Discussion of the Absolutes Part I

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You'll recall, over on page 2, it talks about total Deity. It gives the seven levels on which total Deity is functional. Then it suggests an eighth level on which total Deity is functional but only in a certain sense. What we're doing when we talk about page 2–we start out talking about the section entitled, "Deity and Divinity." Levels of functioning and levels of reality. That section describes the beginning of all things–how would it have been if it ever had actually started in sequence. Now, when you go back of the fourth level here, when you deal with statics, potentials, and associatives apart from the creative function of Deity, you are going back of reality. In other words, you are going back of Havona in the Central Universe. We all want to do this, because we all want to get a start. But when we attempt this start, we should understand that–like Alice–we are going through the looking glass.

There really isn't any room there. It just seems to be a room. We are conceptually violating reality. We are saying, "What was it like before there was an Infinite Spirit and a Central Universe?" All right, let's go through the looking glass. This is what time sequence thinkers want to do. They want to go back to number one. And actually, we start with seven. We don't start with one. I visualize the static function of Deity as a condition in which we are looking at infinity as a unity. There aren't any actuals or potentials yet. All actuals are, as yet, unexpressed. Potentials are something pre-potential, because a real potential exists as a potential only in relation to some actuality.

I visualize the picture of infinity at this point as a nothingness. What I am looking at is a fried egg against a cosmic backdrop. I like the concept "fried egg" because you can't be afraid of a fried egg. If I talk about the totality of absoluteness, this is a frightening term. But a fried egg–what's with a fried egg? Well, what's with a fried egg is that there's a nucleus and a cytoplasm. There's a yolk and a white. And the papers say you never can go back to the place where there was just a oneness– even in your thinking. You must assume a possible two-ness. In other words, the yolk of the fried egg symbolizes a possibility for self-will. The white of the fried egg symbolizes the possibility for a reaction to some volitional act. This fried egg doesn't stay together. As long as it's together quietly, then we have the static function of total Deity. Now, please remember, as we develop each of these succeeding functions, the earlier functions are still continuous. Deity still functions in a static, self-contained sense. None of these terminate. They all go on, to further differentiations.

Well, the next step is the appearance of something potential. I visualize that by watching the yolk of my egg move out away from the white, and the white flows together. So now I've got two kinds of circles. I've got a yellow circle and I've got a white circle. The yellow circle is the volitional part, which is separating itself from the unvolitional part. This is total Absoluteness now, but it's separated. The yolk moved. The white didn't. The white couldn't move. No self will. The yolk could move. It had self will. Since this yolk moved, it qualified itself in some way. It separated itself. This is the Qualified Absolute. That which did not move is the Unqualified Absolute.

But you don't stop with a two-way relationship, because if you say one plus one, you have three factors there–you have a plus sign. The white and the yolk are still related, and the name which the papers give to the relationship between the Deified and the Undeified, between the Qualified Absolute–the yolk--and the Unqualified Absolute–the white–the name which the papers give to that relationship is the Universal Absolute, the unifier of that which has differentiated, or separated. In the presence of the Universal Absolute, in a sense, the egg is still united, functionally united. Now, we have an actuality, the Qualified Absolute. We now have the potentiality of the Unqualified Absolute. And we have the unity between them. This is the appearance of potentials.

This is the beginning of the jailbreak of the Universal Father, as he continues to be Absolute, but one by one he strikes off the shackles of Absoluteness so that he is not imprisoned in the awful prison of Absoluteness. What the Father is doing at this point is what the Trinity dreamt of in Syracuse long ago when he said, "Give me a place to stand, and I'll move the earth." The Universal Father is getting a place to stand on. He is creating room for creatures like us to appear in. If he filled all things totally, there is no room for anything else, is there? He is producing a void, because a void has a virtue. It can be filled. We were quoting Lao-Tze.

Audience: Yes.

And when you realize you don't know nothing, this is when you can start learning something. As Lao-Tze said in 600 BC in the Tao te Ching: "The virtue of an empty vessel is that it can be filled."

Emptiness as a virtue. Ruth?

Audience: Is there any other religion that gives a name to relationship comparable to the Absolutes?

No, no. None that I know of.

Audience: That seems to me an original idea.

These relationships personalize. Here. When a human mind is impregnated by the invasion of a Spirit Adjuster, the relationship between the mind and the Adjuster is the soul, a living reality. All these relationships tend to personalize. Conceptual relationships are personalized. When the Father and the Son jointly entertain an identical concept, they personalize that concept as a Creator Son. Such was the origin of Michael of Nebadon, who once lived on earth as a carpenter. Divinity always seeks expression in personalization. These papers are unique in that they will not validate a monad. A monad is what we would have if we took our original egg in the raw state and scrambled it. That would be a monad, a homogeneous oneness.

The papers will validate only a non-homogeneous oneness, because the minute you start with a monad, you can't get off first base. What breaks the deadlock? You follow me? Over on page 1154 they say--I'll paraphrase it: "When we violate reality and give you chronology for events in eternity, (which is to say we describe them as though they'd happened in time), then we have to say that there was a time at which the yolk separated

from the white." In other words, this is a separation of the Infinite One from the Infinitude. The Infinite One is the Qualified Absolute, or the yolk of the egg. The Infinitude–this name suggests no personality–is the Unqualified Absolute. Then they say, please remember the Infinity still continues. Which is to say, the union of the two still continues. The yolk has moved out away from the white. Yet, on another level and in another sense, the yolk is still in the white. Do you follow?

These things happen on many levels. Then they say, you can look at it from this standpoint: The union is achieved by the function of the Universal Absolute, who makes it as though it had never separated. You have three concepts there: It's still the way it was. It's separated, but is united as though it had not separated. Yet it's separated. Now look, if your thinking is troubled by things of this sort, I don't think I'd let it worry you, because we are engaged in unscrewing the inscrutable. You will recall our discussion about the Bantu. We asked everyone to consider the problem of executing an assignment for the State Department.

The assignment is, you go to Africa, and you write a series of papers–about a two thousand page dissertation–describing the American way of life. You've got a good interpreter. You are now writing paper number 112, entitled, "The Functions of the New York Stock Exchange." This is part of the American way of life. Or, "The Financial Functions of Wall Street," a broader title. You start dictating, and pretty soon you get a feedback from the translator: "No word in Bantu for common stock. No word for cumulative preferred. No word for convertible debentures. No word for debentures versus securities, borrowings. No word for growth equities." So little by little, you start in paraphrasing your presentation.

At one point, you consider eliminating this paper entirely, because little by little, as you perceive the limitations of Bantu, it dawns on you that you're going to describe a State Fair with barter and exchange of produce and animals. And either you make that compromise, or you omit the chapter. Now, we are much closer to the Bantu than the Divine Counselor is to the English language. The problem of translating from English to Bantu is simple compared to his problem. What is the tribe in Africa that has, "One, two, three, and many?" That's the numerical system. One, two, three, many. That's their counting. How're you going to differentiate between a large many and a small many? You know? Between a hundred and a million. They're still many. Little many, big many, so on.

At any rate, now potentials have developed. I think at the third level, I visualize something taking place within the yolk. I think of the essence of the Father within the yolk as the "eternalist" reality we know. But there are realities which I conceptualize as being "eternaler" than other realities. In this sense, the Eternal Son is "eternaler" than the Infinite Spirit, who is eternal, and the Father, who is "eternalist." It's ridiculous, isn't it? But we're working in Bantu now. We're discussing common stocks. One, two, three, many. You know? At the associative level, I see it beginning when God divests himself of absolute personality. Here again, he is escaping the limitations of absolute personality. In this transaction, he constitutes himself Father of the absolute personality, who is the Son. The Universal Father is not the absolute personality. That is the Eternal Son.

The Eternal Son is the pattern personality. All personality is fashioned after the similitude of this absolute pattern in varying degrees. The Father simply steps aside from the absolute personality. In so doing, he possesses himself of Father personality. I can best understand that by thinking, "If he can be father of the absolute person, he can be father of any person." At the same time, he builds the absolute machine. He builds it for the same reason that men build machines: to act as a material governor, to perform repetitive acts. This absolute machine is the Isle of Paradise. It's the only machine which the Father ever built personally. It is just as much a revelation of the Father, or of God, as is the Eternal Son. The Father is the source of Paradise as he is Father of the Eternal Son. The Eternal Son, then, is the Universal Father minus everything which is non-deity, extra-divine, and other-than-spiritual.

This is why the Son remains as the everlasting revelation of the Father, because when we want to know the Father, we want to know that aspect of the First Source and Center which is divine, which is deity, which is spiritual. In the Son, we see this, and this only. This is concentrated in the Son. If you want to be puzzled by the First Source and Center, consider Paradise. This also is a revelation of the First Source and Center. The first association, the original association, is between the Qualified and Unqualified Absolute, and between the Father and the Eternal Son. This is not a completed association. You see what's happening over here in the yolk? The Father is beginning to fix it so that he no longer pervades the wholeness of the yolk. He no longer fills the Qualified Absolute. First he separated himself from the Unqualified Absolute. Now he is differentiating himself within the Qualified Absolute.

This differentiation is completed at the fourth level of total Deity function when, standing on Paradise–which is their actual power platform for operations–the Father and the Son unite in the first act of creation. This results in the appearance of their infinite associate, the third person of Deity, and the Central Universe of eternity. This creative act completes existential associations, because at this point the three Deities–not as persons, but as a corporation, as the Paradise Trinity–now fill the yolk of the egg. Now we should change the name of the yolk. We should no longer call it the Qualified Absolute. We should use its currently functional name.

This is the Deity Absolute referred to in the papers. And now, the Father has completed his jailbreak. He not only has separated himself from being diffused as a pantheistic Deity throughout the totality of infinity, he first concentrates free will and sets up in opposition to it capacity to react. Then, within the area of free will–within the area of total Deity function–he further segregates himself so that now he's got a place to stand on, he's got associates he can work with, and the show can hit the road. This is the beginning of reality. At the fourth level, we hit reality. We're back through the looking- glass, into a real room. This is an imaginary exploration. The mere fact that you can't get the square root of a minus one doesn't mean that the symbol small i doesn't perform a valuable function in mathematics.

These are imaginary things we've been dealing with. From here on out, it's real, because reality starts with seven absolute beings in existence:

The Unqualified Absolute, The Universal Absolute, The Deity Absolute, The First Source and Center, The Second Source and Center, Paradise Source and Center, and Third Source and Center.

And one functioning universe, consisting of the twenty one satellites of Paradise, one billion perfect worlds, and the dark space bodies encircling Havona. This is the beginning of eternity. We have now reached the dawn of eternity. We have now reached the unbeginning start of the first universe age, the universe age which has an end in time, but has no beginning in time. We've been using such silly words as eternal, eternaler, and eternalist.

But this is the way it would have happened had it happened in time. Since we think in terms of time, we cannot understand sequence apart from time. The papers admonish us that mind of the Paradise level is perfectly aware of non-temporal sequence just as much as they understand non-spatial area. But to us, sequence and time are inseparable. We're talking about source relationships here. There's no question about it: The Son came from the Father. There's equally no question: There never was a time when God was not Father of the Eternal Son. This is a relationship in eternity which we are most crudely symbolizing by analogous relationships in time. But from here on out, we have time. The sequence is a temporal sequence. Almost. Not quite entirely. We'll discuss that. It's funny.

The associated level is consummated in the Paradise Trinity. It goes on in other experiential Trinities. The creative function of total Deity inaugurates the Paradise Trinity, and it still goes on. Creation is the characteristic earmark of the birth of Havona, and creation is going on right out here in time and space, isn't it? The Seven Master Spirits are of origin on the fourth level. They were created by the Infinite Spirit as the active agency.

I think of this: the Infinite Spirit sat down and painted seven pictures. He painted the Father. That's Master Spirit Number One. He painted the Son. Master Spirit Number Two. He stood in front of a mirror and painted himself. That's Master Spirit Number Three. Then he sat down and pictured the Father and Son. What would it be like if they were one? He painted a composite portrait. That's Master Spirit Number Four. He said, "Well, what would it be like if the Father and I were merged?" He painted a fifth portrait. This is Master Spirit Number Five. "Well," he said, "there's one I haven't tried. What if the Son and I were alike--what would it be like if the third and second person of deity were one being?" He painted the sixth portrait. This is Master Spirit Number Six.

Then he said, "What would it be like if all three of us were merged as persons?" This is not the Trinity, now. This is a personal portraiture. These are not the three deities sitting down as the "Board of Directors of Undivided Deity, Incorporated." These are three people. They're not in the boardroom. They're down on the street. They're having lunch. Fried eggs they're eating, no doubt. This is Master Spirit Number Seven.

Audience: Laughter.

Creation goes right on, and there comes a time when the creative act of the Paradise Deities brings to a close the first universe age. In my own thinking, I date this from the creation of the twenty one Ancients of Days. They tell us this is the technical beginning of the time universes. They tell us that when we go up on Paradise, when we want to look up history– recorded history–this is the first historic event that's of record.

Prior to this statement of fact of the creation of the twenty one Ancients of Days, it's prehistory.

The Eternals of Days, as their name suggests, started with Havona. Havona started with the Infinite Spirit. The Infinite Spirit–in testifying that Havona is as old as he is– simply says, "We're both eternal." There was no point in time when they started. The second universe age–the one we're in now–is the age of the evolutionary seven superuniverses. Now we hit the fifth level of total Deity function, but there's an overlap. Creation still operates in the present universe age, but something new is added: evolution. What is evolution? It is creativity in time, that's all. How does it differ from pre- evolutionary techniques of transferring potentials into actuals? It differs in a very simple way. Creatures can go into partnership with the Creators now. If this thing is going to happen by fiat, how can you understand it as a creature? If it happens slowly, then you can participate in the evolutionary process.

No Havona native ever went into partnership with God to evolve, to become a Havona native, did he? He was born a Havona native. Critters like us can go into partnership with God in the evolution of ourselves as we are to be. This is a partnership arrangement. It produces that tremendous difference between the evolutionary and the created types which is outlined in one of the papers on the Universal Father. On page 51, they take inventory of what I've come to call, "the inevitabilities." They point out that much of that which harasses us is inevitable. It's inherent in our status. You want courage, altruism, hope, faith, love, truth, idealism, loyalty, unselfishness, pleasure. In order to have these things, you must be confronted with the alternatives. You must make a choice.

If you could know everything, you couldn't have faith. This is knowledge. If there were no fear, how could there be any hope? If you couldn't be an S.O.B., then how could you be loyal? At our level. If there weren't any pain, would we comprehend pleasure? This is inevitable if you're going to have an evolutionary technique, and you can't have creature partnership with deity by any other method than to slow down this creative process and keep it from being instantaneous, so that creatures can understand what's happening. These things then become inevitable. On the next page, they further discuss why these are inevitable. If you're going to have a creature and not a robot, then you must endow that creature with free will. And if you endow unwise, immature creatures with free will, tragedy becomes inescapable.

Then they discuss why isn't this true in the central universe, in the second paragraph. Then in the third paragraph, they make this marvelous contrast between the hopefulness of a Havona native and the exquisite trust of an ascending mortal. The calm expectancy of a pleasant future on the part of a Havona native, who knows absolutely nothing about the precarious hope that we hang onto, living down here on this uncertain ball of mud. They point out that this Havona native is just naturally kind, but he never rawhided a belligerent self to get himself into this frame of mind. He never let altruism triumph over unmitigated selfishness. He points out that the Havona natives–sure they're loyal to the Trinity. But they've never really known what it was like to hang on by the skin of your teeth and be loyal. In other words, the Havona natives would have held Thermopylae as a matter of course, but the Spartans knew they could be killed. It's a difference in degree.

Are we better than they are? No; we're different. Without them as a pattern, how the dickens would we get to Paradise?

Audience: Is not also free will a difference of degree? Would you elaborate just a bit on free will?

Yes. I think free will is proportional to the choice possibility of the creature. I think each person has as much free will–can activate as much free will–as he needs to. I think this grows. For example, I think the range of choice of a Creator Son is colossal. Utterly colossal. Not absolute. Because he, too, must choose within the framework of that which is choosable by a sub-paradise Deity. I think the range of the Father's free will is the greatest of all. It's limited only by his nature.

He could not choose an ungodlike thing. He could not choose an evil thing. I think his Sons could. But they don't. This loyalty business is beginning to appear on all subabsolute levels. I think we have as much free will as we can use. I think this. Let's set up a sliding scale. At one end let's put "outward things" at the material level. At the other end of the scale, let's put "inward things," culminating in the spiritual level. Does that scale make sense? In other words, we have all kinds of choices, some of which have to do with things outside of us, and things. If super things are involved–more than things–then I think we have a greater range of choice, even on the outside reality.

But then I want to come from the outside, starting with material things, moving still outside towards supermaterial things–like people, who are more than just matter–coming little by little inward. Once we get on the inside, moving upward towards spiritual things, at the outer extreme of the scale, I have least choice. My choices are extremely constricted. I can't choose to be other than my present age. I can't choose to be other than a male of the species, which means I will never know what life looks like to the other half of the human race, the female.

I have some choice out there. I cannot avoid the appearance of wrinkles in my face, but I do have a choice as to which kind. If I frown all my life, I'll get one kind. If I grin most of the time, I'll get another. The wrinkles are beyond my choice, but the type of wrinkles I can choose. Are you with me?

Audience: Oh, yes!

Now, as I come inwardly, my choice range is freer. As I move on the inside of me upward, from material problems to philosophic, psychological, sociological problems, I have a greater range of choice. As I move up to the moral level, the ethical level, my choice range becomes even greater. As I move spiritward, this range of choice becomes greater and greater until I reach the question of God. At that point, I have absolute liberty. It would have to be that way.

At that point, my choice range is absolute. It is totally unfettered. It is that way because God has willed it to be that way. Where he is concerned, I can tell him to go to hell, or I can try to serve him all the days of my life. And if it's anything less than that, the whole damn thing is phony. I've got to have that range of choice, or I'm a robot, and he's up there with strings. And I know I'm not. I'm a son.

Audience: Thank you, that's a wonderful definition.

"Having thus provided for the growth of the immortal soul, and having liberated man's inner self from the fetters of absolute dependence on antecedent causation, the Father stands aside. Now, man having thus been liberated from the fetters of causation response, at least as pertains to eternal destiny, and provision having been made for the growth of the immortal self, the soul, it remains for man himself to will the creation or to inhibit the creation of this surviving and eternal self which is his for the choosing. No other being, force, creator, or agency, in all the wide universe of universes can interfere to any degree with the absolute sovereignty of the mortal free will, as it operates within the realms of choice, regarding the eternal destiny of the personality of the choosing mortal. As pertains to eternal survival, God has decreed the sovereignty of the material and mortal will, and that decree is absolute."

Audience: What page is that on?

Page 71. At the bottom of that page, it says: the portal of survival "opens only in response to the freewill choice of the freewill sons of the God of free will." It's a charter of liberty. At the same time, quite the damnedest challenge that could be issued to queer, graduate mammals like us. We're pretty mammalian, you know. We're not quite completely human. It's in this sense that we're made in the image of God. It's in this sense that he can call us sons. God, to me, is an affectionate being, very adventurous, very exploratory. People are this way. This is a kinship which we share with the Father of all. He likes to go adventuring.

Otherwise, why didn't he leave the fried egg alone? He didn't have to. We like to adventure. We sometimes get our fingers burned and pull back a little bit. But basically, in every normal human heart is a craving for growth and adventure. Let's consider a firehouse. I want a firehouse because I want that pole that the firemen slide down. That's the dotted line. A three-story firehouse. When we talked about everything on the other side of the looking-glass, we were discussing the third floor, strictly–nothing but the third floor. The minute creation started, we're dealing with the next two floors. Because at the creative level God projected two levels which were to stand in contrast to the absolute level. First he projected the finite level. And the finite level is characterized by time, space, and experience.

Now, the absolute level is timeless, spaceless, and existential. And the finite level has no more contact with the absolute level than does the first floor with the third floor. They don't touch at any point. (A sentence I don't understand). So this requires the projection of an intermediate level, the absonite level. In these papers the absonite level is defined as a pre-echo of a finite level. In other words, it's just as logical to think of it as coming after as coming before. The absonite level is not timeless. It transcends time. A timeless being has no time consciousness.

The best illustration I can think of is Jesus' Thought Adjuster, who's timeless. He warned the Master. He said, "Now, look, you don't want to get involved in any abrogation of natural law. Now, as concerns space, I'm in perfect command of the situation. If you idly wish you're in Rome, it won't happen. I'm space conscious." An Adjuster would have to be, otherwise, how would he find it? He said, "I'm not time conscious. Time, to me, has absolutely no meaning. So if you want to do something that merely involves the shortening of time, I can't help you. I don't work on that wavelength." A Thought Adjuster, in terms of time relationships, is up on the third floor.

Now, a Transcendentaler, an absonite being–like an Architect of the Master Universe, or a Force Organizer--they know all about time and space. They're perfectly conscious of time and space and transcend time and space. They're not timeless. They're not spaceless. They are time transcenders. They are space transcenders. When we go to Paradise, we're going to find the Father. We're going to be working at the bottom of the finite level. We're going to get into the center pole, and this is the Universal Father. It's a genuine, legitimate finding of the Father on the most limited basis possible. It is the minimum finding of the Universal Father. As Finaliters, we go out and successively serve in superuniverses other than Orvonton. Each time we come back to Paradise, we find the same Universal Father, but we're up a little bit on the center pole.

You know, it's a long way between the floor and ceiling on the finite level. Believe me, the Finaliters are not at the ceiling, although they're a decent ways up. When we want to see what is total Deity on a finite level, well what we’re asking to see is, "How is the Trinity personified on the finite level?" We want to meet Mr. Trinity. There is no Mr. Trinity. The trinity is a corporation. You don't meet a corporation. It's a legal person, but not a person person. We'll be shown the Seventh Master Spirit. This is the nearest thing- this is the Infinite Spirit's concept of what the Father-Son-Spirit would be like if they were alive. That's fine. But someday, if we can find the Supreme Being, then they can say to us, "This is the Paradise Trinity as the Paradise Trinity is comprehensible to finite creatures." But we'll have to reach the ceiling of the first floor to do that, because that's the age of light and life: The ceiling of the first floor.

The Supreme Being will mean to us then in our effort to understand total Deity– that's what we're studying here, the function of total Deity–just what the personality of Jesus means to us right here and now in our effort to comprehend personal Deity. I don't understand the Universal Father. I don't understand the divinity of Jesus, but I jolly well do understand the humanity of Jesus. I understand the Son of Man. I'm intrigued by the Son of God. But they're the same person. That helps me live with my failure to understand his divinity. I do understand one pole of him. The other pole is still shrouded in some mystery. But I know it's the same person. I know I like him. I know I'm going to like his divinity, because I do like his humanity. The Supreme Being is going to do something else for us. He's going to help us break through into the second floor.

Incidentally, there's where we'll start in equipping all that roughed out plumbing, you know. We have capacity to do this. The papers tell us this. The Supreme Being will help us break out of the finite level just as Jesus helps us break out of the material level. He's a living bridge. Like God, he's no respecter of persons. Only, he works with totals, because he's a total Deity. The Father deals with each of us as individuals. The Supreme Being will not deal with any of us until he can deal with all of us. The Father emphasizes the "each" relationship. The Supreme Being emphasizes the "all" relationship. You believe. The Father welcomes you into the family. Jesus' story of the prodigal son well illustrates the attitude of the Universal Father where love is paramount. But this isn't enough for the Supreme Being. You've got to produce. He needs us. Therefore, he awards those of us who are productive. You can get rank with the Universal Father, but you can get campaign ribbons with battle stars only from the Supreme Being. This means you have to be there and do something.

Now, we're going to consider the third universe age. Because the minute we deal with the seventh level of the function of total Deity, we've got to break out of the present age. We've got to consider the wide-spreading areas of the outer space levels. Because up there, a second experiential Deity is in the process of growth, just as the Supreme Being is growing in the present age. There are four outer space levels. Last year we worked out– we did some arithmetic, and let's just take it for granted this year. We based our arithmetic on clues given in the papers. We had to make some assumptions. Wherever there were two possible assumptions, we chose the more conservative of the two. Here are the rough magnitudes we worked out. This whole book is mostly about the seven superuniverses and Havona, right? And we said, "Let's get some sizes to think about." If we think of the seven superuniverses and Havona as being roughly like a tennis ball, what would that be in relationship to the first outer space level?

Well, it adds up to a very small bedroom or a very large closet. Think of a room which is eight cubic feet. Eight by eight by eight. Bud, what's this room?

Audience: 19 by 22.

19 by 22. So if we cut–if we figured about a third of this room, it wouldn't be too bad, would it? In other words, if I got up and stood about here, this wouldn't be too far off 8 cubic feet, would it? Can you see a tennis ball hanging in the middle? It's pretty small in relation to the room, isn't it? That's the first outer space level. Now, to visualize that in relation to the second outer space level, we should get a city block. Visualize a city block with eight building sites on it. These are generous lots, one hundred feet. Picture blocks squared off on all sides. It's a square block. Then go up eight hundred feet. Put our small room in the middle of that city block. You've got it. That's the second outer space level.

I picked cubic Chicago for the third outer space level. I want a sixteen mile cube. Toss this city block in the cubic city. You have the third outer space level. For the fourth outer space level, I picked the moon, even though it's somewhat undersized. I'm about thirty per cent shy of my volume. This book is written about the tennis ball. When we move from the first floor to the second floor, we've now got to think in terms of the magnitude of the moon. This is too big. All you can do is feel it. But we are going out there, so they tell us. This is what we're in training for. Now look. When God really pervades a human life, you get a flavor such as you find in the life of Jesus. If that seems too tough to look at, consider the impact Jesus had on the lives of the twelve apostles. And you can see what even a secondary impact does.

We're talking about spiritual growth now. You know the long story of the ascent to Paradise. You know. That it's tough. It's not easy. You're not a milk-toaster when you get up there. What is it? Long since you've learned to "feast upon uncertainty, to fatten upon disappointment" . . . to show "indomitable courage when confronted by immensities ". . . "… Long since, your battle cry has become, "In liaison with God, nothing–absolutely nothing–is impossible." (18) These are tough, salty veterans as well as sweet people. Consider the training a Finaliter gets. Consider the tremendous training that lies ahead for the Finaliters because these seven superuniverses are going to be around for a long time, and they're still growing. Gee, whiz, our local universe isn't anywhere near settled in light and life. Michael's only got life planted on about one third of the projected worlds. This universe is two thirds unstarted! We haven't even got the subdivisions opened up yet, much less the sewage in. This is still inside the tennis ball.

What's a seventh stage finaliter going to be like? As they say, they think that when we enter the seventh stage of spirit existence, this will be the last of the jubilees of time and will inaugurate the first of the jubilees of eternity. What are finaliters going to be like in the fourth outer space level? Have you any way even faintly to grasp the time involved, fellow Bantus? We are up against one, two, three, and now we've hit many. And one, two, three represents our limit of time comprehension. This is many. Many, many. We're going out there. This whole development involves uncoupling three new levels of human personality. We're told that we have seven dimensions of personality expression. I think Bud made a pretty good explanation of that when he said it's like building a house. You know you're going to grow, and you only want to pour these foundations once.

You're going to provide for seven bathrooms, but you're only going to have use for three of them--which are the three we're using now. So what do you do? You rough in the plumbing for the other four. Now we're going to start equipping three out of these four to operate. These have been lying here dormant all this time. Now we're going to open up a new annex, a new wing.

Audience: I have a question here about these absonites that I wrote quite some time ago when I first read it. Is our mortal goal to reach absonite levels of supercreature attainment? Is that our mortal limitation?

That's our post-universe age goal. We can't do it in this age. We can fumble with it. We can fumble with it. Here. Here's what we'll encounter. We're told that differences of attitude, feeling, and response persist forever.

For example, males and females are still going to exhibit characteristic non-sexual qualities of maleness and femaleness in the Corps of Finality. We'll intrigue each other. We'll think a little differently. Thank heaven. Was it the Frenchman who said, "Vive la difference!"

Audience: Laughter.

Intellectually, we even off at the end of the Morontia career. That is to say, we have equivalent horse power of brains, mind. This doesn't mean that the artist will be adept as a physicist. We'll still have our specialties, you know? We'll still be highly individualized, but we will have equal basic brain power. We will encounter spiritual differentials. These won't even out until we enter the Corps of the Finality. Then we will have equal spiritual capacities, responsiveness, or quality. When we even out spiritually, then we discover a new differential. Absonite differentials. We become conscious of this.

So we're working at it. I think at the upper limits of the first floor, we begin to get repercussions from the second floor, even though we aren't there yet. You know, you get to Uversa, who do you find there? Havona Servitals working down there. They're getting you ready for Havona. You aren't at the Havona level yet, but you're dealing with Havoners up on the superuniverse capitol. There's an overlap thing. The word absonite is used in this sense. The Architects of the Master Universe are referred to as having wonderful minds, "superb spirits, and supernal absonites." This is a quality of being analogous to mind and spirit. We know nothing about this. The word absonite is a word which is used as an adjective to designate the second floor of the firehouse.

Audience: They utilize part of absolute.

It seems to be a mix. It's a good word.

Audience: I just noticed that. It's very obvious. They also use the word transcendental to apply to the second floor and speak of Absoniters or Transcendentalers as living on that floor.

That's a good word. They transcend time and space. They define the attributes of Deity as they appear on the second floor as omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience. These are not absolute attributes of Deity. They are ultimate attributes of Deity. The Supreme Being, for example, is not omnipresent. He is ubiquitous, which means "many presences," but not omnipresent. He's not limited to one presence, but he's not everywhere. The Infinite Spirit, through his creative daughters, is ubiquitous in the seven superuniverses.

Each local universe Mother Spirit pervades her local universe and nowhere else. See, she's a space-conscious being. And if she weren't space conscious, she wouldn't know where to stop being, and you'd get conflict between two local universes. Where she is, that is Nebadon. When you go outside of her, you've gone outside of Nebadon. When you get up to the absolute level, you have presence, which is beyond omnipresence. This is a presence quite apart from space. On this absonite level–I like that word, it's handy, short–we're going adventuring. We're being commissioned to work out in these outer space levels. Why? All right. Why do the Counselors come down? Why do the Paradise Sons come down? Come out, I should say, into time and space, to work with us? We need them. We're imperfect. We need a lot of help from beings who have more of perfection, even much of perfection.

They've got to be a ladder that we've got to climb. How could you explain God, except by living him, as Jesus did? I mean, you look at his life, and if the papers are right, his life is greater than his teachings. That's the same reason we're going out there. They need us. Why do they need us? They're being deprived of something. Well, what is it? The Supreme Being has finished his growth, and the kind of growth that we know about will then be a permanently past event in all creation. We can grow as we grow because we are plugged into the Supreme Being. We share in his growth. This whole experiential evolutionary process requires the growing presence of the Supreme Being.

When he's finished his growth, it's over. No beings will ever again grow as we are growing today. These beings out in outer space will benefit from his presence. We suffer from his absence. They'll benefit from his presence, but they can't have his presence and also participate in his growth. We've hit another inevitability here, haven't we? You can't make square circles. You can't be part of something incomplete and enjoy it as a completion. They are going to be lacking the very thing which we are, which is experiential, evolutionary beings.

It's up to us to compensate them for this deprivation, just as the beings of the central creation try to atone to us what we lack because we are starting in imperfection. We've got a mission out there. Our goal out there is to go in quest of the Father all over again. You see, if we can go through this tremendously long period of growth, going from the tennis ball to the moon, I can't grasp that. I can say it, but it doesn't really mean anything to me, except that I can feel that I'm trying to cope with something that is– I'm a Bantu trying to visualize a thousand.

And beyond three I've got the word "many," that's all. In fact, I'm worse off. I think I'm trying to visualize a trillion as a Bantu. We're in quest of the Father. We're in quest of God the Ultimate, who is on the second floor what God the Supreme is on the first floor. And if we can ever graduate from the second floor, we're going to know God the Ultimate. And this is probably possible. This merely requires an unbelievably long stretch of time. We're told that we have three unexpressed dimensions of personality which can be expressed on the absonite level. So I think we've got the equipment to work up there. You see, when the Father gives us a Thought Adjuster and gives us personality, he's given us a tremendous lot of equipment. This is good for the whole race! This is good for the whole race.

All during this time, we are exploring two ways. We are exploring the reality of the Universal Father on superfinite levels, and at the same time, we are exploring the reality of this Thought Adjuster within us. Example: They tell us when we fuse with our Thought Adjuster that one of the things which the Adjuster contributes to the combined nature of the fused being is past-eternal memory. But I don't think we can cope. I think we have to live forward long enough to be able to think equally far backward. So that if we lived a million years forward, I think we can cope with what the Thought Adjuster's trying to give us. We can think a million years backward. And if it's ten trillion years, then we can go that much farther back. Someday we will look back on units of ten trillion years and understand what they mean. They will then become as days are today on our planet. And we can each know the truth of this, because we feel it in our own lives.

A week is not a long time to an adult. A week is a very long time to a little child. This is the best way I can understand time transcendence. Someday we will get to the end of the absonite road. Someday, the whole Master Universe will be finished. It'll be done. And God the Ultimate will be a finished being. This will mean the complete function of deity on this seventh level. Well, is it all over then? No. It's not all over, because things can happen. Let's go back to the beginning now. Consider what things were like just before the creative level was reached. At the beginning of all things–at what I call the zero universe age, or just before the first universe age–we have two existential Deities, right? The Father and the Son. And they have a power platform for operations, the Isle of Paradise. And what do they do? They produce a being equal to themselves, achieve the union of the Trinity, the first Trinity, and produce a universe which is limited as to quantity, but unlimited as to quality.

I'm sure they could have filled all infinity with Havona, but they chose not to. They limited their creative act, didn't they, to one billion worlds. But they didn't limit it as to the quality of divinity expressed in that perfect creation. This creation is undilutedly divine, but it's not infinite. It's important that we realize something can be perfect without filling everything. Do you follow me? Now, Havona serves as a nucleus of the seven superuniverses, right? One of the characteristics of a nucleus is that it exists in relation to a cytoplasm–the white of the egg. Go back to eggs again. I love eggs. I love to use them as an illustration.

Audience: They repel me, but that's all right. You only have to visualize them, you don't have to eat them.

Havona characteristics are transmitted out here as beings come out here. And when this universe is finished, when the seven superuniverses are finished, I think we're going to have another nucleus, the second nucleus. The appearance of the first nucleus is associated with the appearance of the Paradise Trinity. The development of the second nucleus which is the Grand Universe–meaning the seven superuniverses as dependent on the Central Universe–the appearance of this second nucleus is also associated with the formation of a trinity, the first experiential trinity. This is the trinity made up of the Supreme Being, the Supreme Creators, the Architects of the Master Universe.

I don't think that there will be any nucleus formed when the first outer space level is perfected. I think the four outer space levels are successive cytoplasmic areas in relation to this continuing nucleus. Because not until all four outer space levels have been completed do we again witness the formation of a Trinity. It takes the appearance, the emergence, of God the Ultimate to produce the second experiential Trinity, made up of the Supreme Being, the Ultimate, and this mysterious, Unrevealed Consummator of Universe Destiny. Now, is this the end? Well, I don't think so. You see, there's still the Deity Absolute. We've come back now to the yolk of the egg. Could the Deity Absolute ever be experientialized? The answer is no. You'd have to exhaust infinity to do that. What's going to happen, then? Are we at a deadlock? Are we at an impasse?

This second experiential Trinity has a function which suggests something larger than the Master Universe. What is this Master Universe? Is it an end? I submit that the Master Universe is the third nucleus, the final nucleus, and that it exists in relation to some outer cytoplasmic universe which is infinite, which has no end.

Audience: There won't be any nuclear fusion, then, with the 3?

No. It's a triple nucleus. I visualize this: At the beginning of all things, we had two existential Deities and a power base for operations. They trinitized an equal being, the Infinite Spirit, and produced an omelet. At the final Master Universe age, the age of the fourth outer space level, I can see harmony, a theme reappearing.

Once again, we have two unique Deities. Experiential Deities, this time. Once again, we have a power base for operations–the perfected Master Universe. I would suggest, and the papers will support this, that the Supreme Being and the Ultimate will in some unimaginable way trinitize God the Absolute and begin the invasion of the cosmos infinite. They will establish a beachhead on the shores of infinity. Now, God the Absolute so trinitized is subinfinite, because neither the Supreme Being nor the Ultimate nor the combination of the two is an infinite Deity. But how vast are the resources on which they draw! And, remember, they can mobilize all of the experiential potential from the tennis ball, the bedroom, the city block, the cubic city, and the moon. This is vast. This is less than infinite, but nonetheless tremendous.

What they can mobilize will not represent an unworthy effort. And God the Absolute, I think, is going to appear. And since he's subinfinite, he can grow. I think this is the final adventure–the post-Ultimate adventure–and I think we'll be there because the papers instruct us that the last adventure that the human personality is competent to attempt is subinfinite penetration of the absolute level of reality. We can get up onto the third floor, and we can grow and grow and grow. The reason that we can't ever finish is because–I drew this a little wrong–this building happens to be open to the skies. There's no roof on the third floor. We can go, and we are never going to hit the top. There is no roof on the third floor. Again, as I consider this, the first universe age had no beginning in time. It had an end in time.

The last universe age will be the mirror image of the first. It will have a beginning in time. It will have no end in time.

Audience: Could you tell me the difference between the absonite and the Ultimate?

The absonite and God the Ultimate? They're related.

Audience: I know they're not the same, but does one make use of the other?

The word absonite is to God the Ultimate as the word finite is to God the Supreme. The absonite is a stage of action on which the Ultimate is eventuating. The finite level is a stage of action on which the Supreme Being is evolving. One refers to a level. The other refers to a person.

Audience: Would you do that again?

Yes. Go back to our firehouse which you can still dimly see. To the second floor of the firehouse I would give the name absonite. In this sense I would use it as synonymous with transcendental. This is the level on which the Ultimate–God the Ultimate--is eventuating by experiential techniques. The word ultimate also applies to the values on that level. The word ultimate also applies to the function of the Paradise Trinity on that level, the Trinity of Ultimacy.

The Ultimate also applies to the function of the First Experiential Trinity, denoted the Trinity Ultimate–made up of the Supreme, the Supreme Creators, and the Architects of the Master Universe. Those are the uses of the word ultimate. Ultimate all by itself capitalized would mean God the Ultimate. Ultimate un-capitalized would refer to the level of values on that second floor. As the word Supreme capitalized or un-capitalized would similarly refer to Deity or to a level of quality on the first floor of the finite level. Finite is to Supreme, roughly, as absonite is to Ultimate. On page 3 they talk about levels of divinity. They talk about absolute perfection, relative perfection, and imperfection. Now, don't make this one go on all fours, but roughly, very roughly, I would think of the absonite level as being relatively perfect. Now, I don't think that's what this is intended to illustrate. That would come nearer to fitting this pattern than any other pattern presented here. Again, when they talked about Havona. Havona is not absolute. Havona is not not- absolute. Havona is not really finite. It is not not-finite. The papers say Havona is nearer the absonite than any other concept revealed to us.

Audience: That is a hint.

Yes. It's not really absonite. But then again, the Univitatia exist in a level midway between matter and spirit, but they're not morontians.

Audience: Bill, could you say this: Man would be finite, God would be infinite, Power Controllers and Power Centers would be absonite?

No. The Universe Power Directors are finite, but the Force Organizers are transcendental, absonite beings.

Audience: The Force Organizers. Then man is finite, God is infinite, and Force Organizers are absonite?

And Architects of the Master Universe are absonite.

Audience: OK.

But a better illustration would be to say a Havona native is finite. Now you're dealing with a perfect being. Man is not only finite, he's a pretty lousy finite. He's an imperfect finite.

Audience: Well, I don't understand why the Havona natives are marked as finite, like mortal man, how they could be finite?

They're finite in the perfect sense of the word.

Audience: (Can't understand tape).

Well, why shouldn't there be finites in Havona? The pattern creatures for human beings are found on the outer circuits of Havona. Something of everything that's going to appear in the Master Universe.

Audience: But Havona natives were created.

Yes, right. They're finite, but they're perfect finite beings.

Audience: Bill?

Yes.

Audience: There's finites on Paradise.

Audience: Who?

Audience: Finaliters are really finites–they've had beginnings, they are time-space conscious–

Oh, yes. I don't know about the status of the Paradise citizen. The book tells us nothing.

Audience: But a finaliter resides on Paradise as a finite.

Oh, sure. I think of a Primary Supernaphim as a finite being. And they're born on Paradise. They're angels. Paradise angels.

Audience: But they're perfect!

Of course. Now, look, let's go back to the concept of maximums. I'm quoting the book: "This universe at the present time contains primary finite maximums." Now, let's analyze that. The word primary suggests there is something other than primary, namely secondaries, which is dissimilar. These beings are finite. These beings are also maximum. This means in terms of the finite level, they can't do much growing. They've had it. They're full-blown beings. They're at the finite ceiling. Are you with me? When a finaliter–let's take a finaliter–let's forget about the seventh stage of spirit. Let's say that the sixth stage is his limit–which indeed, it is, in the present universe age. He is a finite maximum. He's gone as far as he can go in status. He's not a primary finite maximum. He's a secondary finite maximum, as the book describes him. He has become the peer, the co-ordinate, of a Havona native, not by origin, but by achievement.

When you want to compare humans and Havoners, you must compare not humans with Havoners, you must compare finaliters with Havoners. Now you're comparing two maximums.

Audience: When do we start the absonite?

Not until the next universe age comes.

Every now and then, I get a real chilled feeling about all of this. To each finaliter company of a thousand there's attached a thousand gravity messengers, and they just are not baffled by immense distances, because they move instantaneously. So whether or not we can do it, we've got assistants who can.

The growth of the Supreme is by a technique of experiential evolution. The growth of the Ultimate is by a technique of experiential eventuation. The growth of God the Absolute is by a technique of experiential existentials. The word experiential runs through all three levels. But as you go from the first to the second level, you substitute eventuation, and then you get into experiential existentials on the third level.

Audience: These are imaginary numbers again–the square root of a minus one.

Yes.

Audience: It'll be a mystery until we get there.

We haven't got enough words in Bantu. I'm sure that our concepts are getting very shaky as we leave the finite level. We're playing with some awfully big things.

We went out to the end of space and beyond. And this (can't understand tape) of space is catching up with us. This morning. That takes a lot of nerve to speculate along those lines. And we know that we're distorting the devil out of the concept. We're speculating. But let's do it. The authors of these papers speculate. They say, "We don't know, but we think." Julia?

Audience: Bill, would you please explain eventuation?

Yes, it's very simple. It's a superfinite thing. God the Father functions in three ways below the third floor. This is his sub-infinite, sub-absolute function. He functions in a great big, pre-personal sense. And when he functions in that way to produce something, he fragments, and what you get is an Adjuster. He also functions personally.

And when he functions personally, he creates, as when he collaborates in the production of a Creator Son. He also functions superpersonally. And when he functions superpersonally, he eventuates–something. Eventuation does not involve creation in the same sense that fragmentation is not an act of creation. When he fragments, I think of God the Father as a big newspaper. He tears off a piece of this newspaper. That's a Thought Adjuster. Or some other Father Fragment, like a Gravity Messenger.

When he creates–this, of course, is the most comprehensible thing. Now what he does when he eventuates, I can't visualize. Except I can feel the difference between fragmentation and creation. So I now can set up a third member of the series, and say that eventuation is as much different from creation as creation is different from fragmentation. Now I've got a little feeling up here. The Architects of the Master Universe never were created, neither are they creators. They're spoken of as these uncreated non-creators. They are eventuators. And what the authors of the papers have done–and they so state– they've simply said, "To avoid introducing an arbitrary term, we've taken an English term and attached special meanings to it." They could just as well say, "God glooped them."

Then we'd have to figure out what the word glooped means. As you get near the ceiling of the first floor, you're getting up to the place where time conjoins transcended time. In just one reference here, they call the Supreme Being the eminence of the projected incomplete. I think that term was put in here to stimulate our thinking. And here's what it means to me: Something which has eminence is the opposite of something which has transcendence. It is a presence rather than an aboveness. Do you follow me? It's God in the universe. Emerson presented transcendentalism as a contrast to eminincism–if I can coin such a word. The projected incomplete.

The Supreme Being is incomplete. Someday he will enjoy an eminence in the grand universe. I think in certain ways, he can project this eminence. And, let's say, shine a colored slide on the ceiling of the first floor, where time conjoins transcended time. And that juncture there might have reflective properties, just like a literal ceiling. And then he can reflect back onto the first floor level a part of the image of what he is to be in the future. We're monkeying with our sequence concept here, and it's dangerous. At any rate, he isn't here. And if he isn't here, how in the devil do you explain the presence of the unqualified supervisors of the Supreme who represent him in universes settled in light and life? He shouldn't be able to do this until he's a completed being.

Three infinite persons seem to be the minimum number of beings required to activate the prepersonal and existential potential of total Deity–the Deity Absolute." "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." A nice distinction. "I once sojourned in a universe where a certain group of beings taught that the finaliters, in eternity, were eventually to become the children of the Deity Absolute. But I am unwilling to accept this solution of the mystery which enshrouds the future of the finaliters."

"The Corps of the Finality embrace, among others, those mortals of time and space who have attained perfection in all that pertains to the will of God. As creatures and within the limits of creature capacity they fully and truly know God. Having thus found God as the Father of all creatures, these finaliters must sometime begin the quest for the superfinite Father. But this quest involves a grasp of the absonite nature of the ultimate attributes and character of the Paradise Father." Second floor of the firehouse. "Eternity will disclose whether such an attainment is possible, but we are convinced, even if the finaliters do grasp this ultimate of divinity, they will probably be unable to attain the superultimate levels of absolute Deity."

That's the third floor of the firehouse. And then he hedges: "It may be possible that the finaliters will partially attain the Deity Absolute. . ." Sub-infinite penetration. ". . .but even if they should, still in the eternity of eternities 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."

He's growing faster than the finaliters are growing. That's what that sub-infinite penetration means, I think.

Audience: You mean the universe is growing faster?

Yes. We'll never make it. We'll never get there.

Audience: He's got a motor boat and we've got a row boat.

That's right. I think we'll attain the Deity Absolute as God the Absolute, in some sense. But I don't think we'll ever comprehend the Deity Absolute. As we someday will understand the Supreme Being. And at some immeasurably more remote day, we will understand the ultimate of Deity.