Becoming Perfect and Divine

Parenting the Soul

Mortal Soul The soul of man is acquired through the experience of living. As a mortal creature chooses to do the will of the Father in heaven, the indwelling spirit (the Thought Adjuster) becomes the father of the soul, a new reality in human experience. The mortal and material mind is the mother of the emerging reality, the soul. The substance of this new reality is neither material nor spiritual - it is morontial (the rarified matter that exists between solid physical substance and spirit). This emerging and immortal soul is destined to survive mortal death and begin the Paradise ascension. The spiritual health of the soul is gleaned through the virtuous and moral living of the parenting person.

Human Personality The personality of mortal man is neither body, mind, spirit, or soul. Personality is the one changeless reality in an otherwise ever-changing creature experience. Personality unifies all the associated factors of individuality. The personality is the unique bestowal that the Universal Father makes upon the living and associated energies of matter, mind, and spirit. Personality survives with the survival of the morontial soul.

Translation Difficulties It is impossible to fully translate the language of the concepts of divinity and eternity into the language symbols of the finite concepts of mortal mind. The problems of translation are overcome because there dwells within the human mind a fragment of God (the Thought Adjuster), and there sojourns with the human soul the Spirit of Truth (the Spirit of the local universe father, Michael). These two spirit forces conspire to enable material man to grasp the reality of spiritual values and to comprehend the philosophy of universe meanings. These spirits of the Divine Presence are able to assist man in the spiritual appropriation of all truth contributory to the enhancement of the ever-progressing reality of personal religious experience, God-consciousness.

Manifesting the Existence of God The actuality of the existence of God is demonstrated in human experience by the indwelling of the divine presence, the spirit Monitor sent from Paradise to live in the mortal mind of man to assist in evolving the immortal soul of eternal survival. The presence of this divine Adjuster in the human mind is disclosed by three experiential phenomena: The intellectual capacity for knowing God - God-consciousness. The spiritual urge to find God - God-seeking. The personality craving to be like God - the wholehearted desire to do the Father's will.

Living Transformations In the universes, God the Father is, in potential, the over-controller of matter, mind, and spirit. Through his far-flung personality circuit, God deals directly with the personalities of his vast creation of will creatures, but he is contactable (outside of Paradise) only in the presences of his fragmented entities (the Thought Adjusters) that are the will of God abroad in the universes. The Paradise spirit (the Thought Adjuster) that indwells the minds of the mortals of time and fosters the evolution of the immortal soul of the surviving creature is of the nature and divinity of the Universal Father. Since the minds of evolutionary creatures originate in the local universes, they must gain divine perfection by achieving the experiential transformations of spiritual attainment that are the result of a creature's choosing to do the will of the Father in heaven. Mortal mind that is subservient to matter is destined to become more and more material and consequently to suffer eventual personality extinction. Mind yielded to spirit is destined to become increasingly spiritual and ultimately to achieve oneness with the surviving and guiding divine Thought Adjuster, and to attain eternal survival of personality existence.

The Progressive Experience The absolute perfection of the infinite God would cause him to suffer the limitations of unqualified finality of perfectness if it were not a fact that the Universal Father directly participates in the personality struggle of every imperfect soul in the wide universes who seek, by divine aid, to ascend to the spiritually perfect worlds. This progressive experience of every spirit being and every mortal creature throughout the universe of universes is a part of the Father's ever-expanding Deity-consciousness of the never-ending divine circle of ceaseless self-realization.

The Transcendent and Immanent God The transcendent divine Creator is the source and destiny of souls. He is the Supreme Soul, the Primal Mind, and the Unlimited Spirit of all creation. The divine Creator's love is an intelligent and farseeing parental affection. The greatest manifestation of the divine love for mortal beings is observed in his bestowal of the immanent Thought Adjusters. Man's greatest revelation of the Father's love is seen in the bestowal life of his Son Michael as he lived the ideal spiritual life on earth as Jesus of Nazareth. The indwelling Adjuster individualizes the love of God to each human soul while he heals the brokenhearted and binds up the wounds of the soul.

Religious Challenge The religious challenge of this age belongs to farseeing and forward-looking men and women of spiritual insight who dare to construct a new and appealing philosophy of living out of the enlarged and exquisitely integrated modern concepts of cosmic truth, universe beauty, and divine goodness. Everything divine that the human mind grasps and the human soul acquires is attained through experience (evolution), not creation.

Perfect and Imperfect Creatures In contrast to man, the perfect created creatures of Havona are naturally brave, but they are not courageous in the human sense. They are innately kind and considerate, but not altruistic in the human way. They expect a pleasant future, but they are not hopeful in the exquisite manner of the trusting mortal of the nebulous evolutionary spheres. Natives of Havona have faith in the stability of the universe, but they are strangers to that saving faith through which mortal man climbs from the status of an animal up to the portals of Paradise. They love the truth, but they know nothing of its soul-saving qualities. They are idealists, but they were born that way. They are wholly ignorant of the ecstasy of becoming idealistic by exhilarating choice. They are loyal, but they have never experienced the thrill of wholehearted and intelligent devotion to duty in the face of temptation to default. They are unselfish, but they never gained such levels of experience by the conquest of a belligerent self. They enjoy pleasure, but they do not comprehend the sweetness of escape from pain.

Nothing Can Deny the Father's Will Man is spiritually indwelt by a surviving Thought Adjuster. If a human mind is sincerely and spiritually motivated, if the human soul desires to know God and become like him, and honestly wants to do the Father's will, there is no mortal deprivation nor power that can prevent a divinely motivated soul from ascending to the portals of Paradise. Although man's approach to the Paradise presence of the Father must await attainment of the highest finite levels of spirit progression, man should rejoice in the recognition of the always present possibility of immediate communion with the bestowal spirit of the Father so intimately associated with his inner soul, the Thought Adjuster.

Awareness of the Soul's Evolution It is exceedingly difficult for the meagerly spiritualized, material mind of mortal man to experience marked consciousness of the spirit activities of such divine entities as the Thought Adjusters. However, as the soul of joint mortal mind and spiritual Thought Adjuster creation becomes increasingly existent, there evolves a new phase of soul consciousness that is capable of experiencing the presence, and of recognizing the spirit leadings and other super material activities of the Thought Adjuster. The entire experience of Adjuster communion is one involving moral status, mental motivation, and spiritual experience. The self-realization of such an achievement is mainly, though not exclusively, limited to the realms of soul consciousness. The proof is imminent and abundant in the manifestation of the fruits of the spirit in the lives of all such inner-spirit contactors.

True Worship Pure worship connotes the mobilization of all the powers of the human personality under the dominance of the evolving soul subject to the divine direction of the associated Thought Adjuster. 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 independently of the intellectual self-consciousness.

Four Cosmic Levels The worship experience consists in the sublime attempt of the betrothed (engaged to be married) Adjuster to communicate to the divine Father the ineffable longings and the inexpressible aspirations of the human soul (the conjoint creation of the God-seeking mortal mind and the God-revealing immortal Adjuster). The mortal mind consents to worship. The immortal soul craves and initiates worship. The divine Adjuster conducts such worship in behalf of the mortal mind and the evolving immortal soul. True worship becomes an experience realized on four cosmic levels: the intellectual, the morontial, the spiritual, and the personal (the consciousness of mind, soul, and spirit, unified in personality).

God Consciousness God-consciousness, as experienced by an evolving mortal, must consist of three differential levels of reality realization: 1. Mind consciousness - the comprehension of the idea of God. 2. Soul consciousness - the realization of the ideal of God. 3. Spirit consciousness - the realization of the spirit reality of God. By unifying these factors of the divine realization, regardless of how incomplete, the mortal personality overspreads all conscious levels with a realization of the personality of God. In the far distant future, mortals who attain the Corps of the Finality will in time realize the supremacy of God. Subsequently, they may eventuate to the realization of the ultimacy of God, in some phase of the absonite super consciousness of the Paradise Father.

Soul Survival Eternal survival of personality is wholly dependent upon 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 survival is 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 Thought Adjuster constitutes the inception and insures the possibility of the potential of growth and survival of the immortal soul.

Basic Natural Rights The ability of mortal parents to procreate is not predicated on their educational, cultural, social, or economic status. The union of the parental factors under natural conditions is quite sufficient to initiate offspring.    Likewise, a human mind capable of discerning right and wrong and possessing the capacity to worship God, in union with a divine Adjuster, is all that is required in a mortal to initiate and foster the production of his immortal soul of survival qualities.

Marriage Made in Heaven The material self has personality and temporal identity. The pre-personal spirit Thought Adjuster has eternal identity.  The material personality and the pre-personality Thought Adjuster spirit are capable of uniting their creative attributes to bring into existence the surviving identity of the immortal soul.    The marriage of the soul with its human personality and the Thought Adjuster spirit occurs in the marital ceremony of fusion.

Self Willed Destiny Having provided for the growth of the immortal soul and having liberated man's inner self from the shackles of absolute dependence on prior causation, the Father stands aside, allowing each individual to determine his own destiny. As pertains to eternal survival, God has decreed the independence of the material and mortal will, and that decree is absolute. No other being, force, creator, or agency in the universe of universes can interfere with the absolute sovereignty of the mortal free will, as it operates within the realms of choice, regarding the eternal destiny of the personality.

Cosmic Gravities Spirit realities respond to the drawing power of the center of spiritual gravity in accordance with their qualitative value (the status of their spirit nature). Spirit substance (quality) responds to spirit gravity in the same manner that the organized energy of physical matter (quantity) responds to physical gravity. From the viewpoint of personality, spirit is the soul of creation. Matter is the shadowy physical body of spirit.

Matter and Spirit Gravity Material-minded man is naturally more familiar with the material manifestations of a physical nature than with the equally real operations of a spiritual nature which are discerned only by the spiritual insight of the soul. The spirit gravity of the Eternal Son, that ever draws all spiritual realities to himself, is just as real and absolute as is the all-powerful material gravity grasp of the Isle of Paradise.

The Eternal Son and Mortals In the local universe ascent the mortals of time look to the local universe Creator Son (Michael) as the personal representative of the Eternal Son. If invited, Michael (the Spirit of Truth) indwells the soul of each mortal. Upon leaving the local universe, when begining the ascent of the super universe training regime, the pilgrims of time increasingly detect the higher presence of the inspiring spirit of the Eternal Son. They profit greatly by the intake of his ministry of spiritual energization.    In the perfect Central Universe of Havona, ascenders become more and more conscious of the loving embrace of the all-pervading spirit of the Original Eternal Son.

Ascension The spiritual-gravity pull of the Eternal Son is the essential constituent of the Paradise ascension of surviving human souls. All genuine spirit values and all bona fide spiritualized individuals are held within the unfailing grasp of the spiritual gravity of the Eternal Son. The mortal mind initiates its career as a material mechanism and is eventually mustered into the Corps of the Finality as a nearly perfected spirit existence, becoming progressively less subject to material gravity and correspondingly more responsive to the inward pulling urge of spirit gravity. The spirit-gravity circuit literally pulls the soul of man to Paradise.

Mortals and the Paradise Trinity A mortal in the flesh should view the Trinity in accordance with his or her individual enlightenment and in harmony with the reactions of his or her mind and soul. One can know or appreciate very little of the absoluteness of the Trinity, but as mortals ascend towards Paradise, they will experience astonishment at successive revelations and unexpected discoveries of Trinity supremacy and ultimacy, if not of absoluteness.

The Importance of Time Time is the one universal endowment of all will creatures. As intelligent beings, mortals have time to insure their survival. Time is fatally squandered only when it is buried in neglect, while failing to utilize it to make certain of the survival of the soul. Failure to improve one's time to the fullest extent possible does not impose fatal penalties. It merely retards the pilgrim of time in his journey of ascent. If survival is gained, all other losses can be retrieved.

Awakening When ascending pilgrims awake to the importance of time, the way is prepared for the realization of the solemnity of trust and for the appreciation of the sanctity of service. While trust and service are the moral elements of greatness, they are also the modesty secrets of greatness. When the spiritual tests of greatness are applied, the moral elements are not disregarded, but the real measure of planetary greatness, is the quality of unselfishness revealed in disinterested labor for the welfare of one's earthly fellows, particularly worthy beings in need and in distress. The manifestation of greatness on a world like Earth is the exhibition of self-control. The great man is not he who overthrows a nation, but rather he who subdues his own tongue.

Greatness and Goodness Greatness is synonymous with divinity. God is supremely great and good. Greatness and goodness simply cannot be divorced. They are forever made one in God. Greatness cannot be estimated without knowing the content of goodness, while goodness cannot be portrayed without exhibiting its inherent and divine greatness.

Importance of Soul The life bestowed upon plants and animals by the Life Carriers1 does not return to the Life Carriers upon the death of a plant or animal. The departing life of such a living thing possesses neither identity nor personality. It does not and cannot individually survive death. During its existence and the time of its sojourn in the body of matter, the plant or animal has undergone a change. It has undergone energy evolution and survives only as a part of the cosmic forces of the universe. The survival of mortal creatures is wholly predicated on the evolutionary development of an immortal soul within the mortal mind.   1 See: Life Carriers

Faith Sons of God The mortal races stand as the representatives of the lowest order of intelligent and personal creation. Mortals are divinely loved, and every individual may choose to accept the certain destiny of a glorious after death experience, but mortals are not yet by nature of the divine order. The status of the mortals of time and space is that of faith sons. They become ascending sons upon the fusion of the surviving mortal soul with some type of eternal and immortal spirit.

Resurrection The physical body of mortal flesh is not a part of the reassembly of the sleeping survivor on Mansion World Number One. The physical body has returned to dust on Earth. In the halls of resurection, the assigned guardian angel sponsors a new body in a rarified morontia form as the new life vehicle for the immortal soul and the indwelling of the Thought Adjuster. The mortal-mind transcripts and the active creature-memory patterns (as transformed from the material levels to the spiritual) are the possession of the Thought Adjuster. The spiritized factors of mind, memory, and creature personality are now and forever a part of the Thought Adjuster. The creature mind-matrix and the passive potentials of identity are present in the morontia soul intrusted to the guardian angels. When the Adjuster and the guardian seraphim reunite their personality trusts, the new individual constitutes the resurrection of the old personality and the survival of the evolving morontia identity of the soul.

Mortal Memories Survivors of the planetary experience are enabled to repossess much of their former human memory experience through having it retold by the associated guardian angels and cherubim and by consulting the records of the mortal career filed by the recording angels. Only those human experiences that were of spiritual value are immediately remembered subsequent to mortal survival.

Inverted Perspective On Earth, one thinks of a body as having a spirit, but spirits regard the spirit (the Thought Adjuster) as having a body. The material eyes are the windows of the spirit-born soul.

The Probationary Nursery Infant-receiving schools are enterprises devoted to the nurture and training of the children of time, including those who die on Earth before the acquirement of individual status on the universe records (before being indwelt by a Thought Adjuster). Surviving parents of the evolutionary worlds of space who have growing children in the probation nursery are given every opportunity to collaborate with the morontia custodians.

The Ghost/Soul Concept The nonmaterial part of man has been variously termed ghost, spirit, shade, phantom, specter, and more recently, soul. The soul was thought of as being related to the body as perfume is to a flower. The soul was early man's "dream double." It was like the mortal himself except that it was not responsive to touch. The belief in dream doubles led directly to the erroneous notion that all things (animate and inanimate) had souls as well as men. This concept perpetuated the nature-spirit beliefs. Some people still conceive that everything in nature has a spirit. As civilization advances, the superstitious concepts of the soul are destroyed. Now, man is wholly dependent on revelation and personal religious experience for his new idea of the soul as the joint creation of the God-knowing mortal mind and its indwelling divine spirit, the Thought Adjuster.

History of Soul Concept Almost every racial and cultural group had a different idea regarding the destiny of the soul. The Greeks believed that weak men have weak souls; so they invented Hades as a place for the reception of anemic souls. The early decendents of Adam and Eve thought their ghosts returned to the ancestral homelands. The Chinese and Egyptians once believed that soul and body remained together. Among the Egyptians this led to careful tomb construction and efforts at body preservation. Even modern peoples seek to arrest the decay of the dead. The Hebrews conceived that a phantom replica of the individual went down to Sheol where it could not return to the land of the living. They did make the important advance in the doctrine of the evolution of the soul.

The Soul in the Future The society of Earth can never hope to settle down as in past ages. Society has ventured beyond old traditions and has begun its greater adventure of evolutionary destiny. As never before in the world's history, the soul of man needs to observe the compass of morality and religious guidance. The paramount mission of religion as a social influence is to stabilize the ideals of mankind during these dangerous times of transition from one phase of civilization to another, from one level of culture to another.

Attitude Religious experience is greatly influenced by physical health, inherited temperament, and social environment. But these temporal conditions do not inhibit inner spiritual progress by a soul dedicated to the doing of the will of the Father in heaven. There are present in all normal mortals innate drives toward growth and self-realization that function if they are not deliberately inhibited. The technique for fostering this constitutive endowment of the potential of spiritual growth is to maintain an attitude of wholehearted devotion to supreme values.

Soul Safety Jesus portrayed the profound certainty of the God-knowing mortal when he said: "To a God-knowing kingdom believer, what does it matter if all things earthly crash?" Temporal securities are vulnerable, but spiritual sureties are invincible. When the tides of human adversity, selfishness, cruelty, hate, malice, and jealousy pound around the mortal soul, there is an inner fortification, the citadel of the spirit (the Thought Adjuster) that is absolutely unassailable. This is true of all humans on Earth who have dedicated the keeping of their souls to the indwelling Thought Adjuster, the spirit of the eternal God.

Purpose of Religion Religion is not a technique for attaining a stationary and blissful peace of mind. Rather, religion is an impulse for organizing the soul for dynamic service. It is the enlistment of the totality of selfhood in the loyal service of loving God and serving man. The religionist pays any price essential to the attainment of the supreme goal. There is a consecrated completeness in religious loyalty that is superbly sublime. This loyalty is socially effective and spiritually progressive. To the religionist the word, "God," is a symbol signifying the approach to supreme reality and the recognition of divine value. Human likes and dislikes do not determine good and evil; moral values do not grow out of wish fulfillment or emotional frustration.

Realizing Supreme Values  Mentally connecting actuals and potentials equals growth (the realization of values through subjective and objective experience).  Growth is not merely progress. Progress is meaningful, but it is relatively valueless without growth. The supreme value of human life consists in the growth of values, progress in meanings, and realization of the cosmic interrelatedness of both of these experiences.   This experience equates to God-consciousness (constant awareness of God). A God-Conscious mortal, while not supernatural, is becoming superhuman. The immortal soul is evolving.

The Greatest Happiness The great problem of religious living consists in unifying the soul powers and the personality through the dominance of Love. Health, mental efficiency, and happiness arise from the unification of physical systems, mind systems, and spirit systems. Man understands a great deal about health and sanity, but he has realized very little about happiness. The highest happiness is indissolubly linked with spiritual progress. Spiritual growth yields lasting joy, the peace that surpasses understanding.

Spiritual Progress The longings and spiritual urges of religion lead men to the knowledge that they ought to believe in God. The illumination of revelation makes such a profound impression upon man's moral nature that he concludes he has no right not to believe in God. The higher and super-philosophic wisdom of such enlightened and disciplined individuals ultimately instructs them that to doubt God or distrust his goodness would be to prove untrue to the most real thing within the human mind and soul, the divine Thought Adjuster.

God in Nature   The contemplation of nature only reveals a God of nature and motion. Nature exhibits only matter, motion, and animation (life).  Matter plus energy, under certain conditions, is manifested in living forms, but while natural life is relatively continuous as a phenomenon, it is short-lived for individuals. Nature does not provide a logical foundation for belief in human-personality survival. The religious man who finds God in nature first finds the personal God in his own soul.

Faith and Revelation Faith reveals God in the soul. Revelation enables man to see the same God in nature that faith exhibits in his soul. Revelation bridges the gulf between matter and spirit, between man and God.

The Craving Man's deepest nature (the divine Thought Adjuster) creates within man a hunger and thirst for righteousness, a craving for divine perfection. Religion is the faith act of the recognition of this inner urge to divine attainment. This brings soul trust and assurance, consciousness of the way of salvation, and all those values that one comes to look upon as being true and good.

Gifts The insight of faith-insight (spiritual intuition) is the endowment of the cosmic mind in association with the Thought Adjuster (the Father's gift to man). Spiritual reason (soul intelligence) is the endowment of the Holy Spirit (the Creative Spirit's gift to man). Spiritual philosophy (the wisdom of spirit realities) is the endowment of the Spirit of Truth (the combined gift of the bestowal Sons to the children of men). The coordination and interassociation of these spirit endowments constitute in man a spirit personality of potential destiny.

The Child Is Father of the Man Through religious faith, the soul of man reveals itself and demonstrates the potential divinity of its emerging nature. The soul induces the mortal personality to react wisely in certain trying intellectual and testing social situations. The soul: 1. Causes ethics and morals to progress despite man's inherent and harmful animalistic tendencies. 2. Produces a sublime trust in the goodness of God even in the face of bitter disappointment and crushing defeat. 3. Generates profound courage and confidence despite natural adversity and physical calamity. 4. Exhibits inexplicable poise and tranquillity despite baffling diseases and even acute physical suffering. 5. Maintains a mysterious poise and composure of personality in the face of abuse and injustice. 6. Maintains a divine trust in ultimate victory in spite of the cruelties of apparent blind fate and the seeming indifference of natural forces to human welfare. 7. Persists in the unswerving belief in God despite all contrary demonstrations of logic and intellectual sophistries. 8. Continues to exhibit undaunted faith in the soul's survival regardless of the deceptive teachings of false science and the delusions of unsound philosophy. 9. Lives and triumphs irrespective of the crushing overload of the complex and dysfunctional civilizations of modern times. 10. Contributes to the continued survival of altruism in spite of human selfishness, industrial greeds, and the political inability to adjust to social needs. 11. Steadfastly adheres to a sublime belief in universe unity and divine guidance despite the puzzling presence of evil and sin. 12. Goes right on worshiping God in spite of anything and everything.

Authentic Religion True religion 1 is that sublime and profound conviction within the soul that compellingly teaches man that it would be wrong for him not to believe in those realities that constitute his highest ethical and moral concepts, his highest interpretation of life's greatest values and the universe's deepest realities. True religion is the experience of granting intellectual loyalty to the highest dictates of spiritual consciousness. True religion cures man's sense of idealistic isolation from his fellows or spiritual loneliness. True religion assures man that, in following the gleam of righteousness discernible in his soul, he is thereby identifying himself with the Infinite Plan and the Eternal Purpose. Such a liberated soul immediately begins to feel at home in the universe.   1 Click for more on true religion (as opposed to organized religion).

Knowledge and Religion While time is an unchanging component in the attainment of knowledge, religion makes its endowments immediately available. Knowledge is an eternal quest. With knowledge alone, there can never be absolute certainty, only increasing approximation. The religious soul of spiritual illumination knows now. Still, this profound and positive certitude does not lead a sound-minded religionist to take any less interest in the vicissitudes of the progress of human wisdom, which is restrained on its material end by the developments of slow-moving science.

The Quest for Divinity Religious desire is the hunger quest for divine reality. Religious experience is the realization of the consciousness of having found God. When a human being finds God, there is experienced within the soul of that being such an indescribable restlessness of triumph in discovery that he is impelled to seek loving service-contact with his less illuminated fellows. This contact is not to disclose that he has found God, but to enable the welling-up of eternal goodness within his own soul to refresh and ennoble his fellows.

Gregariousness It is fatal to man's idealism when he is taught that his altruistic impulses are merely the development of natural herd instincts. Man is ennobled and greatly energized when he learns that these gregarious urges of his soul emanate from the spiritual forces that indwell his mortal mind. Man is neither saved or ennobled by pressure. Man develops best when the pressures of home, community, church, and state are least. This must not be construed as meaning there is no place in a progressive society for home, social institutions, church, and state.

Scanning the Soul As each individual is the human parent, so the Thought Adjuster is the divine parent of the the individual's higher future spiritual self, the soul. It is the evolving soul that the judges and censors perceive when they decree its survival and pass the individual upward to new worlds and the never-ending existence in eternal liaison with his or her faithful partner, God, the Thought Adjuster.

Courtship Today, mortals are passing through the period of the courtship with their Thought Adjusters. If individuals prove faithful to the trust reposed in them by this divine spirit who seeks their mind and soul in eternal union, there will eventually ensue the oneness of heavenly harmony, cosmic coordination, divine attunement, celestial fusion, and the never-ending blending of identity and being that is so perfect and final that even the most experienced personalities cannot recognize the former separate identities of the fusion partners - mortal man and divine Adjuster.

The Gulf There is an enormous gulf between the human and the divine, between man and God. The races of Earth are so largely electrically and chemically controlled, so highly animal-like in their common behavior, so emotional in their ordinary reactions, that it is exceedingly difficult for the Thought Adjusters to guide and direct them. Individuals are so devoid of courageous decisions and consecrated cooperation that the indwelling Adjusters find it next to impossible to communicate directly with the human mind. Even when they do find it possible to flash a gleam of new truth to the evolving mortal soul, this spiritual revelation often so blinds the creature as to precipitate a convulsion of fanaticism or to initiate some other intellectual upheaval with disastrous results. Many a new religion and strange "ism" has arisen from the misunderstood communications from the Thought Adjusters.

Proof of Soul  The presence of the divine Adjuster in the human mind makes it forever impossible for either science or philosophy to attain a satisfactory comprehension of the evolving soul of the human personality.   The non-physical soul is the child of the universe and may be really known only through cosmic insight and spiritual discovery.

Soul Long Known on Earth The concept of a soul and of an indwelling spirit is not new to Earth. The idea of the soul has appeared frequently 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 religions on Earth. 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.

Yang and Yin - Ka and Ba Before man realized that his evolving soul was fathered by a divine spirit, it was thought to reside in different physical organs - the eye, liver, kidney, heart, and later, the brain. The savage associated the soul with blood, breath, shadows and with reflections of the self in water. In the conception of the atman,1 the Hindu teachers approximated an appreciation of the nature and presence of the Thought Adjuster, but they failed to distinguish the co-presence of the evolving and potentially immortal soul. The Chinese recognized two aspects of a human being, the yang and the yin, the soul and the spirit. The Egyptians and many African tribes also believed in two factors, the ka and the ba. The ka was thought to be a superior spirit genius that desired to guide the associated mortal soul into the better paths of temporal living, but more especially to influence the fortunes of the human subject in the hereafter. 1 Atman: The essence that is eternal, unchanging, and indistinguishable from the essence of the universe.   See the Hindu concept on reincarnation of the soul.

Stoicism The Stoicism of the Third Century B.C. Greeks was a superior philosophy. The Stoics believed that a controlling Reason-Fate dominated all nature. The Stoic philosophers taught that the soul of man was divine, and that it was imprisoned in the evil body of physical nature. Man's soul achieved liberty by living in harmony with nature, God. Virtue was its own reward. Stoicism ascended to a sublime morality, ideals never since transcended by any purely human system of philosophy. While the Stoics professed to be the "offspring of God," they failed to know him and therefore failed to find him. Stoicism remained a philosophy, never beconing a religion. Its followers sought to attune their minds to the harmony of the Universal Mind. Paul leaned heavily toward Stoicism when he wrote, "I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content."

Cosmic Mind  There is a cosmic unity in the several distinct mind levels in the universe of universes.    Intellectual selves have their origin in the cosmic mind much as nebulae take origin in the cosmic energies of universe space.    On the human level of intellectual selves, the potential of spirit evolution becomes dominant (with the willing assent of the mortal mind) because of the spiritual endowments of the human personality together with the creative presence of an entity-point of absolute value in these human selves (the Thought Adjuster).    The spirit dominance of the material mind is conditioned upon two experiences:   This mind must necessarily have evolved up through the ministry of the seven adjutant mind-spirits, 1 and, The material (personal) self must choose to cooperate with the indwelling Adjuster in creating and fostering the morontia self, the evolutionary and potentially immortal soul.   1 Click and scroll to: 5. The Seven Adjutant Mind-Spirits

Borrowed Mind Mortal mind is a temporary intellect system loaned to human beings for use during a material lifetime. As humans use this mind, they are either accepting or rejecting the potential of eternal existence. Mortal mind is about all men have of universe reality that is subject to their will. The soul faithfully portrays the temporal decisions that the mortal self makes. Human consciousness rests gently upon the electro-chemical mechanism below and delicately touches the spirit-morontia energy system above. The human being is never completely conscious of either of these two systems is in his mortal life. He must work in his mind, of which he is conscious. It is not the degree of what mind comprehends, but rather what mind desires to comprehend that insures survival. It is not what mind is like as what mind is striving to be like that constitutes spirit identification. It is not the degree that man is conscious of God as that man yearns for God that results in universe ascension. What a man is today is not as important as what he is becoming day by day and in eternity.

Getting Acquainted Both the human mind and the divine Thought Adjuster are conscious of the presence and differential nature of the evolving soul (the Adjuster fully, the human mind partially). The soul becomes increasingly conscious of both the human 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 evolves toward increased spirit control and divine dominance through the fostering of a mind function whose meanings seek to coordinate with true spirit value. In so far as man's evolving morontia soul becomes permeated by truth, beauty, and goodness as the realized value of God-consciousness, the soul becomes indestructible. If there is no survival of eternal values in the evolving soul of man, then mortal existence is without meaning, and life itself is a tragic illusion.

Man's Best Friend The indwelling Thought Adjuster cannot stop or even materially alter man's career struggle of time. The Adjuster cannot lessen the hardships of life as man journies on through his world of toil. The divine indweller can only patiently refrain while man fights the battle of life as it is lived on Earth. But, man can allow himself to be comforted and inspired, enthralled and intrigued. He can allow the Adjuster to constantly bring forth the pictures of the real motive, the final aim, and the eternal purpose of this difficult struggle with the commonplace problems of the present material world.

Death Earth mortals generally recognize only one kind of death, the physical cessation of life energies. There are really three kinds of death: Spiritual (soul) death occurs when a mortal has finally rejected survival. This kind of death is final in its significance irrespective of the temporary continuation of the living energies of the physical and mind mechanisms. From the cosmic standpoint the mortal is already dead. Intellectual (mind) death. On the universe records a mortal personality is considered to have met with death whenever the essential mind circuits of human will-action have been destroyed. The body without the volitional mind is no longer human, but according to the prior choosing of the human will, the soul of such an individual may survive. When physical (body and mind) death overtakes a human being, the Thought Adjuster remains in the citadel of the mind until it ceases to function as an intelligent mechanism (when the measurable brain energies cease their rhythmic vital pulsations). Then, the Adjuster takes leave of the vanishing mind, just as unceremoniously as entry was initially made.

Reincarnation Mantra  "Even though he slay me, yet will I serve him."  This mantra means that even though the personality of a judged mortal is rejected, the elemental and underlying entity will, in time, return as a new personality in a fresh life experience to serve the Father again.

The Morontia Self   Just as a butterfly emerges from the caterpillar stage, so will the true personalities of human beings reincarnate on the mansion worlds, revealed in a morontia form (midway between matter and spirt), detached from their material flesh.  In the morontia (mansion world) estate the ascending mortal is endowed with the local universe modification of the cosmic mind endowment of the Master Spirit of Orvonton.1 The mortal intellect, as such, has ceased to exist as a focalized universe entity.  The meanings and values of the mortal mind have not perished. Certain phases of mind are continued in the surviving soul. Certain experiential values of the former human mind are held by the Adjuster. The records of the human life, as it was lived in the flesh, are maintained in the local universe. 1 Click and scroll to: 3. Identity and Diversity of the Master Spirits

The Victor Has the triumphant Adjuster won personality by the magnificent service to humanity, or has the valiant human acquired immortality through sincere efforts to achieve Adjuster-likeness? Both. Together they have achieved the evolution of a member of one of the unique orders of the ascending personalities of the Supreme, ever ranging upward and never ceasing the heavenly ascent until the onetime soul of earthly origin stands in worshipful recognition of the actual personality of the Father on Paradise.

Function of Guardian Angels Guardian angels (seraphim) are mind stimulators. They continually seek to promote seven circle advancement decisions in the human mind.    Seraphim do this, not like the Thought Adjuster (operating from within and through the soul), but rather from the outside inward. They work through the social, ethical, and moral environment of human beings.   On the mansion worlds mortal souls will be conscious and aware of their seraphic instructors. In the Earth life, men are usually unaware of them.   For seraphim, the surest way of achieving the Paradise Deities themselves is by successfully guiding a soul of evolutionary origin to Paradise. Because of this, the assignment of guardian of destiny is the most highly prized seraphic duty.

Synthesis With the Supreme Being   Man's urge for Paradise perfection, his striving for God-attainment, creates a divinity tension in the living cosmos, which can only be resolved by the evolution of an immortal soul.    When all creatures and all Creators in the grand universe likewise strive for God-attainment and divine perfection, a profound cosmic tension is built up that can only find resolution in the sublime synthesis of almighty power with the spirit person of the evolving God of all creatures, the Supreme Being.

In the Image of God   Mortal man is made in the image of God more than figuratively.    This is not true physically, but it is a fact with regard to universe potentialities.    For the human race, the same drama of evolutionary attainment is being unfolded as takes place, on a vastly larger scale, in the universe of universes.    Man, a volitional personality, becomes creative in liaison with a Thought Adjuster (an impersonal entity) in the presence of the finite potentialities of the Supreme. The result is the blossoming of an immortal soul.

Reflective Growth   Mortal man, being a creature, is not exactly like the Supreme Being, who is deity, but man's evolution does resemble the growth of the Supreme in some ways.    Man consciously grows from the material toward the spiritual by the strength, power, and persistency of his own decisions.    Man also grows as his Thought Adjuster develops new techniques for reaching down from the spiritual to the morontial soul level. Once the soul comes into being, it begins to grow in and of itself.   God the Supreme is himself a volitional, creative participant in his own deity actualization. Likewise, the human soul is a volitional, cocreative partner in its own immortalization.   Man's immortal soul evolves its own eternal destiny by association with the divine presence of the Paradise Father (the immanent Thought Adjuster) in accordance with the personality decisions of the human mind.    The Adjuster is to evolving man what the Trinity is to God the Supreme.

Finaliter Transcendation The evolving immortal soul of man (the joint creation of the material mind and the Adjuster) ascends as such to Paradise and subsequently, when mustered into the Corps of the Finality, becomes allied with the spirit-gravity circuit of the Eternal Son by a technique of experience known as finaliter transcendation.    The transcended finaliters become acceptable candidates for experiential recognition as personalities of God the Supreme. When these mortal intellects attain the seventh stage of spirit existence, such dual minds will become triune.    The two attuned minds, the human and the divine, will become glorified in union with the experiential mind of the then actualized Supreme Being.

Living Revelation In the eternal future, God the Supreme will be actualized (creatively expressed and spiritually portrayed) in the spiritualized mind (the immortal soul) of ascendant man, just as the Universal Father was revealed in the earth life of Jesus. Man does not unite with the Supreme and submerge his personal identity in the Supreme, but the universe repercussions of the experience of all men do form a part of the divine experiencing of the Supreme. The progressing personality leaves a trail of actualized reality as it passes through the ascending levels of the universes. The growing creations of time and space (whether mind, spirit, or energy) are changed in form and character by the progression of personality through their domains. When man acts, the Supreme reacts, and this transaction constitutes the fact of progression.

Cosmic Echoes  The experience of man and Adjuster find an echo in the divinity of God the Supreme. When the Adjusters "experience," they are like the Supreme. The evolving soul of mortal man is created out of the pre-existent possibility for such experience within the Supreme. In this manner, the manifold experiences of all creation become a part of the evolution of Supremacy. Creatures utilize the qualities and quantities of the finite as they ascend to the Infinite Father. The impersonal consequences of such utilization remain forever a part of the living cosmos, the Supreme person. Click for more on the Supreme.

Father and Mother The morontia (abstract) soul of an evolving mortal is really the son of the Thought Adjuster's action for 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 fusion with the Adjuster and during the super universe career, but when the creatures of time begin the traversal of the central universe of eternity (Havona), the Father nature becomes increasingly manifest, attaining its height of finite manifestation upon the recognition of the Universal Father and admission into the Corps of the Finality. 1  1 The highest level to which a finite creature can progress. See 1434.2.

Cosmic Cocoon All soul-evolving humans are literally the evolutionary sons of God the Father and God the Mother, the Supreme Being.    Until mortal man becomes soul-conscious of his divine heritage, this assurance of Deity kinship must be realized through faith.    Life experience is the cosmic cocoon in which the universe endowments of the Supreme Being and the universe presence of the Universal Father (the Thought Adjuster) are evolving the morontia soul of time and the human-divine finaliter character of universe destiny and eternal service.

Jesus on Procrastination   "But herein is the danger to all who would postpone their entrance into the kingdom while they continue to pursue the pleasures of immaturity and indulge the satisfactions of selfishness: Having refused to enter the kingdom as a spiritual experience, they may subsequently seek entrance thereto when the glory of the better way becomes revealed in the age to come. And when, therefore, those who spurned the kingdom when I came in the likeness of humanity seek to find an entrance when it is revealed in the likeness of divinity, then will I say to all such selfish ones: I know not whence you are. You had your chance to prepare for this heavenly citizenship, but you refused all such proffers of mercy; you rejected all invitations to come while the door was open. Now, to you who have refused salvation, the door is shut...."

Graciousness and Goodness Jesus spread good cheer everywhere he went. He was full of grace and truth. His associates never ceased to wonder at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth.    Mortals can cultivate gracefulness. Graciousness is the aroma of friendliness which emanates from a love-saturated soul.   Goodness always compels respect, but when it is devoid of grace, it often repels affection. Goodness is universally attractive only when it is gracious. Goodness is effective only when it is attractive.

One Great Commandment One of a group of Pharisees assigned to ask Jesus harassing questions said: "Master, I am a lawyer, and I would like to ask you which, in your opinion, is the greatest commandment?"    Jesus answered: "There is but one commandment, and that one is the greatest of all, and that commandment is: 'Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.'    This is the first and great commandment. And the second commandment is like this first; indeed, it springs directly therefrom, and it is: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these; on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

Concerning Truth Divine truth is a spirit-discerned and living reality. Truth exists only on high spiritual levels of the realization of divinity and the consciousness of communion with God.    You can know the truth, and you can live the truth; you can experience the growth of truth in the soul and enjoy the liberty of its enlightenment in the mind, but you cannot imprison truth in formulas, codes, creeds, or intellectual patterns of human conduct.    When you undertake the human formulation of divine truth, it speedily dies. The post-mortem salvage of imprisoned truth, even at best, can eventuate only in the realization of a peculiar form of intellectualized glorified wisdom. Static truth is dead truth, and only dead truth can be held as a theory.    Living truth is dynamic and can enjoy only an experiential (derived from experience) existence in the human mind.

Living Truth The true child of universe insight looks for the living Spirit of Truth in every wise saying.    The God-knowing individual is constantly elevating wisdom to the living-truth levels of divine attainment.    The spiritually unprogressive soul drags the living truth down to the dead levels of wisdom and to the domain of mere exalted knowledge.

Realizing Love The highest realization and the truest interpretation of the golden rule consists in consciousness of the Spirit of Truth's enduring and living reality of that divine declaration, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (All the Master Michael Sons of the universes comprise the Spirit of Truth.)   The true cosmic meaning of this golden rule of universal relationship is revealed only in its spiritual realization, in the interpretation of the law of conduct by the spirit of truth to the spirit of the Father that indwells the soul of mortal man.    When such spirit-led mortals realize the true meaning of the golden rule, they are filled to overflowing with the assurance of citizenship in a friendly universe, and their ideals of spirit reality are satisfied only when they love their fellows as Jesus loved us all. That is the reality of the realization of the love of God.

From Knowledge to Truth Knowledge is the sphere of the material or fact-discerning mind.    Truth is the domain of the spiritually endowed intellect that is conscious of knowing God. Knowledge is demonstrable; truth is experienced.    Knowledge is a possession of the mind. Truth is an experience of the soul, the progressing self. Knowledge is a function of the nonspiritual level. Truth is a phase of the mind-spirit level of the universes.    The eye of the material mind perceives a world of factual knowledge. The eye of the spiritualized intellect discerns a world of true values.    The two views, when synchronized and harmonized, reveal the world of reality, wherein wisdom interprets the phenomena of the universe in terms of progressive personal experience.