eternity

118:1.1It is help­ful to man’s cos­mic ori­en­ta­tion to at­tain all pos­si­ble com­pre­hen­sion of De­ity’s re­la­tion to the cos­mos. While ab­so­lute De­ity is eter­nal in na­ture, the Gods are re­lated to time as an ex­pe­ri­ence in eter­nity. In the evo­lu­tion­ary uni­verses eter­nity is tem­po­ral ev­er­last­ing­ness—the ev­er­last­ing now.

118:1.2The per­son­al­ity of the mor­tal crea­ture may eter­nal­ize by self-iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with the in­dwelling spirit through the tech­nique of choos­ing to do the will of the Fa­ther. Such a con­se­cra­tion of will is tan­ta­mount to the re­al­iza­tion of eter­nity-re­al­ity of pur­pose. This means that the pur­pose of the crea­ture has be­come fixed with re­gard to the suc­ces­sion of mo­ments; stated oth­er­wise, that the suc­ces­sion of mo­ments will wit­ness no change in crea­ture pur­pose. A mil­lion or a bil­lion mo­ments makes no dif­fer­ence. Num­ber has ceased to have mean­ing with re­gard to the crea­ture’s pur­pose. Thus does crea­ture choice plus God’s choice even­tu­ate in the eter­nal re­al­i­ties of the never-end­ing union of the spirit of God and the na­ture of man in the ev­er­last­ing ser­vice of the chil­dren of God and of their Par­a­dise Fa­ther.

118:1.3There is a di­rect re­la­tion­ship be­tween ma­tu­rity and the unit of time con­scious­ness in any given in­tel­lect. The time unit may be a day, a year, or a longer pe­riod, but in­evitably it is the cri­te­rion by which the con­scious self eval­u­ates the cir­cum­stances of life, and by which the con­ceiv­ing in­tel­lect mea­sures and eval­u­ates the facts of tem­po­ral ex­is­tence.

118:1.4Ex­pe­ri­ence, wis­dom, and judg­ment are the con­comi­tants of the length­en­ing of the time unit in mor­tal ex­pe­ri­ence. As the hu­man mind reck­ons back­ward into the past, it is eval­u­at­ing past ex­pe­ri­ence for the pur­pose of bring­ing it to bear on a pres­ent sit­u­a­tion. As mind reaches out into the fu­ture, it is at­tempt­ing to eval­u­ate the fu­ture sig­nif­i­cance of pos­si­ble ac­tion. And hav­ing thus reck­oned with both ex­pe­ri­ence and wis­dom, the hu­man will ex­er­cises judg­ment-de­ci­sion in the pres­ent, and the plan of ac­tion thus born of the past and the fu­ture be­comes ex­is­tent.

118:1.5In the ma­tu­rity of the de­vel­op­ing self, the past and fu­ture are brought to­gether to il­lu­mi­nate the true mean­ing of the pres­ent. As the self ma­tures, it reaches fur­ther and fur­ther back into the past for ex­pe­ri­ence, while its wis­dom fore­casts seek to pen­e­trate deeper and deeper into the un­known fu­ture. And as the con­ceiv­ing self ex­tends this reach ever fur­ther into both past and fu­ture, so does judg­ment be­come less and less de­pen­dent on the mo­men­tary pres­ent. In this way does de­ci­sion-ac­tion be­gin to es­cape from the fet­ters of the mov­ing pres­ent, while it be­gins to take on the as­pects of past-fu­ture sig­nif­i­cance.

118:1.6Pa­tience is ex­er­cised by those mor­tals whose time units are short; true ma­tu­rity tran­scends pa­tience by a for­bear­ance born of real un­der­stand­ing.

118:1.7To be­come ma­ture is to live more in­tensely in the pres­ent, at the same time es­cap­ing from the lim­i­ta­tions of the pres­ent. The plans of ma­tu­rity, founded on past ex­pe­ri­ence, are com­ing into be­ing in the pres­ent in such man­ner as to en­hance the val­ues of the fu­ture.

118:1.8The time unit of im­ma­tu­rity con­cen­trates mean­ing-value into the pres­ent mo­ment in such a way as to di­vorce the pres­ent of its true re­la­tion­ship to the not-pres­ent—the past-fu­ture. The time unit of ma­tu­rity is pro­por­tioned so to re­veal the co-or­di­nate re­la­tion­ship of past-pres­ent-fu­ture that the self be­gins to gain in­sight into the whole­ness of events, be­gins to view the land­scape of time from the panoramic per­spec­tive of broad­ened hori­zons, be­gins per­haps to sus­pect the non­be­gin­ning, non­end­ing eter­nal con­tin­uum, the frag­ments of which are called time.

118:1.9On the lev­els of the in­fi­nite and the ab­so­lute the mo­ment of the pres­ent con­tains all of the past as well as all of the fu­ture. I AM sig­ni­fies also I WAS and I WILL BE. And this rep­re­sents our best con­cept of eter­nity and the eter­nal.

118:1.10On the ab­so­lute and eter­nal level, po­ten­tial re­al­ity is just as mean­ing­ful as ac­tual re­al­ity. Only on the fi­nite level and to time-bound crea­tures does there ap­pear to be such a vast dif­fer­ence. To God, as ab­so­lute, an as­cend­ing mor­tal who has made the eter­nal de­ci­sion is al­ready a Par­a­dise fi­nal­i­ter. But the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, through the in­dwelling Thought Ad­juster, is not thus lim­ited in aware­ness but can also know of, and par­tic­i­pate in, ev­ery tem­po­ral strug­gle with the prob­lems of the crea­ture as­cent from an­i­mallike to God­like lev­els of ex­is­tence.

26:9.2The at­tain­ment of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is the pass­port to eter­nity, not­with­stand­ing the re­main­ing cir­cuits to be tra­versed. It is there­fore a mo­men­tous oc­ca­sion on the pi­lot world of cir­cle num­ber three when the tran­sit trio an­nounce that the last ven­ture of time is about to en­sue; that an­other crea­ture of space seeks en­try to Par­a­dise through the por­tals of eter­nity.

• humans must be conceded an origin

6:0.2We speak of God’s “first” thought and al­lude to an im­pos­si­ble time ori­gin of the Eter­nal Son for the pur­pose of gain­ing ac­cess to the thought chan­nels of the hu­man in­tel­lect. Such dis­tor­tions of lan­guage rep­re­sent our best ef­forts at con­tact-com­pro­mise with the time-bound minds of mor­tal crea­tures. In the se­quen­tial sense the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther never could have had a first thought, nor could the Eter­nal Son ever have had a be­gin­ning. But I was in­structed to por­tray the re­al­i­ties of eter­nity to the time-lim­ited minds of mor­tals by such sym­bols of thought and to des­ig­nate the re­la­tion­ships of eter­nity by such time con­cepts of se­quen­tial­ity.

• humans must be conceded an origin

6:0.4In an ef­fort to en­able the fi­nite mind of time to form some se­quen­tial con­cept of the re­la­tion­ships of the eter­nal and in­fi­nite be­ings of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity, we uti­lize such li­cense of con­cep­tion as to re­fer to the “Fa­ther’s first per­sonal, uni­ver­sal, and in­fi­nite con­cept.” It is im­pos­si­ble for me to con­vey to the hu­man mind any ad­e­quate idea of the eter­nal re­la­tions of the De­i­ties; there­fore do I em­ploy such terms as will af­ford the fi­nite mind some­thing of an idea of the re­la­tion­ship of these eter­nal be­ings in the sub­se­quent eras of time. We be­lieve the Son sprang from the Fa­ther; we are taught that both are un­qual­i­fiedly eter­nal. It is ap­par­ent, there­fore, that no time crea­ture can ever fully com­pre­hend this mys­tery of a Son who is de­rived from the Fa­ther, and yet who is co-or­di­nately eter­nal with the Fa­ther him­self.

• humans must be conceded an origin

14:4.10The Ha­vona na­tives are all the off­spring of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity. They are with­out crea­ture par­ents, and they are non­re­pro­duc­ing be­ings. We can­not por­tray the cre­ation of these cit­i­zens of the cen­tral uni­verse, be­ings who never were cre­ated. The en­tire story of the cre­ation of Ha­vona is an at­tempt to time-space an eter­nity fact which has no re­la­tion to time or space as mor­tal man com­pre­hends them. But we must con­cede hu­man phi­los­o­phy a point of ori­gin; even per­son­al­i­ties far above the hu­man level re­quire a con­cept of “be­gin­nings.” Nev­er­the­less, the Par­a­dise-Ha­vona sys­tem is eter­nal.

• conceive as a cycle

32:5.4To me it seems more fit­ting, for pur­poses of ex­pla­na­tion to the mor­tal mind, to con­ceive of eter­nity as a cy­cle and the eter­nal pur­pose as an end­less cir­cle, a cy­cle of eter­nity in some way syn­chro­nized with the tran­sient ma­te­rial cy­cles of time. As re­gards the sec­tors of time con­nected with, and form­ing a part of, the cy­cle of eter­nity, we are forced to rec­og­nize that such tem­po­rary epochs are born, live, and die just as the tem­po­rary be­ings of time are born, live, and die. Most hu­man be­ings die be­cause, hav­ing failed to achieve the spirit level of Ad­juster fu­sion, the meta­mor­pho­sis of death con­sti­tutes the only pos­si­ble pro­ce­dure whereby they may es­cape the fet­ters of time and the bonds of ma­te­rial cre­ation, thereby be­ing en­abled to strike spir­i­tual step with the pro­gres­sive pro­ces­sion of eter­nity. Hav­ing sur­vived the trial life of time and ma­te­rial ex­is­tence, it be­comes pos­si­ble for you to con­tinue on in touch with, even as a part of, eter­nity, swing­ing on for­ever with the worlds of space around the cir­cle of the eter­nal ages.

32:5.5The sec­tors of time are like the flashes of per­son­al­ity in tem­po­ral form; they ap­pear for a sea­son, and then they are lost to hu­man sight, only to reap­pear as new ac­tors and con­tin­u­ing fac­tors in the higher life of the end­less swing around the eter­nal cir­cle. Eter­nity can hardly be con­ceived as a straight­away drive, in view of our be­lief in a de­lim­ited uni­verse mov­ing over a vast, elon­gated cir­cle around the cen­tral dwell­ing place of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

• time-space creatures cannot comprehend

32:5.6Frankly, eter­nity is in­com­pre­hen­si­ble to the fi­nite mind of time. You sim­ply can­not grasp it; you can­not com­pre­hend it. I do not com­pletely vi­su­al­ize it, and even if I did, it would be im­pos­si­ble for me to con­vey my con­cept to the hu­man mind. Nev­er­the­less, I have done my best to por­tray some­thing of our view­point, to tell you some­what of our un­der­stand­ing of things eter­nal. I am en­deav­or­ing to aid you in the crys­tal­liza­tion of your thoughts about these val­ues which are of in­fi­nite na­ture and eter­nal im­port.

• time-space creatures cannot comprehend

116:2.3Un­qual­i­fied Par­a­dise De­ity is in­com­pre­hen­si­ble to the evolv­ing crea­tures of time and space. Eter­nity and in­fin­ity con­note a level of de­ity re­al­ity which time-space crea­tures can­not com­pre­hend. In­fin­ity of de­ity and ab­so­lute­ness of sov­er­eignty are in­her­ent in the Par­a­dise Trin­ity, and the Trin­ity is a re­al­ity which lies some­what be­yond the un­der­stand­ing of mor­tal man. Time-space crea­tures must have ori­gins, rel­a­tiv­i­ties, and des­tinies in or­der to grasp uni­verse re­la­tion­ships and to un­der­stand the mean­ing val­ues of di­vin­ity. There­fore does Par­a­dise De­ity at­ten­u­ate and oth­er­wise qual­ify the ex­tra-Par­a­dise per­son­al­iza­tions of di­vin­ity, thus bring­ing into ex­is­tence the Su­preme Cre­ators and their as­so­ciates, who ever carry the light of life far­ther and far­ther from its Par­a­dise source un­til it finds its most dis­tant and beau­ti­ful ex­pres­sion in the earth lives of the be­stowal Sons on the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds.

• circular simultaneity, not linear sequence

130:7.5An­i­mals do not sense time as does man, and even to man, be­cause of his sec­tional and cir­cum­scribed view, time ap­pears as a suc­ces­sion of events; but as man as­cends, as he pro­gresses in­ward, the en­larg­ing view of this event pro­ces­sion is such that it is dis­cerned more and more in its whole­ness. That which for­merly ap­peared as a suc­ces­sion of events then will be viewed as a whole and per­fectly re­lated cy­cle; in this way will cir­cu­lar si­mul­tane­ity in­creas­ingly dis­place the one­time con­scious­ness of the lin­ear se­quence of events.

3:4.5To the mor­tals of time there is a fu­ture, but God in­hab­its eter­nity. Even though I hail from near the very abid­ing place of De­ity, I can­not pre­sume to speak with per­fec­tion of un­der­stand­ing con­cern­ing the in­fin­ity of many of the di­vine at­tri­butes. In­fin­ity of mind alone can fully com­pre­hend in­fin­ity of ex­is­tence and eter­nity of ac­tion.

105:1.5To the fi­nite mind there sim­ply must be a be­gin­ning, and though there never was a real be­gin­ning to re­al­ity, still there are cer­tain source re­la­tion­ships which re­al­ity man­i­fests to in­fin­ity. The pre­re­al­ity, pri­mor­dial, eter­nity sit­u­a­tion may be thought of some­thing like this: At some in­finitely dis­tant, hy­po­thet­i­cal, past-eter­nity mo­ment, the I AM may be con­ceived as both thing and no thing, as both cause and ef­fect, as both vo­li­tion and re­sponse. At this hy­po­thet­i­cal eter­nity mo­ment there is no dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion through­out all in­fin­ity. In­fin­ity is filled by the In­fi­nite; the In­fi­nite en­com­passes in­fin­ity. This is the hy­po­thet­i­cal static mo­ment of eter­nity; ac­tu­als are still con­tained within their po­ten­tials, and po­ten­tials have not yet ap­peared within the in­fin­ity of the I AM. But even in this con­jec­tured sit­u­a­tion we must as­sume the ex­is­tence of the pos­si­bil­ity of self-will.

115:3.11From the time view­point, the Ac­tual is that which was and is; the Po­ten­tial is that which is be­com­ing and will be; the Orig­i­nal is that which is. From the eter­nity view­point, the dif­fer­ences be­tween the Orig­i­nal, the Ac­tual, and the Po­ten­tial are not thus ap­par­ent. These tri­une qual­i­ties are not so dis­tin­guished on Par­a­dise-eter­nity lev­els. In eter­nity all is—only has all not yet been re­vealed in time and space.

25:6.6On Uversa these se­nior Ce­les­tial Re­cord­ers can show the rec­ords of ev­ery­thing of cos­mic im­port in all Or­von­ton since the far-dis­tant times of the ar­rival of the An­cients of Days, while on the eter­nal Isle the Cus­to­di­ans of Rec­ords guard the ar­chives of that realm which tes­tify to the trans­ac­tions of Par­a­dise since the times of the per­son­i­fi­ca­tion of the In­fi­nite Spirit.

189:1.3Man­kind is slow to per­ceive that, in all that is per­sonal, mat­ter is the skele­ton of mor­ontia, and that both are the re­flected shadow of en­dur­ing spirit re­al­ity. How long be­fore you will re­gard time as the mov­ing im­age of eter­nity and space as the fleet­ing shadow of Par­a­dise re­al­i­ties?