eternal life

• Cynicism

131:1.9“If the faith of the Most High has en­tered your heart, then shall you abide free from fear through­out all the days of your life. Fret not your­self be­cause of the pros­per­ity of the un­godly; fear not those who plot evil; let the soul turn away from sin and put your whole trust in the God of sal­va­tion. The weary soul of the wan­der­ing mor­tal finds eter­nal rest in the arms of the Most High; the wise man hungers for the di­vine em­brace; the earth child longs for the se­cu­rity of the arms of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. The no­ble man seeks for that high es­tate wherein the soul of the mor­tal blends with the spirit of the Su­preme. God is just: What fruit we re­ceive not from our plant­ings in this world we shall re­ceive in the next.”

• Judaism

131:2.13“And to all who love the Lord su­premely and their neigh­bors like them­selves, the God of heaven says: ‘I will ran­som you from the grave; I will re­deem you from death. I will be mer­ci­ful to your chil­dren, as well as just. Have I not said of my crea­tures on earth, you are the sons of the liv­ing God? And have I not loved you with an ev­er­last­ing love? Have I not called you to be­come like me and to dwell for­ever with me in Par­a­dise?’”

• Buddhism

131:3.7“A righ­teous soul is more to be de­sired than the sov­er­eignty of all the earth. Im­mor­tal­ity is the goal of sin­cer­ity; death, the end of thought­less liv­ing. Those who are earnest die not; the thought­less are dead al­ready. Blessed are they who have in­sight into the death­less state. Those who tor­ture the liv­ing will hardly find hap­pi­ness af­ter death. The un­selfish go to heaven, where they re­joice in the bliss of in­fi­nite lib­er­al­ity and con­tinue to in­crease in no­ble gen­eros­ity. Ev­ery mor­tal who thinks righ­teously, speaks nobly, and acts un­selfishly shall not only en­joy virtue here dur­ing this brief life but shall also, af­ter the dis­so­lu­tion of the body, con­tinue to en­joy the de­lights of heaven.”

131:4.1The mis­sion­ar­ies of Mel­chiz­e­dek car­ried the teach­ings of the one God with them wher­ever they jour­neyed. Much of this mono­the­is­tic doc­trine, to­gether with other and pre­vi­ous con­cepts, be­came em­bod­ied in the sub­se­quent teach­ings of Hin­duism. Je­sus and Ga­nid made the fol­low­ing ex­cerpts:

131:4.2“He is the great God, in ev­ery way su­preme. He is the Lord who en­com­passes all things. He is the cre­ator and con­trol­ler of the uni­verse of uni­verses. God is one God; he is alone and by him­self; he is the only one. And this one God is our Maker and the last des­tiny of the soul. The Su­preme One is bril­liant be­yond de­scrip­tion; he is the Light of Lights. Ev­ery heart and ev­ery world is il­lu­mi­nated by this di­vine light. God is our pro­tec­tor—he stands by the side of his crea­tures—and those who learn to know him be­come im­mor­tal. God is the great source of en­ergy; he is the Great Soul. He ex­er­cises uni­ver­sal lord­ship over all. This one God is lov­ing, glo­ri­ous, and adorable. Our God is su­preme in power and abides in the su­preme abode. This true Per­son is eter­nal and di­vine; he is the pri­mal Lord of heaven. All the proph­ets have hailed him, and he has re­vealed him­self to us. We wor­ship him. O Su­preme Per­son, source of be­ings, Lord of cre­ation, and ruler of the uni­verse, re­veal to us, your crea­tures, the power whereby you abide im­ma­nent! God has made the sun and the stars; he is bright, pure, and self-ex­is­tent. His eter­nal knowl­edge is di­vinely wise. The Eter­nal is un­pen­e­trated by evil. Inas­much as the uni­verse sprang from God, he does rule it ap­pro­pri­ately. He is the cause of cre­ation, and hence are all things es­tab­lished in him.

131:4.3“God is the sure refuge of ev­ery good man when in need; the Im­mor­tal One cares for all man­kind. God’s sal­va­tion is strong and his kind­ness is gra­cious. He is a lov­ing pro­tec­tor, a blessed de­fender. Says the Lord: ‘I dwell within their own souls as a lamp of wis­dom. I am the splen­dor of the splen­did and the good­ness of the good. Where two or three gather to­gether, there am I also.’ The crea­ture can­not es­cape the pres­ence of the Cre­ator. The Lord even counts the cease­less wink­ing of ev­ery mor­tal’s eyes; and we wor­ship this di­vine Be­ing as our in­sep­a­ra­ble com­pan­ion. He is all-pre­vail­ing, boun­ti­ful, om­ni­pres­ent, and in­finitely kind. The Lord is our ruler, shel­ter, and su­preme con­trol­ler, and his primeval spirit dwells within the mor­tal soul. The Eter­nal Wit­ness to vice and virtue dwells within man’s heart. Let us long med­i­tate on the adorable and di­vine Viv­i­fier; let his spirit fully di­rect our thoughts. From this un­real world lead us to the real! From dark­ness lead us to the light! From death guide us to im­mor­tal­ity!

131:4.4“With our hearts purged of all hate, let us wor­ship the Eter­nal. Our God is the Lord of prayer; he hears the cry of his chil­dren. Let all men sub­mit their wills to him, the Res­o­lute. Let us de­light in the lib­er­al­ity of the Lord of prayer. Make prayer your in­most friend and wor­ship your soul’s sup­port. ‘If you will but wor­ship me in love,’ says the Eter­nal, ‘I will give you the wis­dom to at­tain me, for my wor­ship is the virtue com­mon to all crea­tures.’ God is the il­lu­mi­na­tor of the gloomy and the power of those who are faint. Since God is our strong friend, we have no more fear. We praise the name of the never-con­quered Con­queror. We wor­ship him be­cause he is man’s faith­ful and eter­nal helper. God is our sure leader and un­fail­ing guide. He is the great par­ent of heaven and earth, pos­sessed of un­lim­ited en­ergy and in­fi­nite wis­dom. His splen­dor is sub­lime and his beauty di­vine. He is the su­preme refuge of the uni­verse and the change­less guard­ian of ev­er­last­ing law. Our God is the Lord of life and the Com­forter of all men; he is the lover of man­kind and the helper of those who are dis­tressed. He is our life giver and the Good Shep­herd of the hu­man flocks. God is our fa­ther, brother, and friend. And we long to know this God in our in­ner be­ing.

131:4.5“We have learned to win faith by the yearn­ing of our hearts. We have at­tained wis­dom by the re­straint of our senses, and by wis­dom we have ex­pe­ri­enced peace in the Su­preme. He who is full of faith wor­ships truly when his in­ner self is in­tent upon God. Our God wears the heav­ens as a man­tle; he also in­hab­its the other six wide-spread­ing uni­verses. He is su­preme over all and in all. We crave for­give­ness from the Lord for all of our tres­passes against our fel­lows; and we would re­lease our friend from the wrong he has done us. Our spirit loathes all evil; there­fore, O Lord, free us from all taint of sin. We pray to God as a com­forter, pro­tec­tor, and sav­ior—one who loves us.

131:4.6“The spirit of the Uni­verse Keeper en­ters the soul of the sim­ple crea­ture. That man is wise who wor­ships the One God. Those who strive for per­fec­tion must in­deed know the Lord Su­preme. He never fears who knows the bliss­ful se­cu­rity of the Su­preme, for the Su­preme says to those who serve him, ‘Fear not, for I am with you.’ The God of prov­i­dence is our Fa­ther. God is truth. And it is the de­sire of God that his crea­tures should un­der­stand him—come fully to know the truth. Truth is eter­nal; it sus­tains the uni­verse. Our su­preme de­sire shall be union with the Su­preme. The Great Con­trol­ler is the gen­er­a­tor of all things—all evolves from him. And this is the sum of duty: Let no man do to an­other what would be re­pug­nant to him­self; cher­ish no mal­ice, smite not him who smites you, con­quer anger with mercy, and van­quish hate by benev­o­lence. And all this we should do be­cause God is a kind friend and a gra­cious fa­ther who re­mits all our earthly of­fenses.

131:4.7“God is our Fa­ther, the earth our mother, and the uni­verse our birth­place. With­out God the soul is a pris­oner; to know God re­leases the soul. By med­i­ta­tion on God, by union with him, there comes de­liv­er­ance from the il­lu­sions of evil and ul­ti­mate sal­va­tion from all ma­te­rial fet­ters. When man shall roll up space as a piece of leather, then will come the end of evil be­cause man has found God. O God, save us from the three­fold ruin of hell—lust, wrath, and avarice! O soul, gird your­self for the spirit strug­gle of im­mor­tal­ity! When the end of mor­tal life comes, hes­i­tate not to for­sake this body for a more fit and beau­ti­ful form and to awake in the realms of the Su­preme and Im­mor­tal, where there is no fear, sor­row, hunger, thirst, or death. To know God is to cut the cords of death. The God-know­ing soul rises in the uni­verse like the cream ap­pears on top of the milk. We wor­ship God, the all-worker, the Great Soul, who is ever seated in the heart of his crea­tures. And they who know that God is en­throned in the hu­man heart are des­tined to be­come like him—im­mor­tal. Evil must be left be­hind in this world, but virtue fol­lows the soul to heaven.

131:4.8“It is only the wicked who say: The uni­verse has nei­ther truth nor a ruler; it was only de­signed for our lusts. Such souls are de­luded by the small­ness of their in­tel­lects. They thus aban­don them­selves to the en­joy­ment of their lusts and de­prive their souls of the joys of virtue and the plea­sures of righ­teous­ness. What can be greater than to ex­pe­ri­ence sal­va­tion from sin? The man who has seen the Su­preme is im­mor­tal. Man’s friends of the flesh can­not sur­vive death; virtue alone walks by man’s side as he jour­neys ever on­ward to­ward the glad­some and sun­lit fields of Par­a­dise.”

• Zoroastrianism

131:5.2“All things come from, and be­long to, the One God—all-wise, good, righ­teous, holy, re­splen­dent, and glo­ri­ous. This, our God, is the source of all lu­mi­nos­ity. He is the Cre­ator, the God of all good pur­poses, and the pro­tec­tor of the jus­tice of the uni­verse. The wise course in life is to act in con­so­nance with the spirit of truth. God is all-see­ing, and he be­holds both the evil deeds of the wicked and the good works of the righ­teous; our God ob­serves all things with a flash­ing eye. His touch is the touch of heal­ing. The Lord is an all-pow­er­ful bene­fac­tor. God stretches out his benef­i­cent hand to both the righ­teous and the wicked. God es­tab­lished the world and or­dained the re­wards for good and for evil. The all-wise God has prom­ised im­mor­tal­ity to the pi­ous souls who think purely and act righ­teously. As you su­premely de­sire, so shall you be. The light of the sun is as wis­dom to those who dis­cern God in the uni­verse.

131:5.3“Praise God by seek­ing the plea­sure of the Wise One. Wor­ship the God of light by joy­fully walk­ing in the paths or­dained by his re­vealed re­li­gion. There is but one Su­preme God, the Lord of Lights. We wor­ship him who made the wa­ters, plants, an­i­mals, the earth, and the heav­ens. Our God is Lord, most benef­i­cent. We wor­ship the most beau­teous, the boun­ti­ful Im­mor­tal, en­dowed with eter­nal light. God is far­thest from us and at the same time near­est to us in that he dwells within our souls. Our God is the di­vine and holi­est Spirit of Par­a­dise, and yet he is more friendly to man than the most friendly of all crea­tures. God is most help­ful to us in this great­est of all busi­nesses, the know­ing of him­self. God is our most adorable and righ­teous friend; he is our wis­dom, life, and vigor of soul and body. Through our good think­ing the wise Cre­ator will en­able us to do his will, thereby at­tain­ing the re­al­iza­tion of all that is di­vinely per­fect.

131:5.4“Lord, teach us how to live this life in the flesh while prepar­ing for the next life of the spirit. Speak to us, Lord, and we will do your bid­ding. Teach us the good paths, and we will go right. Grant us that we may at­tain union with you. We know that the re­li­gion is right which leads to union with righ­teous­ness. God is our wise na­ture, best thought, and righ­teous act. May God grant us unity with the di­vine spirit and im­mor­tal­ity in him­self!

131:5.5“This re­li­gion of the Wise One cleanses the be­liever from ev­ery evil thought and sin­ful deed. I bow be­fore the God of heaven in re­pen­tance if I have of­fended in thought, word, or act—in­ten­tion­ally or un­in­ten­tion­ally—and I of­fer prayers for mercy and praise for for­give­ness. I know when I make con­fes­sion, if I pur­pose not to do again the evil thing, that sin will be re­moved from my soul. I know that for­give­ness takes away the bonds of sin. Those who do evil shall re­ceive pun­ish­ment, but those who fol­low truth shall en­joy the bliss of an eter­nal sal­va­tion. Through grace lay hold upon us and min­is­ter sav­ing power to our souls. We claim mercy be­cause we as­pire to at­tain per­fec­tion; we would be like God.”

• Jainism

131:6.2“The Lord of Heaven is su­preme. Those who com­mit sin will not as­cend on high, but those who walk in the paths of righ­teous­ness shall find a place in heaven. We are as­sured of the life here­after if we know truth. The soul of man may as­cend to the high­est heaven, there to de­velop its true spir­i­tual na­ture, to at­tain per­fec­tion. The es­tate of heaven de­liv­ers man from the bond­age of sin and in­tro­duces him to the fi­nal beat­i­tudes; the righ­teous man has al­ready ex­pe­ri­enced an end of sin and all its as­so­ci­ated mis­eries. Self is man’s in­vin­ci­ble foe, and self is man­i­fested as man’s four great­est pas­sions: anger, pride, de­ceit, and greed. Man’s great­est vic­tory is the con­quest of him­self. When man looks to God for for­give­ness, and when he makes bold to en­joy such lib­erty, he is thereby de­liv­ered from fear. Man should jour­ney through life treat­ing his fel­low crea­tures as he would like to be treated.”

• Shinto

131:7.3“‘Ev­ery time man yields to anx­i­ety, he takes one step away from the lead­ing of the spirit of his heart.’ Pride ob­scures God. If you would ob­tain heav­enly help, put away your pride; ev­ery hair of pride shuts off sav­ing light, as it were, by a great cloud. If you are not right on the in­side, it is use­less to pray for that which is on the out­side. ‘If I hear your prayers, it is be­cause you come be­fore me with a clean heart, free from false­hood and hypocrisy, with a soul which re­flects truth like a mir­ror. If you would gain im­mor­tal­ity, for­sake the world and come to me.’”

• Taoism

131:8.6“They who know the laws of the Eter­nal are wise. Ig­no­rance of the di­vine law is mis­ery and dis­as­ter. They who know the laws of God are lib­eral minded. If you know the Eter­nal, even though your body per­ish, your soul shall sur­vive in spirit ser­vice. You are truly wise when you rec­og­nize your in­signif­i­cance. If you abide in the light of the Eter­nal, you shall en­joy the en­light­en­ment of the Su­preme. Those who ded­i­cate their per­sons to the ser­vice of the Su­preme are joy­ous in this pur­suit of the Eter­nal. When man dies, the spirit be­gins to wing its long flight on the great home jour­ney.”

• Confucianism

131:9.4“A wise man is oc­cu­pied with the search for truth, not in seek­ing for a mere liv­ing. To at­tain the per­fec­tion of Heaven is the goal of man. The su­pe­rior man is given to self-ad­just­ment, and he is free from anx­i­ety and fear. God is with you; have no doubt in your heart. Ev­ery good deed has its rec­om­pense. The su­pe­rior man mur­murs not against Heaven nor holds a grudge against men. What you do not like when done to your­self, do not to oth­ers. Let com­pas­sion be a part of all pun­ish­ment; in ev­ery way en­deavor to make pun­ish­ment a bless­ing. Such is the way of Great Heaven. While all crea­tures must die and re­turn to the earth, the spirit of the no­ble man goes forth to be dis­played on high and to as­cend to the glo­ri­ous light of fi­nal bright­ness.”

132:3.9The pres­ence of the Par­a­dise spirit in the mind of man con­sti­tutes the rev­e­la­tion prom­ise and the faith pledge of an eter­nal ex­is­tence of di­vine pro­gres­sion for ev­ery soul seek­ing to achieve iden­tity with this im­mor­tal and in­dwelling spirit frag­ment of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

110:7.1The achieve­ment of the seven cos­mic cir­cles does not equal Ad­juster fu­sion. There are many mor­tals liv­ing on Uran­tia who have at­tained their cir­cles; but fu­sion de­pends on yet other greater and more sub­lime spir­i­tual achieve­ments, upon the at­tain­ment of a fi­nal and com­plete at­tune­ment of the mor­tal will with the will of God as it is res­i­dent in the Thought Ad­juster.

110:7.2When a hu­man be­ing has com­pleted the cir­cles of cos­mic achieve­ment, and fur­ther, when the fi­nal choos­ing of the mor­tal will per­mits the Ad­juster to com­plete the as­so­ci­a­tion of hu­man iden­tity with the mor­ontial soul dur­ing evo­lu­tion­ary and phys­i­cal life, then do such con­sum­mated li­aisons of soul and Ad­juster go on in­de­pen­dently to the man­sion worlds, and there is is­sued the man­date from Uversa which pro­vides for the im­me­di­ate fu­sion of the Ad­juster and the mor­ontial soul. This fu­sion dur­ing phys­i­cal life in­stantly con­sumes the ma­te­rial body; the hu­man be­ings who might wit­ness such a spec­ta­cle would only ob­serve the trans­lat­ing mor­tal dis­ap­pear “in char­i­ots of fire.”

110:7.3Most Ad­justers who have trans­lated their sub­jects from Uran­tia were highly ex­pe­ri­enced and of rec­ord as pre­vi­ous in­dwellers of nu­mer­ous mor­tals on other spheres. Re­mem­ber, Ad­justers gain valu­able in­dwelling ex­pe­ri­ence on plan­ets of the loan or­der; it does not fol­low that Ad­justers only gain ex­pe­ri­ence for ad­vanced work in those mor­tal sub­jects who fail to sur­vive.

110:7.4Sub­se­quent to mor­tal fu­sion the Ad­justers share your des­tiny and ex­pe­ri­ence; they are you. Af­ter the fu­sion of the im­mor­tal mor­ontia soul and the as­so­ci­ated Ad­juster, all of the ex­pe­ri­ence and all of the val­ues of the one even­tu­ally be­come the pos­ses­sion of the other, so that the two are ac­tu­ally one en­tity. In a cer­tain sense, this new be­ing is of the eter­nal past as well as for the eter­nal fu­ture. All that was once hu­man in the sur­viv­ing soul and all that is ex­pe­ri­en­tially di­vine in the Ad­juster now be­come the ac­tual pos­ses­sion of the new and ever-as­cend­ing uni­verse per­son­al­ity. But on each uni­verse level the Ad­juster can en­dow the new crea­ture only with those at­tri­butes which are mean­ing­ful and of value on that level. An ab­so­lute one­ness with the di­vine Mon­i­tor, a com­plete ex­haus­tion of the en­dow­ment of an Ad­juster, can only be achieved in eter­nity sub­se­quent to the fi­nal at­tain­ment of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, the Fa­ther of spir­its, ever the source of these di­vine gifts.

110:7.5When the evolv­ing soul and the di­vine Ad­juster are fi­nally and eter­nally fused, each gains all of the ex­pe­ri­en­ci­ble qual­i­ties of the other. This co-or­di­nate per­son­al­ity pos­sesses all of the ex­pe­ri­en­tial mem­ory of sur­vival once held by the an­ces­tral mor­tal mind and then res­i­dent in the mor­ontia soul, and in ad­di­tion thereto this po­ten­tial fi­nal­i­ter em­braces all the ex­pe­ri­en­tial mem­ory of the Ad­juster through­out the mor­tal in­dwellings of all time. But it will re­quire an eter­nity of the fu­ture for an Ad­juster ever com­pletely to en­dow the per­son­al­ity part­ner­ship with the mean­ings and val­ues which the di­vine Mon­i­tor car­ries for­ward from the eter­nity of the past.

110:7.6But with the vast ma­jor­ity of Uran­tians the Ad­juster must pa­tiently await the ar­rival of death de­liv­er­ance; must await the lib­er­a­tion of the emerg­ing soul from the well-nigh com­plete dom­i­na­tion of the en­ergy pat­terns and chem­i­cal forces in­her­ent in your ma­te­rial or­der of ex­is­tence. The chief dif­fi­culty you ex­pe­ri­ence in con­tact­ing with your Ad­justers con­sists in this very in­her­ent ma­te­rial na­ture. So few mor­tals are real thinkers; you do not spir­i­tu­ally de­velop and dis­ci­pline your minds to the point of fa­vor­able li­ai­son with the di­vine Ad­justers. The ear of the hu­man mind is al­most deaf to the spir­i­tual pleas which the Ad­juster trans­lates from the man­i­fold mes­sages of the uni­ver­sal broad­casts of love pro­ceed­ing from the Fa­ther of mer­cies. The Ad­juster finds it al­most im­pos­si­ble to reg­is­ter these in­spir­ing spirit lead­ings in an an­i­mal mind so com­pletely dom­i­nated by the chem­i­cal and elec­tri­cal forces in­her­ent in your phys­i­cal na­tures.

110:7.7Ad­justers re­joice to make con­tact with the mor­tal mind; but they must be pa­tient through the long years of silent so­journ dur­ing which they are un­able to break through an­i­mal re­sis­tance and di­rectly com­mu­ni­cate with you. The higher the Thought Ad­justers as­cend in the scale of ser­vice, the more ef­fi­cient they be­come. But never can they greet you, in the flesh, with the same full, sym­pa­thetic, and ex­pres­sion­ful af­fec­tion as they will when you dis­cern them mind to mind on the man­sion worlds.

110:7.8Dur­ing mor­tal life the ma­te­rial body and mind sep­a­rate you from your Ad­juster and pre­vent free com­mu­ni­ca­tion; sub­se­quent to death, af­ter the eter­nal fu­sion, you and the Ad­juster are one—you are not dis­tin­guish­able as sep­a­rate be­ings—and thus there ex­ists no need for com­mu­ni­ca­tion as you would un­der­stand it.

110:7.9While the voice of the Ad­juster is ever within you, most of you will hear it sel­dom dur­ing a life­time. Hu­man be­ings be­low the third and sec­ond cir­cles of at­tain­ment rarely hear the Ad­juster’s di­rect voice ex­cept in mo­ments of su­preme de­sire, in a su­preme sit­u­a­tion, and con­se­quent upon a su­preme de­ci­sion.

110:7.10Dur­ing the mak­ing and break­ing of a con­tact be­tween the mor­tal mind of a des­tiny re­servist and the plan­e­tary super­vi­sors, some­times the in­dwelling Ad­juster is so sit­u­ated that it be­comes pos­si­ble to trans­mit a mes­sage to the mor­tal part­ner. Not long since, on Uran­tia, such a mes­sage was trans­mit­ted by a self-act­ing Ad­juster to the hu­man as­so­ciate, a mem­ber of the re­serve corps of des­tiny. This mes­sage was in­tro­duced by these words: “And now, with­out in­jury or jeop­ardy to the sub­ject of my so­lic­i­tous de­vo­tion and with­out in­tent to over­chas­tise or dis­cour­age, for me, make rec­ord of this my plea to him.” Then fol­lowed a beau­ti­fully touch­ing and ap­peal­ing ad­mo­ni­tion. Among other things, the Ad­juster pleaded “that he more faith­fully give me his sin­cere co-op­er­a­tion, more cheer­fully en­dure the tasks of my em­place­ment, more faith­fully carry out the pro­gram of my ar­range­ment, more pa­tiently go through the tri­als of my se­lec­tion, more per­sis­tently and cheer­fully tread the path of my choos­ing, more humbly re­ceive credit that may ac­crue as a re­sult of my cease­less en­deav­ors—thus trans­mit my ad­mo­ni­tion to the man of my in­dwelling. Upon him I be­stow the su­preme de­vo­tion and af­fec­tion of a di­vine spirit. And say fur­ther to my beloved sub­ject that I will func­tion with wis­dom and power un­til the very end, un­til the last earth strug­gle is over; I will be true to my per­son­al­ity trust. And I ex­hort him to sur­vival, not to dis­ap­point me, not to de­prive me of the re­ward of my pa­tient and in­tense strug­gle. On the hu­man will our achieve­ment of per­son­al­ity de­pends. Cir­cle by cir­cle I have pa­tiently as­cended this hu­man mind, and I have tes­ti­mony that I am meet­ing the ap­proval of the chief of my kind. Cir­cle by cir­cle I am pass­ing on to judg­ment. I await with plea­sure and with­out ap­pre­hen­sion the roll call of des­tiny; I am pre­pared to sub­mit all to the tri­bu­nals of the An­cients of Days.”

110:7.11[Pre­sented by a Soli­tary Mes­sen­ger of Or­von­ton.]

• aware of e.l.; have e.l. now

34:6.13The con­scious­ness of the spirit dom­i­na­tion of a hu­man life is pres­ently at­tended by an in­creas­ing ex­hi­bi­tion of the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the Spirit in the life re­ac­tions of such a spirit-led mor­tal, “for the fruits of the spirit are love, joy, peace, long-suf­fer­ing, gen­tle­ness, good­ness, faith, meek­ness, and tem­per­ance.” Such spirit-guided and di­vinely il­lu­mi­nated mor­tals, while they yet tread the lowly paths of toil and in hu­man faith­ful­ness per­form the du­ties of their earthly as­sign­ments, have al­ready be­gun to dis­cern the lights of eter­nal life as they glim­mer on the far­away shores of an­other world; al­ready have they be­gun to com­pre­hend the re­al­ity of that in­spir­ing and com­fort­ing truth, “The king­dom of God is not meat and drink but righ­teous­ness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.” And through­out ev­ery trial and in the pres­ence of ev­ery hard­ship, spirit-born souls are sus­tained by that hope which tran­scends all fear be­cause the love of God is shed abroad in all hearts by the pres­ence of the di­vine Spirit.

• react as if already immortal

102:2.3It is dif­fi­cult to iden­tify and an­a­lyze the fac­tors of a re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence, but it is not dif­fi­cult to ob­serve that such re­li­gious prac­ti­tion­ers live and carry on as if al­ready in the pres­ence of the Eter­nal. Be­liev­ers re­act to this tem­po­ral life as if im­mor­tal­ity al­ready were within their grasp. In the lives of such mor­tals there is a valid orig­i­nal­ity and a spon­tane­ity of ex­pres­sion that for­ever seg­re­gate them from those of their fel­lows who have im­bibed only the wis­dom of the world. Re­li­gion­ists seem to live in ef­fec­tive eman­ci­pa­tion from har­ry­ing haste and the painful stress of the vi­cis­si­tudes in­her­ent in the tem­po­ral cur­rents of time; they ex­hibit a sta­bi­liza­tion of per­son­al­ity and a tran­quil­lity of char­ac­ter not ex­plained by the laws of phys­i­ol­ogy, psy­chol­ogy, and so­ci­ol­ogy.

• in divine and human nature of Jesus shall have

157:6.10“No man in this world now sees the Fa­ther ex­cept the Son who came forth from the Fa­ther. But if the Son be lifted up, he will draw all men to him­self, and whoso­ever be­lieves this truth of the com­bined na­ture of the Son shall be en­dowed with life that is more than age-abid­ing.”

• aware of e.l.; have e.l. now

191:5.3“Peace be upon you. For a full week have I tar­ried that I might ap­pear again when you were all pres­ent to hear once more the com­mis­sion to go into all the world and preach this gospel of the king­dom. Again I tell you: As the Fa­ther sent me into the world, so send I you. As I have re­vealed the Fa­ther, so shall you re­veal the di­vine love, not merely with words, but in your daily liv­ing. I send you forth, not to love the souls of men, but rather to love men. You are not merely to pro­claim the joys of heaven but also to ex­hibit in your daily ex­pe­ri­ence these spirit re­al­i­ties of the di­vine life since you al­ready have eter­nal life, as the gift of God, through faith. When you have faith, when power from on high, the Spirit of Truth, has come upon you, you will not hide your light here be­hind closed doors; you will make known the love and the mercy of God to all man­kind. Through fear you now flee from the facts of a dis­agree­able ex­pe­ri­ence, but when you shall have been bap­tized with the Spirit of Truth, you will bravely and joy­ously go forth to meet the new ex­pe­ri­ences of pro­claim­ing the good news of eter­nal life in the king­dom of God. You may tarry here and in Gal­i­lee for a short sea­son while you re­cover from the shock of the tran­si­tion from the false se­cu­rity of the au­thor­ity of tra­di­tion­al­ism to the new or­der of the au­thor­ity of facts, truth, and faith in the su­preme re­al­i­ties of liv­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. Your mis­sion to the world is founded on the fact that I lived a God-re­veal­ing life among you; on the truth that you and all other men are the sons of God; and it shall con­sist in the life which you will live among men—the ac­tual and liv­ing ex­pe­ri­ence of lov­ing men and serv­ing them, even as I have loved and served you. Let faith re­veal your light to the world; let the rev­e­la­tion of truth open the eyes blinded by tra­di­tion; let your lov­ing ser­vice ef­fec­tu­ally de­stroy the prej­u­dice en­gen­dered by ig­no­rance. By so draw­ing close to your fel­low men in un­der­stand­ing sym­pa­thy and with un­selfish de­vo­tion, you will lead them into a sav­ing knowl­edge of the Fa­ther’s love. The Jews have ex­tolled good­ness; the Greeks have ex­alted beauty; the Hin­dus preach de­vo­tion; the far­away as­cetics teach rev­er­ence; the Ro­mans de­mand loy­alty; but I re­quire of my dis­ci­ples life, even a life of lov­ing ser­vice for your broth­ers in the flesh.”

• aware of e.l.; have e.l. now

193:0.3“And now you should give ear to my words lest you again make the mis­take of hear­ing my teach­ing with the mind while in your hearts you fail to com­pre­hend the mean­ing. From the be­gin­ning of my so­journ as one of you, I taught you that my one pur­pose was to re­veal my Fa­ther in heaven to his chil­dren on earth. I have lived the God-re­veal­ing be­stowal that you might ex­pe­ri­ence the God-know­ing ca­reer. I have re­vealed God as your Fa­ther in heaven; I have re­vealed you as the sons of God on earth. It is a fact that God loves you, his sons. By faith in my word this fact be­comes an eter­nal and liv­ing truth in your hearts. When, by liv­ing faith, you be­come di­vinely God-con­scious, you are then born of the spirit as chil­dren of light and life, even the eter­nal life where­with you shall as­cend the uni­verse of uni­verses and at­tain the ex­pe­ri­ence of find­ing God the Fa­ther on Par­a­dise.

0:8.11The Cre­ator Sons in the De­ity as­so­ci­a­tion of God the Sev­en­fold pro­vide the mech­a­nism whereby the mor­tal be­comes im­mor­tal and the fi­nite at­tains the em­brace of the in­fi­nite. The Su­preme Be­ing pro­vides the tech­nique for the power-per­son­al­ity mo­bi­liza­tion, the di­vine syn­the­sis, of all these man­i­fold trans­ac­tions, thus en­abling the fi­nite to at­tain the ab­so­nite and, through other pos­si­ble fu­ture ac­tu­al­iza­tions, to at­tempt the at­tain­ment of the Ul­ti­mate. The Cre­ator Sons and their as­so­ci­ated Di­vine Min­is­ters are par­tic­i­pants in this su­preme mo­bi­liza­tion, but the An­cients of Days and the Seven Mas­ter Spir­its are prob­a­bly eter­nally fixed as per­ma­nent ad­min­is­tra­tors in the grand uni­verse.

180:3.7When Je­sus heard Thomas, he an­swered: “Thomas, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man goes to the Fa­ther ex­cept through me. All who find the Fa­ther, first find me. If you know me, you know the way to the Fa­ther. And you do know me, for you have lived with me and you now see me.”

• endless quest for infinite values

100:2.5Ac­tual spir­i­tual sta­tus is the mea­sure of De­ity at­tain­ment, Ad­juster at­tune­ment. The achieve­ment of fi­nal­ity of spir­i­tu­al­ity is equiv­a­lent to the at­tain­ment of the max­i­mum of re­al­ity, the max­i­mum of God­like­ness. Eter­nal life is the end­less quest for in­fi­nite val­ues.

• knowing God as Father and believing in Jesus

135:11.2Af­ter he had been in prison sev­eral months, a group of his dis­ci­ples came to him and, af­ter re­port­ing con­cern­ing the pub­lic ac­tiv­i­ties of Je­sus, said: “So you see, Teacher, that he who was with you at the up­per Jor­dan pros­pers and re­ceives all who come to him. He even feasts with pub­li­cans and sin­ners. You bore coura­geous wit­ness to him, and yet he does noth­ing to ef­fect your de­liv­er­ance.” But John an­swered his friends: “This man can do noth­ing un­less it has been given him by his Fa­ther in heaven. You well re­mem­ber that I said, ‘I am not the Mes­siah, but I am one sent on be­fore to pre­pare the way for him.’ And that I did. He who has the bride is the bride­groom, but the friend of the bride­groom who stands near by and hears him re­joices greatly be­cause of the bride­groom’s voice. This, my joy, there­fore is ful­filled. He must in­crease but I must de­crease. I am of this earth and have de­clared my mes­sage. Je­sus of Naz­a­reth comes down to the earth from heaven and is above us all. The Son of Man has de­scended from God, and the words of God he will de­clare to you. For the Fa­ther in heaven gives not the spirit by mea­sure to his own Son. The Fa­ther loves his Son and will pres­ently put all things in the hands of this Son. He who be­lieves in the Son has eter­nal life. And these words which I speak are true and abid­ing.”

• gained by acceptance of sonship with God

147:3.3In speak­ing to those as­sem­bled, Je­sus said: “Many of you are here, sick and af­flicted, be­cause of your many years of wrong liv­ing. Some suf­fer from the ac­ci­dents of time, oth­ers as a re­sult of the mis­takes of their fore­bears, while some of you strug­gle un­der the hand­i­caps of the im­per­fect con­di­tions of your tem­po­ral ex­is­tence. But my Fa­ther works, and I would work, to im­prove your earthly state but more es­pe­cially to in­sure your eter­nal es­tate. None of us can do much to change the dif­fi­cul­ties of life un­less we dis­cover the Fa­ther in heaven so wills. Af­ter all, we are all be­holden to do the will of the Eter­nal. If you could all be healed of your phys­i­cal af­flic­tions, you would in­deed mar­vel, but it is even greater that you should be cleansed of all spir­i­tual dis­ease and find your­selves healed of all moral in­fir­mi­ties. You are all God’s chil­dren; you are the sons of the heav­enly Fa­ther. The bonds of time may seem to af­flict you, but the God of eter­nity loves you. And when the time of judg­ment shall come, fear not, you shall all find, not only jus­tice, but an abun­dance of mercy. Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you: He who hears the gospel of the king­dom and be­lieves in this teach­ing of son­ship with God, has eter­nal life; al­ready are such be­liev­ers pass­ing from judg­ment and death to light and life. And the hour is com­ing in which even those who are in the tombs shall hear the voice of the res­ur­rec­tion.”

• knowing God as Father and believing in Jesus

153:2.9“And now let me de­clare to you, once and for all time, that I have come down upon the earth, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. And this is the fi­nal will of Him who sent me, that of all those he has given me I should not lose one. And this is the will of the Fa­ther: That ev­ery one who be­holds the Son and who be­lieves him shall have eter­nal life. Only yes­ter­day did I feed you with bread for your bod­ies; to­day I of­fer you the bread of life for your hun­gry souls. Will you now take the bread of the spirit as you then so will­ingly ate the bread of this world?”

• knowing God as Father and believing in Jesus

153:2.11By this time there was much mur­mur­ing in the syn­a­gogue, and such a tu­mult was threat­ened that Je­sus stood up and said: “Let us be pa­tient; the truth never suf­fers from hon­est ex­am­i­na­tion. I am all that you say but more. The Fa­ther and I are one; the Son does only that which the Fa­ther teaches him, while all those who are given to the Son by the Fa­ther, the Son will re­ceive to him­self. You have read where it is writ­ten in the Proph­ets, ‘You shall all be taught by God,’ and that ‘Those whom the Fa­ther teaches will hear also his Son.’ Ev­ery one who yields to the teach­ing of the Fa­ther’s in­dwelling spirit will even­tu­ally come to me. Not that any man has seen the Fa­ther, but the Fa­ther’s spirit does live within man. And the Son who came down from heaven, he has surely seen the Fa­ther. And those who truly be­lieve this Son al­ready have eter­nal life.

• ceaseless progression, not endless rest of idleness

181:1.2“When I have re­turned to live in you and work through you, I can the bet­ter lead you on through this life and guide you through the many abodes in the fu­ture life in the heaven of heav­ens. Life in the Fa­ther’s eter­nal cre­ation is not an end­less rest of idle­ness and self­ish ease but rather a cease­less pro­gres­sion in grace, truth, and glory. Each of the many, many sta­tions in my Fa­ther’s house is a stop­ping place, a life de­signed to pre­pare you for the next one ahead. And so will the chil­dren of light go on from glory to glory un­til they at­tain the di­vine es­tate wherein they are spir­i­tu­ally per­fected even as the Fa­ther is per­fect in all things.

• bestowed by Jesus
• knowing God as Father and believing in Jesus

182:1.3“Fa­ther, my hour has come; now glo­rify your Son that the Son may glo­rify you. I know that you have given me full au­thor­ity over all liv­ing crea­tures in my realm, and I will give eter­nal life to all who will be­come faith sons of God. And this is eter­nal life, that my crea­tures should know you as the only true God and Fa­ther of all, and that they should be­lieve in him whom you sent into the world. Fa­ther, I have ex­alted you on earth and have ac­com­plished the work which you gave me to do. I have al­most fin­ished my be­stowal upon the chil­dren of our own cre­ation; there re­mains only for me to lay down my life in the flesh. And now, O my Fa­ther, glo­rify me with the glory which I had with you be­fore this world was and re­ceive me once more at your right hand.

• endowment which raised Jesus from dead

190:0.2All this power which is in­her­ent in Je­sus—the en­dow­ment of life—and which en­abled him to rise from the dead, is the very gift of eter­nal life which he be­stows upon king­dom be­liev­ers, and which even now makes cer­tain their res­ur­rec­tion from the bonds of nat­u­ral death.

• knowing God as Father and believing in Jesus

190:5.4As they walked along, Je­sus said to them: “How slow you are to com­pre­hend the truth! When you tell me that it is about the teach­ings and work of this man that you have your dis­cus­sions, then may I en­lighten you since I am more than fa­mil­iar with these teach­ings. Do you not re­mem­ber that this Je­sus al­ways taught that his king­dom was not of this world, and that all men, be­ing the sons of God, should find lib­erty and free­dom in the spir­i­tual joy of the fel­low­ship of the broth­er­hood of lov­ing ser­vice in this new king­dom of the truth of the heav­enly Fa­ther’s love? Do you not re­call how this Son of Man pro­claimed the sal­va­tion of God for all men, min­is­ter­ing to the sick and af­flicted and set­ting free those who were bound by fear and en­slaved by evil? Do you not know that this man of Naz­a­reth told his dis­ci­ples that he must go to Je­ru­sa­lem, be de­liv­ered up to his en­e­mies, who would put him to death, and that he would arise on the third day? Have you not been told all this? And have you never read in the Scrip­tures con­cern­ing this day of sal­va­tion for Jew and gen­tile, where it says that in him shall all the fam­i­lies of the earth be blessed; that he will hear the cry of the needy and save the souls of the poor who seek him; that all na­tions shall call him blessed? That such a De­liv­erer shall be as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. That he will feed the flock like a true shep­herd, gath­er­ing the lambs in his arms and ten­derly car­ry­ing them in his bo­som. That he will open the eyes of the spir­i­tu­ally blind and bring the pris­on­ers of de­spair out into full lib­erty and light; that all who sit in dark­ness shall see the great light of eter­nal sal­va­tion. That he will bind up the bro­ken­hearted, pro­claim lib­erty to the cap­tives of sin, and open up the prison to those who are en­slaved by fear and bound by evil. That he will com­fort those who mourn and be­stow upon them the joy of sal­va­tion in the place of sor­row and heav­i­ness. That he shall be the de­sire of all na­tions and the ev­er­last­ing joy of those who seek righ­teous­ness. That this Son of truth and righ­teous­ness shall rise upon the world with heal­ing light and sav­ing power; even that he will save his peo­ple from their sins; that he will re­ally seek and save those who are lost. That he will not de­stroy the weak but min­is­ter sal­va­tion to all who hunger and thirst for righ­teous­ness. That those who be­lieve in him shall have eter­nal life. That he will pour out his spirit upon all flesh, and that this Spirit of Truth shall be in each be­liever a well of wa­ter, spring­ing up into ev­er­last­ing life. Did you not un­der­stand how great was the gospel of the king­dom which this man de­liv­ered to you? Do you not per­ceive how great a sal­va­tion has come upon you?”

166:3.3“You also have an­other say­ing among you, and one that con­tains much truth: That the way which leads to eter­nal life is straight and nar­row, that the door which leads thereto is like­wise nar­row so that, of those who seek sal­va­tion, few can find en­trance through this door. You also have a teach­ing that the way which leads to de­struc­tion is broad, that the en­trance thereto is wide, and that there are many who choose to go this way. And this proverb is not with­out its mean­ing. But I de­clare that sal­va­tion is first a mat­ter of your per­sonal choos­ing. Even if the door to the way of life is nar­row, it is wide enough to ad­mit all who sin­cerely seek to en­ter, for I am that door. And the Son will never refuse en­trance to any child of the uni­verse who, by faith, seeks to find the Fa­ther through the Son.

103:5.7The pur­suit of the ideal—the striv­ing to be God­like—is a con­tin­u­ous ef­fort be­fore death and af­ter. The life af­ter death is no dif­fer­ent in the es­sen­tials than the mor­tal ex­is­tence. Ev­ery­thing we do in this life which is good con­tributes di­rectly to the en­hance­ment of the fu­ture life. Real re­li­gion does not fos­ter moral in­do­lence and spir­i­tual lazi­ness by en­cour­ag­ing the vain hope of hav­ing all the virtues of a no­ble char­ac­ter be­stowed upon one as a re­sult of pass­ing through the por­tals of nat­u­ral death. True re­li­gion does not be­lit­tle man’s ef­forts to pro­gress dur­ing the mor­tal lease on life. Ev­ery mor­tal gain is a di­rect con­tri­bu­tion to the en­rich­ment of the first stages of the im­mor­tal sur­vival ex­pe­ri­ence.

112:6.7Mor­tal mind, prior to death, is self-con­sciously in­de­pen­dent of the Ad­juster pres­ence; ad­ju­tant mind needs only the as­so­ci­ated ma­te­rial-en­ergy pat­tern to en­able it to op­er­ate. But the mor­ontia soul, be­ing super­ad­ju­tant, does not re­tain self-con­scious­ness with­out the Ad­juster when de­prived of the ma­te­rial-mind mech­a­nism. This evolv­ing soul does, how­ever, pos­sess a con­tin­u­ing char­ac­ter de­rived from the de­ci­sions of its for­mer as­so­ci­ated ad­ju­tant mind, and this char­ac­ter be­comes ac­tive mem­ory when the pat­terns thereof are en­er­gized by the re­turn­ing Ad­juster.

54:6.4But one thing should be made clear: If you are made to suf­fer the evil con­se­quences of the sin of some mem­ber of your fam­ily, some fel­low cit­i­zen or fel­low mor­tal, even re­bel­lion in the sys­tem or else­where—no mat­ter what you may have to en­dure be­cause of the wrong­do­ing of your as­so­ciates, fel­lows, or su­pe­ri­ors—you may rest se­cure in the eter­nal as­sur­ance that such tribu­la­tions are tran­sient af­flic­tions. None of these fra­ter­nal con­se­quences of mis­be­hav­ior in the group can ever jeop­ar­dize your eter­nal prospects or in the least de­gree de­prive you of your di­vine right of Par­a­dise as­cen­sion and God at­tain­ment.

5:6.8Hav­ing 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 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.

5:6.12Con­cern­ing those per­son­al­i­ties who are not Ad­juster in­dwelt: The at­tri­bute of choice-lib­erty is also be­stowed by the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, and such per­sons are like­wise em­braced in the great cir­cuit of di­vine love, the per­son­al­ity cir­cuit of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. God pro­vides for the sov­er­eign choice of all true per­son­al­i­ties. No per­sonal crea­ture can be co­erced into the eter­nal ad­ven­ture; the por­tal of eter­nity opens only in re­sponse to the free­will choice of the free­will sons of the God of free will.

158:7.5Af­ter they had re­cov­ered from the first shock of Je­sus’ sting­ing re­buke, and be­fore they re­sumed their jour­ney, the Mas­ter spoke fur­ther: “If any man would come af­ter me, let him dis­re­gard him­self, take up his re­spon­si­bil­i­ties daily, and fol­low me. For whoso­ever would save his life self­ishly, shall lose it, but whoso­ever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s, shall save it. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? What would a man give in ex­change for eter­nal life? Be not ashamed of me and my words in this sin­ful and hyp­o­crit­i­cal gen­er­a­tion, even as I will not be ashamed to ac­knowl­edge you when in glory I ap­pear be­fore my Fa­ther in the pres­ence of all the ce­les­tial hosts. Nev­er­the­less, many of you now stand­ing be­fore me shall not taste death till you see this king­dom of God come with power.”