growth

• unification of mathematical logic, mind-reason, and spirit-faith in personality

16:6.10In the lo­cal uni­verse mind be­stowals, these three in­sights of the cos­mic mind con­sti­tute the a pri­ori as­sump­tions which make it pos­si­ble for man to func­tion as a ra­tio­nal and self-con­scious per­son­al­ity in the realms of sci­ence, phi­los­o­phy, and re­li­gion. Stated oth­er­wise, the rec­og­ni­tion of the re­al­ity of these three man­i­fes­ta­tions of the In­fi­nite is by a cos­mic tech­nique of self-rev­e­la­tion. Mat­ter-en­ergy is rec­og­nized by the math­e­mat­i­cal logic of the senses; mind-rea­son in­tu­itively knows its moral duty; spirit-faith (wor­ship) is the re­li­gion of the re­al­ity of spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence. These three ba­sic fac­tors in re­flec­tive think­ing may be uni­fied and co-or­di­nated in per­son­al­ity de­vel­op­ment, or they may be­come dis­pro­por­tion­ate and vir­tu­ally un­re­lated in their re­spec­tive func­tions. But when they be­come uni­fied, they pro­duce a strong char­ac­ter con­sist­ing in the cor­re­la­tion of a fac­tual sci­ence, a moral phi­los­o­phy, and a gen­uine re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence. And it is these three cos­mic in­tu­itions that give ob­jec­tive va­lid­ity, re­al­ity, to man’s ex­pe­ri­ence in and with things, mean­ings, and val­ues.

• intellectual acquisition part of universe g.

37:6.6The pro­gres­sion of eter­nity does not con­sist solely in spir­i­tual de­vel­op­ment. In­tel­lec­tual ac­qui­si­tion is also a part of uni­ver­sal ed­u­ca­tion. The ex­pe­ri­ence of the mind is broad­ened equally with the ex­pan­sion of the spir­i­tual hori­zon. Mind and spirit are af­forded like op­por­tu­ni­ties for train­ing and ad­vance­ment. But in all this su­perb train­ing of mind and spirit you are for­ever free from the hand­i­caps of mor­tal flesh. No longer must you con­stantly ref­eree the con­flict­ing con­tentions of your di­ver­gent spir­i­tual and ma­te­rial na­tures. At last you are qual­i­fied to en­joy the uni­fied urge of a glo­ri­fied mind long since di­vested of prim­i­tive an­i­mal­is­tic trends to­wards things ma­te­rial.

• nature of growth › overrapid g. is suicidal

39:4.12These ser­a­phim teach the fruit­ful­ness of pa­tience: That stag­na­tion is cer­tain death, but that over­rapid growth is equally sui­ci­dal; that as a drop of wa­ter from a higher level falls to a lower and, flow­ing on­ward, passes ever down­ward through a suc­ces­sion of short falls, so ever up­ward is prog­ress in the mor­ontia and spirit worlds—and just as slowly and by just such grad­ual stages.

• philosophy, religion, and science welded together 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.

• nature of growth › confusion goes before g.

99:6.1Sec­tar­i­an­ism is a dis­ease of in­sti­tu­tional re­li­gion, and dog­ma­tism is an en­slave­ment of the spir­i­tual na­ture. It is far bet­ter to have a re­li­gion with­out a church than a church with­out re­li­gion. The re­li­gious tur­moil of the twen­ti­eth cen­tury does not, in and of it­self, be­to­ken spir­i­tual deca­dence. Con­fu­sion goes be­fore growth as well as be­fore de­struc­tion.

• nature of growth › prejudice and ignorance are chief inhibitors of g.
• nature of growth › should be lifelong
• some persons too busy for

100:1.2Some per­sons are too busy to grow and are there­fore in grave dan­ger of spir­i­tual fix­a­tion. Pro­vi­sion must be made for growth of mean­ings at dif­fer­ing ages, in suc­ces­sive cul­tures, and in the pass­ing stages of ad­vanc­ing civ­i­liza­tion. The chief in­hibitors of growth are prej­u­dice and ig­no­rance.

• indicated by progress, not products

100:1.3Give ev­ery de­vel­op­ing child a chance to grow his own re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence; do not force a ready-made adult ex­pe­ri­ence upon him. Re­mem­ber, year-by-year prog­ress through an es­tab­lished ed­u­ca­tional regime does not nec­es­sar­ily mean in­tel­lec­tual prog­ress, much less spir­i­tual growth. En­large­ment of vo­cab­u­lary does not sig­nify de­vel­op­ment of char­ac­ter. Growth is not truly in­di­cated by mere prod­ucts but rather by prog­ress. Real ed­u­ca­tional growth is in­di­cated by en­hance­ment of ide­als, in­creased ap­pre­ci­a­tion of val­ues, new mean­ings of val­ues, and aug­mented loy­alty to su­preme val­ues.

• occurs because › innate drives toward g. function unless inhibited

100:1.6Re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence is markedly in­flu­enced by phys­i­cal health, in­her­ited tem­per­a­ment, and so­cial en­vi­ron­ment. But these tem­po­ral con­di­tions do not in­hibit in­ner spir­i­tual prog­ress by a soul ded­i­cated to the do­ing of the will of the Fa­ther in heaven. There are pres­ent in all nor­mal mor­tals cer­tain in­nate drives to­ward growth and self-re­al­iza­tion which func­tion if they are not specif­i­cally in­hib­ited. The cer­tain tech­nique of fos­ter­ing this con­sti­tu­tive en­dow­ment of the po­ten­tial of spir­i­tual growth is to main­tain an at­ti­tude of whole­hearted de­vo­tion to su­preme val­ues.

• nature of growth › always unconscious
• nature of growth › evolution is cosmic technique of
• nature of growth › man cannot cause g., only supply favorable conditions

100:3.7Man can­not cause growth, but he can sup­ply fa­vor­able con­di­tions. Growth is al­ways un­con­scious, be it phys­i­cal, in­tel­lec­tual, or spir­i­tual. Love thus grows; it can­not be cre­ated, man­u­fac­tured, or pur­chased; it must grow. Evo­lu­tion is a cos­mic tech­nique of growth. So­cial growth can­not be se­cured by leg­is­la­tion, and moral growth is not had by im­proved ad­min­is­tra­tion. Man may man­u­fac­ture a ma­chine, but its real value must be de­rived from hu­man cul­ture and per­sonal ap­pre­ci­a­tion. Man’s sole con­tri­bu­tion to growth is the mo­bi­liza­tion of the to­tal pow­ers of his per­son­al­ity—liv­ing faith.

100:4.1Re­li­gious liv­ing is de­voted liv­ing, and de­voted liv­ing is cre­ative liv­ing, orig­i­nal and spon­ta­neous. New re­li­gious in­sights arise out of con­flicts which ini­ti­ate the choos­ing of new and bet­ter re­ac­tion habits in the place of older and in­fe­rior re­ac­tion pat­terns. New mean­ings only emerge amid con­flict; and con­flict per­sists only in the face of re­fusal to es­pouse the higher val­ues con­noted in su­pe­rior mean­ings.

100:4.2Re­li­gious per­plex­i­ties are in­ev­i­ta­ble; there can be no growth with­out psy­chic con­flict and spir­i­tual ag­i­ta­tion. The or­ga­ni­za­tion of a philo­sophic stan­dard of liv­ing en­tails con­sid­er­able com­mo­tion in the philo­sophic realms of the mind. Loy­al­ties are not ex­er­cised in be­half of the great, the good, the true, and the no­ble with­out a strug­gle. Ef­fort is at­ten­dant upon clar­i­fi­ca­tion of spir­i­tual vi­sion and en­hance­ment of cos­mic in­sight. And the hu­man in­tel­lect protests against be­ing weaned from sub­sist­ing upon the non­spir­i­tual en­er­gies of tem­po­ral ex­is­tence. The sloth­ful an­i­mal mind rebels at the ef­fort re­quired to wres­tle with cos­mic prob­lem solv­ing.

100:4.3But the great prob­lem of re­li­gious liv­ing con­sists in the task of uni­fy­ing the soul pow­ers of the per­son­al­ity by the dom­i­nance of LOVE. Health, men­tal ef­fi­ciency, and hap­pi­ness arise from the uni­fi­ca­tion of phys­i­cal sys­tems, mind sys­tems, and spirit sys­tems. Of health and san­ity man un­der­stands much, but of hap­pi­ness he has truly re­al­ized very lit­tle. The high­est hap­pi­ness is in­dis­sol­ubly linked with spir­i­tual prog­ress. Spir­i­tual growth yields last­ing joy, peace which passes all un­der­stand­ing.

100:4.4In phys­i­cal life the senses tell of the ex­is­tence of things; mind dis­cov­ers the re­al­ity of mean­ings; but the spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence re­veals to the in­di­vid­ual the true val­ues of life. These high lev­els of hu­man liv­ing are at­tained in the su­preme love of God and in the un­selfish love of man. If you love your fel­low men, you must have dis­cov­ered their val­ues. Je­sus loved men so much be­cause he placed such a high value upon them. You can best dis­cover val­ues in your as­so­ciates by dis­cov­er­ing their mo­ti­va­tion. If some­one ir­ri­tates you, causes feel­ings of re­sent­ment, you should sym­pa­thet­i­cally seek to dis­cern his view­point, his rea­sons for such ob­jec­tion­able con­duct. If once you un­der­stand your neigh­bor, you will be­come tol­er­ant, and this tol­er­ance will grow into friend­ship and ripen into love.

100:4.5In the mind’s eye con­jure up a pic­ture of one of your prim­i­tive an­ces­tors of cave-dwell­ing times—a short, mis­shapen, filthy, snarling hulk of a man stand­ing, legs spread, club up­raised, breath­ing hate and an­i­mos­ity as he looks fiercely just ahead. Such a pic­ture hardly de­picts the di­vine dig­nity of man. But al­low us to en­large the pic­ture. In front of this an­i­mated hu­man crouches a saber-toothed tiger. Be­hind him, a woman and two chil­dren. Im­me­di­ately you rec­og­nize that such a pic­ture stands for the be­gin­nings of much that is fine and no­ble in the hu­man race, but the man is the same in both pic­tures. Only, in the sec­ond sketch you are fa­vored with a widened hori­zon. You therein dis­cern the mo­ti­va­tion of this evolv­ing mor­tal. His at­ti­tude be­comes praise­wor­thy be­cause you un­der­stand him. If you could only fathom the mo­tives of your as­so­ciates, how much bet­ter you would un­der­stand them. If you could only know your fel­lows, you would even­tu­ally fall in love with them.

100:4.6You can­not truly love your fel­lows by a mere act of the will. Love is only born of thor­ough­go­ing un­der­stand­ing of your neigh­bor’s mo­tives and sen­ti­ments. It is not so im­por­tant to love all men to­day as it is that each day you learn to love one more hu­man be­ing. If each day or each week you achieve an un­der­stand­ing of one more of your fel­lows, and if this is the limit of your abil­ity, then you are cer­tainly so­cial­iz­ing and truly spir­i­tu­al­iz­ing your per­son­al­ity. Love is in­fec­tious, and when hu­man de­vo­tion is in­tel­li­gent and wise, love is more catch­ing than hate. But only gen­uine and un­selfish love is truly con­ta­gious. If each mor­tal could only be­come a fo­cus of dy­namic af­fec­tion, this be­nign virus of love would soon per­vade the sen­ti­men­tal emo­tion-stream of hu­man­ity to such an ex­tent that all civ­i­liza­tion would be en­com­passed by love, and that would be the re­al­iza­tion of the broth­er­hood of man.

• nature of growth › greatest where external pressures are minimum

103:5.11But man is not saved or en­no­bled by pres­sure. Spirit growth springs from within the evolv­ing soul. Pres­sure may de­form the per­son­al­ity, but it never stim­u­lates growth. Even ed­u­ca­tional pres­sure is only neg­a­tively help­ful in that it may aid in the pre­ven­tion of dis­as­trous ex­pe­ri­ences. Spir­i­tual growth is great­est where all ex­ter­nal pres­sures are at a min­i­mum. “Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is free­dom.” Man de­vel­ops best when the pres­sures of home, com­mu­nity, church, and state are least. But this must not be con­strued as mean­ing that there is no place in a pro­gres­sive so­ci­ety for home, so­cial in­sti­tu­tions, church, and state.

• occurs because › of innate search for destinies commensurate with infinity source

105:5.5With the ap­pear­ance of rel­a­tive and qual­i­fied re­al­ity there comes into be­ing a new cy­cle of re­al­ity—the growth cy­cle—a ma­jes­tic down­sweep from the heights of in­fin­ity to the do­main of the fi­nite, for­ever swing­ing in­ward to Par­a­dise and De­ity, al­ways seek­ing those high des­tinies com­men­su­rate with an in­fin­ity source.

• occurs because › time lag provides opportunity for

106:1.1The pri­mary or spirit-ori­gin phases of fi­nite re­al­ity find im­me­di­ate ex­pres­sion on crea­ture lev­els as per­fect per­son­al­i­ties and on uni­verse lev­els as the per­fect Ha­vona cre­ation. Even ex­pe­ri­en­tial De­ity is thus ex­pressed in the spirit per­son of God the Su­preme in Ha­vona. But the sec­ondary, evo­lu­tion­ary, time-and-mat­ter-con­di­tioned phases of the fi­nite be­come cos­mi­cally in­te­grated only as a re­sult of growth and at­tain­ment. Even­tu­ally all sec­ondary or per­fect­ing finites are to at­tain a level equal to that of pri­mary per­fec­tion, but such des­tiny is sub­ject to a time de­lay, a con­sti­tu­tive super­uni­verse qual­i­fi­ca­tion which is not ge­net­i­cally found in the cen­tral cre­ation. (We know of the ex­is­tence of ter­tiary finites, but the tech­nique of their in­te­gra­tion is as yet un­re­vealed.)

106:1.2This super­uni­verse time lag, this ob­sta­cle to per­fec­tion at­tain­ment, pro­vides for crea­ture par­tic­i­pa­tion in evo­lu­tion­ary growth. It thus makes it pos­si­ble for the crea­ture to en­ter into part­ner­ship with the Cre­ator in the evo­lu­tion of that self­same crea­ture. And dur­ing these times of ex­pand­ing growth the in­com­plete is cor­re­lated with the per­fect through the min­istry of God the Sev­en­fold.

• nature of growth › infinity of God means eternity will not exhaust

106:7.6Such in­abil­ity to at­tain God in a fi­nal sense should in no man­ner dis­cour­age uni­verse crea­tures; in­deed, you can and do at­tain De­ity lev­els of the Sev­en­fold, the Su­preme, and the Ul­ti­mate, which mean to you what the in­fi­nite re­al­iza­tion of God the Fa­ther means to the Eter­nal Son and to the Con­joint Ac­tor in their ab­so­lute sta­tus of eter­nity ex­is­tence. Far from ha­rass­ing the crea­ture, the in­fin­ity of God should be the su­preme as­sur­ance that through­out all end­less fu­tu­rity an as­cend­ing per­son­al­ity will have be­fore him the pos­si­bil­i­ties of per­son­al­ity de­vel­op­ment and De­ity as­so­ci­a­tion which even eter­nity will nei­ther ex­haust nor ter­mi­nate.

• occurs because › interassociation of Original, Actual, and Potential result in possibility for g.
• occurs because › of nature of Sevenfold, Supreme, Ultimate

115:3.9The in­teras­so­ci­a­tion of the Orig­i­nal, the Ac­tual, and the Po­ten­tial yields the ten­sions within in­fin­ity which re­sult in the pos­si­bil­ity for all uni­verse growth; and growth is the na­ture of the Sev­en­fold, the Su­preme, and the Ul­ti­mate.

• nature of growth › decisions open up new capacity for g.

115:3.16The fi­nal dy­nam­ics of the cos­mos have to do with the con­tin­ual trans­fer of re­al­ity from po­ten­tial­ity to ac­tu­al­ity. In the­ory, there may be an end to this meta­mor­pho­sis, but in fact, such is im­pos­si­ble since the Po­ten­tial and the Ac­tual are both en­cir­cuited in the Orig­i­nal (the I AM), and this iden­ti­fi­ca­tion makes it for­ever im­pos­si­ble to place a limit on the de­vel­op­men­tal pro­gres­sion of the uni­verse. What­so­ever is iden­ti­fied with the I AM can never find an end to pro­gres­sion since the ac­tu­al­ity of the po­ten­tials of the I AM is ab­so­lute, and the po­ten­tial­ity of the ac­tu­als of the I AM is also ab­so­lute. Al­ways will ac­tu­als be open­ing up new av­enues of the re­al­iza­tion of hith­erto im­pos­si­ble po­ten­tials—ev­ery hu­man de­ci­sion not only ac­tu­al­izes a new re­al­ity in hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence but also opens up a new ca­pac­ity for hu­man growth. The man lives in ev­ery child, and the mor­ontia pro­gres­sor is res­i­dent in the ma­ture God-know­ing man.

• occurs because › of partiality and incompleteness of existence

115:7.1In the De­ity of the Su­preme the Fa­ther-I AM has achieved rel­a­tively com­plete lib­er­a­tion from the lim­i­ta­tions in­her­ent in in­fin­ity of sta­tus, eter­nity of be­ing, and ab­so­lute­ness of na­ture. But God the Su­preme has been freed from all ex­is­ten­tial lim­i­ta­tions only by hav­ing be­come sub­ject to ex­pe­ri­en­tial qual­i­fi­ca­tions of uni­ver­sal func­tion. In at­tain­ing ca­pac­ity for ex­pe­ri­ence, the fi­nite God also be­comes sub­ject to the ne­ces­sity there­for; in achiev­ing lib­er­a­tion from eter­nity, the Al­mighty en­coun­ters the bar­ri­ers of time; and the Su­preme could only know growth and de­vel­op­ment as a con­se­quence of par­tial­ity of ex­is­tence and in­com­plete­ness of na­ture, non­ab­so­lute­ness of be­ing.

• occurs because › of creature-Creator partnership

116:0.3Ex­pe­ri­en­tial growth im­plies crea­ture-Cre­ator part­ner­ship—God and man in as­so­ci­a­tion. Growth is the ear­mark of ex­pe­ri­en­tial De­ity: Ha­vona did not grow; Ha­vona is and al­ways has been; it is ex­is­ten­tial like the ev­er­last­ing Gods who are its source. But growth char­ac­ter­izes the grand uni­verse.

117:2.1The Su­preme is God-in-time; his is the se­cret of crea­ture growth in time; his also is the con­quest of the in­com­plete pres­ent and the con­sum­ma­tion of the per­fect­ing fu­ture. And the fi­nal fruits of all fi­nite growth are: power con­trolled through mind by spirit by virtue of the uni­fy­ing and cre­ative pres­ence of per­son­al­ity. The cul­mi­nat­ing con­se­quence of all this growth is the Su­preme Be­ing.

• finite growth › terminates with completion of Supreme
• nature of growth › augmentation of status

117:2.2To mor­tal man, ex­is­tence is equiv­a­lent to growth. And so in­deed it would seem to be, even in the larger uni­verse sense, for spirit-led ex­is­tence does seem to re­sult in ex­pe­ri­en­tial growth—aug­men­ta­tion of sta­tus. We have long held, how­ever, that the pres­ent growth which char­ac­ter­izes crea­ture ex­is­tence in the pres­ent uni­verse age is a func­tion of the Su­preme. We equally hold that this kind of growth is pe­cu­liar to the age of the growth of the Su­preme, and that it will ter­mi­nate with the com­ple­tion of the growth of the Su­preme.

117:2.3Con­sider the sta­tus of the crea­ture-trin­i­tized sons: They are born and live in the pres­ent uni­verse age; they have per­son­al­i­ties, to­gether with mind and spirit en­dow­ments. They have ex­pe­ri­ences and the mem­ory thereof, but they do not grow as do as­cend­ers. It is our be­lief and un­der­stand­ing that these crea­ture-trin­i­tized sons, while they are in the pres­ent uni­verse age, are re­ally of the next uni­verse age—the age which will fol­low the com­ple­tion of the growth of the Su­preme. Hence they are not in the Su­preme as of his pres­ent sta­tus of in­com­plete­ness and con­se­quent growth. Thus they are non­par­tic­i­pat­ing in the ex­pe­ri­en­tial growth of the pres­ent uni­verse age, be­ing held in re­serve for the next uni­verse age.

117:2.4My own or­der, the Mighty Mes­sen­gers, be­ing Trin­ity em­braced, are non­par­tic­i­pat­ing in the growth of the pres­ent uni­verse age. In a sense we are in sta­tus as of the pre­ced­ing uni­verse age as in fact are the Sta­tion­ary Sons of the Trin­ity. One thing is cer­tain: Our sta­tus is fixed by the Trin­ity em­brace, and ex­pe­ri­ence no longer even­tu­ates in growth.

117:2.5This is not true of the fi­nal­i­ters nor of any other of the evo­lu­tion­ary and ex­pe­ri­en­tial or­ders which are par­tic­i­pants in the growth pro­cess of the Su­preme. You mor­tals now liv­ing on Uran­tia who may as­pire to Par­a­dise at­tain­ment and fi­nal­i­ter sta­tus should un­der­stand that such a des­tiny is only re­al­iz­able be­cause you are in and of the Su­preme, hence are par­tic­i­pants in the cy­cle of the growth of the Su­preme.

117:2.6There will come an end some­time to the growth of the Su­preme; his sta­tus will achieve com­ple­tion (in the en­ergy-spirit sense). This ter­mi­na­tion of the evo­lu­tion of the Su­preme will also wit­ness the end­ing of crea­ture evo­lu­tion as a part of Su­prem­acy. What kind of growth may char­ac­ter­ize the uni­verses of outer space, we do not know. But we are very sure that it will be some­thing very dif­fer­ent from any­thing that has been seen in the pres­ent age of the evo­lu­tion of the seven super­uni­verses. It will un­doubt­edly be the func­tion of the evo­lu­tion­ary cit­i­zens of the grand uni­verse to com­pen­sate the outer-spac­ers for this de­pri­va­tion of the growth of Su­prem­acy.

117:2.7As ex­is­tent upon the con­sum­ma­tion of the pres­ent uni­verse age, the Su­preme Be­ing will func­tion as an ex­pe­ri­en­tial sov­er­eign in the grand uni­verse. Outer-spac­ers—cit­i­zens of the next uni­verse age—will have a post­super­uni­verse growth po­ten­tial, a ca­pac­ity for evo­lu­tion­ary at­tain­ment pre­sup­pos­ing the sov­er­eignty of the Al­mighty Su­preme, hence ex­clud­ing crea­ture par­tic­i­pa­tion in the power-per­son­al­ity syn­the­sis of the pres­ent uni­verse age.

117:2.8Thus may the in­com­plete­ness of the Su­preme be re­garded as a virtue since it makes pos­si­ble the evo­lu­tion­ary growth of the crea­ture-cre­ation of the pres­ent uni­verses. Empti­ness does have its virtue, for it may be­come ex­pe­ri­en­tially filled.

117:2.9One of the most in­trigu­ing ques­tions in fi­nite phi­los­o­phy is this: Does the Su­preme Be­ing ac­tu­al­ize in re­sponse to the evo­lu­tion of the grand uni­verse, or does this fi­nite cos­mos pro­gres­sively evolve in re­sponse to the grad­ual ac­tu­al­iza­tion of the Su­preme? Or is it pos­si­ble that they are mu­tu­ally in­ter­de­pen­dent for their de­vel­op­ment? that they are evo­lu­tion­ary re­cip­ro­cals, each ini­ti­at­ing the growth of the other? Of this we are cer­tain: Crea­tures and uni­verses, high and low, are evolv­ing within the Su­preme, and as they evolve, there is ap­pear­ing the uni­fied sum­ma­tion of the en­tire fi­nite ac­tiv­ity of this uni­verse age. And this is the ap­pear­ance of the Su­preme Be­ing, to all per­son­al­i­ties the evo­lu­tion of the al­mighty power of God the Su­preme.

• finite growth › fullness of evolution will exhaust capacity for

117:5.14The evolv­ing Su­preme will even­tu­ally com­pen­sate fi­nite crea­tures for their in­abil­ity ever to achieve more than lim­ited ex­pe­ri­ence con­tact with the uni­verse of uni­verses. Crea­tures can at­tain the Par­a­dise Fa­ther, but their evo­lu­tion­ary minds, be­ing fi­nite, are in­ca­pable of re­ally un­der­stand­ing the in­fi­nite and ab­so­lute Fa­ther. But since all crea­ture ex­pe­ri­enc­ing reg­is­ters in, and is a part of, the Su­preme, when all crea­tures at­tain the fi­nal level of fi­nite ex­is­tence, and af­ter to­tal uni­verse de­vel­op­ment makes pos­si­ble their at­tain­ment of God the Su­preme as an ac­tual di­vin­ity pres­ence, then, in­her­ent in the fact of such con­tact, is con­tact with to­tal ex­pe­ri­ence. The fi­nite of time con­tains within it­self the seeds of eter­nity; and we are taught that, when the full­ness of evo­lu­tion wit­nesses the ex­haus­tion of the ca­pac­ity for cos­mic growth, the to­tal fi­nite will em­bark upon the ab­so­nite phases of the eter­nal ca­reer in quest of the Fa­ther as Ul­ti­mate.

• nature of growth › punctuated by transient 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.

• nature of growth › punctuated by transient 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.