morontia temple

40:3.1Al­though de­prived of the im­me­di­ate ben­e­fits of the plan­e­tary be­stowals of the de­scend­ing Sons of God, though the Par­a­dise as­cent is long de­ferred, nev­er­the­less, soon af­ter an evo­lu­tion­ary planet has at­tained the in­ter­me­di­ate epochs of light and life (if not be­fore), both groups of mid­way crea­tures are re­leased from plan­e­tary duty. Some­times the ma­jor­ity of them are trans­lated, along with their hu­man cousins, on the day of the de­scent of the tem­ple of light and the el­e­va­tion of the Plan­e­tary Prince to the dig­nity of Plan­e­tary Sov­er­eign. Upon be­ing re­lieved of plan­e­tary ser­vice, both or­ders are reg­is­tered in the lo­cal uni­verse as as­cend­ing Sons of God and im­me­di­ately be­gin the long Par­a­dise as­cent by the very routes or­dained for the pro­gres­sion of the mor­tal races of the ma­te­rial worlds. The pri­mary group are des­tined to var­i­ous fi­nal­i­ter corps, but the sec­ondary or Adamic mid­way­ers are all routed for en­roll­ment in the Mor­tal Corps of Fi­nal­ity.

55:1.1The pres­ence of a mor­ontia tem­ple at the cap­i­tal of an in­hab­ited world is the cer­tifi­cate of the ad­mis­sion of such a sphere to the set­tled ages of light and life. Be­fore the Teacher Sons leave a world at the con­clu­sion of their ter­mi­nal mis­sion, they in­au­gu­rate this fi­nal epoch of evo­lu­tion­ary at­tain­ment; they pre­side on that day when the “holy tem­ple comes down upon earth.” This event, sig­nal­iz­ing the dawn of the era of light and life, is al­ways hon­ored by the per­sonal pres­ence of the Par­a­dise be­stowal Son of that planet, who comes to wit­ness this great day. There in this tem­ple of un­par­al­leled beauty, this be­stowal Son of Par­a­dise pro­claims the long-time Plan­e­tary Prince as the new Plan­e­tary Sov­er­eign and in­vests such a faith­ful La­non­an­dek Son with new pow­ers and ex­tended au­thor­ity over plan­e­tary af­fairs. The Sys­tem Sov­er­eign is also pres­ent and speaks in con­fir­ma­tion of these pro­nounce­ments.

55:1.2A mor­ontia tem­ple has three parts: Cen­ter­most is the sanc­tu­ary of the Par­a­dise be­stowal Son. On the right is the seat of the for­mer Plan­e­tary Prince, now Plan­e­tary Sov­er­eign; and when pres­ent in the tem­ple, this La­non­an­dek Son is vis­i­ble to the more spir­i­tual in­di­vid­u­als of the realm. On the left is the seat of the act­ing chief of fi­nal­i­ters at­tached to the planet.

55:1.3Al­though the plan­e­tary tem­ples have been spo­ken of as “com­ing down from heaven,” in re­al­ity no ac­tual ma­te­rial is trans­ported from the sys­tem head­quar­ters. The ar­chi­tec­ture of each is worked out in minia­ture on the sys­tem cap­i­tal, and the Mor­ontia Power Super­vi­sors sub­se­quently bring these ap­proved plans to the planet. Here, in as­so­ci­a­tion with the Mas­ter Phys­i­cal Con­trol­lers, they pro­ceed to build the mor­ontia tem­ple ac­cord­ing to spec­i­fi­ca­tions.

55:1.4The av­er­age mor­ontia tem­ple seats about three hun­dred thou­sand spec­ta­tors. These ed­i­fices are not used for wor­ship, play, or for re­ceiv­ing broad­casts; they are de­voted to the spe­cial cer­e­monies of the planet, such as: com­mu­ni­ca­tions with the Sys­tem Sov­er­eign or with the Most Highs, spe­cial vi­su­al­iza­tion cer­e­monies de­signed to re­veal the per­son­al­ity pres­ence of spirit be­ings, and silent cos­mic con­tem­pla­tion. The schools of cos­mic phi­los­o­phy here con­duct their grad­u­a­tion ex­er­cises, and here also do the mor­tals of the realm re­ceive plan­e­tary rec­og­ni­tion for achieve­ments of high so­cial ser­vice and for other out­stand­ing at­tain­ments.

55:1.5Such a mor­ontia tem­ple also serves as the place of as­sem­bly for wit­ness­ing the trans­la­tion of liv­ing mor­tals to the mor­ontia ex­is­tence. It is be­cause the trans­la­tion tem­ple is com­posed of mor­ontia ma­te­rial that it is not de­stroyed by the blaz­ing glory of the con­sum­ing fire which so com­pletely oblit­er­ates the phys­i­cal bod­ies of those mor­tals who therein ex­pe­ri­ence fi­nal fu­sion with their di­vine Ad­justers. On a large world these de­par­ture flares are al­most con­tin­u­ous, and as the num­ber of trans­la­tions in­creases, sub­sidiary mor­ontia life shrines are pro­vided in dif­fer­ent ar­eas of the planet. Not long since I so­journed on a world in the far north whereon twenty-five mor­ontia shrines were func­tion­ing.

55:1.6On pre­set­tled worlds, plan­ets with­out mor­ontia tem­ples, these fu­sion flashes many times oc­cur in the plan­e­tary at­mo­sphere, where the ma­te­rial body of a trans­la­tion can­di­date is el­e­vated by the mid­way crea­tures and the phys­i­cal con­trol­lers.

55:6.6We ob­serve that on these highly evolved and long sev­enth-stage worlds hu­man be­ings fully learn the lo­cal uni­verse lan­guage be­fore they are trans­lated; and I have vis­ited a few very old plan­ets where aban­don­ters were teach­ing the older mor­tals the tongue of the super­uni­verse. And on these worlds I have ob­served the tech­nique whereby the ab­so­nite per­son­al­i­ties re­veal the pres­ence of the fi­nal­i­ters in the mor­ontia tem­ple.

55:7.2To out­ward and vis­i­ble ap­pear­ances the ac­tual rulers, or di­rec­tors, of such a world set­tled in light and life are the Ma­te­rial Son and Daugh­ter, the Plan­e­tary Adam and Eve. The fi­nal­i­ters are in­vis­i­ble, as also is the Prince-Sov­er­eign ex­cept when in the mor­ontia tem­ple. The ac­tual and lit­eral heads of the plan­e­tary regime are there­fore the Ma­te­rial Son and Daugh­ter. It is the knowl­edge of these ar­range­ments that has given pres­tige to the idea of kings and queens through­out the uni­verse realms. And kings and queens are a great suc­cess un­der these ideal cir­cum­stances, when a world can com­mand such high per­son­al­i­ties to act in be­half of still higher but in­vis­i­ble rulers.

55:4.1In the suc­ces­sive stages of set­tled ex­is­tence the in­hab­ited worlds make mar­velous prog­ress un­der the wise and sym­pa­thetic ad­min­is­tra­tion of the vol­un­teer Corps of the Fi­nal­ity, as­cend­ers of Par­a­dise at­tain­ment who have come back to min­is­ter to their breth­ren in the flesh. These fi­nal­i­ters are ac­tive in co-op­er­a­tion with the Trin­ity Teacher Sons, but they do not be­gin their real par­tic­i­pa­tion in world af­fairs un­til the mor­ontia tem­ple ap­pears on earth.

55:4.2Upon the for­mal in­au­gu­ra­tion of the plan­e­tary min­istry of the Corps of the Fi­nal­ity, the ma­jor­ity of the ce­les­tial hosts with­draw. But the se­raphic guard­i­ans of des­tiny con­tinue their per­sonal min­istry to the pro­gress­ing mor­tals in light; in­deed such an­gels come in ever-in­creas­ing num­bers through­out the set­tled ages since larger and larger groups of hu­man be­ings reach the third cos­mic cir­cle of co-or­di­nate mor­tal at­tain­ment dur­ing the plan­e­tary life span.

55:4.14In each suc­ceed­ing age of set­tled ex­is­tence the fi­nal­i­ters func­tion in ever-in­creas­ing ca­pac­i­ties. There ex­ists a close work­ing con­nec­tion be­tween the fi­nal­i­ters, the Evening Stars (the super­an­gels), and the Trin­ity Teacher Sons.

55:3.8On this world the high­est honor con­ferred upon a cit­i­zen was the or­der of “su­preme ser­vice,” be­ing the only de­gree of rec­og­ni­tion ever to be granted in the mor­ontia tem­ple. This rec­og­ni­tion was be­stowed upon those who had long dis­tin­guished them­selves in some phase of super­ma­te­rial dis­cov­ery or plan­e­tary so­cial ser­vice.

55:2.3Far­ther along in the era of light and life the mid­way crea­tures or their as­so­ciates sense the ap­proach­ing sta­tus of prob­a­ble soul-Ad­juster union and sig­nify this to the des­tiny guard­i­ans, who in turn com­mu­ni­cate these mat­ters to the fi­nal­i­ter group un­der whose ju­ris­dic­tion this mor­tal may be func­tion­ing; then there is is­sued the sum­mons of the Plan­e­tary Sov­er­eign for such a mor­tal to re­sign all plan­e­tary du­ties, bid farewell to the world of his ori­gin, and re­pair to the in­ner tem­ple of the Plan­e­tary Sov­er­eign, there to await mor­ontia tran­sit, the trans­la­tion flash, from the ma­te­rial do­main of evo­lu­tion to the mor­ontia level of pre­spirit pro­gres­sion.

55:2.4When the fam­ily, friends, and work­ing group of such a fu­sion can­di­date have for­gath­ered in the mor­ontia tem­ple, they are dis­tributed around the cen­tral stage whereon the fu­sion can­di­dates are rest­ing, mean­time freely con­vers­ing with their as­sem­bled friends. A cir­cle of in­ter­ven­ing ce­les­tial per­son­al­i­ties is ar­ranged to pro­tect the ma­te­rial mor­tals from the ac­tion of the en­er­gies man­i­fest at the in­stant of the “life flash” which de­liv­ers the as­cen­sion can­di­date from the bonds of ma­te­rial flesh, thereby do­ing for such an evo­lu­tion­ary mor­tal ev­ery­thing that nat­u­ral death does for those who are thereby de­liv­ered from the flesh.

55:2.5Many fu­sion can­di­dates may be as­sem­bled in the spa­cious tem­ple at the same time. And what a beau­ti­ful oc­ca­sion when mor­tals thus for­gather to wit­ness the as­cen­sion of their loved ones in spir­i­tual flames, and what a con­trast to those ear­lier ages when mor­tals must com­mit their dead to the em­brace of the ter­res­trial el­e­ments! The scenes of weep­ing and wail­ing char­ac­ter­is­tic of ear­lier epochs of hu­man evo­lu­tion are now re­placed by ec­static joy and the sub­limest en­thu­si­asm as these God-know­ing mor­tals bid their loved ones a tran­sient farewell as they are re­moved from their ma­te­rial as­so­ci­a­tions by the spir­i­tual fires of con­sum­ing grandeur and as­cend­ing glory. On worlds set­tled in light and life, “fu­ner­als” are oc­ca­sions of su­preme joy, pro­found sat­is­fac­tion, and in­ex­press­ible hope.

55:7.1This epoch ex­tends from the ap­pear­ance of the mor­ontia tem­ple at the new plan­e­tary head­quar­ters to the time of the set­tling of the en­tire sys­tem in light and life. This age is in­au­gu­rated by the Trin­ity Teacher Sons at the close of their suc­ces­sive world mis­sions when the Plan­e­tary Prince is el­e­vated to the sta­tus of Plan­e­tary Sov­er­eign by the man­date and per­sonal pres­ence of the Par­a­dise be­stowal Son of that sphere. Con­comi­tant there­with the fi­nal­i­ters in­au­gu­rate their ac­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion in plan­e­tary af­fairs.