perfection

0:1.19When we at­tempt to con­ceive of per­fec­tion in all phases and forms of rel­a­tiv­ity, we en­counter seven con­ceiv­able types:

0:1.201. Ab­so­lute per­fec­tion in all as­pects.

0:1.212. Ab­so­lute per­fec­tion in some phases and rel­a­tive per­fec­tion in all other as­pects.

0:1.223. Ab­so­lute, rel­a­tive, and im­per­fect as­pects in var­ied as­so­ci­a­tion.

0:1.234. Ab­so­lute per­fec­tion in some re­spects, im­per­fec­tion in all oth­ers.

0:1.245. Ab­so­lute per­fec­tion in no di­rec­tion, rel­a­tive per­fec­tion in all man­i­fes­ta­tions.

0:1.256. Ab­so­lute per­fec­tion in no phase, rel­a­tive in some, im­per­fect in oth­ers.

0:1.267. Ab­so­lute per­fec­tion in no at­tri­bute, im­per­fec­tion in all.

29:2.122. Ha­vona Cen­ters. Be­fore the cre­ation of the uni­verses of time and space, power cen­ters were not re­quired in Ha­vona, but ever since these far-dis­tant times, one mil­lion have func­tioned in the cen­tral cre­ation, each cen­ter hav­ing the super­vi­sion of a thou­sand Ha­vona worlds. Here in the di­vine uni­verse there is per­fec­tion of en­ergy con­trol, a con­di­tion not ex­ist­ing else­where. Per­fec­tion of en­ergy reg­u­la­tion is the ul­ti­mate goal of all the power cen­ters and the phys­i­cal con­trol­lers of space.

65:6.2There is orig­i­nal en­dow­ment of adap­ta­tion in liv­ing things and be­ings. In ev­ery liv­ing plant or an­i­mal cell, in ev­ery liv­ing or­gan­ism—ma­te­rial or spir­i­tual—there is an in­sa­tiable crav­ing for the at­tain­ment of ever-in­creas­ing per­fec­tion of en­vi­ron­men­tal ad­just­ment, or­gan­is­mal adap­ta­tion, and aug­mented life re­al­iza­tion. These in­ter­minable ef­forts of all liv­ing things ev­i­dence the ex­is­tence within them of an in­nate striv­ing for per­fec­tion.

140:4.11Ev­ery mor­tal re­ally craves to be a com­plete per­son, to be per­fect even as the Fa­ther in heaven is per­fect, and such at­tain­ment is pos­si­ble be­cause in the last anal­y­sis the “uni­verse is truly fa­therly.”

• Father’s supreme invitation-command

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.

1:0.4This mag­nif­i­cent and uni­ver­sal in­junc­tion to strive for the at­tain­ment of the per­fec­tion of di­vin­ity is the first duty, and should be the high­est am­bi­tion, of all the strug­gling crea­ture cre­ation of the God of per­fec­tion. This pos­si­bil­ity of the at­tain­ment of di­vine per­fec­tion is the fi­nal and cer­tain des­tiny of all man’s eter­nal spir­i­tual prog­ress.

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.

1:0.6This is the true mean­ing of that di­vine com­mand, “Be you per­fect, even as I am per­fect,” which ever urges mor­tal man on­ward and beck­ons him in­ward in that long and fas­ci­nat­ing strug­gle for the at­tain­ment of higher and higher lev­els of spir­i­tual val­ues and true uni­verse mean­ings. This sub­lime search for the God of uni­verses is the su­preme ad­ven­ture of the in­hab­i­tants of all the worlds of time and space.

• (in spirit) now in doing Father’s will

1:3.6In the uni­verses God the Fa­ther is, in po­ten­tial, the over­con­trol­ler of mat­ter, mind, and spirit. Only by means of his far-flung per­son­al­ity cir­cuit does God deal di­rectly with the per­son­al­i­ties of his vast cre­ation of will crea­tures, but he is con­tactable (out­side of Par­a­dise) only in the pres­ences of his frag­mented en­ti­ties, the will of God abroad in the uni­verses. This Par­a­dise spirit that in­dwells the minds of the mor­tals of time and there fos­ters the evo­lu­tion of the im­mor­tal soul of the sur­viv­ing crea­ture is of the na­ture and di­vin­ity of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. But the minds of such evo­lu­tion­ary crea­tures orig­i­nate in the lo­cal uni­verses and must gain di­vine per­fec­tion by achiev­ing those ex­pe­ri­en­tial trans­for­ma­tions of spir­i­tual at­tain­ment which are the in­ev­i­ta­ble re­sult of a crea­ture’s choos­ing to do the will of the Fa­ther in heaven.

7:4.1The Eter­nal Son is in ev­er­last­ing li­ai­son with the Fa­ther in the suc­cess­ful pros­e­cu­tion of the di­vine plan of prog­ress: the uni­ver­sal plan for the cre­ation, evo­lu­tion, as­cen­sion, and per­fec­tion of will crea­tures. And, in di­vine faith­ful­ness, the Son is the eter­nal equal of the Fa­ther.

7:4.2The Fa­ther and his Son are as one in the for­mu­la­tion and pros­e­cu­tion of this gi­gan­tic at­tain­ment plan for ad­vanc­ing the ma­te­rial be­ings of time to the per­fec­tion of eter­nity. This project for the spir­i­tual el­e­va­tion of the as­cen­dant souls of space is a joint cre­ation of the Fa­ther and the Son, and they are, with the co-op­er­a­tion of the In­fi­nite Spirit, en­gaged in as­so­cia­tive ex­e­cu­tion of their di­vine pur­pose.

7:4.3This di­vine plan of per­fec­tion at­tain­ment em­braces three unique, though mar­velously cor­re­lated, en­ter­prises of uni­ver­sal ad­ven­ture:

7:4.41. The Plan of Pro­gres­sive At­tain­ment. This is the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther’s plan of evo­lu­tion­ary as­cen­sion, a pro­gram un­re­servedly ac­cepted by the Eter­nal Son when he con­curred in the Fa­ther’s pro­posal, “Let us make mor­tal crea­tures in our own im­age.” This pro­vi­sion for up­step­ping the crea­tures of time in­volves the Fa­ther’s be­stowal of the Thought Ad­justers and the en­dow­ing of ma­te­rial crea­tures with the pre­rog­a­tives of per­son­al­ity.

7:4.52. The Be­stowal Plan. The next uni­ver­sal plan is the great Fa­ther-rev­e­la­tion en­ter­prise of the Eter­nal Son and his co-or­di­nate Sons. This is the pro­posal of the Eter­nal Son and con­sists of his be­stowal of the Sons of God upon the evo­lu­tion­ary cre­ations, there to per­son­al­ize and fac­tu­al­ize, to in­car­nate and make real, the love of the Fa­ther and the mercy of the Son to the crea­tures of all uni­verses. In­her­ent in the be­stowal plan, and as a pro­vi­sional fea­ture of this min­is­tra­tion of love, the Par­a­dise Sons act as re­ha­bil­i­ta­tors of that which mis­guided crea­ture will has placed in spir­i­tual jeop­ardy. When­ever and wher­ever there oc­curs a de­lay in the func­tion­ing of the at­tain­ment plan, if re­bel­lion, per­chance, should mar or com­pli­cate this en­ter­prise, then do the emer­gency pro­vi­sions of the be­stowal plan be­come ac­tive forth­with. The Par­a­dise Sons stand pledged and ready to func­tion as re­triev­ers, to go into the very realms of re­bel­lion and there re­store the spir­i­tual sta­tus of the spheres. And such a heroic ser­vice a co-or­di­nate Cre­ator Son did per­form on Uran­tia in con­nec­tion with his ex­pe­ri­en­tial be­stowal ca­reer of sov­er­eignty ac­quire­ment.

7:4.63. The Plan of Mercy Min­istry. When the at­tain­ment plan and the be­stowal plan had been for­mu­lated and pro­claimed, alone and of him­self, the In­fi­nite Spirit pro­jected and put in op­er­a­tion the tremen­dous and uni­ver­sal en­ter­prise of mercy min­istry. This is the ser­vice so es­sen­tial to the prac­ti­cal and ef­fec­tive op­er­a­tion of both the at­tain­ment and the be­stowal un­der­tak­ings, and the spir­i­tual per­son­al­i­ties of the Third Source and Cen­ter all par­take of the spirit of mercy min­istry which is so much a part of the na­ture of the Third Per­son of De­ity. Not only in cre­ation but also in ad­min­is­tra­tion, the In­fi­nite Spirit func­tions truly and lit­er­ally as the con­joint ex­ec­u­tive of the Fa­ther and the Son.

• Father’s supreme invitation-command

7:4.7The Eter­nal Son is the per­sonal trus­tee, the di­vine cus­to­dian, of the Fa­ther’s uni­ver­sal plan of crea­ture as­cen­sion. Hav­ing pro­mul­gated the uni­ver­sal man­date, “Be you per­fect, even as I am per­fect,” the Fa­ther in­trusted the ex­e­cu­tion of this tremen­dous un­der­tak­ing to the Eter­nal Son; and the Eter­nal Son shares the fos­ter­ing of this su­per­nal en­ter­prise with his di­vine co-or­di­nate, the In­fi­nite Spirit. Thus do the De­i­ties ef­fec­tively co-op­er­ate in the work of cre­ation, con­trol, evo­lu­tion, rev­e­la­tion, and min­is­tra­tion—and if re­quired, in restora­tion and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion.

• Father’s supreme invitation-command

7:5.1The Eter­nal Son with­out reser­va­tion joined with the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther in broad­cast­ing that tremen­dous in­junc­tion to all cre­ation: “Be you per­fect, even as your Fa­ther in Ha­vona is per­fect.” And ever since, that in­vi­ta­tion-com­mand has mo­ti­vated all the sur­vival plans and the be­stowal projects of the Eter­nal Son and his vast fam­ily of co-or­di­nate and as­so­ci­ated Sons. And in these very be­stowals the Sons of God have be­come to all evo­lu­tion­ary crea­tures “the way, the truth, and the life.”

• Father’s supreme invitation-command

9:5.6Mind, on Uran­tia, is a com­pro­mise be­tween the essence of thought per­fec­tion and the evolv­ing men­tal­ity of your im­ma­ture hu­man na­ture. The plan for your in­tel­lec­tual evo­lu­tion is, in­deed, one of sub­lime per­fec­tion, but you are far short of that di­vine goal as you func­tion in the taber­na­cles of the flesh. Mind is truly of di­vine ori­gin, and it does have a di­vine des­tiny, but your mor­tal minds are not yet of di­vine dig­nity.

• Father’s supreme invitation-command

13:2.8These ren­dezvous worlds of spirit life are for­bid­den ground to the ex­tent that we are asked not to ne­go­ti­ate en­trance to those phases of these spheres which are wholly out­side our realms of ex­pe­ri­ence. You may be­come crea­ture per­fect even as the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is de­ity per­fect, but you may not know all the ex­pe­ri­en­tial se­crets of all other or­ders of uni­verse per­son­al­i­ties. When the Cre­ator has an ex­pe­ri­en­tial per­son­al­ity se­cret with his crea­ture, the Cre­ator pre­serves that se­cret in eter­nal con­fi­dence.

• Father’s supreme invitation-command

26:4.12The pil­grim lands on the re­ceiv­ing planet of Ha­vona, the pi­lot world of the sev­enth cir­cuit, with only one en­dow­ment of per­fec­tion, per­fec­tion of pur­pose. The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther has de­creed: “Be you per­fect, even as I am per­fect.” That is the as­tound­ing in­vi­ta­tion-com­mand broad­cast to the fi­nite chil­dren of the worlds of space. The pro­mul­ga­tion of that in­junc­tion has set all cre­ation astir in the co-op­er­a­tive ef­fort of the ce­les­tial be­ings to as­sist in bring­ing about the ful­fill­ment and re­al­iza­tion of that tremen­dous com­mand of the First Great Source and Cen­ter.

• Father’s supreme invitation-command
• on 3rd circuit of Havona

26:9.3The test of time is al­most over; the race for eter­nity has been all but run. The days of un­cer­tainty are end­ing; the temp­ta­tion to doubt is van­ish­ing; the in­junc­tion to be per­fect has been obeyed. From the very bot­tom of in­tel­li­gent ex­is­tence the crea­ture of time and ma­te­rial per­son­al­ity has as­cended the evo­lu­tion­ary spheres of space, thus prov­ing the fea­si­bil­ity of the as­cen­sion plan while for­ever demon­strat­ing the jus­tice and righ­teous­ness of the com­mand of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther to his lowly crea­tures of the worlds: “Be you per­fect, even as I am per­fect.”

26:9.4Step by step, life by life, world by world, the as­cen­dant ca­reer has been mas­tered, and the goal of De­ity has been at­tained. Sur­vival is com­plete in per­fec­tion, and per­fec­tion is re­plete in the su­prem­acy of di­vin­ity. Time is lost in eter­nity; space is swal­lowed up in wor­ship­ful iden­tity and har­mony with the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. The broad­casts of Ha­vona flash forth the space re­ports of glory, the good news that in very truth the con­sci­en­tious crea­tures of an­i­mal na­ture and ma­te­rial ori­gin have, through evo­lu­tion­ary as­cen­sion, be­come in re­al­ity and eter­nally the per­fected sons of God.

• Father’s supreme invitation-command

26:11.4Mor­tals have re­ceived the Par­a­dise com­mand: “Be you per­fect, even as your Par­a­dise Fa­ther is per­fect.” To these trin­i­tized sons of the con­joint corps the super­vis­ing super­na­phim never cease to pro­claim: “Be you un­der­stand­ing of your as­cen­dant breth­ren, even as the Par­a­dise Cre­ator Sons know and love them.”

• progressive, except in Havona

32:3.3Ex­cept in the cen­tral uni­verse, per­fec­tion is a pro­gres­sive at­tain­ment. In the cen­tral cre­ation we have a pat­tern of per­fec­tion, but all other realms must at­tain that per­fec­tion by the meth­ods es­tab­lished for the ad­vance­ment of those par­tic­u­lar worlds or uni­verses. And an al­most in­fi­nite va­ri­ety char­ac­ter­izes the plans of the Cre­ator Sons for or­ga­niz­ing, evolv­ing, dis­ci­plin­ing, and set­tling their re­spec­tive lo­cal uni­verses.

• by grace and individual effort

32:3.9The per­fec­tion of the crea­tures of time, when fi­nally achieved, is wholly an ac­quire­ment, a bona fide per­son­al­ity pos­ses­sion. While the el­e­ments of grace are freely ad­mixed, nev­er­the­less, the crea­ture at­tain­ments are the re­sult of in­di­vid­ual ef­fort and ac­tual liv­ing, per­son­al­ity re­ac­tion to the ex­ist­ing en­vi­ron­ment.

• Father’s supreme invitation-command

37:5.3Not be­ing Ad­juster fused, they never be­come fi­nal­i­ters, but they do even­tu­ally be­come en­rolled in the lo­cal uni­verse Corps of Per­fec­tion. They have in spirit obeyed the Fa­ther’s com­mand, “Be you per­fect.”

• Father’s supreme invitation-command

40:7.4These are the mor­tals who have been com­manded by the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, “Be you per­fect, even as I am per­fect.” The Fa­ther has be­stowed him­self upon you, placed his own spirit within you; there­fore does he de­mand ul­ti­mate per­fec­tion of you. The nar­ra­tive of hu­man as­cent from the mor­tal spheres of time to the di­vine realms of eter­nity con­sti­tutes an in­trigu­ing recital not in­cluded in my as­sign­ment, but this su­per­nal ad­ven­ture should be the su­preme study of mor­tal man.

• every facility and all power provided to insure

40:10.14As mor­tals you can now rec­og­nize your place in the fam­ily of di­vine son­ship and be­gin to sense the obli­ga­tion to avail your­selves of the ad­van­tages so freely pro­vided in and by the Par­a­dise plan for mor­tal sur­vival, which plan has been so en­hanced and il­lu­mi­nated by the life ex­pe­ri­ence of a be­stowal Son. Ev­ery fa­cil­ity and all power have been pro­vided for in­sur­ing your ul­ti­mate at­tain­ment of the Par­a­dise goal of di­vine per­fec­tion.

• divine plan for

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.

• Father’s supreme invitation-command

56:0.1God is unity. De­ity is uni­ver­sally co-or­di­nated. The uni­verse of uni­verses is one vast in­te­grated mech­a­nism which is ab­so­lutely con­trolled by one in­fi­nite mind. The phys­i­cal, in­tel­lec­tual, and spir­i­tual do­mains of uni­ver­sal cre­ation are di­vinely cor­re­lated. The per­fect and im­per­fect are truly in­ter­re­lated, and there­fore may the fi­nite evo­lu­tion­ary crea­ture as­cend to Par­a­dise in obe­di­ence to the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther’s man­date: “Be you per­fect, even as I am per­fect.”

• by fusion of creature mind with some fragment of pre-Trinity spirit

56:3.5Per­fected crea­ture ex­is­tence can be at­tained, sus­tained, and eter­nal­ized by the fu­sion of self-con­scious mind with a frag­ment of the pre-Trin­ity spirit en­dow­ment of some one of the per­sons of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity. The mor­tal mind is the cre­ation of the Sons and Daugh­ters of the Eter­nal Son and the In­fi­nite Spirit and, when fused with the Thought Ad­juster from the Fa­ther, par­takes of the three­fold spirit en­dow­ment of the evo­lu­tion­ary realms. But these three spirit ex­pres­sions be­come per­fectly uni­fied in the fi­nal­i­ters, even as they were in eter­nity so uni­fied in the Uni­ver­sal I AM ere he ever be­came the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther of the Eter­nal Son and the In­fi­nite Spirit.

• Father’s supreme invitation-command

94:3.1While the high­est phase of Brah­man­ism was hardly a re­li­gion, it was truly one of the most no­ble reaches of the mor­tal mind into the do­mains of phi­los­o­phy and meta­physics. Hav­ing started out to dis­cover fi­nal re­al­ity, the In­dian mind did not stop un­til it had spec­u­lated about al­most ev­ery phase of the­ol­ogy ex­cept­ing the es­sen­tial dual con­cept of re­li­gion: the ex­is­tence of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther of all uni­verse crea­tures and the fact of the as­cend­ing ex­pe­ri­ence in the uni­verse of these very crea­tures as they seek to at­tain the eter­nal Fa­ther, who has com­manded them to be per­fect, even as he is per­fect.

• Father’s supreme invitation-command

99:5.3The re­li­gion of Je­sus is the most dy­namic in­flu­ence ever to ac­ti­vate the hu­man race. Je­sus shat­tered tra­di­tion, de­stroyed dogma, and called man­kind to the achieve­ment of its high­est ide­als in time and eter­nity—to be per­fect, even as the Fa­ther in heaven is per­fect.

• all perfecting finites eventually attain p.

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.)

• Father’s supreme invitation-command

107:0.3God, hav­ing com­manded man to be per­fect, even as he is per­fect, has de­scended as the Ad­juster to be­come man’s ex­pe­ri­en­tial part­ner in the achieve­ment of the su­per­nal des­tiny which has been thus or­dained. The frag­ment of God which in­dwells the mind of man is the ab­so­lute and un­qual­i­fied as­sur­ance that man can find the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther in as­so­ci­a­tion with this di­vine Ad­juster, which came forth from God to find man and son­ship him even in the days of the flesh.

• imitation of God is key to

111:5.2The im­i­ta­tion of God is the key to per­fec­tion; the do­ing of his will is the se­cret of sur­vival and of per­fec­tion in sur­vival.

• (in spirit) now in doing Father’s will

111:5.4Peace in this life, sur­vival in death, per­fec­tion in the next life, ser­vice in eter­nity—all these are achieved (in spirit) now when the crea­ture per­son­al­ity con­sents—chooses—to sub­ject the crea­ture will to the Fa­ther’s will. And al­ready has the Fa­ther cho­sen to make a frag­ment of him­self sub­ject to the will of the crea­ture per­son­al­ity.

• creature and Creator collaborate in

117:1.4The will of the Cre­ator and the will of the crea­ture are qual­i­ta­tively dif­fer­ent, but they are also ex­pe­ri­en­tially akin, for crea­ture and Cre­ator can col­lab­o­rate in the achieve­ment of uni­verse per­fec­tion. Man can work in li­ai­son with God and thereby cocre­ate an eter­nal fi­nal­i­ter. God can work even as hu­man­ity in the in­car­na­tions of his Sons, who thereby achieve the su­prem­acy of crea­ture ex­pe­ri­ence.

• not by passivity

117:4.7Man­kind does not as­cend ef­fort­lessly in the uni­verse, nei­ther does the Su­preme evolve with­out pur­pose­ful and in­tel­li­gent ac­tion. Crea­tures do not at­tain per­fec­tion by mere pas­siv­ity, nor can the spirit of Su­prem­acy fac­tu­al­ize the power of the Al­mighty with­out un­ceas­ing ser­vice min­istry to the fi­nite cre­ation.

• Father’s supreme invitation-command

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

• Father’s supreme invitation-command

137:8.13“And this king­dom which I de­clare to you is not a reign of power and plenty. The king­dom of heaven is not a mat­ter of meat and drink but rather a life of pro­gres­sive righ­teous­ness and in­creas­ing joy in the per­fect­ing ser­vice of my Fa­ther who is in heaven. For has not the Fa­ther said of his chil­dren of the world, ‘It is my will that they should even­tu­ally be per­fect, even as I am per­fect.’

• Father’s supreme invitation-command

140:3.16“Your Fa­ther in heaven makes the sun to shine on the evil as well as upon the good; like­wise he sends rain on the just and the un­just. You are the sons of God; even more, you are now the am­bas­sadors of my Fa­ther’s king­dom. Be mer­ci­ful, even as God is mer­ci­ful, and in the eter­nal fu­ture of the king­dom you shall be per­fect, even as your heav­enly Fa­ther is per­fect.

• Father’s supreme invitation-command

140:5.15And then Je­sus went on to in­struct his fol­low­ers in the re­al­iza­tion of the chief pur­pose of all hu­man strug­gling—per­fec­tion—even di­vine at­tain­ment. Al­ways he ad­mon­ished them: “Be you per­fect, even as your Fa­ther in heaven is per­fect.” He did not ex­hort the twelve to love their neigh­bors as they loved them­selves. That would have been a wor­thy achieve­ment; it would have in­di­cated the achieve­ment of broth­erly love. He rather ad­mon­ished his apos­tles to love men as he had loved them—to love with a fa­therly as well as a broth­erly af­fec­tion. And he il­lus­trated this by point­ing out four su­preme re­ac­tions of fa­therly love:

• Father’s supreme invitation-command

140:8.32The Mas­ter came to cre­ate in man a new spirit, a new will—to im­part a new ca­pac­ity for know­ing the truth, ex­pe­ri­enc­ing com­pas­sion, and choos­ing good­ness—the will to be in har­mony with God’s will, cou­pled with the eter­nal urge to be­come per­fect, even as the Fa­ther in heaven is per­fect.

• Father’s supreme invitation-command

140:10.1That evening while teach­ing in the house, for it had be­gun to rain, Je­sus talked at great length, try­ing to show the twelve what they must be, not what they must do. They knew only a re­li­gion that im­posed the do­ing of cer­tain things as the means of at­tain­ing righ­teous­ness—sal­va­tion. But Je­sus would re­it­er­ate, “In the king­dom you must be righ­teous in or­der to do the work.” Many times did he re­peat, “Be you there­fore per­fect, even as your Fa­ther in heaven is per­fect.” All the while was the Mas­ter ex­plain­ing to his be­wil­dered apos­tles that the sal­va­tion which he had come to bring to the world was to be had only by be­liev­ing, by sim­ple and sin­cere faith. Said Je­sus: “John preached a bap­tism of re­pen­tance, sor­row for the old way of liv­ing. You are to pro­claim the bap­tism of fel­low­ship with God. Preach re­pen­tance to those who stand in need of such teach­ing, but to those al­ready seek­ing sin­cere en­trance to the king­dom, open the doors wide and bid them en­ter into the joy­ous fel­low­ship of the sons of God.” But it was a dif­fi­cult task to per­suade these Galilean fish­er­men that, in the king­dom, be­ing righ­teous, by faith, must pre­cede do­ing righ­teous­ness in the daily life of the mor­tals of earth.

• believers destined to achieve p. in Jesus

142:7.15Je­sus is a di­vine Son, one in the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther’s full con­fi­dence. He had been with the Fa­ther and com­pre­hended him fully. He had now lived his earth life to the full sat­is­fac­tion of the Fa­ther, and this in­car­na­tion in the flesh had en­abled him fully to com­pre­hend man. Je­sus was the per­fec­tion of man; he had at­tained just such per­fec­tion as all true be­liev­ers are des­tined to at­tain in him and through him. Je­sus re­vealed a God of per­fec­tion to man and pre­sented in him­self the per­fected son of the realms to God.

• Father’s supreme invitation-command

143:2.6“Sal­va­tion is by the re­gen­er­a­tion of the spirit and not by the self-righ­teous deeds of the flesh. You are jus­ti­fied by faith and fel­low­shipped by grace, not by fear and the self-de­nial of the flesh, al­beit the Fa­ther’s chil­dren who have been born of the spirit are ever and al­ways mas­ters of the self and all that per­tains to the de­sires of the flesh. When you know that you are saved by faith, you have real peace with God. And all who fol­low in the way of this heav­enly peace are des­tined to be sanc­ti­fied to the eter­nal ser­vice of the ever-ad­vanc­ing sons of the eter­nal God. Hence­forth, it is not a duty but rather your ex­alted priv­i­lege to cleanse your­selves from all evils of mind and body while you seek for per­fec­tion in the love of God.

• dependent on faith, love, desire to be like God

156:5.7Force­ful am­bi­tion, in­tel­li­gent judg­ment, and sea­soned wis­dom are the es­sen­tials of ma­te­rial suc­cess. Lead­er­ship is de­pen­dent on nat­u­ral abil­ity, dis­cre­tion, will power, and de­ter­mi­na­tion. Spir­i­tual des­tiny is de­pen­dent on faith, love, and de­vo­tion to truth—hunger and thirst for righ­teous­ness—the whole­hearted de­sire to find God and to be like him.

• Father’s supreme invitation-command

161:1.105. That God must be a per­son­al­ity since he is the Cre­ator of all per­son­al­ity and the des­tiny of all per­son­al­ity. Ro­dan had been tremen­dously in­flu­enced by the teach­ing of Je­sus, “Be you there­fore per­fect, even as your Fa­ther in heaven is per­fect.”

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

• Father’s supreme invitation-command

181:2.25And then the Mas­ter, turn­ing to all of them, said: “Be not dis­mayed that you fail to grasp the full mean­ing of the gospel. You are but fi­nite, mor­tal men, and that which I have taught you is in­fi­nite, di­vine, and eter­nal. Be pa­tient and of good cour­age since you have the eter­nal ages be­fore you in which to con­tinue your pro­gres­sive at­tain­ment of the ex­pe­ri­ence of be­com­ing per­fect, even as your Fa­ther in Par­a­dise is per­fect.”

32:3.12In the uni­verses en­cir­cling Ha­vona there are pro­vided only a suf­fi­cient num­ber of per­fect crea­tures to meet the need for pat­tern teacher guides for those who are as­cend­ing the evo­lu­tion­ary scale of life. The ex­pe­ri­en­tial na­ture of the evo­lu­tion­ary type of per­son­al­ity is the nat­u­ral cos­mic com­ple­ment of the ever-per­fect na­tures of the Par­a­dise-Ha­vona crea­tures. In re­al­ity, both per­fect and per­fected crea­tures are in­com­plete as re­gards fi­nite to­tal­ity. But in the com­ple­men­tal as­so­ci­a­tion of the ex­is­ten­tially per­fect crea­tures of the Par­a­dise-Ha­vona sys­tem with the ex­pe­ri­en­tially per­fected fi­nal­i­ters as­cend­ing from the evo­lu­tion­ary uni­verses, both types find re­lease from in­her­ent lim­i­ta­tions and thus may con­jointly at­tempt to reach the sub­lime heights of the ul­ti­mate of crea­ture sta­tus.

32:3.13These crea­ture trans­ac­tions are the uni­verse reper­cus­sions of ac­tions and re­ac­tions within the Sev­en­fold De­ity, wherein the eter­nal di­vin­ity of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity is con­joined with the evolv­ing di­vin­ity of the Su­preme Cre­ators of the time-space uni­verses in, by, and through the power-ac­tu­al­iz­ing De­ity of the Su­preme Be­ing.

32:3.14The di­vinely per­fect crea­ture and the evo­lu­tion­ary per­fected crea­ture are equal in de­gree of di­vin­ity po­ten­tial, but they dif­fer in kind. Each must de­pend on the other to at­tain su­prem­acy of ser­vice. The evo­lu­tion­ary super­uni­verses de­pend on per­fect Ha­vona to pro­vide the fi­nal train­ing for their as­cend­ing cit­i­zens, but so does the per­fect cen­tral uni­verse re­quire the ex­is­tence of the per­fect­ing super­uni­verses to pro­vide for the full de­vel­op­ment of its de­scend­ing in­hab­i­tants.

32:3.15The two prime man­i­fes­ta­tions of fi­nite re­al­ity, in­nate per­fec­tion and evolved per­fec­tion, be they per­son­al­i­ties or uni­verses, are co-or­di­nate, de­pen­dent, and in­te­grated. Each re­quires the other to achieve com­ple­tion of func­tion, ser­vice, and des­tiny.

4:2.7The ap­par­ent de­fects of the nat­u­ral world are not in­dica­tive of any such cor­re­spond­ing de­fects in the char­ac­ter of God. Rather are such ob­served im­per­fec­tions merely the in­ev­i­ta­ble stop-mo­ments in the ex­hi­bi­tion of the ever-mov­ing reel of in­fin­ity pic­tur­iza­tion. It is these very de­fect-in­ter­rup­tions of per­fec­tion-con­ti­nu­ity which make it pos­si­ble for the fi­nite mind of ma­te­rial man to catch a fleet­ing glimpse of di­vine re­al­ity in time and space. The ma­te­rial man­i­fes­ta­tions of di­vin­ity ap­pear de­fec­tive to the evo­lu­tion­ary mind of man only be­cause mor­tal man per­sists in view­ing the phe­nom­ena of na­ture through nat­u­ral eyes, hu­man vi­sion un­aided by mor­ontia mota or by rev­e­la­tion, its com­pen­satory sub­sti­tute on the worlds of time.

2:2.1Even your olden proph­ets un­der­stood the eter­nal, never-be­gin­ning, never-end­ing, cir­cu­lar na­ture of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. God is lit­er­ally and eter­nally pres­ent in his uni­verse of uni­verses. He in­hab­its the pres­ent mo­ment with all his ab­so­lute majesty and eter­nal great­ness. “The Fa­ther has life in him­self, and this life is eter­nal life.” Through­out the eter­nal ages it has been the Fa­ther who “gives to all life.” There is in­fi­nite per­fec­tion in the di­vine in­tegrity. “I am the Lord; I change not.” Our knowl­edge of the uni­verse of uni­verses dis­closes not only that he is the Fa­ther of lights, but also that in his con­duct of in­ter­plan­e­tary af­fairs there “is no vari­able­ness nei­ther shadow of chang­ing.” He “de­clares the end from the be­gin­ning.” He says: “My coun­sel shall stand; I will do all my plea­sures” “ac­cord­ing to the eter­nal pur­pose which I pur­posed in my Son.” Thus are the plans and pur­poses of the First Source and Cen­ter like him­self: eter­nal, per­fect, and for­ever change­less.

2:2.2There is fi­nal­ity of com­plete­ness and per­fec­tion of re­plete­ness in the man­dates of the Fa­ther. “What­so­ever God does, it shall be for­ever; noth­ing can be added to it nor any­thing taken from it.” The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther does not re­pent of his orig­i­nal pur­poses of wis­dom and per­fec­tion. His plans are stead­fast, his coun­sel im­mutable, while his acts are di­vine and in­fal­li­ble. “A thou­sand years in his sight are but as yes­ter­day when it is past and as a watch in the night.” The per­fec­tion of di­vin­ity and the mag­ni­tude of eter­nity are for­ever be­yond the full grasp of the cir­cum­scribed mind of mor­tal man.

2:2.3The re­ac­tions of a change­less God, in the ex­e­cu­tion of his eter­nal pur­pose, may seem to vary in ac­cor­dance with the chang­ing at­ti­tude and the shift­ing minds of his cre­ated in­tel­li­gences; that is, they may ap­par­ently and su­per­fi­cially vary; but un­der­neath the sur­face and be­neath all out­ward man­i­fes­ta­tions, there is still pres­ent the change­less pur­pose, the ev­er­last­ing plan, of the eter­nal God.

2:2.4Out in the uni­verses, per­fec­tion must nec­es­sar­ily be a rel­a­tive term, but in the cen­tral uni­verse and es­pe­cially on Par­a­dise, per­fec­tion is undi­luted; in cer­tain phases it is even ab­so­lute. Trin­ity man­i­fes­ta­tions vary the ex­hi­bi­tion of the di­vine per­fec­tion but do not at­ten­u­ate it.

2:2.5God’s pri­mal per­fec­tion con­sists not in an as­sumed righ­teous­ness but rather in the in­her­ent per­fec­tion of the good­ness of his di­vine na­ture. He is fi­nal, com­plete, and per­fect. There is no thing lack­ing in the beauty and per­fec­tion of his righ­teous char­ac­ter. And the whole scheme of liv­ing ex­is­tences on the worlds of space is cen­tered in the di­vine pur­pose of el­e­vat­ing all will crea­tures to the high des­tiny of the ex­pe­ri­ence of shar­ing the Fa­ther’s Par­a­dise per­fec­tion. God is nei­ther self-cen­tered nor self-con­tained; he never ceases to be­stow him­self upon all self-con­scious crea­tures of the vast uni­verse of uni­verses.

2:2.6God is eter­nally and in­finitely per­fect, he can­not per­son­ally know im­per­fec­tion as his own ex­pe­ri­ence, but he does share the con­scious­ness of all the ex­pe­ri­ence of im­per­fect­ness of all the strug­gling crea­tures of the evo­lu­tion­ary uni­verses of all the Par­a­dise Cre­ator Sons. The per­sonal and lib­er­at­ing touch of the God of per­fec­tion over­shad­ows the hearts and en­cir­cuits the na­tures of all those mor­tal crea­tures who have as­cended to the uni­verse level of moral dis­cern­ment. In this man­ner, as well as through the con­tacts of the di­vine pres­ence, the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther ac­tu­ally par­tic­i­pates in the ex­pe­ri­ence with im­ma­tu­rity and im­per­fec­tion in the evolv­ing ca­reer of ev­ery moral be­ing of the en­tire uni­verse.

2:2.7Hu­man lim­i­ta­tions, po­ten­tial evil, are not a part of the di­vine na­ture, but mor­tal ex­pe­ri­ence with evil and all man’s re­la­tions thereto are most cer­tainly a part of God’s ever-ex­pand­ing self-re­al­iza­tion in the chil­dren of time—crea­tures of moral re­spon­si­bil­ity who have been cre­ated or evolved by ev­ery Cre­ator Son go­ing out from Par­a­dise.

31:3.62. The mor­tal fi­nal­i­ters have fully com­plied with the in­junc­tion of the ages, “Be you per­fect”; they have as­cended the uni­ver­sal path of mor­tal at­tain­ment; they have found God, and they have been duly in­ducted into the Corps of the Fi­nal­ity. Such be­ings have at­tained the pres­ent limit of spirit pro­gres­sion but not fi­nal­ity of ul­ti­mate spirit sta­tus. They have achieved the pres­ent limit of crea­ture per­fec­tion but not fi­nal­ity of crea­ture ser­vice. They have ex­pe­ri­enced the full­ness of De­ity wor­ship but not fi­nal­ity of ex­pe­ri­en­tial De­ity at­tain­ment.

• is desire to know God and be like him

100:2.1Spir­i­tual de­vel­op­ment de­pends, first, on the main­te­nance of a liv­ing spir­i­tual con­nec­tion with true spir­i­tual forces and, sec­ond, on the con­tin­u­ous bear­ing of spir­i­tual fruit: yield­ing the min­istry to one’s fel­lows of that which has been re­ceived from one’s spir­i­tual bene­fac­tors. Spir­i­tual prog­ress is pred­i­cated on in­tel­lec­tual rec­og­ni­tion of spir­i­tual pov­erty cou­pled with the self-con­scious­ness of per­fec­tion-hunger, the de­sire to know God and be like him, the whole­hearted pur­pose to do the will of the Fa­ther in heaven.

• aroused by Adjuster

101:2.14Your deep­est na­ture—the di­vine Ad­juster—cre­ates within you a hunger and thirst for righ­teous­ness, a cer­tain crav­ing for di­vine per­fec­tion. Re­li­gion is the faith act of the rec­og­ni­tion of this in­ner urge to di­vine at­tain­ment; and thus is brought about that soul trust and as­sur­ance of which you be­come con­scious as the way of sal­va­tion, the tech­nique of the sur­vival of per­son­al­ity and all those val­ues which you have come to look upon as be­ing true and good.

• required for comprehending faith

102:1.1The work of the Thought Ad­juster con­sti­tutes the ex­pla­na­tion of the trans­la­tion of man’s prim­i­tive and evo­lu­tion­ary sense of duty into that higher and more cer­tain faith in the eter­nal re­al­i­ties of rev­e­la­tion. There must be per­fec­tion hunger in man’s heart to in­sure ca­pac­ity for com­pre­hend­ing the faith paths to su­preme at­tain­ment. If any man chooses to do the di­vine will, he shall know the way of truth. It is lit­er­ally true, “Hu­man things must be known in or­der to be loved, but di­vine things must be loved in or­der to be known.” But hon­est doubts and sin­cere ques­tion­ings are not sin; such at­ti­tudes merely spell de­lay in the pro­gres­sive jour­ney to­ward per­fec­tion at­tain­ment. Child­like trust se­cures man’s en­trance into the king­dom of heav­enly as­cent, but prog­ress is wholly de­pen­dent on the vig­or­ous ex­er­cise of the ro­bust and con­fi­dent faith of the full-grown man.

• aroused by Adjuster

102:1.6The in­dwelling Thought Ad­juster un­fail­ingly arouses in man’s soul a true and search­ing hunger for per­fec­tion to­gether with a far-reach­ing cu­rios­ity which can be ad­e­quately sat­is­fied only by com­mu­nion with God, the di­vine source of that Ad­juster. The hun­gry soul of man re­fuses to be sat­is­fied with any­thing less than the per­sonal re­al­iza­tion of the liv­ing God. What­ever more God may be than a high and per­fect moral per­son­al­ity, he can­not, in our hun­gry and fi­nite con­cept, be any­thing less.

75:8.6All in all, there prob­a­bly never was a more dis­heart­en­ing mis­car­riage of wis­dom on any planet in all Neb­a­don. But it is not sur­pris­ing that these mis­steps oc­cur in the af­fairs of the evo­lu­tion­ary uni­verses. We are a part of a gi­gan­tic cre­ation, and it is not strange that ev­ery­thing does not work in per­fec­tion; our uni­verse was not cre­ated in per­fec­tion. Per­fec­tion is our eter­nal goal, not our ori­gin.

26:4.13When, through and by the min­istry of all the helper hosts of the uni­ver­sal scheme of sur­vival, you are fi­nally de­posited on the re­ceiv­ing world of Ha­vona, you ar­rive with only one sort of per­fec­tion—per­fec­tion of pur­pose. Your pur­pose has been thor­oughly proved; your faith has been tested. You are known to be dis­ap­point­ment proof. Not even the fail­ure to dis­cern the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther can shake the faith or se­ri­ously dis­turb the trust of an as­cen­dant mor­tal who has passed through the ex­pe­ri­ence that all must tra­verse in or­der to at­tain the per­fect spheres of Ha­vona. By the time you reach Ha­vona, your sin­cer­ity has be­come sub­lime. Per­fec­tion of pur­pose and di­vin­ity of de­sire, with stead­fast­ness of faith, have se­cured your en­trance to the set­tled abodes of eter­nity; your de­liv­er­ance from the un­cer­tain­ties of time is full and com­plete; and now must you come face to face with the prob­lems of Ha­vona and the im­men­si­ties of Par­a­dise, to meet which you have so long been in train­ing in the ex­pe­ri­en­tial epochs of time on the world schools of space.

132:3.10Uni­verse prog­ress is char­ac­ter­ized by in­creas­ing per­son­al­ity free­dom be­cause it is as­so­ci­ated with the pro­gres­sive at­tain­ment of higher and higher lev­els of self-un­der­stand­ing and con­se­quent vol­un­tary self-re­straint. The at­tain­ment of per­fec­tion of spir­i­tual self-re­straint equals com­plete­ness of uni­verse free­dom and per­sonal lib­erty. Faith fos­ters and main­tains man’s soul in the midst of the con­fu­sion of his early ori­en­ta­tion in such a vast uni­verse, whereas prayer be­comes the great uni­fier of the var­i­ous in­spi­ra­tions of the cre­ative imag­i­na­tion and the faith urges of a soul try­ing to iden­tify it­self with the spirit ide­als of the in­dwelling and as­so­ci­ated di­vine pres­ence.

116:5.12The time uni­verses are not per­fect; that is their des­tiny. The strug­gle for per­fec­tion per­tains not only to the in­tel­lec­tual and the spir­i­tual lev­els but also to the phys­i­cal level of en­ergy and mass. The set­tle­ment of the seven super­uni­verses in light and life pre­sup­poses their at­tain­ment of phys­i­cal sta­bil­ity. And it is con­jec­tured that the fi­nal at­tain­ment of ma­te­rial equi­lib­rium will sig­nify the com­pleted evo­lu­tion of the phys­i­cal con­trol of the Al­mighty.