Let's start out with the hypothetical static moment of eternity, before any actuals have come from potentials, and before even potentials have differentiated from the continuum of infinity. Whatever those words mean. Let's think about this as an egg.
Here we pull the yolk out of the white, keeping the white shaded for identification. This is the segregation of all that which is free will from all that which is not free will.
And Betty, this is not un-fettered free will. Even here, there is some restriction, because it would be constitutionally impossible for God to do the ungodlike thing.
Audience: I'm glad to hear that.
The rules of compossibility--from the paper on the Supreme and the Ultimate--would also govern. They say that "even the infinite God cannot create square circles, or produce evil that is inherently good."
The word "compossibility" there means that when he creates a circle, that determines circularity in contrast to squareness. Even then, it's not a magical universe.
The introduction of the intermediate circle producing the linked circles is in realization that there is still a relationship between the white and the yolk, and that middle circle symbolizes the Universal Absolute.
I always use linked circles to portray the three Absolutes in contrast to concentric circles for the Trinity. For me, this is the picture of the Absolutes. We put an "A" out there which is not germane to the story at all, but it is from this level, I think, that the Father fragments--and that "A" stands for Thought Adjusters--because, you'll recall, this is still true, it never changed. This is still true, it never changed. This is still true, it never changed.
These frames, which we think of as a sequence, I think we should think of as pancakes piled one on top of one another. This happens to be the bottom pancake or the top one. It doesn't make any difference which is at one end of the series. This is a simultaneous sequential series. That's almost as good as the papers: "simultaneous sequential." Here we start with our three circles linked. Now we have differentiation taking place within the yolk. Here we have the Father moving away from the Son. Yet at the same time, giving expression to Paradise. I put Paradise outside of the yolk, because the yolk is total Deity. Paradise emerged from there, but Paradise is not Deity. Paradise has Deity as its source, but it itself is not divine.
I think this is the personal level of creation. This, being the prepersonal, which is why I think Adjusters are fragmented at this point.
In our last frame, it gets all complicated. We have the Father, we have the Son, we have Paradise, and we have now the Spirit emerging from the Father-Son union and activating Paradise to cause Paradise to do two things. First, to produce Havona, immediately. Second, to disgorge space potency, which is the stuff of the then uncreated universes--everything outside of Havona.
This space potency moves over to the white of the egg, which is the Unqualified Absolute, which in the papers is defined as, "the revealer, regulator, and repository of that which has Paradise as its source and origin."
Paradise bestowed matter, or the potential for matter, and this bestowal took place just once in eternity. It's not a continuing thing. So all of the potential for all universes did come from Paradise at this time. Up until about here, I would call the yolk the Qualified Absolute. Certainly up to this point. Here we're in transition. I don't have a good name for it here. But here, it's the Deity Absolute.
If you asked me to be very technical, I'd call it the Transitional Absolute, at this point. The papers use the term Qualified Absolute and Deity Absolute.
Now, in terms of sequence, this picture is eternal. We have the Infinite Spirit and Havona. This is eternal. This is eternaler. This is eternalist. I have no name for this.
Audience: Most eternaler, most eternalist.
One, two, three, many.
Audience: Laughter.
In your thinking, the Infinite Spirit and Havona are coordinately eternal. The Eternal Son and Paradise are coordinately prior eternal. There had to be Paradise before the Infinite Spirit could function. There had to be an Eternal Son to collaborate with the Universal Father in the production of the Infinite Spirit. And the Father is most eternal.
Had this happened in time, this would be a proper sequential portraiture. It didn't happen in time. This is the dawn of the first universe age. This picture here I conceive as the zero universe age. This would mark the universe age before the first universe age. These are negative numbers, so to speak. And there are no such things in natural reality. Here, God is the Absolute person. God has yet to divest himself of Absolute personality, which he does in the next frame, and that divestment is the Eternal Son. "We have at no time been informed that the Qualified Absolute is the equivalent of the Infinite."
Audience: Are Infinite and Unqualified used in the same way?
No. Except I think the Unqualified Absolute does have infinity of capacity to respond. In a sense, the Deity Absolute has infinity of capacity to respond along certain lines. As for example, when the Supreme Being for the first and only time, willed to the act of creation and Majeston was produced.
Let's read this section on God the Absolute: "There are many features of the eternal reality of the Deity Absolute which cannot be fully explained to the time-space finite mind, but the actualization of God the Absolute would be in consequence of the unification of the second experiential Trinity, the Absolute Trinity."
Which is made up of the Supreme Being, God the Ultimate, and the Unrevealed Consummator of Universe Destiny. And of course this Trinity cannot appear until God the Ultimate has appeared. And God the Ultimate cannot appear until the whole Master Universe, including the fourth and outermost space level, has achieved perfection.
"This would constitute the experiential realization of Absolute divinity."
And this means, "the unification of absolute meanings on absolute levels; but we are not certain regarding the encompassment of all absolute values."
The suggestion here is that meanings could be achieved, but not all values might be achieved. Why? Because, "we have at no time been informed that the Qualified Absolute is the equivalent of the Infinite."
That's pretty obvious. As we look at our third frame it's only one of the three circles there. It's linked with everything, but it's not in itself everything.
"Super-Ultimate destinies are involved in absolute meanings and infinite spirituality, and without both of these unachieved realities we cannot establish absolute values."
"God the Absolute is the realization-attainment goal of all superabsonite beings."
Absonite is the second floor of our firehouse. Superabsonite would be the third floor.
"But the power and personality potential of the Deity Absolute transcends our concept, and we hesitate to discuss those realities which are so far removed from experiential actualization."
Audience: I don't understand superultimate destinies. Could you repeat that?
Yes. Our finite destiny is the quest for God the Father, and the sometime knowing of God the Supreme. Our ultimate destiny is the quest for God the Father on another level, on the absonite level. And the sometime knowing of God the Ultimate. When we seek God the Father on Paradise now, we are seeking God as subomnipotent, subomniscient, and subomnipresent. The ultimate quest for the absonite Father is an attempt to understand God as omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.
The superultimate quest for the Father is an endless quest. This we will not achieve. And here we're seeking him as superomnipotent, superomnipresent, and superomniscient. The subs have meanings the supers don't. These are just words. This is just saying, "many, many." God the Ultimate and God the Absolute are both superfinite. But only God the Absolute is superultimate as experiential Deity. Now, of course the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are on all three of these levels. The Master Spirits are not superultimate. They run on the first two levels of the firehouse. They run on the two inch scale and the 1600 mile scale, but not on the infinite scale.
"When the combined thought of the Universal Father and the Eternal Son, functioning in the God of Action, constituted the creation of the divine and central universe, the Father followed the expression of his thought into the word of his Son and the act of their Conjoint Executive by differentiating his Havona presence from the potentials of infinity. And these undisclosed infinity potentials remain space concealed in the Unqualified Absolute and divinely enshrouded in the Deity Absolute, while these two become one in the functioning of the Universal Absolute, the unrevealed infinity-unity of the Paradise Father."
In other words, what they're saying here is that these three Absolutes constitute the bottomless wells which the Creators are pumping to produce new things.
When a Creative Spirit produces a group of Seraphim, these Seraphim come from somewhere; they don't come from nothing. When Master Force Organizers come out into apparently open space and initiate those doings which eventually give rise to a whirling nebula, this nebula comes from something, not from nothing. And it's on these great reservoirs that they're drawing.
If you will conceive of the three Absolutes as the essence, as the reservoirs of potentiality, then you can think of three Absolutes of actuality--the Son, Paradise, and the Spirit. You have three energies. The Son is the absolute of Spirit. Paradise is the absolute of energy-matter. And the Conjoint Actor is the absolute of mind.
Now we're thinking of two associations, aren't we? We can call one the Triodity of Potentiality, made up of the three Absolutes. The other we can call the Triodity of Actuality, the Son, the Spirit, and Paradise.
The First Source and Center we can't classify as either actual or potential. We can call him original. He balances these two Triodities. And governs, in the largest sense of that word, the transfer of reality from potential to actual. And this is how God the Supreme grows, and all finite growth takes place. And this is how God the Ultimate grows, and all absonite growth takes place.
This is the mass movement of the universe, which involves survival, and which is distinguished from the minor retrograde motions in the universe, which are non-survival, or the reverse transfer of actuals back into potentials.
The universe is just like our solar system. Almost everything that swings around the sun moves in one direction. But there are a few moons on the nature planets--there's at least two, there may be more, I've forgotten--they move in the reverse direction. Hence the term retrograde motion. Non-survival is retrograde motion in the cosmic sense.
You were going to add something here?
Audience: I am searching for clarification in the way the papers use the term infinity. And their use of superlatives. They have special meanings. What is the meaning of infinity?
Infinity's used in several ways.
Audience: The I AM?
The I AM.
Audience: The First Source and Center--
The First Source and Center does not imply infinity as generally used because God is functional on all levels. But the Father Infinite implies that. The largest use of the First Source and Center implies infinity.
You see, they use it in this way, too. It is used as finality of meaning-value. Audience: Of meaning-value--
Maybe thing, too, would be infinity.
Infinity would encompass all of any one of these frames. In fact, infinity would encompass all of these frames. Infinity can never be expressed in time, only in eternity.
Audience: Does this become reality? Ruth, I believe it is real in eternity. But it can never be actual in time; it can be real in time, but much of it must continue to be potential, because if you're in time, then there is a future, and the future implies further growth. If you are in eternity, there is no past-future, and then infinity can be. But not in time.
Audience: I get dizzy with it--
Isn't it though? Korvitsky should be here. I mean, I've got a feeling for the nontemporal. I don't say that I have a feeling for eternity, but I do have a feeling for that which lies beyond time.
Again, it goes back to a survival decision. When a human being--probably an ascending morontian would be a better way of putting it--makes a final choice to do the Father's will, that final choice represents the total consecration of that personality. It is an irrevocable choice. That's an eternal choice, because no quantity of time will alter the basic principles and purposes embodied in that choice. Time will only change technique of execution, but not principle.
Now, I understand an eternal choice. This is impervious to the passage of time. This is for keeps.
Audience: (Can't understand comment).
Sure it is. Sure it is. Such a creature has made an eternal choice. He made it in time, but he's done something that is absolutely impervious to any possible corrosive effect of any quantity of future time. He just ain't gonna change his mind. Now, I understand eternity as concerns that choice.
You can take numbers to help you. You can pick a large number. The choice still stands. You can double that number. The choice stands. You can square it, cube it, take it to the fourth power. The choice is unchanged. You can take a number tremendously larger than this number we've been working with. There's no change in the choice. Time has no effect on that choice. That's an eternal choice.
The choice was made in time. It had an origin in time. But it has no ending in time.
This last picture here is the picture of the first universe age. This is the age of Havona. And this universe age had an end in time.
"Both potency of cosmic force and potency of spirit force are in process of progressive revelation-realization as the enrichment of all reality is effected by experiential growth and through the correlation of the experiential with the existential by the Universal Absolute."
In other words, they're drawing--everyone's drawing drafts against this tremendous bank of infinity. Force Organizers draw a draft. They get a nebula, a physical universe. Creator Sons, Creative Spirits draw, write drafts. They people this universe. The Life Carriers function as channels, and life appears on the planets. Evolution takes place.
This life comes from somewhere, you know. It doesn't just happen. The Father enriches this creation with a bestowal of personality and relative free will. The Son pours out new spirit. Where was that spirit before it got poured out? The ability of the Infinite Spirit and his creative daughters to bestow mind, of the Master Spirits to bestow cosmic mind--there's no limit to this. Where does it come from?
There's a tremendous artesian outpouring of new actualities. No change in reality, merely a transfer of that which is real from the potential to the actual stage. And, of course, this involves going through a very interesting gray area, which I have christened, the Zone of Becoming.
Audience: Would that be the Universal Absolute, the Zone of Becoming?
No, no--that's not on the level of actuality. That's us. We are not real actuals, are we? Finaliters are, but humans aren't. We are not either the good guys or the bad guys. We're wearing grey hats. Neither white nor black. We are in the Zone of Becoming.
Audience: Your Zone of Becoming includes all evolutionary beings?
Of course. Of course.
Audience: Absonite, too.
Yes. I think so. I think so. We're in the Zone of Becoming; we can go either way. We can go positively, or we can move retrograde, because we have--as Betty so stoutly defends--that power of choice.
There is a correlation here of the experiential with the existential by the Universal Absolute. He affects the linkage not only of the two Absolutes--that's his horizontal linkage function--but he also has a vertical linkage operation, which we haven't attempted to portray here. You see, this is all the third story of the firehouse up here. Underneath this are two more stories. It is the Universal Absolute that constitutes the steel structure of the firehouse and keeps these stories from collapsing, one into the other.
Audience: Not the center pole though?
No, that's the Universal Father. These are the walls I think are in there--and "him" is the right word to use. For the Unqualified Absolute the word "it" is very proper.
"By virtue of the equipoising presence of the Universal Absolute--"
Now what is an equipoising presence? Well, I think the best illustration is the counterweight to an elevator. How 'bout that? How many of you have ever seen a counterweight to an elevator? In a modern elevator that isn't a squirrel cage.
Audience: (Can't understand comment).
You know it's there, but you don't see it. It's what makes it easy to move that elevator. The Universal Absolute is the counterweight to all subabsolute reality. He makes weight for it.
Or--better still--did you ever stop and think of the tremendous down pressure of the second floor of the firehouse on the first floor? The first floor is only two inches high. The second floor is 1600 miles high. It must contain an awful lot, you know? Why doesn't the bloody thing collapse? The Universal Absolute acts as a kind of a hydraulic jack reinforcing that ceiling and keeping the absonite from crushing the finite.
Now, listen, if we've got troubles between the first floor and the second floor, how much more trouble do we encounter when we hit the third floor? Because that isn't a 1600 mile thing--that's infinity. So he's really got a job to keep the firehouse from collapsing, right? All right. That's what "equipoising presence" means to me. Audience: That's your vertical, now?
Yes. "By virtue of the equipoising presence of the Universal Absolute, the First Source and Center realizes extension of experiential power, enjoys identification with his evolutionary creatures, and achieves expansion of experiential Deity on the levels of Supremacy, Ultimacy, and Absoluteness."
Now we can better understand what the Universal Censor was saying when he said, "we perceive that the unfathomability of the cosmic relationships of the Universal Absolute will tend to grow in proportion, as the material universes and their spiritual administration continue to expand."
The more stuff you load on these floors, the bigger the counterweight has to become. There's more equipoising to do, hence more presence of an equipoising nature.
Audience: (Can't understand comments).
"When it is not possible fully to distinguish the Deity Absolute from the Unqualified Absolute, their supposedly combined function or co-ordinated presence is designated the action of the Universal Absolute."
Remember that the Universal Absolute is Deity. But unfathomable Deity.
"The Deity Absolute seems to be the all-powerful activator, while the Unqualified Absolute appears to be the all-efficient mechanizer"--activator versus mechanizer. What of? "Of the supremely unified and ultimately co-ordinated universe of universes, even universes upon universes, made, making, and yet to be made." Making is its own becoming.
"The Deity Absolute cannot, or at least does not, react to any universe situation in a subabsolute manner." Now, they're trying to describe the habit patterns on the third floor. "Every response of this Absolute to any given situation appears to be made in terms of the welfare of the whole creation of things and beings, not only in its present state of existence, but also in view of the infinite possibilities of all future eternity."
This Deity Absolute is going to react to the problems of Urantia in terms of unimagined creations a tremendous distance beyond the outer perimeter of the Master Universe. Because the Deity Absolute is living in the everlasting now in eternity. The Deity Absolute is blind to time.
The Architects of the Master Universe see the end from the beginning as concerns the Master Universe. I don't think they see too much beyond that. They may speculate beyond it, but within that domain, they pretty well know, because they are the blueprint. And they interfere with things, they make them come out right.
"Personalized Thought Adjusters are the untrammeled, unassigned, and sovereign stabilizers and compensators of the far-flung universe of universes. They combine the Creator and creature experience--existential and experiential. They are conjoint time and eternity beings. They associate the prepersonal and the personal in universe administration."
"Personalized Adjusters are the all-wise and powerful executives of the Architects of the Master Universe. They are the personal agents of the full ministry of the Universal Father--personal, prepersonal, and superpersonal. They are the personal ministers of the extraordinary, the unusual, and the unexpected throughout all the realms of the transcendental absonite spheres of the domain of God the Ultimate, even to the level of God the Absolute."
Then they make this very real. "When a planetary Vorondadek observer of Urantia--the Most High custodian who not long since assumed an emergency regency of your world--asserted his authority in the presence of the resident governor general--" I visualize him just walking in and saying, I'm taking over. "--he began his emergency administration of Urantia with a full staff of his own choosing. He immediately assigned to all his associates and assistants their planetary duties. But he did not choose the three Personalized Adjusters who appeared in his presence the instant he assumed the regency. He did not even know they would thus appear, for they did not so manifest their divine presence at the time of a previous regency. And the Most High regent did not assign service or designate duties for these volunteer Personalized Adjusters. Nevertheless, these three omnipersonal beings were among the most active of the numerous orders of celestial beings then serving on Urantia." Now look, this Vorondadek, who I assume is still resident on our planet--or, if he's not, I assume his successor is resident--he's pretty far above us. When he assumes a regency, he's taking things over because of problems down here. I can't visualize his purpose and intent. But you know something? I think I'm a lot closer to him than he is to these Personalized Adjusters. I think the Architects of the Master Universe are more mysterious to him than he is to us, and farther away.
Audience: (Can't understand comment).
I don't think so. I think this is the Architects of the Master Universe. They're seeing to it that the blueprints worked out.
Audience: And Deity is so far beyond that, that he can't see any of this.
Yes. He isn't conscious of time. He just reacts. But the Architects of the Master Universe are purposeful in relation to time. The Deity Absolute is blind in relation to time. The Deity Absolute cannot deviate from the eternity pattern of reaction. Nothing else has any meaning to the Deity Absolute.
The Universal Father escapes all limitations. He's the center pole in the firehouse. He understands timelessness, he understands transcended time, and he understands time. He's conscious on all three levels. The Deity Absolute is conscious on only one level.
The Architects of the Master Universe, I think, are functional on the absonite level, and they're perfectly aware of, and can interact with the other two levels. This is reasonable; they occupy a mid-point, don't they?
"The Deity Absolute is that potential which was segregated from total, infinite reality by the freewill choice of the Universal Father, and within which all divinity activities--existential and experiential--take place."
Please note, frame two on the blackboard, that's what this is talking about. Within the Deity Absolute, "all divinity activities--existential and experiential--take place."
"This is the Qualified Absolute in contradistinction to the Unqualified Absolute; but the Universal Absolute is superadditive to both in the encompassment of all absolute potential."
That's the third center, yes.
Our cartoons on the blackboard are reasonably accurate. They're good symbols.
Audience: In the second frame, which is which?
The Unqualified Absolute has got white etchings on it throughout. I identified one circle.
Audience: (Can't understand comment).
Right. The Universal Absolute is the middle circle, starting with the third frame.
Audience: And would you call that the Deity, the second frame, right there in the middle by the yolk?
This is the Qualified Absolute.
Audience: Oh, yes, that's right.
And the Deity Absolute is a semi-synonym for the Qualified Absolute. Prior to this situation, I like to use the term Qualified Absolute. From this situation on, I think the term Deity Absolute is best. The term Qualified Absolute, in my mind, signifies the Father fulfilling the potential of Absolute Deity. The term Deity Absolute, in my mind, signifies the situation in which the Father--as a person, no longer does this--does this only as the Trinity. It is the Trinity which fills this potential. At this level. At this concept level it's not the Father, it's God. The term Father isn't really appropriate, because we're thinking of a pre-Son situation. Always remember, the looking glass is here. Any attempt to go back of this, we're going through the looking glass, like Alice.
The Unqualified Absolute--this is the second most difficult concept in the papers--the Unqualified Absolute. You know what the most difficult concept is? The First Source and Center. We don't think of it that way because the Father concept is very easy. But that's only one facet of the First Source and Center.
Don't kid yourself--the First Source and Center is the most difficult thing of all.
Audience: Are we going to take that up later?
Yes, we will. We'll talk about all the Absolutes.
"The Unqualified Absolute is nonpersonal, extradivine, and undeified." Why? Because in our second frame, all that which could be personal, divine, and deified was removed. This is the residue. The Father fractionally distilled infinity, and he fractionated out the personal--which includes the prepersonal and the superpersonal--the divine, and Deity. The Unqualified--I think of it as the residual sludge.
"The Unqualified Absolute is therefore devoid of personality, divinity, and all creator prerogatives. Neither fact nor truth, experience nor revelation, philosophy nor absonity"--that's a peculiar use of the word absonity, absonite--"are able to penetrate the nature and character of this Absolute without universe qualification"--hence, unqualified.
They're telling us we aren't going to know anything about him. You'll notice when the Universal Censor in Paper 10 debates, "Will we get to the Deity Absolute?" he hedges. But then he says flatly, "We'll never get up to the Universal Absolute." The question of the Unqualified Absolute just doesn't even come up.
These two Absolutes remove from that which is debatable.
"Let it be made clear that the Unqualified Absolute is a positive reality pervading the grand universe and, apparently, extending with equal space presence on out into the force activities and prematerial evolutions of the staggering stretches of the space regions beyond the seven superuniverses."
In Paper 12, they speak of the four outer space levels as the domains of the Unqualified Absolute.
"The Unqualified Absolute is not a mere negativism of philosophic concept predicated on the assumptions of metaphysical sophistries concerning the universality, dominance, and primacy of the unconditioned and the unqualified. The Unqualified Absolute is a positive universe overcontrol in infinity; this overcontrol is space-force unlimited but is definitely conditioned by the presence of life, mind, spirit, and personality, and is further conditioned by the will-reactions and purposeful mandates of the Paradise Trinity."
Yes?
Audience: That space force--
That's that space potency, I think.
Audience: (Can't understand tape).
Yes. There's no limit to the ability of the Unqualified Absolute to release this grasp of space potency.
Audience: Would that domain go beyond the borders of the fourth outer space level?
I'm sure it does. Because it's unlimited, and that is a limit.
Audience: Yes.
We hit the foundation for the cosmos infinite here. Yes, it's quite large.
Audience: I've always wondered how large. I mean--how large is infinity?
Many.
Audience: Laughter.
Many, many. There's many to the second power. Audience: In other words, how many acres is the original I on the contract for, before they started all this?
You've got an open-ended count. That's the best way I can express it. You've got an open-ended count.
Audience: What is the I AM?
I AM is not a reality. The I AM is the concept back in the first frame. And remember, we entered the looking-glass in the last frame. Everything on the blackboard is behind the looking glass, save only the last picture.
The I AM is a conceptual concession which they make to our thinking. We want a starting point, and so they give it to us. Now, the Infinite, maybe, is a better concept. The Father Infinite is maybe still better.
"We are convinced that the Unqualified Absolute is not an undifferentiated and all-pervading influence comparable either to the pantheistic concepts of metaphysics or to the sometime ether hypothesis of science."
Pantheism assumes that there is a God and he's everywhere. In other words, we are God, Bud's house is God, Tiglath is God, and so on. This takes God and so atomizes him, that it is equivalent to no God.
The ether hypothesis of science assumes that space is a very fine-grained reality, called ether. And, of course, space is not a fine-grained reality. Space is emptiness, from the finite standpoint.
"The Unqualified Absolute is force unlimited--" No end to space potency. We aren't going to run out. Every time they drill for a nebula, they're going to hit a gusher.
The Unqualified Absolute is "Deity conditioned." Well, that's that linkage up there. When total Deity acts--well, let's start it off better. When the Paradise Trinity acts in the final sense, this activates the Deity Absolute. This activation of the Deity Absolute is transmitted through the Universal Absolute to the Unqualified Absolute. In this way, the Unqualified Absolute is Deity conditioned. "We do not fully perceive the relation of this Absolute to the spirit realities of the universes." I don't think there's any direct relation, except through the unifying and equipoising presence of the Universal Absolute, but there is not perceivable relationship directly.
"The Universal Absolute, we logically deduce, was inevitable in the Universal Father's absolute freewill act of differentiating universe realities into deified and undeified--personalizable and nonpersonalizable--values." See frame 2 on the blackboard.
You can't stop with frame two--you've got instantly to go on to frame three. This relationship is a reality, and it deitizes. I don't say personalizes, it deitizes.
"The Universal Absolute is the Deity phenomenon indicative of the resolution of the tension created by the freewill act of thus differentiating universe reality--"
Frame two sets up an intolerable stress in infinity. When you break the balance in frame one, you set up a chain reaction in frame two, and a stress situation is created which must be resolved. Hence you must go forward to frame three which now resolves the stress.
You see what God's doing? He's setting out not devils and hells and threats, he's setting up stresses. And then resolving those stresses in one way or another.
He sets up a stress in a human being when he puts an Adjuster in that human being. That stress to me could be symbolized by saying that there's a rubber band stretching all the way back to Divinington where the Adjuster came from--from Paradise, to all practical intents and purposes. This Adjuster wants to cohere with the Father. And this Adjuster is attached to us. Unless we actually snap that rubber band, the tension of that rubber band will draw us into Paradise. But we can cut the rubber band.
When the Father sets up the situation in time and space where energy matter is dominant, and then puts people and mind and spirit out here, he challenges them. He challenges these people. Can you take over now? You've got the mind to do it. Can you affiliate mind with spirit so that your take over is stable and progressive? Or, when you fail to affiliate mind with spirit, in which event, your successes will be everlastingly ephemeral. They'll be here today and gone tomorrow.
That is a temporal victory, in contrast to an eternal victory. Temporal victories are undone. Eternal victories stand forever.
The Universal Absolute resolves "the tension created by the freewill act of thus differentiating universe reality" into two phases, personalizable and nonpersonalizable. The Universal Absolute "functions as the associative co-ordinator of these sum totals of existential potentialities." Frame three.
Does the Universal Absolute remind you of anything else in reality?
Audience: A long time ago I couldn't get away from the Universal Absolute being in a sense a tool of the Deity. But that does away with the idea of co-ordinator.
It is a tool.
Audience: Does it work automatically in response, or does--
I think the Universal Absolute is intelligent and purposeful in all--both things. The Universal Absolute, to me, is most like the Conjoint Actor. And those two are most like the First Source and Center. Extending across the board, dealing with the personal and the impersonal. Much as the Universal Absolute unifies the nonpersonal unqualified with the personalizable Deity Absolute.
Audience: You've got to draw a line, though, between the Conjoint Actor and the Universal Absolute.
But consider the relationship of the Conjoint Actor to the spiritual domains of the Eternal Son and to the physical domains of the Isle of Paradise. Here on the level of actuality we see a functional coordination which is analogous to this unification taking place on the level of potentiality. I see a greater kinship between the Conjoint Actor and the Universal Absolute than between any other two of the seven original realities.
Audience: But they are separate?
Of course they are, entirely. I see a greater functional relationship between Paradise and the Unqualified Absolute. If I want to get any feeling for the Unqualified Absolute, I'm going to study Paradise. This is nonpersonal, extradivine, and undeified--and it's actual, not just potential. And it's infinite in potential. No matter how much mass appears in space, Paradise will generate enough gravity to hold us very effectively in leash. The gravity potential of Paradise is unlimited.
When I think of the Deity Absolute I see in some way the greater kinship with the Eternal Son. The Deity Absolute is personalizable, deified, divine, and nothing but that. And that is true of the Son. Well, why don't you compare it with the Father? Because the Father is all things which the Son are, and everything which the Son is not.
The Father is the source of Paradise as well as Father of the Eternal Son. (Can't understand tape) the First Source and Center, I should say. That's even larger than the concept of the First Person of Deity. Now we're thinking of the deified aspect of the Universal Father. He's also everything else.
I think of these steps as representing the only steps which God could take at that time. If you start from the first frame, he's only got two choices, as I see it. Leave it alone, or separate. Or scramble it. In the second frame, he has only two choices. Go back where we came from, or set up a tension resolver so that we stay where we are by adding a third thing.
In the fourth frame, it would occur to me he has only one choice, or two. Leave it the way it is, in which event I now fill the total of Deity, and I can do nothing except fill it. Or, I will now step away from myself.
I will now produce a power platform, so that I can go into action. The fourth frame is God winding up in the bull pen, and in the fifth frame, he pitches. Audience: Bill, the last frame is a mathematical exhaustion of absolutes, really. You couldn't do any more than that--except function.
That's right. And you produce your first sub-absolute. In Havona, you set up in principle, everything. Because as you take inventory of what is in Havona--and let me inventory it to refresh your memory:
The creatures of the Central Universe are: "Material, Morontial, Spiritual, Absonite, Ultimate, Co-Absolute, and Absolute."
When the Eternal Son bestowed himself in Havona, I don't think the Havona natives knew anything about it, neither did Grandfanda and his associates. This bestowal of the Eternal Son was something on the Absolute-Coabsolute level. And that's why the first-born Michael bestowed himself in Havona, and his bestowal was an interpretation of the bestowal of the Eternal Son's for the edification of these material, morontial, spiritual, and maybe absonite beings in Havona.
Did you ever stop and think that there's going to be a heck of a lot going on in Havona that will be just as invisible to us as Seraphim are now?
Havona represents the full expression of God's intent on all levels of the firehouse and in perfection. The finites in Havona are true finites, but not imperfect finites. They're primary finite maximums.
Audience: Finaliters?
No, Havona natives. In eternity, the Father portrayed the firehouse in utter perfection--all three floors. Then he commissioned his Sons to go out here in time and space--and ten million worlds is one per cent the size of Havona. Each Creator Son is taking on one per cent of the load which the Trinity took on when they produced Havona. "The tension presence of the Universal Absolute signifies the adjustment of differential between deity reality and undeified reality inherent in the separation of the dynamics of freewill divinity from the statics of unqualified infinity." Frame three.
No, he isn't in two. The tension is in two, but it's resolved in three. "Always remember: Potential infinity is absolute and inseparable from eternity."
What do they mean by that? Well, at any moment in time, there is a future. If there's a future there's growth. And if there's growth, you can't express everything. "Actual infinity in time can never be anything but partial"--that's what we just said--"and must therefore be nonabsolute"--if there is a future, we can't have it finished--"neither can infinity of actual personality be absolute except in unqualified Deity. And it is the differential of infinity potential in the Unqualified Absolute and the Deity Absolute that eternalizes the Universal Absolute"--this explains the origin of the Universal Absolute.
Both of these circles in the second frame are infinite, but they're infinite in different ways. One is infinite static, and the other is infinite dynamic. One is infinite causation, the other is infinite response.
"And it is the differential of infinity potential in the Unqualified Absolute and the Deity Absolute that eternalizes the Universal Absolute, thereby making it cosmically possible to have material universes in space and spiritually possible to have finite personalities in time."
The firehouse is not going to cave in. There is Labensrelm for imperfect beings; we are not going to be crushed by the higher specific gravity of perfection. We're sort of like--
Audience: We might be crushed by (can't understand tape).
Oh, yes.
Audience: Laughter.
"The finite can coexist in the cosmos along with the Infinite . . ."
Now we're talking about the construction, the steel lattice reinforcing construction of the lower floors of the firehouse which keeps the uppermost floor from crushing the lower floors, and especially protects the lowest floor.
" . . .only because the associative presence of the Universal Absolute so perfectly equalizes the tensions."
Equalizes a lot of tensions.
Then they take inventory. What are these tensions? Time versus eternity, finity versus infinity, the potential of reality versus the actuality of reality, Paradise versus space, man versus God.
If you have a glass full of water, and you pour from another beaker quicksilver into that glass of water, what will happen? The quicksilver will displace the water. In this sense, perfection has a much higher specific gravity than imperfection. And how are we going to keep enough emptiness around here for imperfection to grow with a lower specific gravity in the presence of things which have a higher specific gravity?
It's the Universal Absolute that keeps the quicksilver out of the glass of water, thus keeping us from being displaced in reality. The function of the Universal Absolute is going to grow and grow and grow because there's going to be more and more and more of us.
"It may be possible that the finaliters will partially attain the Deity Absolute, but even if they should, still in the eternity of eternities"--he's saying "many, many" now--"the problem of the Universal Absolute will continue to intrigue, mystify, baffle, and challenge the ascending and progressing finaliters, for we perceive that the unfathomability of the cosmic relationships of the Universal Absolute will tend to grow in proportions as the material universes and their spiritual administration continue to expand." Doesn't that sentence now have a lot more meaning for you? You see, what we're engaged in is operation bootstrap. We will take one part of the book to help us understand another part of the book.
They don't write any sections on the limitations of the Universal Father, or the limitations of the Infinite Spirit, but they do write a section on the limitations of the Eternal Son.
He has the most; therefore, he is the most limited. He has the most perfect relationship with the three Deities. He knows the Father, and he also knows an offspring who is equal. The Father knows the experience of both being a father and a grandfather. But he has no father. The Infinite Spirit has the unique experience of double Deity ancestry. But he knows no offspring who is his equal. His offspring are multiple and are subabsolute. They are the Seven Master Spirits. Each Deity has such a unique relationship. They're not just three carbon copies up there. There is no greater possible difference between three people than exists between the three persons of Deity. They are utterly dissimilar, and yet equally divine. And perfectly unified.
Audience: Is there more to the Eternal Son than personality and spirit?
No, that's it. He is unqualifiedly personal; he is unqualifiedly spirit.
The Conjoint Actor? He's the source of mind. We think of him as mind, but he's also spirit. Like the Son. And it is this pre-mind spirit which he can fragment. He gives origin not only to the primary Supernaphim of Paradise, but he gives origin to beings who in turn give origin to the physical control creatures. There's versatility. He can play on all the pianos there are. He can even draw checks against the Universal Father's bank account, because he's got an attorney-in-fact in the Father.
In terms of beings, nothing escapes relationship to the Universal Father. In terms of function, nothing escapes relationship to the Third Source and Center.
Now, this is not true of the Eternal Son. Material reality has no relationship to the Eternal Son, as such. Spiritual reality has no relationship to Paradise as the absolute machine. But both the First and Third Source and Center cut right across the whole gamut of reality.
Spiritual reality has no relationship to the Unqualified Absolute. And I don't think material reality has any relationship to the Deity Absolute. But all reality has relationship to the Universal Absolute.
Let's look at the Seventh Triunity. We have been discussing the Seventh Triunity. This is the relationship between the Universal Father, the Conjoint Actor, and the Universal Absolute--the three realities that cut across everything. "This is the unity of infinity functionally manifest in time and eternity, the co-ordinate unification of actuals and potentials. This group consists of: the Universal Father, the Conjoint Actor, the Universal Absolute."
"The Conjoint Actor universally integrates the varying functional aspects of all actualized reality on all levels of manifestation, from finites through transcendentals and on to absolutes."
He's dealing with actuals. He's not the source of all reality, but he integrates--functionally integrates--all actuality.
"The Universal Absolute perfectly compensates the differentials inherent in the varying aspects of all incomplete reality"-- potential reality--"from the limitless potentialities of active-volitional and causative Deity reality to the boundless possibilities of static, reactive, nondeity reality in the incomprehensible domains of the Unqualified Absolute."
"As they function in this triunity, the Conjoint Actor and the Universal Absolute are alike responsive to Deity and to nondeity presences, as also is the First Source and Center, who in this relationship is to all intents and purposes conceptually indistinguishable from the I AM."
Audience: He's got the whole universe.
This is the master-linkage, here, of everything functional. There are four kinds of motion.
Primary motion is the motion of space itself, space respiration. It's an absolute motion, because it's motion in relation to something non-moving--Paradise.
Secondary motion is also absolute motion. It's the clockwise, counter-clockwise processional of the space levels.
Tertiary motion is relative. It is all other motion, other than the two that are inventoried--except for the fourth kind of motion, which is compensatory motion, motion initiated by the Universal Absolute, designed to compensate the balance of the universe of universes.
Associatively--now remember, every time you get something new, the Universal Absolute has got to take on more load--are you with this? Do you see this now? This is Atlas, holding up the earth.
Associatively, the Universal Absolute constitutes the identification of the zone of progressing evolutionary reality. This reality exists on two levels of the firehouse. The time-space level, and in the transcendent time-space level, the second floor.
These two floors together are universes of sub-infinite Deity manifestation. They're less than infinite.
So here. You know, down in Washington, they've got this census meter I'm told--I've never seen it. And you can see births and deaths clicking an accumulative net total of the pluses and the minuses. And up on Paradise, we might paraphrase this. They've got an Universal Absolute meter, and you can see the load building up every time a new person's born, a new world comes into being. You see, as long as there's space potency, he doesn't have anything to compensate, because that's the cure in the grasp of his associate, the Unqualified Absolute.
But the minute the Force Organizers start monkeying around with that, it becomes subabsolute, and it clicks again, the load goes up. And this is why we're never going to catch him. He's growing in proportion to total cosmic growth, and we're growing only as one creature can grow, and we ourselves contribute to the addition of this load.
Audience: Is potentiality weightless? To him, yes.
It is actual potentiality. But subabsolute potentiality would increase his load. All potentiality, I don't think, is absolute. I think you have the potentials of the Ultimate derived from up here, and I think you also have the potentialities of the Supreme derived from up here, possibly through the Ultimate.
When a Creative Spirit produces Seraphim, in the final analysis, I think she drafts on the Deity Absolute, but to all practical intents and purposes, I think the branch bank that cashes her check is the potentialities of the Supreme, which is the local finite branch of the bank of the Deity Absolute.
Audience: He gets the power draw?
Yes. She's drafting on finite potentials, not absolute potentials. You see, Seraphim are not absolute, they're finite. I think the potentials of the Supreme add to the load of the Universal Absolute. I think the potentials of the Ultimate add to the load of the Universal Absolute. I do not think potentials on the Absolute level add anything to his load. But all subabsolute potentials, all subabsolute actuals add to this load.
"The Universal Absolute is the potential of the static-dynamic Deity functionally realizable on time-eternity levels as finite- absolute values and as possible of experiential-existential approach. This incomprehensible aspect of Deity may be static, potential, and associative but is not experientially creative or evolutional as concerns the intelligent personalities now functioning in the master universe."
Now, really, that isn't hard.
Audience: Laughter. I just can't go that fast.
They're talking now about the Universal Absolute not as an associative presence, but what is the Universal Absolute as such?
Audience: The association.
Apart from the association. They're now considering this Absolute as an Absolute, not as a steel structure. As a third Absolute. We've been talking about the Unqualified Absolute. We've been talking about the Deity Absolute. Up until this time we've been talking about the Universal Absolute pretty much as just an associative presence. But is there any meaning or value to the Universal Absolute apart from the fact of association?
Yes, there is. This is an inventory of the Universal Absolute all alone, apart from the Deity and Unqualified Absolutes. He is the potential--which means, he is an emptiness in which action can take place.
I quote again from Lao-Tze: "The virtue of an empty vessel is that it can be filled."
The emptiness inherent in the Universal Absolute has the virtue of providing an arena in which action can take place and in which transactions can be consummated.
The Universal Absolute is an emptiness. And what is this emptiness, this room for action? In this emptiness static-dynamic Deity can do something. What in the dickens is static-dynamic Deity? It's the relationship between the Deity Absolute and the Unqualified Absolute. It can perform some functions. These functions are going to result in the realization of some things. And the things are going to take place--grow, evolve, be created, fragmentized, eventuated--on time-eternity levels. This is a conjoining of time and eternity.
Is such a thing comprehensible? Why, certainly. An Adjuster is an eternity entity, and we're time creatures. This is taking place right in our own experience. These things are going to be realized as finite-absolute values.
Well, the Adjuster is Qualified Absolute, and if anything's finite, we are. If the Supreme Being can ever associate with God the Ultimate, this is the same type of association taking place on a Deity level, isn't it?
And in the Trinity of Trinities it's projected that finites and absolutes will be associated on the second level of the Trinity of Trinities, which would be made up of God the Supreme, God the Ultimate, and God the Absolute.
And these goals are goals which are possible to an experiential- existential approach. Experiential-existential Deity would be God the Absolute, which would represent the experientialization of the existential Deity Absolute. Any time you use the term God the Absolute, you are assuming that the Deity Absolute has become experientially personified. The Deity Absolute is a pre-personal Deity, not the other person.
It says--again, my old pal the grizzled Censor--I always think of him as growling. Says this Universal Censor, "We know the Universal Father, the Eternal Son, and the Infinite Spirit as persons, but I do not personally know the Deity Absolute. I love and worship God the Father; I respect and honor the Deity Absolute."
Those words give me some feeling for his feeling. Audience: The Deity Absolute isn't personalized, so he says--
No, no. The Deity Absolute is a pre-personal Deity. God the Absolute is our conception of the personalization of that Deity. The pre-personal Deity Absolute is an existential reality. The personalization of this Deity Absolute would be by experiential techniques.
So, they're talking about the union of the existential and the experiential. If our conjecture about Thought Adjusters is correct, did they have an origin in time? I don't think so. Even if the Father should fragment an Adjuster now, I think that transaction would take place above the stream of time. A Thought Adjuster is something like an existential reality, certainly an eternal reality. We are experiential realities. Here is another type of union taking place. You see, they're talking about us in here, as well as Deity.
So, the Universal Absolute marks out a zone in which statics and dynamics can be associated. They can be associated on time-eternity levels. They can be associated as finite-absolute values. And they can be approached by experiential-existential techniques.
"This incomprehensible aspect of Deity may be static, potential, and associative"--those are the first three levels of the function of total Deity--"but is not experientially creative" (fourth level) "or evolutional" (fifth level) "as concerns the intelligent personalities now functioning in the master universe."
This is Deity. This is not non-Deity. But it's limited as to function. Whereas the Father is unlimited.
Let's consider the First Source and Center. Let's go back to Page 4. This is the only discussion in the papers of the First Source and Center as such. They are not talking about the Universal Father.
Here we take inventory for the first time in these papers of the seven Absolutes of Infinity: Father, Son, Spirit, Paradise, Deity, Universal, and Unqualified Absolute.
The First Source and Center is original reality. The next three are actual reality. The last three are potential reality.
"God--the Universal Father--is the personality of the First Source and Center. " Now, he's had the experience, in one level of our stack of pancakes, of being just like the Deity Absolute-- pre-personal. He is pre-personal. He is never not personal. The least you can say about God is, that in a certain sense he is pre-personal--but then you must quickly add, he is also personal. And then you should add, he is also super-personal. These are the subabsolute manifestations of God.
He is to all functional intents and purposes still pre-personal because he still sends out Thought Adjusters, fragments of his pre-personal nature. He's personal, because he creates. This very day on Paradise he may be creating a Creator Son in conjunction with the Eternal Son. He is a continuing creator. He eventually--how, I don't know, except he's not creating now--but he's doing something that brings something into existence. And this adds to the personnel of the Absonite level. He's both actual and potential. He's both Deity, and he is not Deity. "God--the Universal Father--is the personality of the First Source and Center and as such maintains personal relations of infinite control over all co-ordinate and subordinate sources and centers. Such control is personal and infinite in potential, even though it may never actually function owing to the perfection of the function of co-ordinate and subordinate sources and centers and personalities."
The chap that takes over the administration of spiritual gravities-- why should he perform such a needless and redundant act? The Father himself could not improve on the function of the Eternal Son in that domain because the Eternal Son is the perfect and final expression of the Father's creative purpose as concerns that domain.
In other words, the Father doesn't actually interfere with anything, because everything is working perfectly at this level.
Even if it doesn't work quite perfectly, I don't think he interferes. Let's take a Michael Son. He's not absolutely perfect. And what's more, he's coping with reactions that are beyond his control--the freewill actions of really imperfect beings. But the Father doesn't interfere. He lets this Creator Michael work it out.
At least he doesn't interfere on the finite level. What he is doing on upper levels, I don't know. But they do say that blind and unforeseen accidents do not happen in the cosmos.
But on the finite level, and working with my time units, which are pretty short, I've got to use the word chance, even though I am told in the papers that chance is a word which signifies that man is either too lazy or too ignorant to find out. If I knew enough, I would eliminate the word chance from my vocabulary. But, practically speaking, I can't live without it, and neither can you folks.
"The First Source and Center is, therefore, primal in all domains: deified or undeified, personal or impersonal, actual or potential, finite or infinite. No thing or being, no relativity or finality, exists except in direct or indirect relation to, and dependence on, the primacy of the First Source and Center."
Ever remember that man's comprehension of the Universal Father is a personal experience. God, as your spiritual Father is comprehensible to you and to all other mortals, but your experiential, worshipful concept of the Universal Father must always be less than your philosophic postulate of the infinity of the First Source and Center, the I AM.