The Eternal Isle of Paradise

11:1.1Par­a­dise serves many pur­poses in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the uni­ver­sal realms, but to crea­ture be­ings it ex­ists pri­mar­ily as the dwell­ing place of De­ity. The per­sonal pres­ence of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is res­i­dent at the very cen­ter of the up­per sur­face of this well-nigh cir­cu­lar, but not spher­i­cal, abode of the De­i­ties. This Par­a­dise pres­ence of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is im­me­di­ately sur­rounded by the per­sonal pres­ence of the Eter­nal Son, while they are both in­vested by the un­speak­able glory of the In­fi­nite Spirit.

11:1.2God dwells, has dwelt, and ev­er­last­ingly will dwell in this same cen­tral and eter­nal abode. We have al­ways found him there and al­ways will. The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is cos­mi­cally fo­cal­ized, spir­i­tu­ally per­son­al­ized, and ge­o­graph­i­cally res­i­dent at this cen­ter of the uni­verse of uni­verses.

11:1.3We all know the di­rect course to pur­sue to find the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. You are not able to com­pre­hend much about the di­vine res­i­dence be­cause of its re­mote­ness from you and the im­men­sity of the in­ter­ven­ing space, but those who are able to com­pre­hend the mean­ing of these enor­mous dis­tances know God’s lo­ca­tion and res­i­dence just as cer­tainly and lit­er­ally as you know the lo­ca­tion of New York, Lon­don, Rome, or Sin­ga­pore, cities def­i­nitely and ge­o­graph­i­cally lo­cated on Uran­tia. If you were an in­tel­li­gent nav­i­ga­tor, equipped with ship, maps, and com­pass, you could read­ily find these cities. Like­wise, if you had the time and means of pas­sage, were spir­i­tu­ally qual­i­fied, and had the nec­es­sary guid­ance, you could be pi­loted through uni­verse upon uni­verse and from cir­cuit to cir­cuit, ever jour­ney­ing in­ward through the starry realms, un­til at last you would stand be­fore the cen­tral shin­ing of the spir­i­tual glory of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. Pro­vided with all the ne­ces­si­ties for the jour­ney, it is just as pos­si­ble to find the per­sonal pres­ence of God at the cen­ter of all things as to find dis­tant cities on your own planet. That you have not vis­ited these places in no way dis­proves their re­al­ity or ac­tual ex­is­tence. That so few of the uni­verse crea­tures have found God on Par­a­dise in no way dis­proves ei­ther the re­al­ity of his ex­is­tence or the ac­tu­al­ity of his spir­i­tual per­son at the cen­ter of all things.

11:1.4The Fa­ther is al­ways to be found at this cen­tral lo­ca­tion. Did he move, uni­ver­sal pan­de­mo­nium would be pre­cip­i­tated, for there con­verge in him at this res­i­den­tial cen­ter the uni­ver­sal lines of grav­ity from the ends of cre­ation. Whether we trace the per­son­al­ity cir­cuit back through the uni­verses or fol­low the as­cend­ing per­son­al­i­ties as they jour­ney in­ward to the Fa­ther; whether we trace the lines of ma­te­rial grav­ity to nether Par­a­dise or fol­low the in­surg­ing cy­cles of cos­mic force; whether we trace the lines of spir­i­tual grav­ity to the Eter­nal Son or fol­low the in­ward pro­ces­sional of the Par­a­dise Sons of God; whether we trace out the mind cir­cuits or fol­low the tril­lions upon tril­lions of ce­les­tial be­ings who spring from the In­fi­nite Spirit—by any of these ob­ser­va­tions or by all of them we are led di­rectly back to the Fa­ther’s pres­ence, to his cen­tral abode. Here is God per­son­ally, lit­er­ally, and ac­tu­ally pres­ent. And from his in­fi­nite be­ing there flow the flood-streams of life, en­ergy, and per­son­al­ity to all uni­verses.