goals

• entirely possible to attain g. set by God

1:0.5Uran­tia mor­tals can hardly hope to be per­fect in the in­fi­nite sense, but it is en­tirely pos­si­ble for hu­man be­ings, start­ing out as they do on this planet, to at­tain the su­per­nal and di­vine goal which the in­fi­nite God has set for mor­tal man; and when they do achieve this des­tiny, they will, in all that per­tains to self-re­al­iza­tion and mind at­tain­ment, be just as re­plete in their sphere of di­vine per­fec­tion as God him­self is in his sphere of in­fin­ity and eter­nity. Such per­fec­tion may not be uni­ver­sal in the ma­te­rial sense, un­lim­ited in in­tel­lec­tual grasp, or fi­nal in spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence, but it is fi­nal and com­plete in all fi­nite as­pects of di­vin­ity of will, per­fec­tion of per­son­al­ity mo­ti­va­tion, and God-con­scious­ness.

• with God all things are possible

2:1.2“There is but one God, the in­fi­nite Fa­ther, who is also a faith­ful Cre­ator.” “The di­vine Cre­ator is also the Uni­ver­sal Dis­poser, the source and des­tiny of souls. He is the Su­preme Soul, the Pri­mal Mind, and the Un­lim­ited Spirit of all cre­ation.” “The great Con­trol­ler makes no mis­takes. He is re­splen­dent in majesty and glory.” “The Cre­ator God is wholly de­void of fear and en­mity. He is im­mor­tal, eter­nal, self-ex­is­tent, di­vine, and boun­ti­ful.” “How pure and beau­ti­ful, how deep and un­fath­omable is the su­per­nal An­ces­tor of all things!” “The In­fi­nite is most ex­cel­lent in that he im­parts him­self to men. He is the be­gin­ning and the end, the Fa­ther of ev­ery good and per­fect pur­pose.” “With God all things are pos­si­ble; the eter­nal Cre­ator is the cause of causes.”

• with God all things are possible

3:2.2Within the bounds of that which is con­sis­tent with the di­vine na­ture, it is lit­er­ally true that “with God all things are pos­si­ble.” The long-drawn-out evo­lu­tion­ary pro­cesses of peo­ples, plan­ets, and uni­verses are un­der the per­fect con­trol of the uni­verse cre­ators and ad­min­is­tra­tors and un­fold in ac­cor­dance with the eter­nal pur­pose of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, pro­ceed­ing in har­mony and or­der and in keep­ing with the all-wise plan of God. There is only one law­giver. He up­holds the worlds in space and swings the uni­verses around the end­less cir­cle of the eter­nal cir­cuit.

• assistance to achieve g. freely provided

4:3.5The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther never does any­thing that causes sub­se­quent sor­row or re­gret, but the will crea­tures of the plan­ning and mak­ing of his Cre­ator per­son­al­i­ties in the out­ly­ing uni­verses, by their un­for­tu­nate choos­ing, some­times oc­ca­sion emo­tions of di­vine sor­row in the per­son­al­i­ties of their Cre­ator par­ents. But though the Fa­ther nei­ther makes mis­takes, har­bors re­grets, nor ex­pe­ri­ences sor­rows, he is a be­ing with a fa­ther’s af­fec­tion, and his heart is un­doubt­edly grieved when his chil­dren fail to at­tain the spir­i­tual lev­els they are ca­pa­ble of reach­ing with the as­sis­tance which has been so freely pro­vided by the spir­i­tual-at­tain­ment plans and the mor­tal-as­cen­sion poli­cies of the uni­verses.

• by yielding to spiritual forces

5:1.12The great God makes di­rect con­tact with mor­tal man and gives a part of his in­fi­nite and eter­nal and in­com­pre­hen­si­ble self to live and dwell within him. God has em­barked upon the eter­nal ad­ven­ture with man. If you yield to the lead­ings of the spir­i­tual forces in you and around you, you can­not fail to at­tain the high des­tiny es­tab­lished by a lov­ing God as the uni­verse goal of his as­cen­dant crea­tures from the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds of space.

• creation and response to new and spirit g.

12:9.1Spirit is the ba­sic per­sonal re­al­ity in the uni­verses, and per­son­al­ity is ba­sic to all pro­gress­ing ex­pe­ri­ence with spir­i­tual re­al­ity. Ev­ery phase of per­son­al­ity ex­pe­ri­ence on ev­ery suc­ces­sive level of uni­verse pro­gres­sion swarms with clues to the dis­cov­ery of al­lur­ing per­sonal re­al­i­ties. Man’s true des­tiny con­sists in the cre­ation of new and spirit goals and then in re­spond­ing to the cos­mic al­lure­ments of such su­per­nal goals of non­ma­te­rial value.

• with God all things are possible

26:5.3That, then, is the pri­mary or el­e­men­tary course which con­fronts the faith-tested and much-trav­eled pil­grims of space. But long be­fore reach­ing Ha­vona, these as­cen­dant chil­dren of time have learned to feast upon un­cer­tainty, to fat­ten upon dis­ap­point­ment, to en­thuse over ap­par­ent de­feat, to in­vig­o­rate in the pres­ence of dif­fi­cul­ties, to ex­hibit in­domitable cour­age in the face of im­men­sity, and to ex­er­cise un­con­quer­able faith when con­fronted with the chal­lenge of the in­ex­pli­ca­ble. Long since, the bat­tle cry of these pil­grims be­came: “In li­ai­son with God, noth­ing—ab­so­lutely noth­ing—is im­pos­si­ble.”

• spiritual exertion required to achieve g. in Havona

26:7.1Trin­ity guides are the tire­less min­is­ters of the fifth cir­cle of the Ha­vona train­ing of the ad­vanc­ing pil­grims of time and space. The spir­i­tual grad­u­ates are here des­ig­nated “can­di­dates for the De­ity ad­ven­ture” since it is on this cir­cle, un­der the di­rec­tion of the Trin­ity guides, that the pil­grims re­ceive ad­vanced in­struc­tion con­cern­ing the di­vine Trin­ity in prepa­ra­tion for the at­tempt to achieve the per­son­al­ity rec­og­ni­tion of the In­fi­nite Spirit. And here the as­cend­ing pil­grims dis­cover what true study and real men­tal ef­fort mean as they be­gin to dis­cern the na­ture of the still-more-tax­ing and far-more-ar­du­ous spir­i­tual ex­er­tion that will be re­quired to meet the de­mands of the high goal set for their achieve­ment on the worlds of this cir­cuit.

• ascenders never denied transient satisfaction of goal attainment

39:4.73. In­ter­preters of Cos­mic Cit­i­zen­ship. When as­cend­ing mor­tals have com­pleted the man­sion world train­ing, the first stu­dent ap­pren­tice­ship in the uni­verse ca­reer, they are per­mit­ted to en­joy the tran­sient sat­is­fac­tions of rel­a­tive ma­tu­rity—cit­i­zen­ship on the sys­tem cap­i­tal. While the at­tain­ment of each as­cen­dant goal is a fac­tual achieve­ment, in the larger sense such goals are sim­ply mile­stones on the long as­cend­ing path to Par­a­dise. But how­ever rel­a­tive such suc­cesses may be, no evo­lu­tion­ary crea­ture is ever de­nied the full though tran­sient sat­is­fac­tion of goal at­tain­ment. Ever and anon there is a pause in the Par­a­dise as­cent, a short breath­ing spell, dur­ing which uni­verse hori­zons stand still, crea­ture sta­tus is sta­tion­ary, and the per­son­al­ity tastes the sweet­ness of goal ful­fill­ment.

• ascenders never denied transient satisfaction of goal attainment

44:8.3There is no caste in the ranks of spirit ar­ti­sans. No mat­ter how lowly your ori­gin, if you have abil­ity and the gift of ex­pres­sion, you will gain ad­e­quate rec­og­ni­tion and re­ceive due ap­pre­ci­a­tion as you as­cend up­ward in the scale of mor­ontia ex­pe­ri­ence and spir­i­tual at­tain­ment. There can be no hand­i­cap of hu­man hered­ity or de­pri­va­tion of mor­tal en­vi­ron­ment which the mor­ontia ca­reer will not fully com­pen­sate and wholly re­move. And all such sat­is­fac­tions of artis­tic achieve­ment and ex­pres­sion­ful self-re­al­iza­tion will be ef­fected by your own per­sonal ef­forts in pro­gres­sive ad­vance­ment. At last the as­pi­ra­tions of evo­lu­tion­ary medi­ocrity may be re­al­ized. While the Gods do not ar­bi­trar­ily be­stow tal­ents and abil­ity upon the chil­dren of time, they do pro­vide for the at­tain­ment of the sat­is­fac­tion of all their no­ble long­ings and for the grat­i­fi­ca­tion of all hu­man hunger for su­per­nal self-ex­pres­sion.

44:8.4But ev­ery hu­man be­ing should re­mem­ber: Many am­bi­tions to ex­cel which tan­ta­lize mor­tals in the flesh will not per­sist with these same mor­tals in the mor­ontia and spirit ca­reers. The as­cend­ing mor­ontians learn to so­cial­ize their for­mer purely self­ish long­ings and ego­is­tic am­bi­tions. Nev­er­the­less, those things which you so earnestly longed to do on earth and which cir­cum­stances so per­sis­tently de­nied you, if, af­ter ac­quir­ing true mota in­sight in the mor­ontia ca­reer, you still de­sire to do, then will you most cer­tainly be granted ev­ery op­por­tu­nity fully to sat­isfy your long-cher­ished de­sires.

44:8.5Be­fore as­cend­ing mor­tals leave the lo­cal uni­verse to em­bark upon their spirit ca­reers, they will be sa­ti­ated re­spect­ing ev­ery in­tel­lec­tual, artis­tic, and so­cial long­ing or true am­bi­tion which ever char­ac­ter­ized their mor­tal or mor­ontia planes of ex­is­tence. This is the achieve­ment of equal­ity of the sat­is­fac­tion of self-ex­pres­sion and self-re­al­iza­tion but not the at­tain­ment of iden­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­en­tial sta­tus nor the com­plete oblit­er­a­tion of char­ac­ter­is­tic in­di­vid­u­al­ity in skill, tech­nique, and ex­pres­sion. But the new spirit dif­fer­en­tial of per­sonal ex­pe­ri­en­tial at­tain­ment will not be­come thus lev­eled off and equal­ized un­til af­ter you have fin­ished the last cir­cle of the Ha­vona ca­reer. And then will the Par­a­dise res­i­dents be con­fronted with the ne­ces­sity of ad­just­ing to that ab­so­nite dif­fer­en­tial of per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence which can be lev­eled off only by the group at­tain­ment of the ul­ti­mate of crea­ture sta­tus—the sev­enth-stage-spirit des­tiny of the mor­tal fi­nal­i­ters.

• work is important, the self is not

48:6.37You will learn that you in­crease your bur­dens and de­crease the like­li­hood of suc­cess by tak­ing your­self too se­ri­ously. Noth­ing can take prece­dence over the work of your sta­tus sphere—this world or the next. Very im­por­tant is the work of prepa­ra­tion for the next higher sphere, but noth­ing equals the im­por­tance of the work of the world in which you are ac­tu­ally liv­ing. But though the work is im­por­tant, the self is not. When you feel im­por­tant, you lose en­ergy to the wear and tear of ego dig­nity so that there is lit­tle en­ergy left to do the work. Self-im­por­tance, not work-im­por­tance, ex­hausts im­ma­ture crea­tures; it is the self el­e­ment that ex­hausts, not the ef­fort to achieve. You can do im­por­tant work if you do not be­come self-im­por­tant; you can do sev­eral things as eas­ily as one if you leave your­self out. Va­ri­ety is rest­ful; mo­not­ony is what wears and ex­hausts. Day af­ter day is alike—just life or the al­ter­na­tive of death.

• highest happiness linked with pursuit of worthy g.

94:8.17Ac­cord­ing to the orig­i­nal teach­ings of Gau­tama, sal­va­tion is achieved by hu­man ef­fort, apart from di­vine help; there is no place for sav­ing faith or prayers to super­hu­man pow­ers. Gau­tama, in his at­tempt to min­i­mize the su­per­sti­tions of In­dia, en­deav­ored to turn men away from the bla­tant claims of mag­i­cal sal­va­tion. And in mak­ing this ef­fort, he left the door wide open for his suc­ces­sors to mis­in­ter­pret his teach­ing and to pro­claim that all hu­man striv­ing for at­tain­ment is dis­taste­ful and painful. His fol­low­ers over­looked the fact that the high­est hap­pi­ness is linked with the in­tel­li­gent and en­thu­si­as­tic pur­suit of wor­thy goals, and that such achieve­ments con­sti­tute true prog­ress in cos­mic self-re­al­iza­tion.

• by welding philosophy, religion, and science by wisdom, faith, and experience

98:2.12Re­li­gions have long en­dured with­out phil­o­soph­i­cal sup­port, but few philoso­phies, as such, have long per­sisted with­out some iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with re­li­gion. Phi­los­o­phy is to re­li­gion as con­cep­tion is to ac­tion. But the ideal hu­man es­tate is that in which phi­los­o­phy, re­li­gion, and sci­ence are welded into a mean­ing­ful unity by the con­joined ac­tion of wis­dom, faith, and ex­pe­ri­ence.

• religion pays any price to attain supreme goal

100:3.1Re­li­gion is not a tech­nique for at­tain­ing a static and bliss­ful peace of mind; it 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. Re­li­gion pays any price es­sen­tial to the at­tain­ment of the su­preme goal, the eter­nal prize. There is a con­se­crated com­plete­ness in re­li­gious loy­alty which is su­perbly sub­lime. And these loy­al­ties are so­cially ef­fec­tive and spir­i­tu­ally pro­gres­sive.

• with God all things are possible

107:4.7Can you re­ally re­al­ize the true sig­nif­i­cance of the Ad­juster’s in­dwelling? Do you re­ally fathom what it means to have an ab­so­lute frag­ment of the ab­so­lute and in­fi­nite De­ity, the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, in­dwelling and fus­ing with your fi­nite mor­tal na­tures? When mor­tal man fuses with an ac­tual frag­ment of the ex­is­ten­tial Cause of the to­tal cos­mos, no limit can ever be placed upon the des­tiny of such an un­prece­dented and unimag­in­able part­ner­ship. In eter­nity, man will be dis­cov­er­ing not only the in­fin­ity of the ob­jec­tive De­ity but also the un­end­ing po­ten­tial­ity of the sub­jec­tive frag­ment of this same God. Al­ways will the Ad­juster be re­veal­ing to the mor­tal per­son­al­ity the won­der of God, and never can this su­per­nal rev­e­la­tion come to an end, for the Ad­juster is of God and as God to mor­tal man.

• begun in time will be finished in eternity – if worth finishing

111:3.7In so far as man’s evolv­ing mor­ontia soul be­comes per­me­ated by truth, beauty, and good­ness as the value-re­al­iza­tion of God-con­scious­ness, such a re­sul­tant be­ing 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. But it is for­ever true: What you be­gin in time you will as­suredly fin­ish in eter­nity—if it is worth fin­ish­ing.

• ascenders never denied transient satisfaction of goal attainment

118:0.10Cre­ative growth is un­end­ing but ever sat­is­fy­ing, end­less in ex­tent but al­ways punc­tu­ated by those per­son­al­ity-sat­is­fy­ing mo­ments of tran­sient goal at­tain­ment which serve so ef­fec­tively as the mo­bi­liza­tion pre­ludes to new ad­ven­tures in cos­mic growth, uni­verse ex­plo­ration, and De­ity at­tain­ment.

• ascenders never denied transient satisfaction of goal attainment

118:0.12At the same time, the in­fi­nite se­ries can be to­taled at any given point, and this to­tal (more prop­erly, a subto­tal) pro­vides the full­ness of the sweet­ness of goal at­tain­ment for a given per­son at a given time and sta­tus. But sooner or later, this same per­son be­gins to hunger and yearn for new and greater goals, and such ad­ven­tures in growth will be for­ever forth­com­ing in the full­ness of time and the cy­cles of eter­nity.

• with God all things are possible

131:10.2“The Lord our God is one Lord, and you should love him with all your mind and heart while you do your very best to love all his chil­dren as you love your­self. This one God is our heav­enly Fa­ther, in whom all things con­sist, and who dwells, by his spirit, in ev­ery sin­cere hu­man soul. And we who are the chil­dren of God should learn how to com­mit the keep­ing of our souls to him as to a faith­ful Cre­ator. With our heav­enly Fa­ther all things are pos­si­ble. Since he is the Cre­ator, hav­ing made all things and all be­ings, it could not be oth­er­wise. Though we can­not see God, we can know him. And by daily liv­ing the will of the Fa­ther in heaven, we can re­veal him to our fel­low men.

• g. are creative in accordance with dedication to Father’s will

132:7.9What a scene for the ce­les­tial in­tel­li­gences to be­hold, this spec­ta­cle of the In­dian lad propos­ing to the Cre­ator of a uni­verse that they make a new re­li­gion! And though the young man did not know it, they were mak­ing a new and ev­er­last­ing re­li­gion right then and there—this new way of sal­va­tion, the rev­e­la­tion of God to man through, and in, Je­sus. That which the lad wanted most to do he was un­con­sciously ac­tu­ally do­ing. And it was, and is, ever thus. That which the en­light­ened and re­flec­tive hu­man imag­i­na­tion of spir­i­tual teach­ing and lead­ing whole­heart­edly and un­selfishly wants to do and be, be­comes mea­sur­ably cre­ative in ac­cor­dance with the de­gree of mor­tal ded­i­ca­tion to the di­vine do­ing of the Fa­ther’s will. When man goes in part­ner­ship with God, great things may, and do, hap­pen.

• life purpose must be jealously guarded

160:3.5This new gospel of the king­dom ren­ders a great ser­vice to the art of liv­ing in that it sup­plies a new and richer in­cen­tive for higher liv­ing. It pre­sents a new and ex­alted goal of des­tiny, a su­preme life pur­pose. And these new con­cepts of the eter­nal and di­vine goal of ex­is­tence are in them­selves tran­scen­dent stim­uli, call­ing forth the re­ac­tion of the very best that is res­i­dent in man’s higher na­ture. On ev­ery moun­tain­top of in­tel­lec­tual thought are to be found re­lax­ation for the mind, strength for the soul, and com­mu­nion for the spirit. From such van­tage points of high liv­ing, man is able to tran­scend the ma­te­rial ir­ri­ta­tions of the lower lev­els of think­ing—worry, jeal­ousy, envy, re­venge, and the pride of im­ma­ture per­son­al­ity. These high-climb­ing souls de­liver them­selves from a mul­ti­tude of the cross­cur­rent con­flicts of the tri­fles of liv­ing, thus be­com­ing free to at­tain con­scious­ness of the higher cur­rents of spirit con­cept and ce­les­tial com­mu­ni­ca­tion. But the life pur­pose must be jeal­ously guarded from the temp­ta­tion to seek for easy and tran­sient at­tain­ment; like­wise must it be so fos­tered as to be­come im­mune to the dis­as­trous threats of fa­nati­cism.

• with God all things are possible

163:3.2When Pe­ter and the apos­tles heard these words, they were as­ton­ished ex­ceed­ingly, so much so that Pe­ter said: “Who then, Lord, can be saved? Shall all who have riches be kept out of the king­dom?” And Je­sus replied: “No, Pe­ter, but all who put their trust in riches shall hardly en­ter into the spir­i­tual life that leads to eter­nal prog­ress. But even then, much which is im­pos­si­ble to man is not be­yond the reach of the Fa­ther in heaven; rather should we rec­og­nize that with God all things are pos­si­ble.”

• with God all things are possible

182:3.2The Mas­ter re­mained in a prayer­ful at­ti­tude for a few mo­ments, and then, go­ing over to the three apos­tles, he found them sound asleep, for their eyes were heavy and they could not re­main awake. As Je­sus awoke them, he said: “What! can you not watch with me even for one hour? Can­not you see that my soul is ex­ceed­ingly sor­row­ful, even to death, and that I crave your com­pan­ion­ship?” Af­ter the three had aroused from their slum­ber, the Mas­ter again went apart by him­self and, falling down on the ground, again prayed: “Fa­ther, I know it is pos­si­ble to avoid this cup—all things are pos­si­ble with you—but I have come to do your will, and while this is a bit­ter cup, I would drink it if it is your will.” And when he had thus prayed, a mighty an­gel came down by his side and, speak­ing to him, touched him and strength­ened him.

103:4.5God the Fa­ther deals with man his child on the ba­sis, not of ac­tual virtue or wor­thi­ness, but in rec­og­ni­tion of the child’s mo­ti­va­tion—the crea­ture pur­pose and in­tent. The re­la­tion­ship is one of par­ent-child as­so­ci­a­tion and is ac­tu­ated by di­vine love.

140:4.9With­out a wor­thy goal, life be­comes aim­less and un­prof­itable, and much un­hap­pi­ness re­sults. Je­sus’ dis­course at the or­di­na­tion of the twelve con­sti­tutes a mas­ter phi­los­o­phy of life. Je­sus ex­horted his fol­low­ers to ex­er­cise ex­pe­ri­en­tial faith. He ad­mon­ished them not to de­pend on mere in­tel­lec­tual as­sent, credulity, and es­tab­lished au­thor­ity.

44:8.1Al­though ce­les­tial ar­ti­sans do not per­son­ally work on ma­te­rial plan­ets, such as Uran­tia, they do come, from time to time, from the head­quar­ters of the sys­tem to prof­fer help to the nat­u­rally gifted in­di­vid­u­als of the mor­tal races. When thus as­signed, these ar­ti­sans tem­porar­ily work un­der the super­vi­sion of the plan­e­tary an­gels of prog­ress. The se­raphic hosts co-op­er­ate with these ar­ti­sans in at­tempt­ing to as­sist those mor­tal artists who pos­sess in­her­ent en­dow­ments, and who also pos­sess Ad­justers of spe­cial and pre­vi­ous ex­pe­ri­ence.

44:8.2There are three pos­si­ble sources of spe­cial hu­man abil­ity: At the bot­tom al­ways there ex­ists the nat­u­ral or in­her­ent ap­ti­tude. Spe­cial abil­ity is never an ar­bi­trary gift of the Gods; there is al­ways an an­ces­tral foun­da­tion for ev­ery out­stand­ing tal­ent. In ad­di­tion to this nat­u­ral abil­ity, or rather sup­ple­men­tal thereto, there may be con­tributed the lead­ings of the Thought Ad­juster in those in­di­vid­u­als whose in­dwelling Ad­justers may have had ac­tual and bona fide ex­pe­ri­ences along such lines on other worlds and in other mor­tal crea­tures. In those cases where both the hu­man mind and the in­dwelling Ad­juster are un­usu­ally skill­ful, the spirit ar­ti­sans may be del­e­gated to act as har­mo­niz­ers of these tal­ents and oth­er­wise to as­sist and in­spire these mor­tals to seek for ever-per­fect­ing ide­als and to at­tempt their en­hanced por­trayal for the ed­i­fi­ca­tion of the realm.

44:8.6And this is the story of the ce­les­tial ar­ti­sans, that cos­mopoli­tan body of ex­qui­site work­ers who do so much to glo­rify the ar­chi­tec­tural spheres with the artis­tic por­tray­als of the di­vine beauty of the Par­a­dise Cre­ators.

44:8.7[In­dited by an Arch­an­gel of Neb­a­don.]

34:6.8It is the pres­ence of the di­vine Spirit, the wa­ter of life, that pre­vents the con­sum­ing thirst of mor­tal dis­con­tent and that in­de­scrib­able hunger of the un­spir­i­tu­al­ized hu­man mind. Spirit-mo­ti­vated be­ings “never thirst, for this spir­i­tual wa­ter shall be in them a well of sat­is­fac­tion spring­ing up into life ev­er­last­ing.” Such di­vinely wa­tered souls are all but in­de­pen­dent of ma­te­rial en­vi­ron­ment as re­gards the joys of liv­ing and the sat­is­fac­tions of earthly ex­is­tence. They are spir­i­tu­ally il­lu­mi­nated and re­freshed, morally strength­ened and en­dowed.

100:2.6The goal of hu­man self-re­al­iza­tion should be spir­i­tual, not ma­te­rial. The only re­al­i­ties worth striv­ing for are di­vine, spir­i­tual, and eter­nal. Mor­tal man is en­ti­tled to the en­joy­ment of phys­i­cal plea­sures and to the sat­is­fac­tion of hu­man af­fec­tions; he is ben­e­fited by loy­alty to hu­man as­so­ci­a­tions and tem­po­ral in­sti­tu­tions; but these are not the eter­nal foun­da­tions upon which to build the im­mor­tal per­son­al­ity which must tran­scend space, van­quish time, and achieve the eter­nal des­tiny of di­vine per­fec­tion and fi­nal­i­ter ser­vice.

170:2.65. This new gospel held up spir­i­tual at­tain­ment as the true goal of liv­ing. Hu­man life re­ceived a new en­dow­ment of moral value and di­vine dig­nity.

16:7.2The se­lec­tive re­sponse of an an­i­mal is lim­ited to the mo­tor level of be­hav­ior. The sup­posed in­sight of the higher an­i­mals is on a mo­tor level and usu­ally ap­pears only af­ter the ex­pe­ri­ence of mo­tor trial and er­ror. Man is able to ex­er­cise sci­en­tific, moral, and spir­i­tual in­sight prior to all ex­plo­ration or ex­per­i­men­ta­tion.

16:7.3Only a per­son­al­ity can know what it is do­ing be­fore it does it; only per­son­al­i­ties pos­sess in­sight in ad­vance of ex­pe­ri­ence. A per­son­al­ity can look be­fore it leaps and can there­fore learn from look­ing as well as from leap­ing. A non­per­sonal an­i­mal or­di­nar­ily learns only by leap­ing.

16:7.4As a re­sult of ex­pe­ri­ence an an­i­mal be­comes able to ex­am­ine the dif­fer­ent ways of at­tain­ing a goal and to se­lect an ap­proach based on ac­cu­mu­lated ex­pe­ri­ence. But a per­son­al­ity can also ex­am­ine the goal it­self and pass judg­ment on its worth-while­ness, its value. In­tel­li­gence alone can dis­crim­i­nate as to the best means of at­tain­ing in­dis­crim­i­nate ends, but a moral be­ing pos­sesses an in­sight which en­ables him to dis­crim­i­nate be­tween ends as well as be­tween means. And a moral be­ing in choos­ing virtue is nonethe­less in­tel­li­gent. He knows what he is do­ing, why he is do­ing it, where he is go­ing, and how he will get there.

99:5.7Just as cer­tainly as men share their re­li­gious be­liefs, they cre­ate a re­li­gious group of some sort which even­tu­ally cre­ates com­mon goals. Some­day re­li­gion­ists will get to­gether and ac­tu­ally ef­fect co-op­er­a­tion on the ba­sis of unity of ide­als and pur­poses rather than at­tempt­ing to do so on the ba­sis of psy­cho­log­i­cal opin­ions and the­o­log­i­cal be­liefs. Goals rather than creeds should unify re­li­gion­ists. Since true re­li­gion is a mat­ter of per­sonal spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence, it is in­ev­i­ta­ble that each in­di­vid­ual re­li­gion­ist must have his own and per­sonal in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the re­al­iza­tion of that spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence. Let the term “faith” stand for the in­di­vid­ual’s re­la­tion to God rather than for the creedal for­mu­la­tion of what some group of mor­tals have been able to agree upon as a com­mon re­li­gious at­ti­tude. “Have you faith? Then have it to your­self.”

156:5.9Make not the mis­take of es­ti­mat­ing the soul’s worth by the im­per­fec­tions of the mind or by the ap­petites of the body. Judge not the soul nor eval­u­ate its des­tiny by the stan­dard of a sin­gle un­for­tu­nate hu­man episode. Your spir­i­tual des­tiny is con­di­tioned only by your spir­i­tual long­ings and pur­poses.

• attainment of supreme, then ultimate
• ever-ascending mobilization and perfecting unification of reality in association with Paradise reality

0:7.10All time-space fi­nite re­al­ity, un­der the di­rec­tive urge of the evolv­ing Su­preme Be­ing, is en­gaged in an ever-as­cend­ing mo­bi­liza­tion and per­fect­ing uni­fi­ca­tion (power-per­son­al­ity syn­the­sis) of all phases and val­ues of fi­nite re­al­ity, in as­so­ci­a­tion with var­ied phases of Par­a­dise re­al­ity, to the end and for the pur­pose of sub­se­quently em­bark­ing upon the at­tempt to reach ab­so­nite lev­els of super­crea­ture at­tain­ment.

• attainment of supreme, then ultimate

0:9.1Just as the Su­preme Be­ing pro­gres­sively evolves from the an­te­ced­ent di­vin­ity en­dow­ment of the en­com­passed grand uni­verse po­ten­tial of en­ergy and per­son­al­ity, so does God the Ul­ti­mate even­tu­ate from the po­ten­tials of di­vin­ity re­sid­ing in the tran­scended time-space do­mains of the mas­ter uni­verse. The ac­tu­al­iza­tion of Ul­ti­mate De­ity sig­nal­izes ab­so­nite uni­fi­ca­tion of the first ex­pe­ri­en­tial Trin­ity and sig­ni­fies uni­fy­ing De­ity ex­pan­sion on the sec­ond level of cre­ative self-re­al­iza­tion. This con­sti­tutes the per­son­al­ity-power equiv­a­lent of the uni­verse ex­pe­ri­en­tial-De­ity ac­tu­al­iza­tion of Par­a­dise ab­so­nite re­al­i­ties on the even­tu­at­ing lev­els of tran­scended time-space val­ues. The com­ple­tion of such an ex­pe­ri­en­tial un­fold­ment is de­signed to af­ford ul­ti­mate ser­vice-des­tiny for all time-space crea­tures who have at­tained ab­so­nite lev­els through the com­pleted re­al­iza­tion of the Su­preme Be­ing and by the min­istry of God the Sev­en­fold.

• finding God and becoming like him

1:0.3The en­light­ened worlds all rec­og­nize and wor­ship the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, the eter­nal maker and in­fi­nite up­holder of all cre­ation. The will crea­tures of uni­verse upon uni­verse have em­barked upon the long, long Par­a­dise jour­ney, the fas­ci­nat­ing strug­gle of the eter­nal ad­ven­ture of at­tain­ing God the Fa­ther. The tran­scen­dent goal of the chil­dren of time is to find the eter­nal God, to com­pre­hend the di­vine na­ture, to rec­og­nize the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. God-know­ing crea­tures have only one su­preme am­bi­tion, just one con­sum­ing de­sire, and that is to be­come, as they are in their spheres, like him as he is in his Par­a­dise per­fec­tion of per­son­al­ity and in his uni­ver­sal sphere of righ­teous su­prem­acy. From the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther who in­hab­its eter­nity there has gone forth the su­preme man­date, “Be you per­fect, even as I am per­fect.” In love and mercy the mes­sen­gers of Par­a­dise have car­ried this di­vine ex­hor­ta­tion down through the ages and out through the uni­verses, even to such lowly an­i­mal-ori­gin crea­tures as the hu­man races of Uran­tia.

• unification, divine coherence

2:7.7The eter­nal quest is for uni­fi­ca­tion, for di­vine co­her­ence. The far-flung phys­i­cal uni­verse co­heres in the Isle of Par­a­dise; the in­tel­lec­tual uni­verse co­heres in the God of mind, the Con­joint Ac­tor; the spir­i­tual uni­verse is co­her­ent in the per­son­al­ity of the Eter­nal Son. But the iso­lated mor­tal of time and space co­heres in God the Fa­ther through the di­rect re­la­tion­ship be­tween the in­dwelling Thought Ad­juster and the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. Man’s Ad­juster is a frag­ment of God and ev­er­last­ingly seeks for di­vine uni­fi­ca­tion; it co­heres with, and in, the Par­a­dise De­ity of the First Source and Cen­ter.

• finding God on Paradise

5:1.2Our Fa­ther is not in hid­ing; he is not in ar­bi­trary seclu­sion. He has mo­bi­lized the re­sources of di­vine wis­dom in a never-end­ing ef­fort to re­veal him­self to the chil­dren of his uni­ver­sal do­mains. There is an in­fi­nite grandeur and an in­ex­press­ible gen­eros­ity con­nected with the majesty of his love which causes him to yearn for the as­so­ci­a­tion of ev­ery cre­ated be­ing who can com­pre­hend, love, or ap­proach him; and it is, there­fore, the lim­i­ta­tions in­her­ent in you, in­sep­a­ra­ble from your fi­nite per­son­al­ity and ma­te­rial ex­is­tence, that de­ter­mine the time and place and cir­cum­stances in which you may achieve the goal of the jour­ney of mor­tal as­cen­sion and stand in the pres­ence of the Fa­ther at the cen­ter of all things.

• finding God on Paradise

11:9.8Af­ter all, to mor­tals the most im­por­tant thing about eter­nal Par­a­dise is the fact that this per­fect abode of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is the real and far-dis­tant des­tiny of the im­mor­tal souls of the mor­tal and ma­te­rial sons of God, the as­cend­ing crea­tures of the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds of time and space. Ev­ery God-know­ing mor­tal who has es­poused the ca­reer of do­ing the Fa­ther’s will has al­ready em­barked upon the long, long Par­a­dise trail of di­vin­ity pur­suit and per­fec­tion at­tain­ment. And when such an an­i­mal-ori­gin be­ing does stand, as count­less num­bers now do, be­fore the Gods on Par­a­dise, hav­ing as­cended from the lowly spheres of space, such an achieve­ment rep­re­sents the re­al­ity of a spir­i­tual trans­for­ma­tion bor­der­ing on the lim­its of su­prem­acy.

• spirit

12:8.13The goal of ex­is­tence of all per­son­al­i­ties is spirit; ma­te­rial man­i­fes­ta­tions are rel­a­tive, and the cos­mic mind in­ter­venes be­tween these uni­ver­sal op­po­sites. The be­stowal of mind and the min­is­tra­tion of spirit are the work of the as­so­ciate per­sons of De­ity, the In­fi­nite Spirit and the Eter­nal Son. To­tal De­ity re­al­ity is not mind but spirit-mind—mind-spirit uni­fied by per­son­al­ity. Nev­er­the­less the ab­so­lutes of both the spirit and the thing con­verge in the per­son of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

• Ascendington is ultimate status sphere

13:0.6Al­though the worlds of the Fa­ther are ul­ti­mate sta­tus spheres for all Fa­ther-en­dowed per­son­al­i­ties, this is not their ex­clu­sive func­tion. Many be­ings and en­ti­ties other than per­sonal so­journ on these worlds. Each world in the cir­cuit of the Fa­ther and the cir­cuit of the Spirit has a dis­tinct type of per­ma­nent cit­i­zen­ship, but we think the Son’s worlds are in­hab­ited by uni­form types of other-than-per­sonal be­ings. Fa­ther frag­ments are among the na­tives of Di­vin­ing­ton; the other or­ders of per­ma­nent cit­i­zen­ship are un­re­vealed to you.

• trinitization (for some)

13:1.13Non­trini­tized be­ings do not fully un­der­stand the tech­nique of trin­i­ti­za­tion by ei­ther two or three Cre­ators or by cer­tain crea­tures. You will never fully un­der­stand such a phe­nom­e­non un­less, in the far-dis­tant fu­ture of your glo­ri­fied ca­reer, you should es­say and suc­ceed in such an ad­ven­ture, be­cause oth­er­wise these se­crets of Vicegering­ton will al­ways be for­bid­den you. But to me, a high Trin­ity-ori­gin be­ing, all sec­tors of Vicegering­ton are open. I fully un­der­stand, and just as fully and sa­credly pro­tect, the se­cret of my ori­gin and des­tiny.

• finding God on Paradise

14:2.8Like­wise does the In­fi­nite Spirit draw all in­tel­lec­tual val­ues Par­adis­e­ward. Through­out the cen­tral uni­verse the mind grav­ity of the In­fi­nite Spirit func­tions in li­ai­son with the spirit grav­ity of the Eter­nal Son, and these to­gether con­sti­tute the com­bined urge of the as­cen­dant souls to find God, to at­tain De­ity, to achieve Par­a­dise, and to know the Fa­ther.

• becoming a finaliter

14:6.39Par­a­dise is the home, and Ha­vona the work­shop and play­ground, of the fi­nal­i­ters. And ev­ery God-know­ing mor­tal craves to be a fi­nal­i­ter.

• exploring infinity of Universal Father

14:6.40The cen­tral uni­verse is not only man’s es­tab­lished des­tiny, but it is also the start­ing place of the eter­nal ca­reer of the fi­nal­i­ters as they shall some­time be started out on the undis­closed and uni­ver­sal ad­ven­ture in the ex­pe­ri­ence of ex­plor­ing the in­fin­ity of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

• spirit

16:4.6Much of the re­al­ity of the spir­i­tual worlds is of the mor­ontia or­der, a phase of uni­verse re­al­ity wholly un­known on Uran­tia. The goal of per­son­al­ity ex­is­tence is spir­i­tual, but the mor­ontia cre­ations al­ways in­ter­vene, bridg­ing the gulf be­tween the ma­te­rial realms of mor­tal ori­gin and the super­uni­verse spheres of ad­vanc­ing spir­i­tual sta­tus. It is in this realm that the Mas­ter Spir­its make their great con­tri­bu­tion to the plan of man’s Par­a­dise as­cen­sion.

• consecration to Father’s will; loyalty to Creator Son

20:1.14The Par­a­dise Cre­ator Sons serve not only as Sons in their de­scend­ing min­is­tra­tions of ser­vice and be­stowal, but when they have com­pleted their be­stowal ca­reers, each func­tions as a uni­verse Fa­ther in his own cre­ation, while the other Sons of God con­tinue the ser­vice of be­stowal and spir­i­tual up­lift­ing de­signed to win the plan­ets, one by one, to the will­ing rec­og­ni­tion of the lov­ing rule of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, cul­mi­nat­ing in crea­ture con­se­cra­tion to the will of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther and in plan­e­tary loy­alty to the uni­verse sov­er­eignty of his Cre­ator Son.

• God, rest, and eternity of perfected service

24:6.1The Grad­u­ate Guides, as a group, spon­sor and con­duct the high uni­ver­sity of tech­ni­cal in­struc­tion and spir­i­tual train­ing which is so es­sen­tial to mor­tal at­tain­ment of the goal of the ages: God, rest, and then eter­nity of per­fected ser­vice. These highly per­sonal be­ings take their name from the na­ture and pur­pose of their work. They are ex­clu­sively de­voted to the tasks of guid­ing the mor­tal grad­u­ates from the super­uni­verses of time through the Ha­vona course of in­struc­tion and train­ing which serves to pre­pare the as­cend­ing pil­grims for ad­mis­sion to Par­a­dise and the Corps of the Fi­nal­ity.

• service

28:6.17Ser­vice—pur­pose­ful ser­vice, not slav­ery—is pro­duc­tive of the high­est sat­is­fac­tion and is ex­pres­sive of the di­vinest dig­nity. Ser­vice—more ser­vice, in­creased ser­vice, dif­fi­cult ser­vice, ad­ven­tur­ous ser­vice, and at last di­vine and per­fect ser­vice—is the goal of time and the des­ti­na­tion of space. But ever will the play cy­cles of time al­ter­nate with the ser­vice cy­cles of prog­ress. And af­ter the ser­vice of time there fol­lows the super­ser­vice of eter­nity. Dur­ing the play of time you should en­vi­sion the work of eter­nity, even as you will, dur­ing the ser­vice of eter­nity, rem­i­nisce the play of time.

• perfection of faith and service

34:6.10The pur­pose of all this min­is­tra­tion is, “That you may be strength­ened with power through His spirit in the in­ner man.” And all this rep­re­sents but the pre­lim­i­nary steps to the fi­nal at­tain­ment of the per­fec­tion of faith and ser­vice, that ex­pe­ri­ence wherein you shall be “filled with all the full­ness of God,” “for all those who are led by the spirit of God are the sons of God.”

• wisdom of mental and moral existence

36:5.127. The spirit of wis­dom—the in­her­ent ten­dency of all moral crea­tures to­wards or­derly and pro­gres­sive evo­lu­tion­ary ad­vance­ment. This is the high­est of the ad­ju­tants, the spirit co-or­di­na­tor and ar­tic­u­la­tor of the work of all the oth­ers. This spirit is the se­cret of that in­born urge of mind crea­tures which ini­ti­ates and main­tains the prac­ti­cal and ef­fec­tive pro­gram of the as­cend­ing scale of ex­is­tence; that gift of liv­ing things which ac­counts for their in­ex­pli­ca­ble abil­ity to sur­vive and, in sur­vival, to uti­lize the co-or­di­na­tion of all their past ex­pe­ri­ence and pres­ent op­por­tu­ni­ties for the ac­qui­si­tion of all of ev­ery­thing that all of the other six men­tal min­is­ters can mo­bi­lize in the mind of the or­gan­ism con­cerned. Wis­dom is the acme of in­tel­lec­tual per­for­mance. Wis­dom is the goal of a purely men­tal and moral ex­is­tence.

• finding God on Paradise

48:8.1From the time of grad­u­a­tion from the man­sion worlds to the at­tain­ment of spirit sta­tus in the super­uni­verse ca­reer, as­cend­ing mor­tals are de­nom­i­nated mor­ontia pro­gres­sors. Your pas­sage through this won­der­ful bor­der­land life will be an un­for­get­table ex­pe­ri­ence, a charm­ing mem­ory. It is the evo­lu­tion­ary por­tal to spirit life and the even­tual at­tain­ment of crea­ture per­fec­tion by which as­cend­ers achieve the goal of time—the find­ing of God on Par­a­dise.

• brotherhood and God-consciousness

71:4.15And this prog­ress in the arts of civ­i­liza­tion leads di­rectly to the re­al­iza­tion of the high­est hu­man and di­vine goals of mor­tal en­deavor—the so­cial achieve­ment of the broth­er­hood of man and the per­sonal sta­tus of God-con­scious­ness, which be­comes re­vealed in the su­preme de­sire of ev­ery in­di­vid­ual to do the will of the Fa­ther in heaven.

• fighting battle of reality’s triumph over partial shadows

101:10.9Now, rather, are the sons of God en­listed to­gether in fight­ing the bat­tle of re­al­ity’s tri­umph over the par­tial shad­ows of ex­is­tence. At last all crea­tures be­come con­scious of the fact that God and all the di­vine hosts of a well-nigh lim­it­less uni­verse are on their side in the su­per­nal strug­gle to at­tain eter­nity of life and di­vin­ity of sta­tus. Such faith-lib­er­ated sons have cer­tainly en­listed in the strug­gles of time on the side of the su­preme forces and di­vine per­son­al­i­ties of eter­nity; even the stars in their courses are now do­ing bat­tle for them; at last they gaze upon the uni­verse from within, from God’s view­point, and all is trans­formed from the un­cer­tain­ties of ma­te­rial iso­la­tion to the sureties of eter­nal spir­i­tual pro­gres­sion. Even time it­self be­comes but the shadow of eter­nity cast by Par­a­dise re­al­i­ties upon the mov­ing panoply of space.

• attuning to divinity of indwelling Adjuster

110:3.4I can­not but ob­serve that so many of you spend so much time and thought on mere tri­fles of liv­ing, while you al­most wholly over­look the more es­sen­tial re­al­i­ties of ev­er­last­ing im­port, those very ac­com­plish­ments which are con­cerned with the de­vel­op­ment of a more har­mo­nious work­ing agree­ment be­tween you and your Ad­justers. The great goal of hu­man ex­is­tence is to at­tune to the di­vin­ity of the in­dwelling Ad­juster; the great achieve­ment of mor­tal life is the at­tain­ment of a true and un­der­stand­ing con­se­cra­tion to the eter­nal aims of the di­vine spirit who waits and works within your mind. But a de­voted and de­ter­mined ef­fort to re­al­ize eter­nal des­tiny is wholly com­pat­i­ble with a light­hearted and joy­ous life and with a suc­cess­ful and hon­or­able ca­reer on earth. Co-op­er­a­tion with the Thought Ad­juster does not en­tail self-tor­ture, mock piety, or hyp­o­crit­i­cal and os­ten­ta­tious self-abase­ment; the ideal life is one of lov­ing ser­vice rather than an ex­is­tence of fear­ful ap­pre­hen­sion.

• finding God and becoming like him

132:3.7Hu­man life con­tin­ues—sur­vives—be­cause it has a uni­verse func­tion, the task of find­ing God. The faith-ac­ti­vated soul of man can­not stop short of the at­tain­ment of this goal of des­tiny; and when it does once achieve this di­vine goal, it can never end be­cause it has be­come like God—eter­nal.

• brotherhood and God-consciousness

143:1.4“I have come into this world to do the will of my Fa­ther and to re­veal his lov­ing char­ac­ter to all man­kind. That, my breth­ren, is my mis­sion. And this one thing I will do, re­gard­less of the mis­un­der­stand­ing of my teach­ings by Jews or gen­tiles of this day or of an­other gen­er­a­tion. But you should not over­look the fact that even di­vine love has its se­vere dis­ci­plines. A fa­ther’s love for his son of­ten­times im­pels the fa­ther to re­strain the un­wise acts of his thought­less off­spring. The child does not al­ways com­pre­hend the wise and lov­ing mo­tives of the fa­ther’s re­strain­ing dis­ci­pline. But I de­clare to you that my Fa­ther in Par­a­dise does rule a uni­verse of uni­verses by the com­pelling power of his love. Love is the great­est of all spirit re­al­i­ties. Truth is a lib­er­at­ing rev­e­la­tion, but love is the su­preme re­la­tion­ship. And no mat­ter what blun­ders your fel­low men make in their world man­age­ment of to­day, in an age to come the gospel which I de­clare to you will rule this very world. The ul­ti­mate goal of hu­man prog­ress is the rev­er­ent rec­og­ni­tion of the fa­ther­hood of God and the lov­ing ma­te­ri­al­iza­tion of the broth­er­hood of man.

160:1.14In a con­tin­u­ally chang­ing world, in the midst of an evolv­ing so­cial or­der, it is im­pos­si­ble to main­tain set­tled and es­tab­lished goals of des­tiny. Sta­bil­ity of per­son­al­ity can be ex­pe­ri­enced only by those who have dis­cov­ered and em­braced the liv­ing God as the eter­nal goal of in­fi­nite at­tain­ment. And thus to trans­fer one’s goal from time to eter­nity, from earth to Par­a­dise, from the hu­man to the di­vine, re­quires that man shall be­come re­gen­er­ated, con­verted, be born again; that he shall be­come the re-cre­ated child of the di­vine spirit; that he shall gain en­trance into the broth­er­hood of the king­dom of heaven. All philoso­phies and re­li­gions which fall short of these ide­als are im­ma­ture. The phi­los­o­phy which I teach, linked with the gospel which you preach, rep­re­sents the new re­li­gion of ma­tu­rity, the ideal of all fu­ture gen­er­a­tions. And this is true be­cause our ideal is fi­nal, in­fal­li­ble, eter­nal, uni­ver­sal, ab­so­lute, and in­fi­nite.