Paper 1: The Universal Father

The Universal Father is the first source and center of all things. He is a creator, a controller, and an upholder. All enlightened beings worship God the Father and have one supreme ambition-to become like him.

Messengers from Paradise carry God's divine command throughout the universes: "Be you perfect, even as I am perfect." Humans cannot be perfect in the infinite sense, but can become complete in divinity of will, personality motivation, and God-consciousness.

The Father is known by many names, but reveals himself only by nature. God is primal reality and the source of all truth. He is universal spirit, eternal truth, infinite reality, and a loving father. Affectionate dedication to doing his will is the only gift of true value that humans have to offer God.

God is an eternal, infinite, true, good, and beautiful personality beyond the imagination of the human mind. He delights in his children. The manifestations of the Universal Father in the local universes are his  Creator Sons. It is eternally true: "He who has seen the Son, has seen the Father."

God-knowing mortals have within themselves three experiential phenomena that constitute positive proof of God's existence: God-consciousness, God-seeking, and the desire to do God's will.

God is an eternal power, a majestic presence, and a glorious ideal. He is a perfect personality, a person who can know and be known, love and be loved. Personality is not just an attribute of God, it is the revelation of God to the universes. Human personality is the shadow cast by the divine personality. Mortals view personality from the finite toward the infinite, but God's perspective moves from the infinite to the finite.

The human body is literally the temple of God; a divine fragment of the Father dwells within each  mortal mind. The benefits received from this presence of the divine Father are limited only by the mortal's capacity to receive and discern spiritual reality. God participates in the struggle of every imperfect soul in the universe who seeks to ascend. It is true that in all our afflictions he is afflicted, for in him we live and move and have our being.

Humans attain divine union through progressive spiritual communion with God and wholehearted, intelligent conformity to his will. Mind yielded to spirit becomes increasingly spiritual and ultimately will achieve oneness with the divine.