self

112:2.1It would be help­ful in the study of self­hood to re­mem­ber:

112:2.21. That phys­i­cal sys­tems are sub­or­di­nate.

112:2.32. That in­tel­lec­tual sys­tems are co-or­di­nate.

112:2.43. That per­son­al­ity is super­or­di­nate.

112:2.54. That the in­dwelling spir­i­tual force is po­ten­tially di­rec­tive.

112:2.6In all con­cepts of self­hood it should be rec­og­nized that the fact of life comes first, its eval­u­a­tion or in­ter­pre­ta­tion later. The hu­man child first lives and sub­se­quently thinks about his liv­ing. In the cos­mic econ­omy in­sight pre­cedes fore­sight.

112:2.7The uni­verse fact of God’s be­com­ing man has for­ever changed all mean­ings and al­tered all val­ues of hu­man per­son­al­ity. In the true mean­ing of the word, love con­notes mu­tual re­gard of whole per­son­al­i­ties, whether hu­man or di­vine or hu­man and di­vine. Parts of the self may func­tion in nu­mer­ous ways—think­ing, feel­ing, wish­ing—but only the co-or­di­nated at­tri­butes of the whole per­son­al­ity are fo­cused in in­tel­li­gent ac­tion; and all of these pow­ers are as­so­ci­ated with the spir­i­tual en­dow­ment of the mor­tal mind when a hu­man be­ing sin­cerely and un­selfishly loves an­other be­ing, hu­man or di­vine.

112:2.8All mor­tal con­cepts of re­al­ity are based on the as­sump­tion of the ac­tu­al­ity of hu­man per­son­al­ity; all con­cepts of super­hu­man re­al­i­ties are based on the ex­pe­ri­ence of the hu­man per­son­al­ity with and in the cos­mic re­al­i­ties of cer­tain as­so­ci­ated spir­i­tual en­ti­ties and di­vine per­son­al­i­ties. Ev­ery­thing non­spir­i­tual in hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence, ex­cept­ing per­son­al­ity, is a means to an end. Ev­ery true re­la­tion­ship of mor­tal man with other per­sons—hu­man or di­vine—is an end in it­self. And such fel­low­ship with the per­son­al­ity of De­ity is the eter­nal goal of uni­verse as­cen­sion.

112:2.9The pos­ses­sion of per­son­al­ity iden­ti­fies man as a spir­i­tual be­ing since the unity of self­hood and the self-con­scious­ness of per­son­al­ity are en­dow­ments of the super­ma­te­rial world. The very fact that a mor­tal ma­te­ri­al­ist can deny the ex­is­tence of super­ma­te­rial re­al­i­ties in and of it­self demon­strates the pres­ence, and in­di­cates the work­ing, of spirit syn­the­sis and cos­mic con­scious­ness in his hu­man mind.

112:2.10There ex­ists a great cos­mic gulf be­tween mat­ter and thought, and this gulf is im­mea­sur­ably greater be­tween ma­te­rial mind and spir­i­tual love. Con­scious­ness, much less self-con­scious­ness, can­not be ex­plained by any the­ory of mech­a­nis­tic elec­tronic as­so­ci­a­tion or ma­te­ri­al­is­tic en­ergy phe­nom­ena.

112:2.11As mind pur­sues re­al­ity to its ul­ti­mate anal­y­sis, mat­ter van­ishes to the ma­te­rial senses but may still re­main real to mind. When spir­i­tual in­sight pur­sues that re­al­ity which re­mains af­ter the dis­ap­pear­ance of mat­ter and pur­sues it to an ul­ti­mate anal­y­sis, it van­ishes to mind, but the in­sight of spirit can still per­ceive cos­mic re­al­i­ties and su­preme val­ues of a spir­i­tual na­ture. Ac­cord­ingly does sci­ence give way to phi­los­o­phy, while phi­los­o­phy must sur­ren­der to the con­clu­sions in­her­ent in gen­uine spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence. Think­ing sur­ren­ders to wis­dom, and wis­dom is lost in en­light­ened and re­flec­tive wor­ship.

112:2.12In sci­ence the hu­man self ob­serves the ma­te­rial world; phi­los­o­phy is the ob­ser­va­tion of this ob­ser­va­tion of the ma­te­rial world; re­li­gion, true spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence, is the ex­pe­ri­en­tial re­al­iza­tion of the cos­mic re­al­ity of the ob­ser­va­tion of the ob­ser­va­tion of all this rel­a­tive syn­the­sis of the en­ergy ma­te­ri­als of time and space. To build a phi­los­o­phy of the uni­verse on an ex­clu­sive ma­te­ri­al­ism is to ig­nore the fact that all things ma­te­rial are ini­tially con­ceived as real in the ex­pe­ri­ence of hu­man con­scious­ness. The ob­server can­not be the thing ob­served; eval­u­a­tion de­mands some de­gree of tran­scen­dence of the thing which is eval­u­ated.

112:2.13In time, think­ing leads to wis­dom and wis­dom leads to wor­ship; in eter­nity, wor­ship leads to wis­dom, and wis­dom even­tu­ates in the fi­nal­ity of thought.

112:2.14The pos­si­bil­ity of the uni­fi­ca­tion of the evolv­ing self is in­her­ent in the qual­i­ties of its con­sti­tu­tive fac­tors: the ba­sic en­er­gies, the mas­ter tis­sues, the fun­da­men­tal chem­i­cal over­con­trol, the su­preme ideas, the su­preme mo­tives, the su­preme goals, and the di­vine spirit of Par­a­dise be­stowal—the se­cret of the self-con­scious­ness of man’s spir­i­tual na­ture.

112:2.15The pur­pose of cos­mic evo­lu­tion is to achieve unity of per­son­al­ity through in­creas­ing spirit dom­i­nance, vo­li­tional re­sponse to the teach­ing and lead­ing of the Thought Ad­juster. Per­son­al­ity, both hu­man and super­hu­man, is char­ac­ter­ized by an in­her­ent cos­mic qual­ity which may be called “the evo­lu­tion of dom­i­nance,” the ex­pan­sion of the con­trol of both it­self and its en­vi­ron­ment.

112:2.16An as­cend­ing one­time hu­man per­son­al­ity passes through two great phases of in­creas­ing vo­li­tional dom­i­nance over the self and in the uni­verse:

112:2.171. The pre­fi­naliter or God-seek­ing ex­pe­ri­ence of aug­ment­ing the self-re­al­iza­tion through a tech­nique of iden­tity ex­pan­sion and ac­tu­al­iza­tion to­gether with cos­mic prob­lem solv­ing and con­se­quent uni­verse mas­tery.

112:2.182. The post­fi­naliter or God-re­veal­ing ex­pe­ri­ence of the cre­ative ex­pan­sion of self-re­al­iza­tion through re­veal­ing the Su­preme Be­ing of ex­pe­ri­ence to the God-seek­ing in­tel­li­gences who have not yet at­tained the di­vine lev­els of God­like­ness.

112:2.19De­scend­ing per­son­al­i­ties at­tain anal­o­gous ex­pe­ri­ences through their var­i­ous uni­verse ad­ven­tures as they seek for en­larged ca­pac­ity for as­cer­tain­ing and ex­e­cut­ing the di­vine wills of the Su­preme, Ul­ti­mate, and Ab­so­lute De­i­ties.

112:2.20The ma­te­rial self, the ego-en­tity of hu­man iden­tity, is de­pen­dent dur­ing the phys­i­cal life on the con­tin­u­ing func­tion of the ma­te­rial life ve­hi­cle, on the con­tin­ued ex­is­tence of the un­bal­anced equi­lib­rium of en­er­gies and in­tel­lect which, on Uran­tia, has been given the name life. But self­hood of sur­vival value, self­hood that can tran­scend the ex­pe­ri­ence of death, is only evolved by es­tab­lish­ing a po­ten­tial trans­fer of the seat of the iden­tity of the evolv­ing per­son­al­ity from the tran­sient life ve­hi­cle—the ma­te­rial body—to the more en­dur­ing and im­mor­tal na­ture of the mor­ontia soul and on be­yond to those lev­els whereon the soul be­comes in­fused with, and even­tu­ally at­tains the sta­tus of, spirit re­al­ity. This ac­tual trans­fer from ma­te­rial as­so­ci­a­tion to mor­ontia iden­ti­fi­ca­tion is ef­fected by the sin­cer­ity, per­sis­tence, and stead­fast­ness of the God-seek­ing de­ci­sions of the hu­man crea­ture.

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.

101:6.135. Sal­va­tion from self, de­liv­er­ance from the lim­i­ta­tions of self-con­scious­ness through the at­tain­ment of the cos­mic lev­els of the Su­preme Mind and by co-or­di­na­tion with the at­tain­ments of all other self-con­scious be­ings.

48:4.14All Sa­ta­nia, dur­ing times of play, those times when its in­hab­i­tants re­fresh­ingly res­ur­rect the mem­o­ries of a lower stage of ex­is­tence, is ed­i­fied by the pleas­ant hu­mor of a corps of re­ver­sion di­rec­tors from Uran­tia. The sense of ce­les­tial hu­mor we have with us al­ways, even when en­gaged in the most dif­fi­cult of as­sign­ments. It helps to avoid an overde­vel­op­ment of the no­tion of one’s self-im­por­tance. But we do not give rein to it freely, as you might say, “have fun,” ex­cept when we are in re­cess from the se­ri­ous as­sign­ments of our re­spec­tive or­ders.

48:4.15When we are tempted to mag­nify our self-im­por­tance, if we stop to con­tem­plate the in­fin­ity of the great­ness and grandeur of our Mak­ers, our own self-glo­ri­fi­ca­tion be­comes sub­limely ridicu­lous, even verg­ing on the hu­mor­ous. One of the func­tions of hu­mor is to help all of us take our­selves less se­ri­ously. Hu­mor is the di­vine an­ti­dote for ex­al­ta­tion of ego.

103:2.10Man tends to iden­tify the urge to be self-serv­ing with his ego—him­self. In con­trast he is in­clined to iden­tify the will to be al­tru­is­tic with some in­flu­ence out­side him­self—God. And in­deed is such a judg­ment right, for all such non­self de­sires do ac­tu­ally have their ori­gin in the lead­ings of the in­dwelling Thought Ad­juster, and this Ad­juster is a frag­ment of God. The im­pulse of the spirit Mon­i­tor is re­al­ized in hu­man con­scious­ness as the urge to be al­tru­is­tic, fel­low-crea­ture minded. At least this is the early and fun­da­men­tal ex­pe­ri­ence of the child mind. When the grow­ing child fails of per­son­al­ity uni­fi­ca­tion, the al­tru­is­tic drive may be­come so overde­vel­oped as to work se­ri­ous in­jury to the wel­fare of the self. A mis­guided con­science can be­come re­spon­si­ble for much con­flict, worry, sor­row, and no end of hu­man un­hap­pi­ness.

• incessant clamoring of inescapable s. for honor

3:5.138. Is un­selfish­ness—the spirit of self-for­get­ful­ness—de­sir­able? Then must mor­tal man live face to face with the in­ces­sant clam­or­ing of an in­escapable self for recog­ni­tion and honor. Man could not dy­nam­i­cally choose the di­vine life if there were no self-life to for­sake. Man could never lay sav­ing hold on right­eous­ness if there were no po­ten­tial evil to ex­alt and dif­fer­en­ti­ate the good by con­trast.

• has personality and temporal identity

5:6.6Ca­pac­ity for di­vine per­son­al­ity is in­her­ent in the preper­sonal Ad­juster; ca­pac­ity for hu­man per­son­al­ity is po­ten­tial in the cos­mic-mind en­dow­ment of the hu­man be­ing. But the ex­pe­ri­en­tial per­son­al­ity of mor­tal man is not ob­serv­able as an ac­tive and func­tional re­al­ity un­til af­ter the ma­te­rial life ve­hi­cle of the mor­tal crea­ture has been touched by the lib­er­at­ing di­vin­ity of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, be­ing thus launched upon the seas of ex­pe­ri­ence as a self-con­scious and a (rel­a­tively) self-de­ter­mi­na­tive and self-cre­ative per­son­al­ity. The ma­te­rial self is truly and un­qual­i­fiedly per­sonal.

5:6.7The ma­te­rial self has per­son­al­ity and iden­tity, tem­po­ral iden­tity; the preper­sonal spirit Ad­juster also has iden­tity, eter­nal iden­tity. This ma­te­rial per­son­al­ity and this spirit preper­son­al­ity are ca­pa­ble of so unit­ing their cre­ative at­tri­butes as to bring into ex­is­tence the sur­viv­ing iden­tity of the im­mor­tal soul.

• selfhood resides in material mind circuits during mortal life

111:3.2Dur­ing the life in the flesh the evolv­ing soul is en­abled to re­in­force the super­ma­te­rial de­ci­sions of the mor­tal mind. The soul, be­ing super­ma­te­rial, does not of it­self func­tion on the ma­te­rial level of hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence. Nei­ther can this sub­spir­i­tual soul, with­out the col­lab­o­ra­tion of some spirit of De­ity, such as the Ad­juster, func­tion above the mor­ontia level. Nei­ther does the soul make fi­nal de­ci­sions un­til death or trans­la­tion di­vorces it from ma­te­rial as­so­ci­a­tion with the mor­tal mind ex­cept when and as this ma­te­rial mind del­e­gates such au­thor­ity freely and will­ingly to such a mor­ontia soul of as­so­ci­ated func­tion. Dur­ing life the mor­tal will, the per­son­al­ity power of de­ci­sion-choice, is res­i­dent in the ma­te­rial mind cir­cuits; as ter­res­trial mor­tal growth pro­ceeds, this self, with its price­less pow­ers of choice, be­comes in­creas­ingly iden­ti­fied with the emerg­ing mor­ontia-soul en­tity; af­ter death and fol­low­ing the man­sion world res­ur­rec­tion, the hu­man per­son­al­ity is com­pletely iden­ti­fied with the mor­ontia self. The soul is thus the em­bryo of the fu­ture mor­ontia ve­hi­cle of per­son­al­ity iden­tity.

• summation of parts constitute individuality

112:1.18In the hu­man or­gan­ism the sum­ma­tion of its parts con­sti­tutes self­hood—in­di­vid­u­al­ity—but such a pro­cess has noth­ing what­ever to do with per­son­al­ity, which is the uni­fier of all these fac­tors as re­lated to cos­mic re­al­i­ties.

112:6.1Just as a but­ter­fly emerges from the cater­pil­lar stage, so will the true per­son­al­i­ties of hu­man be­ings emerge on the man­sion worlds, for the first time re­vealed apart from their one­time en­shroud­ment in the ma­te­rial flesh. The mor­ontia ca­reer in the lo­cal uni­verse has to do with the con­tin­ued el­e­va­tion of the per­son­al­ity mech­a­nism from the be­gin­ning mor­ontia level of soul ex­is­tence up to the fi­nal mor­ontia level of pro­gres­sive spir­i­tu­al­ity.

112:6.2It is dif­fi­cult to in­struct you re­gard­ing your mor­ontia per­son­al­ity forms for the lo­cal uni­verse ca­reer. You will be en­dowed with mor­ontia pat­terns of per­son­al­ity man­i­festa­bil­ity, and these are in­vest­ments which, in the last anal­y­sis, are be­yond your com­pre­hen­sion. Such forms, while en­tirely real, are not en­ergy pat­terns of the ma­te­rial or­der which you now un­der­stand. They do, how­ever, serve the same pur­pose on the lo­cal uni­verse worlds as do your ma­te­rial bod­ies on the plan­ets of hu­man na­tiv­ity.

112:6.3To a cer­tain ex­tent, the ap­pear­ance of the ma­te­rial body-form is re­spon­sive to the char­ac­ter of the per­son­al­ity iden­tity; the phys­i­cal body does, to a lim­ited de­gree, re­flect some­thing of the in­her­ent na­ture of the per­son­al­ity. Still more so does the mor­ontia form. In the phys­i­cal life, mor­tals may be out­wardly beau­ti­ful though in­wardly unlovely; in the mor­ontia life, and in­creas­ingly on its higher lev­els, the per­son­al­ity form will vary di­rectly in ac­cor­dance with the na­ture of the in­ner per­son. On the spir­i­tual level, out­ward form and in­ner na­ture be­gin to ap­prox­i­mate com­plete iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, which grows more and more per­fect on higher and higher spirit lev­els.

112:6.4In the mor­ontia es­tate the as­cend­ing mor­tal is en­dowed with the Neb­a­don mod­i­fi­ca­tion of the cos­mic-mind en­dow­ment of the Mas­ter Spirit of Or­von­ton. The mor­tal in­tel­lect, as such, has per­ished, has ceased to ex­ist as a fo­cal­ized uni­verse en­tity apart from the un­dif­fer­en­ti­ated mind cir­cuits of the Cre­ative Spirit. But the mean­ings and val­ues of the mor­tal mind have not per­ished. Cer­tain phases of mind are con­tin­ued in the sur­viv­ing soul; cer­tain ex­pe­ri­en­tial val­ues of the for­mer hu­man mind are held by the Ad­juster; and there per­sist in the lo­cal uni­verse the rec­ords of the hu­man life as it was lived in the flesh, to­gether with cer­tain liv­ing reg­is­tra­tions in the nu­mer­ous be­ings who are con­cerned with the fi­nal eval­u­a­tion of the as­cend­ing mor­tal, be­ings ex­tend­ing in range from ser­a­phim to Uni­ver­sal Cen­sors and prob­a­bly on be­yond to the Su­preme.

112:6.5Crea­ture vo­li­tion can­not ex­ist with­out mind, but it does per­sist in spite of the loss of the ma­te­rial in­tel­lect. Dur­ing the times im­me­di­ately fol­low­ing sur­vival, the as­cend­ing per­son­al­ity is in great mea­sure guided by the char­ac­ter pat­terns in­her­ited from the hu­man life and by the newly ap­pear­ing ac­tion of mor­ontia mota. And these guides to man­so­nia con­duct func­tion ac­cept­ably in the early stages of the mor­ontia life and prior to the emer­gence of mor­ontia will as a full-fledged vo­li­tional ex­pres­sion of the as­cend­ing per­son­al­ity.

112:6.6There are no in­flu­ences in the lo­cal uni­verse ca­reer com­pa­ra­ble to the seven ad­ju­tant mind-spir­its of hu­man ex­is­tence. The mor­ontia mind must evolve by di­rect con­tact with cos­mic mind, as this cos­mic mind has been mod­i­fied and trans­lated by the cre­ative source of lo­cal uni­verse in­tel­lect—the Di­vine Min­is­ter.

112:6.7Mor­tal mind, prior to death, is self-con­sciously in­de­pen­dent of the Ad­juster pres­ence; ad­ju­tant mind needs only the as­so­ci­ated ma­te­rial-en­ergy pat­tern to en­able it to op­er­ate. But the mor­ontia soul, be­ing super­ad­ju­tant, does not re­tain self-con­scious­ness with­out the Ad­juster when de­prived of the ma­te­rial-mind mech­a­nism. This evolv­ing soul does, how­ever, pos­sess a con­tin­u­ing char­ac­ter de­rived from the de­ci­sions of its for­mer as­so­ci­ated ad­ju­tant mind, and this char­ac­ter be­comes ac­tive mem­ory when the pat­terns thereof are en­er­gized by the re­turn­ing Ad­juster.

112:6.8The per­sis­tence of mem­ory is proof of the re­ten­tion of the iden­tity of orig­i­nal self­hood; it is es­sen­tial to com­plete self-con­scious­ness of per­son­al­ity con­ti­nu­ity and ex­pan­sion. Those mor­tals who as­cend with­out Ad­justers are de­pen­dent on the in­struc­tion of se­raphic as­so­ciates for the re­con­struc­tion of hu­man mem­ory; oth­er­wise the mor­ontia souls of the Spirit-fused mor­tals are not lim­ited. The pat­tern of mem­ory per­sists in the soul, but this pat­tern re­quires the pres­ence of the for­mer Ad­juster to be­come im­me­di­ately self-re­al­iz­able as con­tin­u­ing mem­ory. With­out the Ad­juster, it re­quires con­sid­er­able time for the mor­tal sur­vivor to re-ex­plore and re­learn, to re­cap­ture, the mem­ory con­scious­ness of the mean­ings and val­ues of a for­mer ex­is­tence.

• selfhood resides in material mind circuits during mortal life

112:6.9The soul of sur­vival value faith­fully re­flects both the qual­i­ta­tive and the quan­ti­ta­tive ac­tions and mo­ti­va­tions of the ma­te­rial in­tel­lect, the for­mer seat of the iden­tity of self­hood. In the choos­ing of truth, beauty, and good­ness, the mor­tal mind en­ters upon its pre­moron­tia uni­verse ca­reer un­der the tute­lage of the seven ad­ju­tant mind-spir­its uni­fied un­der the di­rec­tion of the spirit of wis­dom. Sub­se­quently, upon the com­ple­tion of the seven cir­cles of pre­moron­tia at­tain­ment, the super­im­po­si­tion of the en­dow­ment of mor­ontia mind upon ad­ju­tant mind ini­ti­ates the prespir­i­tual or mor­ontia ca­reer of lo­cal uni­verse pro­gres­sion.

112:6.10When a crea­ture leaves his na­tive planet, he leaves the ad­ju­tant min­istry be­hind and be­comes solely de­pen­dent on mor­ontia in­tel­lect. When an as­cender leaves the lo­cal uni­verse, he has at­tained the spir­i­tual level of ex­is­tence, hav­ing passed be­yond the mor­ontia level. This newly ap­pear­ing spirit en­tity then be­comes at­tuned to the di­rect min­istry of the cos­mic mind of Or­von­ton.

• selfhood is material on evolutionary worlds

112:7.6On the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds, self­hood is ma­te­rial; it is a thing in the uni­verse and as such is sub­ject to the laws of ma­te­rial ex­is­tence. It is a fact in time and is re­spon­sive to the vi­cis­si­tudes thereof. Sur­vival de­ci­sions must here be for­mu­lated. In the mor­ontia state the self has be­come a new and more en­dur­ing uni­verse re­al­ity, and its con­tin­u­ing growth is pred­i­cated on its in­creas­ing at­tune­ment to the mind and spirit cir­cuits of the uni­verses. Sur­vival de­ci­sions are now be­ing con­firmed. When the self at­tains the spir­i­tual level, it has be­come a se­cure value in the uni­verse, and this new value is pred­i­cated upon the fact that sur­vival de­ci­sions have been made, which fact has been wit­nessed by eter­nal fu­sion with the Thought Ad­juster. And hav­ing achieved the sta­tus of a true uni­verse value, the crea­ture be­comes lib­er­ated in po­ten­tial for the seek­ing of the high­est uni­verse value—God.

• man’s invincible foe

131:6.2“The Lord of Heaven is su­preme. Those who com­mit sin will not as­cend on high, but those who walk in the paths of righ­teous­ness shall find a place in heaven. We are as­sured of the life here­after if we know truth. The soul of man may as­cend to the high­est heaven, there to de­velop its true spir­i­tual na­ture, to at­tain per­fec­tion. The es­tate of heaven de­liv­ers man from the bond­age of sin and in­tro­duces him to the fi­nal beat­i­tudes; the righ­teous man has al­ready ex­pe­ri­enced an end of sin and all its as­so­ci­ated mis­eries. Self is man’s in­vin­ci­ble foe, and self is man­i­fested as man’s four great­est pas­sions: anger, pride, de­ceit, and greed. Man’s great­est vic­tory is the con­quest of him­self. When man looks to God for for­give­ness, and when he makes bold to en­joy such lib­erty, he is thereby de­liv­ered from fear. Man should jour­ney through life treat­ing his fel­low crea­tures as he would like to be treated.”

• Adjuster is our real and better s.

133:7.7Ideas are not sim­ply a rec­ord of sen­sa­tions; ideas are sen­sa­tions plus the re­flec­tive in­ter­pre­ta­tions of the per­sonal self; and the self is more than the sum of one’s sen­sa­tions. There be­gins to be some­thing of an ap­proach to unity in an evolv­ing self­hood, and that unity is de­rived from the in­dwelling pres­ence of a part of ab­so­lute unity which spir­i­tu­ally ac­ti­vates such a self-con­scious an­i­mal-ori­gin mind.

• consciousness sorter and associator

133:7.9Nei­ther is the hu­man self merely the sum of the suc­ces­sive states of con­scious­ness. With­out the ef­fec­tive func­tion­ing of a con­scious­ness sorter and as­so­ci­a­tor there would not ex­ist suf­fi­cient unity to war­rant the des­ig­na­tion of a self­hood. Such an un­uni­fied mind could hardly at­tain con­scious lev­els of hu­man sta­tus. If the as­so­ci­a­tions of con­scious­ness were just an ac­ci­dent, the minds of all men would then ex­hibit the un­con­trolled and ran­dom as­so­ci­a­tions of cer­tain phases of men­tal mad­ness.

• Adjuster is our real and better s.

195:7.5The re­al­i­ties and val­ues of spir­i­tual prog­ress are not a “psy­cho­logic pro­jec­tion”—a mere glo­ri­fied day­dream of the ma­te­rial mind. Such things are the spir­i­tual fore­casts of the in­dwelling Ad­juster, the spirit of God liv­ing in the mind of man. And let not your dab­blings with the faintly glimpsed find­ings of “rel­a­tiv­ity” dis­turb your con­cepts of the eter­nity and in­fin­ity of God. And in all your so­lic­i­ta­tion con­cern­ing the ne­ces­sity for self-ex­pres­sion do not make the mis­take of fail­ing to pro­vide for Ad­juster-ex­pres­sion, the man­i­fes­ta­tion of your real and bet­ter self.

103:5.4But man’s in­ter­pre­ta­tion of these early con­flicts be­tween the ego-will and the other-than-self-will is not al­ways de­pend­able. Only a fairly well uni­fied per­son­al­ity can ar­bi­trate the mul­ti­form con­tentions of the ego crav­ings and the bud­ding so­cial con­scious­ness. The self has rights as well as one’s neigh­bors. Nei­ther has ex­clu­sive claims upon the at­ten­tion and ser­vice of the in­di­vid­ual. Fail­ure to re­solve this prob­lem gives ori­gin to the ear­li­est type of hu­man guilt feel­ings.

103:5.5Hu­man hap­pi­ness is achieved only when the ego de­sire of the self and the al­tru­is­tic urge of the higher self (di­vine spirit) are co-or­di­nated and rec­on­ciled by the uni­fied will of the in­te­grat­ing and super­vis­ing per­son­al­ity. The mind of evo­lu­tion­ary man is ever con­fronted with the in­tri­cate prob­lem of ref­er­ee­ing the con­test be­tween the nat­u­ral ex­pan­sion of emo­tional im­pulses and the moral growth of un­selfish urges pred­i­cated on spir­i­tual in­sight—gen­uine re­li­gious re­flec­tion.

103:5.6The at­tempt to se­cure equal good for the self and for the great­est num­ber of other selves pre­sents a prob­lem which can­not al­ways be sat­is­fac­to­rily re­solved in a time-space frame. Given an eter­nal life, such an­tag­o­nisms can be worked out, but in one short hu­man life they are in­ca­pable of so­lu­tion. Je­sus re­ferred to such a para­dox when he said: “Whoso­ever shall save his life shall lose it, but whoso­ever shall lose his life for the sake of the king­dom, shall find it.”

112:5.1Self­hood is a cos­mic re­al­ity whether ma­te­rial, mor­ontial, or spir­i­tual. The ac­tu­al­ity of the per­sonal is the be­stowal of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther act­ing in and of him­self or through his man­i­fold uni­verse agen­cies. To say that a be­ing is per­sonal is to rec­og­nize the rel­a­tive in­di­vid­u­a­tion of such a be­ing within the cos­mic or­gan­ism. The liv­ing cos­mos is an all but in­finitely in­te­grated ag­gre­ga­tion of real units, all of which are rel­a­tively sub­ject to the des­tiny of the whole. But those that are per­sonal have been en­dowed with the ac­tual choice of des­tiny ac­cep­tance or of des­tiny re­jec­tion.

112:5.2That which comes from the Fa­ther is like the Fa­ther eter­nal, and this is just as true of per­son­al­ity, which God gives by his own free­will choice, as it is of the di­vine Thought Ad­juster, an ac­tual frag­ment of God. Man’s per­son­al­ity is eter­nal but with re­gard to iden­tity a con­di­tioned eter­nal re­al­ity. Hav­ing ap­peared in re­sponse to the Fa­ther’s will, per­son­al­ity will at­tain De­ity des­tiny, but man must choose whether or not he will be pres­ent at the at­tain­ment of such des­tiny. In de­fault of such choice, per­son­al­ity at­tains ex­pe­ri­en­tial De­ity di­rectly, be­com­ing a part of the Su­preme Be­ing. The cy­cle is fore­or­dained, but man’s par­tic­i­pa­tion therein is op­tional, per­sonal, and ex­pe­ri­en­tial.

112:5.3Mor­tal iden­tity is a tran­sient time-life con­di­tion in the uni­verse; it is real only in so far as the per­son­al­ity elects to be­come a con­tin­u­ing uni­verse phe­nom­e­non. This is the es­sen­tial dif­fer­ence be­tween man and an en­ergy sys­tem: The en­ergy sys­tem must con­tinue, it has no choice; but man has ev­ery­thing to do with de­ter­min­ing his own des­tiny. The Ad­juster is truly the path to Par­a­dise, but man him­self must pur­sue that path by his own de­cid­ing, his free­will choos­ing.

112:5.4Hu­man be­ings pos­sess iden­tity only in the ma­te­rial sense. Such qual­i­ties of the self are ex­pressed by the ma­te­rial mind as it func­tions in the en­ergy sys­tem of the in­tel­lect. When it is said that man has iden­tity, it is rec­og­nized that he is in pos­ses­sion of a mind cir­cuit which has been placed in sub­or­di­na­tion to the acts and choos­ing of the will of the hu­man per­son­al­ity. But this is a ma­te­rial and purely tem­po­rary man­i­fes­ta­tion, just as the hu­man em­bryo is a tran­sient par­a­sitic stage of hu­man life. Hu­man be­ings, from a cos­mic per­spec­tive, are born, live, and die in a rel­a­tive in­stant of time; they are not en­dur­ing. But mor­tal per­son­al­ity, through its own choos­ing, pos­sesses the power of trans­fer­ring its seat of iden­tity from the pass­ing ma­te­rial-in­tel­lect sys­tem to the higher mor­ontia-soul sys­tem which, in as­so­ci­a­tion with the Thought Ad­juster, is cre­ated as a new ve­hi­cle for per­son­al­ity man­i­fes­ta­tion.

112:5.5And it is this very power of choice, the uni­verse in­signia of free­will crea­ture­hood, that con­sti­tutes man’s great­est op­por­tu­nity and his su­preme cos­mic re­spon­si­bil­ity. Upon the in­tegrity of the hu­man vo­li­tion de­pends the eter­nal des­tiny of the fu­ture fi­nal­i­ter; upon the sin­cer­ity of the mor­tal free will the di­vine Ad­juster de­pends for eter­nal per­son­al­ity; upon the faith­ful­ness of mor­tal choice the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther de­pends for the re­al­iza­tion of a new as­cend­ing son; upon the stead­fast­ness and wis­dom of de­ci­sion-ac­tions the Su­preme Be­ing de­pends for the ac­tu­al­ity of ex­pe­ri­en­tial evo­lu­tion.

112:5.6Though the cos­mic cir­cles of per­son­al­ity growth must even­tu­ally be at­tained, if, through no fault of your own, the ac­ci­dents of time and the hand­i­caps of ma­te­rial ex­is­tence pre­vent your mas­ter­ing these lev­els on your na­tive planet, if your in­ten­tions and de­sires are of sur­vival value, there are is­sued the de­crees of pro­ba­tion ex­ten­sion. You will be af­forded ad­di­tional time in which to prove your­self.

112:5.7If ever there is doubt as to the ad­vis­abil­ity of ad­vanc­ing a hu­man iden­tity to the man­sion worlds, the uni­verse gov­ern­ments in­vari­ably rule in the per­sonal in­ter­ests of that in­di­vid­ual; they un­hesi­tat­ingly ad­vance such a soul to the sta­tus of a tran­si­tional be­ing, while they con­tinue their ob­ser­va­tions of the emerg­ing mor­ontia in­tent and spir­i­tual pur­pose. Thus di­vine jus­tice is cer­tain of achieve­ment, and di­vine mercy is ac­corded fur­ther op­por­tu­nity for ex­tend­ing its min­istry.

112:5.8The gov­ern­ments of Or­von­ton and Neb­a­don do not claim ab­so­lute per­fec­tion for the de­tail work­ing of the uni­ver­sal plan of mor­tal reper­son­al­iza­tion, but they do claim to, and ac­tu­ally do, man­i­fest pa­tience, tol­er­ance, un­der­stand­ing, and mer­ci­ful sym­pa­thy. We had rather as­sume the risk of a sys­tem re­bel­lion than to court the haz­ard of de­priv­ing one strug­gling mor­tal from any evo­lu­tion­ary world of the eter­nal joy of pur­su­ing the as­cend­ing ca­reer.

112:5.9This does not mean that hu­man be­ings are to en­joy a sec­ond op­por­tu­nity in the face of the re­jec­tion of a first, not at all. But it does sig­nify that all will crea­tures are to ex­pe­ri­ence one true op­por­tu­nity to make one un­doubted, self-con­scious, and fi­nal choice. The sov­er­eign Judges of the uni­verses will not de­prive any be­ing of per­son­al­ity sta­tus who has not fi­nally and fully made the eter­nal choice; the soul of man must and will be given full and am­ple op­por­tu­nity to re­veal its true in­tent and real pur­pose.

112:5.10When the more spir­i­tu­ally and cos­mi­cally ad­vanced mor­tals die, they pro­ceed im­me­di­ately to the man­sion worlds; in gen­eral, this pro­vi­sion op­er­ates with those who have had as­signed to them per­sonal se­raphic guard­i­ans. Other mor­tals may be de­tained un­til such time as the ad­ju­di­ca­tion of their af­fairs has been com­pleted, af­ter which they may pro­ceed to the man­sion worlds, or they may be as­signed to the ranks of the sleep­ing sur­vivors who will be reper­son­al­ized en masse at the end of the cur­rent plan­e­tary dis­pen­sa­tion.

112:5.11There are two dif­fi­cul­ties that ham­per my ef­forts to ex­plain just what hap­pens to you in death, the sur­viv­ing you which is dis­tinct from the de­part­ing Ad­juster. One of these con­sists in the im­pos­si­bil­ity of con­vey­ing to your level of com­pre­hen­sion an ad­e­quate de­scrip­tion of a trans­ac­tion on the bor­der­land of the phys­i­cal and mor­ontia realms. The other is brought about by the re­stric­tions placed upon my com­mis­sion as a rev­e­la­tor of truth by the ce­les­tial gov­ern­ing au­thor­i­ties of Uran­tia. There are many in­ter­est­ing de­tails which might be pre­sented, but I with­hold them upon the ad­vice of your im­me­di­ate plan­e­tary super­vi­sors. But within the lim­its of my per­mis­sion I can say this much:

112:5.12There is some­thing real, some­thing of hu­man evo­lu­tion, some­thing ad­di­tional to the Mys­tery Mon­i­tor, which sur­vives death. This newly ap­pear­ing en­tity is the soul, and it sur­vives the death of both your phys­i­cal body and your ma­te­rial mind. This en­tity is the con­joint child of the com­bined life and ef­forts of the hu­man you in li­ai­son with the di­vine you, the Ad­juster. This child of hu­man and di­vine parent­age con­sti­tutes the sur­viv­ing el­e­ment of ter­res­trial ori­gin; it is the mor­ontia self, the im­mor­tal soul.

112:5.13This child of per­sist­ing mean­ing and sur­viv­ing value is wholly un­con­scious dur­ing the pe­riod from death to reper­son­al­iza­tion and is in the keep­ing of the se­raphic des­tiny guard­ian through­out this sea­son of wait­ing. You will not func­tion as a con­scious be­ing, fol­low­ing death, un­til you at­tain the new con­scious­ness of mor­ontia on the man­sion worlds of Sa­ta­nia.

112:5.14At death the func­tional iden­tity as­so­ci­ated with the hu­man per­son­al­ity is dis­rupted through the ces­sa­tion of vi­tal mo­tion. Hu­man per­son­al­ity, while tran­scend­ing its con­stituent parts, is de­pen­dent on them for func­tional iden­tity. The stop­page of life de­stroys the phys­i­cal brain pat­terns for mind en­dow­ment, and the dis­rup­tion of mind ter­mi­nates mor­tal con­scious­ness. The con­scious­ness of that crea­ture can­not sub­se­quently reap­pear un­til a cos­mic sit­u­a­tion has been ar­ranged which will per­mit the same hu­man per­son­al­ity again to func­tion in re­la­tion­ship with liv­ing en­ergy.

112:5.15Dur­ing the tran­sit of sur­viv­ing mor­tals from the world of ori­gin to the man­sion worlds, whether they ex­pe­ri­ence per­son­al­ity re­assem­bly on the third pe­riod or as­cend at the time of a group res­ur­rec­tion, the rec­ord of per­son­al­ity con­sti­tu­tion is faith­fully pre­served by the arch­an­gels on their worlds of spe­cial ac­tiv­i­ties. These be­ings are not the cus­to­di­ans of per­son­al­ity (as the guard­ian ser­a­phim are of the soul), but it is nonethe­less true that ev­ery iden­ti­fi­able fac­tor of per­son­al­ity is ef­fec­tu­ally safe­guarded in the cus­tody of these de­pend­able trustees of mor­tal sur­vival. As to the ex­act where­abouts of mor­tal per­son­al­ity dur­ing the time in­ter­ven­ing be­tween death and sur­vival, we do not know.

112:5.16The sit­u­a­tion which makes reper­son­al­iza­tion pos­si­ble is brought about in the res­ur­rec­tion halls of the mor­ontia re­ceiv­ing plan­ets of a lo­cal uni­verse. Here in these life-as­sem­bly cham­bers the super­vis­ing au­thor­i­ties pro­vide that re­la­tion­ship of uni­verse en­ergy—mor­ontial, mindal, and spir­i­tual—which makes pos­si­ble the re­con­sciou­siz­ing of the sleep­ing sur­vivor. The re­assem­bly of the con­stituent parts of a one­time ma­te­rial per­son­al­ity in­volves:

112:5.171. The fab­ri­ca­tion of a suit­able form, a mor­ontia en­ergy pat­tern, in which the new sur­vivor can make con­tact with non­spir­i­tual re­al­ity, and within which the mor­ontia vari­ant of the cos­mic mind can be en­cir­cuited.

112:5.182. The re­turn of the Ad­juster to the wait­ing mor­ontia crea­ture. The Ad­juster is the eter­nal cus­to­dian of your as­cend­ing iden­tity; your Mon­i­tor is the ab­so­lute as­sur­ance that you your­self and not an­other will oc­cupy the mor­ontia form cre­ated for your per­son­al­ity awak­en­ing. And the Ad­juster will be pres­ent at your per­son­al­ity re­assem­bly to take up once more the role of Par­a­dise guide to your sur­viv­ing self.

112:5.193. When these pre­req­ui­sites of reper­son­al­iza­tion have been as­sem­bled, the se­raphic cus­to­dian of the po­ten­tial­i­ties of the slum­ber­ing im­mor­tal soul, with the as­sis­tance of nu­mer­ous cos­mic per­son­al­i­ties, be­stows this mor­ontia en­tity upon and in the await­ing mor­ontia mind-body form while com­mit­ting this evo­lu­tion­ary child of the Su­preme to eter­nal as­so­ci­a­tion with the wait­ing Ad­juster. And this com­pletes the reper­son­al­iza­tion, re­assem­bly of mem­ory, in­sight, and con­scious­ness—iden­tity.

112:5.20The fact of reper­son­al­iza­tion con­sists in the seizure of the en­cir­cuited mor­ontia phase of the newly seg­re­gated cos­mic mind by the awak­en­ing hu­man self. The phe­nom­e­non of per­son­al­ity is de­pen­dent on the per­sis­tence of the iden­tity of self­hood re­ac­tion to uni­verse en­vi­ron­ment; and this can only be ef­fected through the medium of mind. Self­hood per­sists in spite of a con­tin­u­ous change in all the fac­tor com­po­nents of self; in the phys­i­cal life the change is grad­ual; at death and upon reper­son­al­iza­tion the change is sud­den. The true re­al­ity of all self­hood (per­son­al­ity) is able to func­tion re­spon­sively to uni­verse con­di­tions by virtue of the un­ceas­ing chang­ing of its con­stituent parts; stag­na­tion ter­mi­nates in in­ev­i­ta­ble death. Hu­man life is an end­less change of the fac­tors of life uni­fied by the sta­bil­ity of the un­chang­ing per­son­al­ity.

112:5.21And when you thus awaken on the man­sion worlds of Je­ru­sem, you will be so changed, the spir­i­tual trans­for­ma­tion will be so great that, were it not for your Thought Ad­juster and the des­tiny guard­ian, who so fully con­nect up your new life in the new worlds with your old life in the first world, you would at first have dif­fi­culty in con­nect­ing the new mor­ontia con­scious­ness with the re­viv­ing mem­ory of your pre­vi­ous iden­tity. Not­with­stand­ing the con­ti­nu­ity of per­sonal self­hood, much of the mor­tal life would at first seem to be a vague and hazy dream. But time will clar­ify many mor­tal as­so­ci­a­tions.

112:5.22The Thought Ad­juster will re­call and re­hearse for you only those mem­o­ries and ex­pe­ri­ences which are a part of, and es­sen­tial to, your uni­verse ca­reer. If the Ad­juster has been a part­ner in the evo­lu­tion of aught in the hu­man mind, then will these worth-while ex­pe­ri­ences sur­vive in the eter­nal con­scious­ness of the Ad­juster. But much of your past life and its mem­o­ries, hav­ing nei­ther spir­i­tual mean­ing nor mor­ontia value, will per­ish with the ma­te­rial brain; much of ma­te­rial ex­pe­ri­ence will pass away as one­time scaf­fold­ing which, hav­ing bridged you over to the mor­ontia level, no longer serves a pur­pose in the uni­verse. But per­son­al­ity and the re­la­tion­ships be­tween per­son­al­i­ties are never scaf­fold­ing; mor­tal mem­ory of per­son­al­ity re­la­tion­ships has cos­mic value and will per­sist. On the man­sion worlds you will know and be known, and more, you will re­mem­ber, and be re­mem­bered by, your one­time as­so­ciates in the short but in­trigu­ing life on Uran­tia.

117:5.2The in­tel­lec­tual, po­ten­tially per­sonal selves of the fi­nite emerge from the Third Source and Cen­ter and achieve fi­nite time-space De­ity syn­the­sis in the Su­preme. When the crea­ture sub­mits to the will of the Cre­ator, he does not sub­merge or sur­ren­der his per­son­al­ity; the in­di­vid­ual per­son­al­ity par­tic­i­pants in the ac­tu­al­iza­tion of the fi­nite God do not lose their vo­li­tional self­hood by so func­tion­ing. Rather are such per­son­al­i­ties pro­gres­sively aug­mented by par­tic­i­pa­tion in this great De­ity ad­ven­ture; by such union with di­vin­ity man ex­alts, en­riches, spir­i­tu­al­izes, and uni­fies his evolv­ing self to the very thresh­old of su­prem­acy.

94:2.3The un­due con­cen­tra­tion on self led cer­tainly to a fear of the nonevo­lu­tion­ary per­pet­u­a­tion of self in an end­less round of suc­ces­sive in­car­na­tions as man, beast, or weeds. And of all the con­tam­i­nat­ing be­liefs which could have be­come fas­tened upon what may have been an emerg­ing mono­the­ism, none was so stul­ti­fy­ing as this be­lief in trans­mi­gra­tion—the doc­trine of the rein­car­na­tion of souls—which came from the Dra­vid­ian Dec­can. This be­lief in the weary and monotonous round of re­peated trans­mi­gra­tions robbed strug­gling mor­tals of their long-cher­ished hope of find­ing that de­liv­er­ance and spir­i­tual ad­vance­ment in death which had been a part of the ear­lier Vedic faith.