes the grand universe. [in space and in time.]
116:0.4 The Almighty Supreme is a living and evolving Deity of power and personality. His present domain, the grand universe, is also a growing realm of power and personality. His destiny is perfection, but his present experience encompasses the elements of growth and incomplete status. [God the Universal Father constantly tells us: "Be you Perfect; even as I AM Perfect !!]
1. The Supreme Mind
116:1.1 The experience of every evolving creature personality is a phase of the experience of the Almighty Supreme. The intelligent subjugation of every physical segment of the superuniverses is a part of the growing control of the Almighty Supreme. The creative synthesis of power and personality is a part of the creative urge of the Supreme Mind and is the very essence of the evolutionary growth of unity in the Supreme Being.
116:1.5 We really know less about the mind of Supremacy than about any other aspect of this evolving Deity. It is unquestionably active throughout the grand universe and is believed to have a potential destiny of master universe function which is of vast extent. But this we do know: Whereas physique may attain completed growth, and whereas spirit may achieve perfection of development, mind never ceases to progress—it is the experiential technique of endless progress. The Supreme is an experiential Deity and therefore never achieves completion of mind attainment.
2. The Almighty and God the Sevenfold
116:2.2 God the Supreme derives his spirit and personality attributes from the Paradise Trinity, but he is power-actualizing in the doings of the Creator Sons, the Ancients of Days, and the Master Spirits, whose collective acts are the source of his growing power as almighty sovereign to and in the seven superuniverses.
5. The Almighty and the Sevenfold Controller
116:5.16 The difficulty in arriving at a state of dynamic equilibrium is inherent in the fact of the growing cosmos. [It is Revealed that there is now and eternally a Cosmos Infinite !!!] The established circuits of physical creation are being continually jeopardized by the appearance of new energy and new mass. A growing universe is an unsettled universe; hence no part of the cosmic whole can find real stability until the fullness of time witnesses the material completion of the seven superuniverses. [and that is a tiny part of the Cosmos Infinite !]
6. Spirit Dominance
116:6.2 This union of power and personality is expressive on deity levels in and as the Supreme. But the actual evolution of spirit dominance is a growth which is predicated on the freewill acts of the Creators and creatures [Creator Jesus Christ and us in our local universe of Nebadon -- where are souls are born and evolving toward higher Spirit levels] of the grand universe. [Then the higher, larger, more real Ultimate level Master Universe. Our Sovereign Savior Jesus Christ Michael is now a Member of the Trinity Ultimate !]
116:6.6 And as it is with the parts, so it is with the whole; the spirit person of Supremacy requires the evolutionary power of the Almighty to achieve completion of Deity and to attain destiny of Trinity association. The effort is made by the personalities of time and space, but the culmination and consummation of this effort is the act of the Almighty Supreme. And while the growth of the whole is thus a totalizing of the collective growth of the parts, it equally follows that the evolution of the parts is a segmented reflection of the purposive growth of the whole.
[Note: Papers 115 through 118 are the most complex and difficult to comprehend in this Revelation of 196 Papers. Do not worry if you can not initially grasp much of this. A very wise man one said: "If GOD were small enough for our finite human comprehension, HE would not be big enough for our real eternal needs !"]
Topical Study number 141
"Our Progressive Growth Toward God's Will"
Part 4
Compiled Jan. 20, 2023 by Dave@PureChristians.org
PAPER 117. God the Supreme
1. Nature of the Supreme Being
117:1.3 The grand universe contains the possibility of, and ever seeks for, complete unification, and this grows out of the fact that this cosmic existence is a consequence of the creative acts and the power mandates of the Paradise Trinity, which is unqualified unity. This very trinitarian unity is expressed in the finite cosmos in the Supreme, whose reality becomes increasingly apparent as the universes attain to the maximum level of Trinity identification.
2. The Source of Evolutionary Growth
117:2.1 The Supreme is God-in-time; his is the secret of creature growth in time; his also is the conquest of the incomplete present and the consummation of the perfecting future. And the final fruits of all finite growth are: power controlled through mind by spirit by virtue of the unifying and creative presence of personality. The culminating consequence of all this growth is the Supreme Being.
117:2.2 To mortal man, existence is equivalent to growth. And so indeed it would seem to be, even in the larger universe sense, for spirit-led existence does seem to result in experiential growth—augmentation of status. We have long held, however, that the present growth which characterizes creature existence in the present universe age is a function of the Supreme. We equally hold that this kind of growth is peculiar to the age of the growth of the Supreme, and that it will terminate with the completion of the growth of the Supreme.
117:2.3 Consider the status of the creature-trinitized sons: They are born and live in the present universe age; they have personalities, together with mind and spirit endowments. They have experiences and the memory thereof, but they do not grow as do ascenders. It is our belief and understanding that these creature-trinitized sons, while they are in the present universe age, are really of the next universe age—the age which will follow the completion of the growth of the Supreme. Hence they are not in the Supreme as of his present status of incompleteness and consequent growth. Thus they are nonparticipating in the experiential growth of the present universe age, being held in reserve for the next universe age.
117:2.4 My own order, the Mighty Messengers, being Trinity embraced, are nonparticipating in the growth of the present universe age. In a sense we are in status as of the preceding universe age as in fact are the Stationary Sons of the Trinity. One thing is certain: Our status is fixed by the Trinity embrace, and experience no longer eventuates in growth.
117:2.5 This is not true of the finaliters nor of any other of the evolutionary and experiential orders which are participants in the growth process of the Supreme. You mortals now living on Urantia who may aspire to Paradise attainment and finaliter status should understand that such a destiny is only realizable because you are in and of the Supreme, hence are participants in the cycle of the growth of the Supreme.
117:2.6 There will come an end sometime to the growth of the Supreme; his status will achieve completion (in the energy-spirit sense). This termination of the evolution of the Supreme will also witness the ending of creature evolution as a part of Supremacy. What kind of growth may characterize the universes of outer space, we do not know. But we are very sure that it will be something very different from anything that has been seen in the present age of the evolution of the seven superuniverses. It will undoubtedly be the function of the evolutionary citizens of the grand universe to compensate the outer-spacers for this deprivation of the growth of Supremacy.
117:2.7 As existent upon the consummation of the present universe age, the Supreme Being will function as an experiential sovereign in the grand universe. Outer-spacers—citizens of the next universe age—will have a postsuperuniverse growth potential, a capacity for evolutionary attainment presupposing the sovereignty of the Almighty Supreme, hence excluding creature participation in the power-personality synthesis of the present universe age.
117:2.8 Thus may the incompleteness of the Supreme be regarded as a virtue since it makes possible the evolutionary growth of the creature-creation of the present universes. Emptiness does have its virtue, for it may become experientially filled.
117:2.9 One of the most intriguing questions in finite philosophy is this: Does the Supreme Being actualize in response to the evolution of the grand universe, or does this finite cosmos progressively evolve in response to the gradual actualization of the Supreme? Or is it possible that they are mutually interdependent for their development? that they are evolutionary reciprocals, each initiating the growth of the other? Of this we are certain: Creatures and universes, high and low, are evolving within the Supreme, and as they evolve, there is appearing the unified summation of the entire finite activity of this universe age. And this is the appearance of the Supreme Being, to all personalities the evolution of the almighty power of God the Supreme.
3. Significance of the Supreme to Universe Creatures
117:3.1 The cosmic reality variously designated as the Supreme Being, God the Supreme, and the Almighty Supreme, is the complex and universal synthesis of the emerging phases of all finite realities. The far-flung diversification of eternal energy, divine spirit, and universal mind attains finite culmination in the evolution of the Supreme, who is the sum total of all finite growth, self-realized on deity levels of finite maximum completion.
117:3.6 Mortal man, being a creature, is not exactly like the Supreme Being, who is deity, but man’s evolution does in some ways resemble the growth of the Supreme. Man consciously grows from the material toward the spiritual by the strength, power, and persistency of his own decisions; he also grows as his Thought Adjuster develops new techniques for reaching down from the spiritual to the morontial soul levels; and once the soul comes into being, it begins to grow in and of itself.
117:3.7 This is somewhat like the way in which the Supreme Being expands. His sovereignty grows in and out of the acts and achievements of the Supreme Creator Personalities; that is the evolution of the majesty of his power as the ruler of the grand universe. His deity nature is likewise dependent on the pre-existent unity of the Paradise Trinity. But there is still another aspect to the evolution of God the Supreme: He is not only Creator-evolved and Trinity-derived; he is also self-evolved and self-derived. God the Supreme is himself a volitional, creative participant in his own deity actualization. The human morontial soul is likewise a volitional, cocreative partner in its own immortalization.
117:3.13 The Supreme apparently cannot initiate original causation but appears to be the catalyzer of all universe growth and is seemingly destined to provide totality culmination as regards the destiny of all experiential-evolutionary beings. The Father originates the concept of a finite cosmos; the Creator Sons factualize this idea in time and space with the consent and co-operation of the Creative Spirits; the Supreme culminates the total finite and establishes its relationship with the destiny of the absonite.
5. The Oversoul of Creation
117:5.6 The progressing personality leaves a trail of actualized reality as it passes through the ascending levels of the universes. Be they mind, spirit, or energy, the growing creations of time and space are modified by the progression of personality through their domains. When man acts, the Supreme reacts, and this transaction constitutes the fact of progression.
117:5.14 The evolving Supreme will eventually compensate finite creatures for their inability ever to achieve more than limited experience contact with the universe of universes. Creatures can attain the Paradise Father, but their evolutionary minds, being finite, are incapable of really understanding the infinite and absolute Father. But since all creature experiencing registers in, and is a part of, the Supreme, when all creatures attain the final level of finite existence, and after total universe development makes possible their attainment of God the Supreme as an actual divinity presence, then, inherent in the fact of such contact, is contact with total experience. The finite of time contains within itself the seeds of eternity; and we are taught that, when the fullness of evolution witnesses the exhaustion of the capacity for cosmic growth, the total finite will embark upon the absonite phases of the eternal career in quest of the Father as Ultimate.
6. The Quest for the Supreme
117:6.5 The morontia soul of an evolving mortal is really the son of the Adjuster action of the Universal Father and the child of the cosmic reaction of the Supreme Being, the Universal Mother. The mother influence dominates the human personality throughout the local universe childhood of the growing soul. The influence of the Deity parents becomes more equal after the Adjuster fusion and during the superuniverse career, but when the creatures of time begin the traversal of the central universe of eternity, the Father nature becomes increasingly manifest, attaining its height of finite manifestation upon the recognition of the Universal Father and the admission into the Corps of the Finality.
PAPER 118. Supreme and Ultimate—Time and Space
0. Introduction
118:0.9 While God the Sevenfold is indispensable to the evolutionary attainment of the Supreme, the Supreme is also indispensable to the eventual emergence of the Ultimate. And the dual presence of the Supreme and the Ultimate constitutes the basic association of subabsolute and derived Deity, for they are interdependently complemental in the 6. The Human Paradoxattainment of destiny. Together they constitute the experiential bridge linking the beginnings and the completions of all creative growth in the master universe.
118:0.10 Creative growth is unending but ever satisfying, endless in extent but always punctuated by those personality-satisfying moments of transient goal attainment which serve so effectively as the mobilization preludes to new adventures in cosmic growth, universe exploration, and Deity attainment.
118:0.12 At the same time, the infinite series can be totaled at any given point, and this total (more properly, a subtotal) provides the fullness of the sweetness of goal attainment for a given person at a given time and status. But sooner or later, this same person begins to hunger and yearn for new and greater goals, and such adventures in growth will be forever forthcoming in the fullness of time and the cycles of eternity.
118:0.13 Each successive universe age is the antechamber of the following era of cosmic growth, and each universe epoch provides immediate destiny for all preceding stages. Havona, in and of itself, is a perfect, but perfection-limited, creation; Havona perfection, expanding out into the evolutionary superuniverses, finds not only cosmic destiny but also liberation from the limitations of pre-evolutionary existence.
4. Primary and Secondary Causation
118:4.3 The purely static potentials inherent in the Unqualified Absolute are reactive to those causations of the Deity Absolute which are produced by the actions of the Paradise Trinity. In the presence of the Universal Absolute these causative-impregnated static potentials forthwith become active and responsive to the influence of certain transcendental agencies whose actions result in the transmutation of these activated potentials to the status of true universe possibilities for development, actualized capacities for growth. It is upon such matured potentials that the creators and controllers of the grand universe enact the never-ending drama of cosmic evolution.
10. Functions of Providence
118:10.2 The Father, Son, and Spirit—as the Trinity—are not the Almighty Supreme, but the supremacy of the Almighty can never be manifest without them. The growth of the Almighty is centered on the Absolutes of actuality and predicated on the Absolutes of potentiality. But the functions of the Almighty Supreme are related to the functions of the Paradise Trinity.
118:10.5 God loves each creature as a child, and that love overshadows each creature throughout all time and eternity. Providence functions with regard to the total and deals with the function of any creature as such function is related to the total. Providential intervention with regard to any being is indicative of the importance of the function of that being as concerns the evolutionary growth of some total; such total may be the total race, the total nation, the total planet, or even a higher total. It is the importance of the function of the creature that occasions providential intervention, not the importance of the creature as a person.
118:10.15 3. Man’s universe integration—the increase of human insight plus the increase of human experiential achievement brings him into closer harmony with the unifying presences of Supremacy—Paradise Trinity and Supreme Being. And this is what establishes the sovereignty of the Supreme on the worlds long settled in light and life. Such advanced planets are indeed poems of harmony, pictures of the beauty of achieved goodness attained through the pursuit of cosmic truth. And if such things can happen to a planet, then even greater things can happen to a system and the larger units of the grand universe as they too achieve a settledness indicating the exhaustion of the potentials for finite growth.
PART IV. The Life and Teachings of Jesus Papers 120 - 196 pages 1323 - 2097
PAPER 126. The Two Crucial Years
0. Introduction
126:0.3 As he grew older, Jesus’ pity and love for the Jewish people deepened, but with the passing years, there developed in his mind a growing righteous resentment of the presence in the Father’s temple of the politically appointed priests. Jesus had great respect for the sincere Pharisees and the honest scribes, but he held the hypocritical Pharisees and the dishonest theologians in great contempt; he looked with disdain upon all those religious leaders who were not sincere. When he scrutinized the leadership of Israel, he was sometimes tempted to look with favor on the possibility of his becoming the Messiah of Jewish expectation, but he never yielded to such a temptation.
PAPER 130. On the Way to Rome
1. At Joppa—Discourse on Jonah
130:1.6 “Your Father in heaven, by endowing you with the power to choose between truth and error, created the potential negative of the positive way of light and life; but such errors of evil are really nonexistent until such a time as an intelligent creature wills their existence by mischoosing the way of life. And then are such evils later exalted into sin by the knowing and deliberate choice of such a willful and rebellious creature. This is why our Father in heaven permits the good and the evil to go along together until the end of life, just as nature allows the wheat and the tares to grow side by side until the harvest.” Gadiah was fully satisfied with Jesus’ answer to his question after their subsequent discussion had made clear to his mind the real meaning of these momentous statements.
4. Discourse on Reality
130:4.3 The highest level to which a finite creature can progress is the recognition of the Universal Father and the knowing of the Supreme. And even then such beings of finality destiny go on experiencing change in the motions of the physical world and in its material phenomena. Likewise do they remain aware of selfhood progression in their continuing ascension of the spiritual universe and of growing consciousness in their deepening appreciation of, and response to, the intellectual cosmos. Only in the perfection, harmony, and unanimity of will can the creature become as one with the Creator; and such a state of divinity is attained and maintained only by the creature’s continuing to live in time and eternity by consistently conforming his finite personal will to the divine will of the Creator. Always must the desire to do the Father’s will be supreme in the soul and dominant over the mind of an ascending son of God.
5. On the Island of Crete
130:5.3 One day when Ganid asked Jesus why he had not devoted himself to the work of a public teacher, he said: “My son, everything must await the coming of its time. You are born into the world, but no amount of anxiety and no manifestation of impatience will help you to grow up. You must, in all such matters, wait upon time. Time alone will ripen the green fruit upon the tree. Season follows season and sundown follows sunrise only with the passing of time. I am now on the way to Rome with you and your father, and that is sufficient for today. My tomorrow is wholly in the hands of my Father in heaven.” And then he told Ganid the story of Moses and the forty years of watchful waiting and continued preparation.
8. On the Way to Naples and Rome
130:8.3 At Messina they stopped for only one day, but that was long enough to change the life of a small boy, a fruit vendor, of whom Jesus bought fruit and in turn fed with the bread of life. The lad never forgot the words of Jesus and the kindly look which went with them when, placing his hand on the boy’s shoulder, he said: “Farewell, my lad, be of good courage as you grow up to manhood and after you have fed the body learn how also to feed the soul. And my Father in heaven will be with you and go before you.” The lad became a devotee of the Mithraic religion and later on turned to the Christian faith.
PAPER 132. The Sojourn at Rome
0. Introduction
132:0.2 While at Rome, Ganid had regular hours for study and for visiting places of interest about the city. His father had much business to transact, and desiring that his son grow up to become a worthy successor in the management of his vast commercial interests, he thought the time had come to introduce the boy to the business world. There were many citizens of India in Rome, and often one of Gonod’s own employees would accompany him as interpreter so that Jesus would have whole days to himself; this gave him time in which to become thoroughly acquainted with this city of two million inhabitants. He was frequently to be found in the forum, the center of political, legal, and business life. He often went up to the Capitolium and pondered the bondage of ignorance in which these Romans were held as he beheld this magnificent temple dedicated to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. He also spent much time on Palatine hill, where were located the emperor’s residence, the temple of Apollo, and the Greek and Latin libraries.
2. Good and Evil
132:2.5 Goodness is always growing toward new levels of the increasing liberty of moral self-realization and spiritual personality attainment—the discovery of, and identification with, the indwelling Adjuster. An experience is good when it heightens the appreciation of beauty, augments the moral will, enhances the discernment of truth, enlarges the capacity to love and serve one’s fellows, exalts the spiritual ideals, and unifies the supreme human motives of time with the eternal plans of the indwelling Adjuster, all of which lead directly to an increased desire to do the Father’s will, thereby fostering the divine passion to find God and to be more like him.
7. Trips about Rome
132:7.6 Then exclaimed Ganid: “Teacher, let’s you and I make a new religion, one good enough for India and big enough for Rome, and maybe we can trade it to the Jews for Yahweh.” And Jesus replied: “Ganid, religions are not made. The religions of men grow up over long periods of time, while the revelations of God flash upon earth in the lives of the men who reveal God to their fellows.” But they did not comprehend the meaning of these prophetic words.
