The nature and meaning of the seven triunities may be suggested as… now let’s consider this first triunity. This is the personal purposive triunity; this is not the Paradise Trinity. This is the Father, Son, and the Spirit; this is the three-fold union of love, mercy and ministry; the purposive and personal association of the three eternal Paradise personalities. This is divinely fraternal, creature loving, fatherly acting, ascension promoting association. The members of this first trinuity are personality bequeathing, spirit bestowing and mind endowing Gods. This is the triunity of infinite volition. It acts throughout the eternal presence and in all the past, present, future flow of time. This association yields volitional infinity and provides the mechanisms whereby personal deity becomes self revelatory to the creatures of the evolving cosmos.
Why isn’t this the Paradise Trinity? Let’s turn back to the preceding page and as we analyze the difference between the first triunity and the Paradise trinity you are going to get a feeling for the Paradise Trinity that you never had before, because up until know you have been thinking pretty much of the first triunity when you thought of the trinity concept.
It would seem that triunity of absolute relationships is inevitable. Personality seeks other personality association on absolute as well as on all other levels. In the association of the three Paradise personalities – they didn’t say Paradise Deities – eternalizes the first triunity, a personality union of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. For when these three persons, as persons, conjoined for united function, they thereby constitute a triunity of functional unity, not a trinity, an organic entity. But nevertheless, a triunity, a three-fold functional aggregate unanimity.
Let’s compare three kinds of association with the Father, Son, and Spirit. The Father bestows personality – that’s his personal function. He does this all alone. The Eternal Son bestows spirit upon the Universe – that’s his personal function; he does this all alone. The Conjoint Creator bestows mind upon the universes – he does this all by himself. We are thinking of these three now as individuals. They are not uncooperative. In fact, because they are divine, there is a natural cohesiveness to all of these actions. But you can think of any one of these acts without the other can’t you? The Father may fragment a Thought Adjuster – this doesn’t involve the Son or the Spirit in that act.
I think of three people working in three offices, all for the same purpose but they are performing different functions – one is the Chief of Manufacturing; the Chief Accountant; the Chief of Sales. Or three teachers teaching three different subjects in three different classrooms. They are all part of the educational system, but they are individual.
Now, let’s consider three men pulling on a rope. I want to compare that with a triunity. This is an aggregate unanimity. Now the muscular power of each man augments that of the other two – they’ve all got their hands on the same rope. This is a much closer association than the three teachers, isn’t it? And now I want you to think of these same three people sitting down as the three directors of a corporation; now we have a trinity, because the corporation is a legal person, an entity. Do you see these three degrees? We are talking here, basically, the difference between three men tugging together on the rope in functional aggregate unanimity in contrast to an organic entity – a trinity.
The Paradise Trinity is not a triunity. It is not a functional unanimity, rather is it undivided and indivisible Deity. You see, again, let’s consider the tree. I want to have a very funny tree. A Japanese gardener had fun with this tree when it was growing. This tree sprouted three branches and after they sprouted, the gardener interlaced them and let them grow, so that we have three levels on this tree. First we have the trunk, where there is just one thing there. Then we have three branches interlaced and then we have three branches growing out. At the trunk level we have the trinity. There is only one thing there. At the interlacing level we have the first triunity. There are three branches but they are still intertwined. And at the upper level of the tree we have the three distinctly separate persons of Deity. No part of the tree is a contradiction of any other part of the tree. The three-ness as unrelated, or interassociated, don’t contravene once.
Let’s start at the top of the tree and go down. At the top of the tree we have three branches. This is the Universal Father, the Eternal Son, and the Infinite Spirit. Each is a personal deity. You can go to Paradise and meet each one of them separately. Now as you move down where they are interlaced, this is a triunity relationship, and below that they are one and when you deal with the Trinity you can’t find the Father, Son or Spirit in the Trinity anymore than you can find the three branches in the single trunk of the tree. The living tree to me is the best illustration of this three-in-one paradox and if you interlace the branches you get a feeling for a triunity association.
The Paradise Trinity is not a triunity. It is not a functional unanimity – three men tugging on a rope, the intertwined branches. The Paradise Trinity is undivided and indivisible Deity – the corporation, the single trunk of the tree.
The Father, Son and Spirit as persons can sustain a relationship to the Paradise Trinity. Any one of these branches can sustain a relationship to the trunk. For the Trinity is their undivided Deity. The Father, Son, and Spirit sustain no such personal relationship to the first Triunity for that is their functional union as three persons.
You see the Deity of the Father is one level, the personality of the Father is another level. When you say Father, Son, and Spirit as Deity, you can’t - that is Trinity – you are down at the trunk of the tree.
Only as the Trinity, as undivided Deity, do they collectively sustain an external relationship to the triunity of their personal aggregation. If the Father, Son, and Spirit want to sustain in relationship to the first triunity, and do this collectively, they can do this only as the Paradise Trinity. Thus does the Paradise Trinity stand unique among absolute relationships. There are several existential triunities, but only one existential trinity. A triunity is not an entity. It is functional rather than organic. They can’t improve on our comparison. The interlacing of the branches verses the singleness of the trunk. There isn’t any interlacing in the trunk, it is one. It’s members are partners rather than corporative – that’s a good way of putting it. Three-guys cooperate – that’s one thing. Three guys form a partnership – that’s something yet again. Three guys organize a corporation and now for the first time we have a fourth entity there – the corporation has legal standing, the partnership doesn’t have too much standing in the eyes of the law. It’s members are partners rather than corporative. The components of the triunities may be entities, but a triodity itself is an association.
There is however one point of comparison between trinity and triunity – both eventuate in functions. They are using the word eventuate in a loose sense. I think you could say both result in functions that are something other than the discernible sum of the attributes of the component partners. But while they are thus comparable from a functional standpoint, they otherwise exhibit no categorical relationship. They are roughly related as the relation of function to structure, but the function of the triunity association is not the function of the trinity structure or entity. The triunities are nonetheless real – they are very real. In them is total reality functionalized and through them does the Universal Father exercise immediate and personal control over the master functions of infinity. Now, let’s go back and take a look, on the next page 1148.
We now have a better feeling for this first triunity and we know it is not the trinity. We know the trinity can sustain a relationship to it. And we know have a better feeling for the word trinity whenever they use it in these papers. The trinity is an organic reality and its personal members can sustain a personal relationship to the trinity of which they are a part. And now maybe you can understand the First Experiential Trinity better.
The First Experiential Trinity has a lot of people in it. It’s got one Supreme Being. It’s go over twenty-thousand Architects of the Master Universe. With the Creator Sons and Creative Spirits alone you’ve got nearly a million and a half – a million four hundred thousand, plus twenty-one Ancients of Days, plus seven Master Spirits. This is a Deity union in the First Experiential Trinity, not a personal presence in the First Experiential Trinity. If you want to symbolize and conceptualize that trinity better you can distort it and let’s say, we’ll have the Supreme Being, the Senior Architect of the Master Universe, and the Seventh Master Spirit. You can symbolize it but it is much more complex. These Creator Sons can be out on the first outer space level and sustain a personal relationship to the First Experiential Trinity of which as Deity, they are structurally built in. But I am merely trying to discuss trinity in general. There are four possible trinities. Three trinities and then a big one made up of these three – the Trinity of Trinities. And this is a structural reality, an organic unity.
In the First Experiential Trinity we start out with the trunk of the tree, but this trinity has got many thousands of branches, not three. But we still have a trunk and these branches may be a long ways away from where the trunk is.
Let’s consider the second triunity: The Power Pattern Triunity. Whether it be a tiny ultimaton, a blazing star and whirling nebulae, even the Central or Superuniverses, from the smallest to the largest material organizations, always is the physical pattern, the cosmic configuration derived from the function of this Triunity. The first member intrigues me – it’s the Father-Son. There is a lot in here that isn’t very understandable. We are going to discuss seven triunities and just to mess you up, at the end of their discussion they say these approximations are sufficient to elucidate the concept of the triunities. Not knowing the ultimate level of the triunities you cannot fully comprehend the first seven. While we do not deem it wise to attempt any further elaboration, we may state that there a fifteen triune associations of the First Source and Center, eight of which are unrevealed in these papers. These unrevealed associations are concerned with realities, actualities and potentialities which are beyond the experiential level of supremacy.
The triunities are the functional balance wheel of infinity - the unification of the uniqueness of the seven Infinity Absolutes. It is the existential presence of the triunities that enables the Father I Am to experience functional infinity unity despite the diversification of infinity in the Seven Absolutes. The First Source and Center is the unifying member of all triunities. In Him all things have their unqualified beginnings, eternal existences and infinite destinies. Although they associations cannot augment the infinity of the Father I Am, they do appear to make possible the sub-infinite and sub-absolute manifestations of his reality. The Seven Triunities multiply versatility, eternalize new depths, deitize new values, disclose new potentialities, reveal new meanings, and all these diversified manifestations in time and space and in the eternal cosmos are existent in the hypothetical stasis of the original infinity of the I Am.
We are dealing with levels here. Again, stack these frames up like pancakes.
Let’s go back to the second triunity. If we read the end we understand the middle better. This is the Father, Son, the Paradise Isle and the Conjoint Actor. And this is the group that started creation going.
Energy is organized by the cosmic agents of the Third Source and Center; energy is fashioned after the pattern of Paradise – the Absolute Materialization. But behind all of this ceaseless manipulation is the presence of the Father-Son, whose union first activated the Paradise pattern in the appearance of Havona, concomitant with the birth of the Infinite Spirit, the Conjoint Actor.
You see, what they did back there in eternity when the God of Action functioned and the dead vaults of space were astir, they are still doing. You should not say this did happen, you should say this is happening. It is happening just as much today as it happened then; it never stopped happening.
In religious experience, creatures make contact with a God who is loved. But such spiritual insight must never eclipse the intelligent recognition of the universe fact of the pattern which is Paradise. God is spirit but Paradise is not.
The Paradise personalities enlist the freewill adoration of all creatures by the compelling power of divine love and lead all such spirit born personalities into the supernal delights of the unending service of the Finaliter Sons of God.
The Second Triunity is the architect of the space stage whereon these transactions unfold. It determines the patterns of cosmic configuration.
Love may characterize the divinity of the first Triunity but pattern is the galactic manifestation of the second Triunity. What the first Triunity is to evolving personalities, the second Triunity is to the evolving universes. Pattern and personality are two of the great manifestations of the acts of the First Source and Center. And no matter how difficult it may be to comprehend, it is nonetheless true that the power pattern and the loving person are one and the same universe reality. The Paradise Isle and the Eternal Son are coordinate but antipodal revelations of the unfathomable nature of the Universal Father force.
They are stretching your imagination here. We are still studying the First Source and Center and it’s through these relationships we can get a better feeling of the fact that our philosophic postulate of the First Source and Center must exceed our worshipful concept of the Universal Father.
The Third Triunity – the Spirit Evolutional Triunity. The entirety of spiritual manifestation has its beginning and end in this association consisting of 1) the Universal Father, 2) the Son-Spirit, 3) the Deity Absolute. From spirit potentency to Paradise spirit, all spirit finds reality expression in this triune association of the pure spirit essence of the Father, the active spirit values of the Son-Spirit, and the unlimited spirit potentials of the Deity absolute. The existential values of spirit have their primordial genesis, complete manifestation and final destiny in this triunity. The Father exists before spirit, the Son-Spirit functions as active creative spirit, the Deity absolute exists as all encompassing spirit, even beyond spirit.
This is where they get seraphim from. This is where supernaphim came from when they work for you - primaries. It’s on this relationship that the Master Spirits draw, when today they create secondary supernaphim.
The Fourth Triunitye Triunity of Energy Infinity. (I’ll never forget the first time we read this I thought they’ve got to run out, they can’t keep adding these things, what are they doing.). Now love and volition, power and pattern, spirit now energy. Within this Triunity there eternalizes the beginnings and endings of all energy reality from space potency to minota. This group embraces the following: 1) the Father-Spirit, 2) the Paradise Isle, 3) the Unqualified Absolute. Paradise is the center of the force energy activation of the cosmos, the universe position of the First Source and Center. The cosmic focal point of the Unqualified Absolute and the source of all energy. Existentially present within this triunity is the energy potential of the cosmos infinite of which the Grand Universe and the Master Universe are only partial manifestations. There it is – cold turkey.
The Fourth Triunity absolutely controls the fundamental units of cosmic energy and releases them from the grasp of the unqualified absolute in direct proportion to the appearance in the experiential deities of sub-absolute capacity to controlling and stabilizing the metamorphosing cosmos. This triunity is force and energy. The endless possibilities of the Unqualified Absolute are centered around the Absolutum, the stuff of the Isle of Paradise whence emanate the unimaginable agitations of the otherwise static quiescence of the unqualified. And the endless throbbing of the material Paradise heart of the infinite cosmos beats in harmony with the unfathomable pattern and the unsearchable plan of the infinite energizer, the First Source and Center. This whole thing is alive and Paradise is the heart that beats, that pulsates.
Let’s turn to page 469 where they discuss what goes on with this triunity. Here is the discussion of universal non-spiritual energy systems, physical energies. This discussion starts out with a discussion of the conversion of potentials into actuals and ends with a discussion of actuals that exist from eternity.
They start out with space potency. This is what came from Paradise and passed into the control of the Unqualified Absolute. I think of Paradise as the pitcher, the Unqualified Absolute as the catcher, and the baseball was the uncreated stuff of the unbegun universes of the eternal future, and ever since then they have been unraveling that baseball. Do you follow me? It came from Paradise, but Paradise made that bestowal just once and he made it without limit. And since the unqualified absolute is limitless he could catch an infinite baseball.
(Audience Member: “They’ll never unwind it completely.”)
Space potency is the beginning of energy as we view it and it is spoken of as Absoluta and that is the neuter form in Latin of which Absolutum is the masculine form. I think they picked those words designedly. Absolutum is the stuff of Paradise; Absoluta is that which came from Paradise and which is the ultimate ancestor of all matter.
As we read this from space potency down to universe power, as we go through the first four stages here, but not beyond that, I want you to visualize the crystallization of water vapor. I want you to stop and think how this room is filled with invisible water vapor and as this water vapor emerges to the recognition of our sensory mechanism, our eyes, first of all, it fogs a little. Then a real cloud forms – this is distinct. These clouds look so darned real it looks like you could sit on one in contrast to the blue sky. These clouds didn’t come from nothing now did they? Water vapor was there all the time. And then let’s go on and let water rain out of this cloud – it’s getting more tangible isn’t it. And then let the water freeze, and now we’ve got something we can rap. This is very real in contrast to the seeming unreality of invisible water vapor to our senses.
The next step is primordial force. Now, primordial force is something that is still water vapor, but still wouldn’t register. But in some way it is different from space potency. Primordial force emerges from space potency not because anything which the force organizers do but simply because they go out there. It’s probably happened already. It’s probably a function of this fourth triunity. It’s probably a function of the Conjoint Actor, the infinite manipulator. They speak of it as Segregata. I think that word should suggest to us that here is something which has been segregated from something which is not qualified. This is a chunk apart from the whole.
As we turn the page, we discover we are going to talk about two levels of emergent energy. Emerging from invisibility to visibility. Here is where fog appears and the cloud gets very real and solid looking. Emergent energy goes through two phases; the Primary Master Force Organizers now go to work. They really go to work. What’s happened before is a little difficult to say that they did it. Let’s say they consummated something which perhaps the Third Source and Center did. But now they take over. They operate on the less visible, more tenuous side of emergent energy. They produce puissant energy. Puissant is a good English word meaning powerful. Young puissant prince says Shakespeare. And here we have direction. Clockwise, counterclockwise motion would be indigenous to puissant energy. And here for the first time Paradise gravity begins to reach out in a tenuous way. Now this was the condition of affairs, in fact this 3(a) stage was pretty well completed when they begin the story of the Andronover nebula. Because it was an Associate Master Force Organizer who came out to these regions and discovered that things looked right for materialization. His senior colleagues, the Primary Force Organizers hadn’t told him anything, he had to find this. And it was the Uversa Council of Equilibrium made up of Associate Force Organizers and Power Directors, which issued the permit authorizing him to come out here and initiate the Andronover Nebula.
But everything we have read hear up until now had already gone on before, because it says on page 651...just before they used their first date of 987 billion years ago when this Associate Force Organizer discovered the situation, the preceding sentence reads… “At the time of the beginning of this recital the Primary Master Force Organizers of Paradise had long been in full control of the space energies which were later organized as the Andronover Nebula.” They never tell us how long they have been there, they tell us when the Associate Force Organizers took over.
These Associate Force Organizers then go to work and now it is beginning to rain. Now we are getting something pretty tangible because we not only have Paradise gravity beginning to operate, but local gravity is beginning to operate. In the case of Andronover they worked for about one hundred billion years and then they stepped aside and the Power Directors of Orvonton took over when we passed from stage three to stage four. In outer space there are no Power Directors available and so these Associate Force Organizers would continue right on fostering the further development of the suns and star systems of the outer space levels.
This level of the active function of the primary force organizers starting with clouds and ending with rain is spoken of as Ultimata and this is the energy domain of the emerging ultimate, God the Ultimate. We are now on the second floor of the firehouse. God the Ultimate has to do with power. If I were to christen the power phase of the Ultimate, I would refer to it as the Omnipotent – a term analogous to the Almighty in relation to the Supreme.
Audience Member: (“That is a new idea.”)
Yes. You have come down from the control of the Unqualified Absolute, as Absoluta, to Segregata, where the God of Action is involved. And if any compensating motion is involved, the Universal Absolute is involved. Then to this level of the active function of the Primary Force Organizers and the active function of the Secondary Force Organizers.... This is the transcendental level. The Architects of the Master Universe are directing these people. This is the second floor of the firehouse. Absoluta is on the third floor of the firehouse. Segregata is either at the floor of the third floor or at the ceiling of the middle floor – I don’t know which. But Ultimata is down on the second floor.
And now we come down into the bottom floor of the firehouse – universe power. This is the energy domain of the Supreme and it’s spoken of as Gravita – because it responds to gravity I think. Now we have ice – something very tangible. Now we have everything that we know about in the domain of physics. We know have electricity, we have magnetism, we have chemism, we have elements, isotopes and whatnot. As these papers describe things, we may get up into the lower levels of gravity energy.
(Audience Member: “By “we” you mean Urantia physicists.”)
Now this is the end of the story as far as the evolution of energy and matter is concerned in time and space. The rest of this story concerns a tracing back of the trail through eternity because the next energy we talk about is Triata. This is the material stuff of the one billion Havona worlds.
Space potency went into outer space. We have been considering how it is released and now instead of dealing with the transactions of the extra-Havona space levels, we are now going into Havona and we are going to examine how the rest of the story of energy. But this has nothing to do with space potency, I don’t think. Well here’s a question, let me ask you something: “When Paradise produced the material of Havona, did it technically go through space potency to become Havona or did it come out direct?” I don’t know – it’s not important. You could debate that one either way.
In a sense we are looking at a big curve like this. We started with Absoluta and it got less and less absolute as we brought it down and now as we retrace our way into Paradise, we are going to see this swing back toward something absolute again.
(Audience Member: “Does space potency have to do with evolutionary developments only?”)
Yes I think so. Space potency is concerned with any materialization in the SuperuUniverses or outer space levels. (Responding to audience question unable to hear) Havona is eternal. I doubt that it would, whether it did or not is beside the point.
What Gravita is out here, Triata is in Havona. Gravita discusses our physical realities. All those which are known to us and our mass materialization is two-fold. Our atoms have two charges: positive and negative. In Havona they have three charges: positive, negative and something else. Matter has different properties in Havona then it has out here: it’s not this kind of matter, but it is physical. For one thing, they use worlds in Havona that would be asinine out here because of too much gravity. But you can have enormously massive worlds in Havona and it doesn’t build up to that much gravity. It builds up to gravity, but not that much. I am not at all certain that a Havona world isn’t a heck of a lot larger than the sphere Jupiter. And on Jupiter the gravity pull would squish us flat. We would just spread out on Bud’s floor like maple syrup; in fact we would seep into cracks. That’s how strong the pull would be; we would just liquefy on Jupiter. Now, this is the existential or eternal energy domain of the Conjoint Actor functioning in behalf of the Paradise Trinity – Havona energy.
There is still another form of energy. It operates on and from the upper level of Paradise and only in connection with the absonite peoples. They call it Tranosta. They don’t say whose energy domain it is. You see now we have gotten into something super-finite. This is transcendental.
(Audience Member: “It’s on the second or third floor of the firehouse?”)
It’s the second. Now we are going to third floor of the firehouse, right where we started out, when we deal with the energy of Paradise itself, called Minota. We measure energy down here with ammeters and volt meters. Lets say you could have a universal ammeter volt meter which you could use on Paradise and you could plant this ammeter volt meter onto the Eternal Son and measure Paradise Spirit and get a reading. Then you could clamp this onto the stuff of Paradise and take a reading on Minota and you would get exactly the same readings because on Paradise, the physical energy of the Eternal Isle and the spiritual energy of the Eternal Son are just plain exactly the same. The only way you can tell one from the other is to recognize the source of the energy and if it comes from the Eternal Son you say this is Paradise Spirit, and if it comes from the Eternal Isle, you say this is Paradise Minota. The only way you distinguish them is by name.
Let’s illuminate this. Over on page 638 they are discussing Universal Unity. They say pure energy is the ancestor of all relative non-spirit functional realities while pure spirit is the potential of the divine and directive over-control of all basic energy systems. And these realities, so diverse as manifested throughout space and as observed in the motions of time, are both centered in the person of the Paradise Father. In Him they are one – must be unified – because God is one. The Father’s personality is absolutely unified.
In the infinite nature of God the Father there could not possibly exist duality of reality such as physical and spiritual. But the instant we look aside from the infinite levels and absolute reality of the personal values of the Paradise Father, we observe the existence of these two realities and recognize that they are fully responsive to his personal presence. In him all things consist and as you begin to ponder Paradise Minota and Paradise Spirit, you begin to realize they have to be identical because they are the original expressions of the nature of God.
Now you begin to see why a Thought Adjuster travels the Paradise Gravity Circuits. What is the spirit nature of a Thought Adjuster? The nature of a Thought Adjuster is a fragment of something which when expressed is know as either Paradise Minota or Paradise Spirit. The moment you depart from the unqualified concept of the infinite personality of the Paradise Father, you must postulate mind as the inevitable technique of unifying the ever widening divergence of these dual universe manifestations of the original monothetic creator personality, the First Source and Center, the I Am.
Well, back to page 1149. We have been exploring the Fourth Triunity. Does this bore you all? (No)
The Fifth Triunity is Triunity of Reactive Infinity. This association consists of the Universal Father, the Universal Absolute, and the Unqualified Absolute. This grouping yields the eternalization of the functional infinity realization of all that is actualizable within the domains of non-deity reality. This is a pure potential deal. This triunity manifests unlimited reactive capacity to the volitional, causative, tensional, and patternal actions and presences of the other triunities. This is a passive-reactive triunity.
I always think of the old Zoroastrean’s critique of the book of Genesis. It’s in the Pahlavi texts and he is lambasting the author of Genesis who says that God was alone. He said its obvious he was not alone because when he commanded things to happen they happened, and this means there was also present an obeyor of commands.
I’m glad they don’t say much about this triunity because it’s way out there.
(Audience Member: “Why do they say that it is actualizable if it deals only with potentials?)
It is the container of potentials.
This Sixth Triunity - the Triunity of Cosmic Associative Deity. This grouping consists of the Universal Father, the Deity Absolute, and the Universal Absolute. These last two are the Father in relationship to two absolutes. This is the association of deity in the cosmos. The immanence of deity in conjunction with the transcendence of deity.
Remember all the theological arguments about “is God immanent or is God transcendent?” He’s both. In this triunity he’s immanent. This is the last outreach of divinity on the levels of infinity toward those realities which lie outside the domain of deified reality. I don’t understand that very well – let’s face it.
Then we have already discussed the Seventh Triunity, haven’t we? Remember when we were talking about the fact that the Father and the Conjoint Actor and the Universal Absolute are interrelating deities. The Universal Absolute hooks up the other two absolutes. The Conjoint Actor functionally interrelates matter and spirit - the Son and Paradise. And the Father of course interrelates everything. And so its natural that these associators should constitute a trinity in and of themselves.
Now while we are at it, let’s look at page 1151 and take a look at non-triunity associations. These are triunities which do not contain the First Source and Center and they give us just two of them here. I think that is enough for us to know about. They call them triodities. One is the Triodity of Potentiality and the other is the Triodity of Actuality. One is the three absolutes of potential: deity, universal and qualified. The other consists of the three absolutes of actuality: the Son, Paradise, and the Infinite Spirit. They don’t classify the Father. Elsewhere in these papers they refuse to classify the Father as either actual or potential – they just say he is original because he is both actual and potential and probably something else for which we have no name.
(Audience Member: “Where is this place in our tree – triodities?”)
Let’s get away from the tree now. The tree applies only if you have a trinity. There are only three trees: the Paradise Trinity, the First Experiential Trinity otherwise known as the Trinity Ultimate, and the Second Experiential Trinity, otherwise known as the Trinity Absolute – unless you wanted to say the Trinity of Trinities and that is a “tree of trees.”
(Audience Member: “Was the triunity in that tree?”)
Only the first triunity. But no other triunity is made up of three members that constitute a trinity. The first triunity has a relationship to a trinity, no other triunity has such a relationship. So our tree comparison works only once here. It doesn’t work the other six times.
You see, this thing is not a dead level pattern. There are funny little eccentrics that appear all over this, it’s not just a mechanism. The I Am has a seven-fold relationship, six of which are comparable and that seventh one is cute, it’s internal, not like the other six.
The triodities represent an awfully valuable concept because these are good ways of symbolizing all growth. If it isn’t here it involves the Triodity of Potentiality. Now if it is here it is held in the gravity grasps of the Triodity of Actuality. All evolution is nothing more than a transfer of reality from one triodity to the other, from the potential to the actual.
Let’s say that a star cools down; it gets very cold and very dense. The atoms get packed in closer together and the electrons move in as heat loss equivilates to a slowing down of speed of rotation and they can only maintain that speed if they give up distance. So the electrons are hunching in closer and closer and closer to the nucleus. And this thing can go on through atomic condensation to electronic condensation until this stuff begins to approach the solidity of Paradise Absoluta. Until it begins to approach, but as it approaches Ultimatonic condensation the whole thing blows higher than a kite and you are back to the puissant energy level. So matter can re-circulate but only life and personal life can become extinguished.
When they say now that the First Source and Center is primal in all domains this means more to you now, doesn’t it? As you examine a portraiture of the mechanics of being primal, this is how he does it. He has first of all a unity relationship, then duality relationships directly with each of these absolutes including himself, and now triunity relationships. He is related to the universe as… Now they are talking about how does he work today. Material gravity focuses in the Isle of Paradise and that’s why he’s got to be right at the center of upper Paradise. He can’t move because he has to be there for this machine to be Absolute: as mind converges in the Infinite Spirit; as cosmic mind converges in the Seven Master Spirits, and as the factualizing mind of the Supreme converges in Majeston. As spirit converges in the Eternal Son; as capacity for deity action is in the Deity Absolute; as capacity for infinity response is in the Unqualified Absolute; and as these two absolutes, qualified and unqualified, are coordinated and unified in and by the Universal Absolute, and as the potential personality of an evolutionary moral being or of any other moral being is centered in the personality of the Universal Father.
You see, he has retired from direct contact with things except in the field of personality. Here he did not retire. Otherwise he works always through something. Let’s compare that with something in Paper 10. On page 5 we were talking about how the First Source and Center is related to the Universe. On page 111 they discuss how he functions outside of Havona. Now in this first listing there are no qualifications. This is how he is related to the Universe, I deduce including Havona. But here is how he functions outside of Havona in the phenomenal universes as a creator: through his Creator Sons; as a controller through the Gravity Center of Paradise; as spirit through the Eternal Son; as mind through the Conjoint Creator; as a father, direct contact with all creatures through the Personality Circuits; as a person he acts directly throughout creation by his fragments, in mortal man, the Thought Adjusters; as total deity, only in the Trinity.
It’s very interesting to compare those two things, isn’t it? The difference between relationship and function. You see, here we are dealing with actualities, so the absolutes don’t come into this listing at all.
(Audience Member: “I feel a lot more comfortable here.”)
Of course you do, this what is. It will never be complete from a quantitative standpoint, but it can become functional from a qualitative standpoint. The second level I don’t think can ever function in infinity because I don’t think God the Absolute can ever be finished in the sense that God the Supreme and God the Ultimate can be. But that doesn’t mean he can’t be there and that doesn’t mean that there can’t be a growing function – an eternally growing function – on that level. The Trinity of Trinities could become functionally operative only in eternity. And as long as we have time there is a future; and as long as we have a future there is something that his left to be done.
(Audience Member: “It’s like throwing out a gigantic boomerang – knowing it’s going to come back after it goes….”)
Suppose we jump from here to Universal Unity where they have a little bit more to say about the Absolutes. Here they say, on page 644, they say that the Absolutes are unified in the Universal, coordinated in the Ultimate, conditioned in the Supreme, and time-space modified in the Seven-fold. Here we are considering the down stepping of potential whether it is material energy, starting out as Absoluta, Segregata, Ultimata, Gravita. It’s coming down to where the Supreme can get a hold of it and it passes through the Ultimate on the way. This would be true of spiritual potential as well as material potential. This is true I think of mind potential.
On sub-infinite levels there are three absolutes, but in infinity they appear to be one. On Paradise there are three personalizations of deity but in the trinity they are one. Then they go on to say, which came first? Was it the Absolute – is the Absolute antecedent to the Trinity? Or is the Trinity antecedent to the Absolute. Is the Unqualified Absolute a force presence independent of the Trinity? Does the presence of the Deity Absolute connote the unlimited function of the Trinity? And is the Universal Absolute the final function of the Trinity, even a Trinity of Trinities?
Well, they say fine, let’s have the Absolute as the ancestor of all things. You feel good right away. We’ve got it down to one thing now. But we can’t accept this because the Trinity is eternal. Nothing is ancestral to the Trinity. All we can do is to say then that the Absolute is to all universe intelligences the impersonal and coordinate reaction of the Trinity, maybe of Trinities, to all basic and primary space situations, intra-universal and extra-universal. In other words, this is the entity who is concerned with events of the present in terms of the cosmos infinite. This Absolute, the three Absolutes, is reacting always in terms of as though we have come to the end and it was all here. This is a pure eternity reaction impinging on time.
We react differently as our lives develop. Boys meet girls, get married, have children, and then react like parents, unfortunately. But let’s say the three Absolutes, even when they are in puberty, are reacting as though they were grandparents – do you follow me. They are reacting in terms of the future and the past and of course that reaction impinges on the present as something unfathomable. Because how can you fathom out a reaction which has no relationship to time but still registers in time? Do you follow me? A twelve year old who makes decisions in terms of his grandparent attitude would be a very mysterious twelve year old, wouldn’t he?
Then they say, now look, as far as you are concerned accept the Paradise Trinity as final. This is your best working hypothesis. And if you want to go beyond that then set up the I Am as ancestral to all things. If you must have a single starting point, you can’t have the Absolute because the Trinity is eternal. You say all right now the Absolute is eternal. I want one. Then take the I Am as your best speculation.
The I Am is the primal cause and unqualified source of both the Trinity and the Absolute. When therefore we crave to entertain a personal concept of the Absolute, we revert to our ideas and ideals of the Paradise Father. When we desire to facilitate comprehension or augment consciousness of this otherwise impersonal absolute, we revert to the fact that the Universal Father is the existential father of absolute personality. The Eternal Son is the absolute person, though not in the experiential sense the personalization of the Absolute. That would be God the Absolute.
And then we go on to envisage the experiential trinities as culminating in the experiential personalization of the Deity Absolute, while conceiving the Universal Absolute as constituting the Universe of the extra-universe phenomena of the manifest presence of the impersonal activities of the unified and coordinated deity associations of supremacy, ultimacy, and infinity - the Trinity of Trinities.
Now we should come back to this, but before we do, we should leave this story in suspense. So far, we have considered only the third floor of the firehouse. But the Father projected two more floors. And this is where the mud really hit the fan. Any tensions which were set up topside are small compared to the tensions which are set up when topside is related to bottom side.
Over on page 1158 they talk about what happened when God projected two more floors in the firehouse. Page 1158 has a subtitle: Promulgation of Finite Reality. Prior to the deitization of the finite, it would appear that all reality diversification took place on absolute levels – that’s all we’ve been talking about - but the volitional act promulgating finite reality connotes a qualification of absoluteness and implies the appearance of relativity. While we present this narrative as a sequence and portray the historic appearance of the finite as a direct derivative of the Absolute, it should be born in mind that transcendentals both preceded and succeeded all that is finite. Transcendental ultimates are in relation to the finite, both causal and consummational.
From the creature standpoint, that which is transcendental would have appeared to have eventuated as a consequence of the finite from the eternity viewpoint in anticipation of the finite and there are those who have considered it a pre-echo of the finite.
Listen, that thing is born out in our own discussion of this energy series. At the third level of energy its called Ultimata. It’s the energy domain of God the Ultimate. And the sixth level of energy was Trinosta, which is the energy associated with the transcendentalers on Paradise. We meet the Ultimate coming and going don’t we? The pre-echo.
Finite possibility is inherent in the infinite but the transmutation of possibility to probability and inevitability must be attributed to the self-existent free will of the First Source and Center activating all triunity associations. Only the infinity of the Father’s will could ever have so qualified the absolute level of existence as to eventuate an ultimate or to create a finite. With the appearance of relative and qualified reality there comes into being a new cycle of reality - the growth cycle - a majestic down sweep from the heights of infinity to the domain of the finite, forever swinging inward to Paradise and deity, always seeking those high destinies commensurate with an infinity source.
These inconceivable transactions mark the beginning of universe history; mark the coming into existence of time itself. To a creature, the beginning of the finite is the genesis of reality. As viewed by creature mind, there is no actuality conceivable prior to the finite. This newly appearing finite reality exists in two original phases.
Primary Maximums: the supremely perfect reality - the Havona type of universal creature.
Secondary Maximums: the supremely perfected reality - the superuniverse type of creature and creation. What they are talking about here is settled in light and life.
These, then are the two actual manifestations, the constitutively perfect and the evolutionally perfected. The two are coordinate in eternity relationships but within the limits of time they are seemingly different. A time factor means growth to that which grows. Secondary finites grow, hence, those that are growing must appear as incomplete in time. But these differences which are so important this side of Paradise are non-existent in eternity.
We speak of the perfect and the perfected as primary and secondary maximums but there is still another type: Trinitizing and other relationships between the primaries and the secondaries result in the appearance of tertiary maximums. Things, meanings and values that are neither perfect nor perfected yet are coordinate with both ancestral factors. That’s cross-personalization.
And then, when the Father did this there were repercussions and responses. The Deity response involved the appearance of the three levels of supremacy: power, spirit and mind. The universe response involves setting up the superuniverse space levels. The creature repercussion involved Havona natives and folks like us. The divinity response involved the appearance of God the Seven-fold.
And then, let’s spend just a couple of minutes on transcendentals, because we should touch on the second floor of the firehouse.
Transcendentals are sub-infinite and sub-absolute but super-finite and super-creatural. That which is transcendental is not necessarily non-developmental but it is super-evolutional in the finite sense. Neither is it non-experiential but it is super-experience as such is meaningful to creatures. They’ve got something up there which is experience but it is not what we would recognize as experience.
Perhaps the best illustration of such a paradox is the central universe of perfection. It is hardly absolute. Only the Paradise Isle is truly absolute in a materialized sense. Neither is it a finite evolutionary creation, as are the seven super universes. Havona is eternal but not changeless in the sense of being a universe of non-growth. It is inhabited by creatures, Havona natives, who never were actually created. There’s always the Infinite Spirit for they are eternally existent. Havona thus illustrates something which is not exactly finite, nor yet absolute. Havona further acts as a buffer between absolute Paradise and finite creations, still further illustrating the function of transcendentals. But Havona itself is not a transcendental; it is Havona. It won’t categorize.
As the Supreme is associated with finites, so the ultimate is identified with transcendentals. But though we thus compare supreme and ultimate, they differ by something more than degree – the difference is also a matter of quality. The Ultimate is something more than a super-supreme projected on the transcendental level. The Ultimate is all of that but more; the Ultimate is an eventuation of new deity realities, the qualification of new phases of the theretofore Unqualified. And then they list ten things that have to do with the appearance of the transcendental level:
1. The Ultimate
2. The concept of the Master Universe
3. The Architects of the Master Universe
4. Two orders of Paradise Force Organizers
5. Certain modifications on Space Potency
6. Certain values of Spirit
7. Certain meanings of Mind
8. Absonite Qualities and Realities
9. Omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence
10. Space
In the eternity of the past, the forces of the Absolutes, the spirits of the deities and the personalities of the Gods, stirred in response to the primordial self-will of self existent self-will - it’s the yolk of the egg. In this universe age, we are all witnessing these stupendous repercussions of the far-flung cosmic panorama of the sub-absolute manifestations of the limitless potentials of all these realities. And it is all together possible that the continued diversification of the original reality of the First Source and Center may proceed onward and outward through age upon age, on and on into the far away and inconceivable stretches of absolute infinity.
Dearly beloved, we are in on the ground floor of this deal. They’re still offering common stock at a discount in this proposition.
Shall we go adventuring in the firehouse? We just completed the construction of the firehouse yesterday. We spent most of yesterday on the third floor and the last half-hour of yesterday we considered how the sixteen hundred mile second floor and the two inch first floor got constructed. I like to compare those two inches and sixteen hundred miles because most of this book is about the two inches and that seems frightfully big.
In the Foreword, they say that reality is comprehended by finite beings as partial, relative and shadowy. The maximum deity reality fully comprehensible by evolutionary finite creatures is embraced within the Supreme Being.
So pretty much what we call the “real” is not what the authors of these papers would call “real”. Here on page 1162 they take inventory of reality. They start out with incomplete finites - that’s us.
This is the present status of the ascending creatures of the Grand Universe, the present status of Urantia mortals. This level embraces creature existence from the planetary human up to but not including destiny attainers. It pertains to universes from early physical beginnings up to but not including settlement in light and life. This level constitutes the present periphery of creative activity in time and space. It appears to be moving outward from Paradise for the closing of the present universe age which will witness the grand universe attainment of light and life will also and surely witness the appearance of some new order of developmental growth in the first outer space level.
That’s a pretty good description in one paragraph, I think, of rather much of what is going in the seven superuniverses. A finaliter is an incomplete finite; he’s not a destiny attainers. In contrast to a spirit-fused or a son-fused mortal who is a complete finite, they have attained destiny. So also has a Mighty Messenger attained destiny. And of course, destiny attainment pertains to the present universe age. The fact that a Mighty Messenger is a non-growing being doesn’t mean that he is eternally non-growing; he just doesn’t grow now. And this “now” has to do with the present universe age which we have estimated is maybe half over and at nearly 40,000 trillions of years.
(Audience Member: “While we are on the subject of attainment, may we at this time kill Bud and send him on his way and see what happens?”)
First we’d review his remains. Some would view his remains in sorrow and some with glee. But that’s life. And Bud will sleep a varied length of time. Bud will make it in three days if he’s got a personal guardian or he might make it as a part of some special group, maybe the Blue Book group. There was a special deal when Adam died. The survivors of Eden all went over together in a group. They let Eve sleep for 17 years until Adam died and then brought them over together, which was nice. She didn’t have any time of waiting. Or it might be a millennial thing, every thousand years they tap the barrel and draw out a few pints. Or it might be dispensational; they empty the whole barrel and start over clean.
At any rate, be it three days or some longer time interval, Bud wakes up on this marble slab on the first Mansion world. He wakes up because they have drawn a GI body suitable for Bud, not too dissimilar to the one he’s got and they reassemble him, his group or personal seraphim has deposited his soul, the Adjuster has come back, the Life Carrier has vitalized that body (there would have to be a Life Carrier there). They put in a mind circuit and then the personality appears and no one knows how it gets there. When this personality seizes that mind circuit, that is the return of consciousness. Some Archangel or deputy of an Archangel will take the finger prints of that personality so that they know it is Bud. They can prove it; everybody is sure it is. The Adjuster would be evidence of that. But for the official record….
So when he cuts loose on the first mansion world, the first thing he gets is ten days vacation; and their days are three times as long as ours so that’s a month off, and that’s for casual orientation. And then they’ll put him through some tests. They’ll check him out. Let’s say he really doesn’t have any job to do on the first mansion world, so he’ll graduate. They’ll lay him down and transport him down to the second mansion world and they go through this whole business all over again because the change from mansion world to mansion world is so radical that they can’t re-key these bodies. You get seven new bodies, one for each mansion world.
Let’s say that Bud doesn’t quite make in the second mansion world so here he has to go to school. He goes to school by doing certain jobs. To do these jobs he has to master certain lessons; then he’s got to socialize. It’s a school of thinking, feeling and doing. And when he passes his exams, this is when he teaches the course he has learned. When he can do this then he can go on. He gets his grade at that point. Most of the work which they do on these early mansion worlds has to do with de-animalizing us. It’s negative; its trying to bring us up to where people should really get if they were really on the ball. It’s getting us up to the cultural level – the spiritual cultural level which Jesus attained when he was about 32 years of age. He did that in 32 years. Enoch did it probably in much longer time. Elijah did it. These are people who made it without death. They fused here in this lifetime. Had Jesus been an ordinary man he would have left this world when he was 32; he would have fused with his Thought Adjuster, which is one reason they had to detach his Adjuster. They couldn’t leave it in there.
Somewhere along about the fourth mansion world its less of a deficiency ministry and more or a real teaching business. It’s less negative making up for what we didn’t do, and more positive.
Let’s say Bud is typical and on the fifth mansion world he fuses with his Thought Adjuster. There is a scene described there which is analogous to the scene on the Jordan, at the baptism of Jesus. An Archangel (or someone will appear) and he will speak to Bud in the presence of his associates saying, “This is a beloved son in whom I am well pleased.” And fusion takes place and at that time Bud is excused from all duties and assignments. I imagine this experience leaves him a bit shook up because all of a sudden an iron curtain goes down and there is a lot more room in side. There is a whole annex that he suspected was there and he could hear something on the other side of the wall and occasionally hear them playing the stereo. And all of a sudden you break through and you get to know your neighbor.
You go away and sit down and figure out who you are. It’s at this time you get a name. They names we use now don’t count. Santa And and Santa An were the names which the first two human beens had here on earth. It was at the time of fusion that they were christened Andon and Fonta. And these names have significance. The name Andon means “the first father-like human being to exhibit perfection hunger.” And Fonta means “the first son-like human being to exhibit perfection hunger.” So I don’t know what they’ll call Bud. I hope there aren’t too many syllables in it because Bud is easier to say.
At any rate, after this fusion experience, when Bud gets acquainted with his partner, then they really draw up the articles of partnership. This has all been tentative, you know. The Adjuster has been on consignment but now the sale is closed. When fusion takes place you have bought something. Then you go back to work and it’s more of the same except this milestone has been passed. Bud knows that there is nothing but time separating him from God. Next they head to Jerusem and take up citizenship and for awhile he don’t grow so fast. This is sitting down, kind of between rounds. I fancy that we are citizens on Jerusem for quite a long while and there we enjoy things as adults, we’re not just pupils now. We are citizens; we are performing a job, we’re grown up. This is the second adult experience we have. The first one being here.
This is a time when universe horizons stand still; when the goal has been attained and we taste all of the sweetness of success. We have scored. This is home plate. I don’t know how long we stay there, but long enough I think to get full satisfaction and success. And then one day our psychology does a flip. We get itchy feet. All of a sudden these horizons, instead of being comfortingly stationary, begin to look small. We begin to wonder what is on the other side of the mountain. This is probably the indication that it is time for us to move on to the constellation level.