Personality Survival

112:5.1Self­hood is a cos­mic re­al­ity whether ma­te­rial, mor­ontial, or spir­i­tual. The ac­tu­al­ity of the per­sonal is the be­stowal of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther act­ing in and of him­self or through his man­i­fold uni­verse agen­cies. To say that a be­ing is per­sonal is to rec­og­nize the rel­a­tive in­di­vid­u­a­tion of such a be­ing within the cos­mic or­gan­ism. The liv­ing cos­mos is an all but in­finitely in­te­grated ag­gre­ga­tion of real units, all of which are rel­a­tively sub­ject to the des­tiny of the whole. But those that are per­sonal have been en­dowed with the ac­tual choice of des­tiny ac­cep­tance or of des­tiny re­jec­tion.

112:5.2That which comes from the Fa­ther is like the Fa­ther eter­nal, and this is just as true of per­son­al­ity, which God gives by his own free­will choice, as it is of the di­vine Thought Ad­juster, an ac­tual frag­ment of God. Man’s per­son­al­ity is eter­nal but with re­gard to iden­tity a con­di­tioned eter­nal re­al­ity. Hav­ing ap­peared in re­sponse to the Fa­ther’s will, per­son­al­ity will at­tain De­ity des­tiny, but man must choose whether or not he will be pres­ent at the at­tain­ment of such des­tiny. In de­fault of such choice, per­son­al­ity at­tains ex­pe­ri­en­tial De­ity di­rectly, be­com­ing a part of the Su­preme Be­ing. The cy­cle is fore­or­dained, but man’s par­tic­i­pa­tion therein is op­tional, per­sonal, and ex­pe­ri­en­tial.

112:5.3Mor­tal iden­tity is a tran­sient time-life con­di­tion in the uni­verse; it is real only in so far as the per­son­al­ity elects to be­come a con­tin­u­ing uni­verse phe­nom­e­non. This is the es­sen­tial dif­fer­ence be­tween man and an en­ergy sys­tem: The en­ergy sys­tem must con­tinue, it has no choice; but man has ev­ery­thing to do with de­ter­min­ing his own des­tiny. The Ad­juster is truly the path to Par­a­dise, but man him­self must pur­sue that path by his own de­cid­ing, his free­will choos­ing.

112:5.4Hu­man be­ings pos­sess iden­tity only in the ma­te­rial sense. Such qual­i­ties of the self are ex­pressed by the ma­te­rial mind as it func­tions in the en­ergy sys­tem of the in­tel­lect. When it is said that man has iden­tity, it is rec­og­nized that he is in pos­ses­sion of a mind cir­cuit which has been placed in sub­or­di­na­tion to the acts and choos­ing of the will of the hu­man per­son­al­ity. But this is a ma­te­rial and purely tem­po­rary man­i­fes­ta­tion, just as the hu­man em­bryo is a tran­sient par­a­sitic stage of hu­man life. Hu­man be­ings, from a cos­mic per­spec­tive, are born, live, and die in a rel­a­tive in­stant of time; they are not en­dur­ing. But mor­tal per­son­al­ity, through its own choos­ing, pos­sesses the power of trans­fer­ring its seat of iden­tity from the pass­ing ma­te­rial-in­tel­lect sys­tem to the higher mor­ontia-soul sys­tem which, in as­so­ci­a­tion with the Thought Ad­juster, is cre­ated as a new ve­hi­cle for per­son­al­ity man­i­fes­ta­tion.

112:5.5And it is this very power of choice, the uni­verse in­signia of free­will crea­ture­hood, that con­sti­tutes man’s great­est op­por­tu­nity and his su­preme cos­mic re­spon­si­bil­ity. Upon the in­tegrity of the hu­man vo­li­tion de­pends the eter­nal des­tiny of the fu­ture fi­nal­i­ter; upon the sin­cer­ity of the mor­tal free will the di­vine Ad­juster de­pends for eter­nal per­son­al­ity; upon the faith­ful­ness of mor­tal choice the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther de­pends for the re­al­iza­tion of a new as­cend­ing son; upon the stead­fast­ness and wis­dom of de­ci­sion-ac­tions the Su­preme Be­ing de­pends for the ac­tu­al­ity of ex­pe­ri­en­tial evo­lu­tion.

112:5.6Though 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.

112:5.7If ever there is doubt as to the ad­vis­abil­ity of ad­vanc­ing a hu­man iden­tity to the man­sion worlds, the uni­verse gov­ern­ments in­vari­ably rule in the per­sonal in­ter­ests of that in­di­vid­ual; they un­hesi­tat­ingly ad­vance such a soul to the sta­tus of a tran­si­tional be­ing, while they con­tinue their ob­ser­va­tions of the emerg­ing mor­ontia in­tent and spir­i­tual pur­pose. Thus di­vine jus­tice is cer­tain of achieve­ment, and di­vine mercy is ac­corded fur­ther op­por­tu­nity for ex­tend­ing its min­istry.

112:5.8The gov­ern­ments of Or­von­ton and Neb­a­don do not claim ab­so­lute per­fec­tion for the de­tail work­ing of the uni­ver­sal plan of mor­tal reper­son­al­iza­tion, but they do claim to, and ac­tu­ally do, man­i­fest pa­tience, tol­er­ance, un­der­stand­ing, and mer­ci­ful sym­pa­thy. We had rather as­sume the risk of a sys­tem re­bel­lion than to court the haz­ard of de­priv­ing one strug­gling mor­tal from any evo­lu­tion­ary world of the eter­nal joy of pur­su­ing the as­cend­ing ca­reer.

112:5.9This does not mean that hu­man be­ings are to en­joy a sec­ond op­por­tu­nity in the face of the re­jec­tion of a first, not at all. But it does sig­nify that all will crea­tures are to ex­pe­ri­ence one true op­por­tu­nity to make one un­doubted, self-con­scious, and fi­nal choice. The sov­er­eign Judges of the uni­verses will not de­prive any be­ing of per­son­al­ity sta­tus who has not fi­nally and fully made the eter­nal choice; the soul of man must and will be given full and am­ple op­por­tu­nity to re­veal its true in­tent and real pur­pose.

112:5.10When the more spir­i­tu­ally and cos­mi­cally ad­vanced mor­tals die, they pro­ceed im­me­di­ately to the man­sion worlds; in gen­eral, this pro­vi­sion op­er­ates with those who have had as­signed to them per­sonal se­raphic guard­i­ans. Other mor­tals may be de­tained un­til such time as the ad­ju­di­ca­tion of their af­fairs has been com­pleted, af­ter which they may pro­ceed to the man­sion worlds, or they may be as­signed to the ranks of the sleep­ing sur­vivors who will be reper­son­al­ized en masse at the end of the cur­rent plan­e­tary dis­pen­sa­tion.

112:5.11There are two dif­fi­cul­ties that ham­per my ef­forts to ex­plain just what hap­pens to you in death, the sur­viv­ing you which is dis­tinct from the de­part­ing Ad­juster. One of these con­sists in the im­pos­si­bil­ity of con­vey­ing to your level of com­pre­hen­sion an ad­e­quate de­scrip­tion of a trans­ac­tion on the bor­der­land of the phys­i­cal and mor­ontia realms. The other is brought about by the re­stric­tions placed upon my com­mis­sion as a rev­e­la­tor of truth by the ce­les­tial gov­ern­ing au­thor­i­ties of Uran­tia. There are many in­ter­est­ing de­tails which might be pre­sented, but I with­hold them upon the ad­vice of your im­me­di­ate plan­e­tary super­vi­sors. But within the lim­its of my per­mis­sion I can say this much:

112:5.12There is some­thing real, some­thing of hu­man evo­lu­tion, some­thing ad­di­tional to the Mys­tery Mon­i­tor, which sur­vives death. This newly ap­pear­ing en­tity is the soul, and it sur­vives the death of both your phys­i­cal body and your ma­te­rial mind. This en­tity is the con­joint child of the com­bined life and ef­forts of the hu­man you in li­ai­son with the di­vine you, the Ad­juster. This child of hu­man and di­vine parent­age con­sti­tutes the sur­viv­ing el­e­ment of ter­res­trial ori­gin; it is the mor­ontia self, the im­mor­tal soul.

112:5.13This child of per­sist­ing mean­ing and sur­viv­ing value is wholly un­con­scious dur­ing the pe­riod from death to reper­son­al­iza­tion and is in the keep­ing of the se­raphic des­tiny guard­ian through­out this sea­son of wait­ing. You will not func­tion as a con­scious be­ing, fol­low­ing death, un­til you at­tain the new con­scious­ness of mor­ontia on the man­sion worlds of Sa­ta­nia.

112:5.14At death the func­tional iden­tity as­so­ci­ated with the hu­man per­son­al­ity is dis­rupted through the ces­sa­tion of vi­tal mo­tion. Hu­man per­son­al­ity, while tran­scend­ing its con­stituent parts, is de­pen­dent on them for func­tional iden­tity. The stop­page of life de­stroys the phys­i­cal brain pat­terns for mind en­dow­ment, and the dis­rup­tion of mind ter­mi­nates mor­tal con­scious­ness. The con­scious­ness of that crea­ture can­not sub­se­quently reap­pear un­til a cos­mic sit­u­a­tion has been ar­ranged which will per­mit the same hu­man per­son­al­ity again to func­tion in re­la­tion­ship with liv­ing en­ergy.

112:5.15Dur­ing the tran­sit of sur­viv­ing mor­tals from the world of ori­gin to the man­sion worlds, whether they ex­pe­ri­ence per­son­al­ity re­assem­bly on the third pe­riod or as­cend at the time of a group res­ur­rec­tion, the rec­ord of per­son­al­ity con­sti­tu­tion is faith­fully pre­served by the arch­an­gels on their worlds of spe­cial ac­tiv­i­ties. These be­ings are not the cus­to­di­ans of per­son­al­ity (as the guard­ian ser­a­phim are of the soul), but it is nonethe­less true that ev­ery iden­ti­fi­able fac­tor of per­son­al­ity is ef­fec­tu­ally safe­guarded in the cus­tody of these de­pend­able trustees of mor­tal sur­vival. As to the ex­act where­abouts of mor­tal per­son­al­ity dur­ing the time in­ter­ven­ing be­tween death and sur­vival, we do not know.

112:5.16The sit­u­a­tion which makes reper­son­al­iza­tion pos­si­ble is brought about in the res­ur­rec­tion halls of the mor­ontia re­ceiv­ing plan­ets of a lo­cal uni­verse. Here in these life-as­sem­bly cham­bers the super­vis­ing au­thor­i­ties pro­vide that re­la­tion­ship of uni­verse en­ergy—mor­ontial, mindal, and spir­i­tual—which makes pos­si­ble the re­con­sciou­siz­ing of the sleep­ing sur­vivor. The re­assem­bly of the con­stituent parts of a one­time ma­te­rial per­son­al­ity in­volves:

112:5.171. The fab­ri­ca­tion of a suit­able form, a mor­ontia en­ergy pat­tern, in which the new sur­vivor can make con­tact with non­spir­i­tual re­al­ity, and within which the mor­ontia vari­ant of the cos­mic mind can be en­cir­cuited.

112:5.182. The re­turn of the Ad­juster to the wait­ing mor­ontia crea­ture. The Ad­juster is the eter­nal cus­to­dian of your as­cend­ing iden­tity; your Mon­i­tor is the ab­so­lute as­sur­ance that you your­self and not an­other will oc­cupy the mor­ontia form cre­ated for your per­son­al­ity awak­en­ing. And the Ad­juster will be pres­ent at your per­son­al­ity re­assem­bly to take up once more the role of Par­a­dise guide to your sur­viv­ing self.

112:5.193. When these pre­req­ui­sites of reper­son­al­iza­tion have been as­sem­bled, the se­raphic cus­to­dian of the po­ten­tial­i­ties of the slum­ber­ing im­mor­tal soul, with the as­sis­tance of nu­mer­ous cos­mic per­son­al­i­ties, be­stows this mor­ontia en­tity upon and in the await­ing mor­ontia mind-body form while com­mit­ting this evo­lu­tion­ary child of the Su­preme to eter­nal as­so­ci­a­tion with the wait­ing Ad­juster. And this com­pletes the reper­son­al­iza­tion, re­assem­bly of mem­ory, in­sight, and con­scious­ness—iden­tity.

112:5.20The fact of reper­son­al­iza­tion con­sists in the seizure of the en­cir­cuited mor­ontia phase of the newly seg­re­gated cos­mic mind by the awak­en­ing hu­man self. The phe­nom­e­non of per­son­al­ity is de­pen­dent on the per­sis­tence of the iden­tity of self­hood re­ac­tion to uni­verse en­vi­ron­ment; and this can only be ef­fected through the medium of mind. Self­hood per­sists in spite of a con­tin­u­ous change in all the fac­tor com­po­nents of self; in the phys­i­cal life the change is grad­ual; at death and upon reper­son­al­iza­tion the change is sud­den. The true re­al­ity of all self­hood (per­son­al­ity) is able to func­tion re­spon­sively to uni­verse con­di­tions by virtue of the un­ceas­ing chang­ing of its con­stituent parts; stag­na­tion ter­mi­nates in in­ev­i­ta­ble death. Hu­man life is an end­less change of the fac­tors of life uni­fied by the sta­bil­ity of the un­chang­ing per­son­al­ity.

112:5.21And when you thus awaken on the man­sion worlds of Je­ru­sem, you will be so changed, the spir­i­tual trans­for­ma­tion will be so great that, were it not for your Thought Ad­juster and the des­tiny guard­ian, who so fully con­nect up your new life in the new worlds with your old life in the first world, you would at first have dif­fi­culty in con­nect­ing the new mor­ontia con­scious­ness with the re­viv­ing mem­ory of your pre­vi­ous iden­tity. Not­with­stand­ing the con­ti­nu­ity of per­sonal self­hood, much of the mor­tal life would at first seem to be a vague and hazy dream. But time will clar­ify many mor­tal as­so­ci­a­tions.

112:5.22The Thought Ad­juster will re­call and re­hearse for you only those mem­o­ries and ex­pe­ri­ences which are a part of, and es­sen­tial to, your uni­verse ca­reer. If the Ad­juster has been a part­ner in the evo­lu­tion of aught in the hu­man mind, then will these worth-while ex­pe­ri­ences sur­vive in the eter­nal con­scious­ness of the Ad­juster. But much of your past life and its mem­o­ries, hav­ing nei­ther spir­i­tual mean­ing nor mor­ontia value, will per­ish with the ma­te­rial brain; much of ma­te­rial ex­pe­ri­ence will pass away as one­time scaf­fold­ing which, hav­ing bridged you over to the mor­ontia level, no longer serves a pur­pose in the uni­verse. But per­son­al­ity and the re­la­tion­ships be­tween per­son­al­i­ties are never scaf­fold­ing; mor­tal mem­ory of per­son­al­ity re­la­tion­ships has cos­mic value and will per­sist. On the man­sion worlds you will know and be known, and more, you will re­mem­ber, and be re­mem­bered by, your one­time as­so­ciates in the short but in­trigu­ing life on Uran­tia.