© 1959 William S. Sadler
© 1961 Urantia Foundation
Paradise is a term inclusive of the personal and the nonpersonal focal Absolutes of all phases of universe reality. Paradise, properly, qualified, may connote any and all forms of reality. Deity, divinity, personality, and energy—spiritual, mindal, or material. All share Paradise as the place of origin, function, and destiny, as regards values, meanings, and factual existence. UB 0:4.11
Paradise not otherwise qualified—is the Absolute of the material-gravity control of the First Source and Center. Paradise is motionless, being the only stationary thing in the universe of universes. The Isle of Paradise has a universe location but no position in space. This eternal Isle is the actual source of the physical universes, past, present, and future. The nuclear Isle of Light is a Deity derivative, but it is hardly Deity; neither are the material creations a part of Deity; they are a consequence.
Paradise is not a creator; it is a unique controller of many universe activities, far more of a controller than a reactor. Throughout the material universes paradise influences the reactions and conduct of all beings having to do with force, energy, and power, but Paradise itself is unique, exclusive, and isolated in the universes. Paradise represents nothing and nothing represents Paradise. It is neither a force nor a presence; it is just Paradise. UB 0:4.12-13
But the Isle of Paradise is nonpersonal and extraspiritual, being the essence of the universal body, the source and center of physical matter, and the absolute master pattern of universal reality. UB 0:5.5
Paradise is the pattern of infinity; the God of Action is the activator of that pattern. Paradise is the material fulcrum of infinity; UB 9:3.8
Paradise is the eternal center of the universe of universes and the abiding place of the Universal Father, the Eternal Son, the Infinite Spirit, and their divine co-ordinates and associates. This central Isle is the most gigantic organized body of cosmic reality in all the master universe. Paradise is a material sphere as well as a spiritual abode. All of the intelligent creation of the Universal Father is domiciled on material abodes; hence must the absolute controlling center also be material, literal. And again it should be reiterated that spirit things and spiritual beings are real.
The material, beauty of Paradise consists in the magnificence of its physical perfection; the grandeur of the Isle of God is exhibited in the superb intellectual accomplishments and mind development of its inhabitants; the glory of the central Isle is shown forth in the infinite endowment of divine spirit personality—the light of life. But the depths of the spiritual beauty and the wonders of this magnificent ensemble are utterly beyond the comprehension of the finite mind of material creatures. The glory and spiritual splendor of the divine abode are impossible of mortal comprehension. And Paradise is from eternity; there are neither records nor traditions respecting the origin of this nuclear Isle of Light and Life. UB 11:0.1-2
Paradise is the geographic center of infinity; it is not a part of universal creation, not even a real part of the eternal Havona universe. We commonly refer to the central Isle as belonging to the divine universe, but it really does not. Paradise is an eternal and exclusive existence. UB 11:9.2
Paradise is not ancestral to any being or living entity; it is not a creator. Personality and mind-spirit relationships are transmissible, but pattern is not, Patterns are never reflections; they are duplications—reproductions. Paradise is the absolute of patterns; Havona is an exhibit of these potentials in actuality.
God’s residence is central and eternal, glorious and ideal. His home is the beauteous pattern for all universe headquarters worlds; and the central universe of his immediate indwelling is the pattern for all universes in the ideals, organization, and ultimate destiny.
Paradise is the universal headquarters of all personality activities and the source-center of all force-space and energy manifestations. Everything which has been, now is, or is yet to be, has come, now comes, or will come forth from this central abiding place of the eternal Gods. Paradise is the center of all creation, the source of all energies, and the place of primal origin of all personalities. UB 11:9.5-7
And Paradise is the actual source of all material universes past, present, and future. But this cosmic derivation is an eternity event; at no time—past, present, or future—does either space of the material cosmos come forth from the nuclear Isle of Light. As the cosmic source, Paradise functions prior to space and before time; hence would its derivations seem to be orphaned in time and space did they not emerge through the Unqualified Absolute, their ultimate repository in space and their revealer and regulator in time. UB 56:1.1
Pattern is a master design from which copies are made. Eternal Paradise is the absolute of patterns; the Eternal Son is the pattern personality; the Universal rather is the direct ancestor-source of both. But Paradise does not bestow pattern, and the Son cannot bestow personality. UB 0:6.13
But pattern is pattern and remains pattern; only copies are multiplied. UB 0:6.10
War is the natural state and heritage of evolving man; peace is the social yardstick measuring civilization’s advancement. UB 70:1.1
War is an animalistic reaction to misunderstandings and irritations; peace attends upon the civilized solution of all such problems and difficulties. UB 70:1.2
The peace of Jesus is the joy and satisfaction of a God-knowing individual who has achieved the triumph of learning fully how to do the will of God while living the mortal life in the flesh. UB 181:1.8
The peace of Jesus is, then, the peace and assurance of a son who fully believes that his career for time and eternity is safely and wholly in the care and keeping of an all-wise, all-loving, and all-powerful spirit Father. And this is, indeed, a peace which passes the understanding of mortal mind, but which can be enjoyed to the full by the believing human heart. UB 181:1.10
Peacemaking is the cure of distrust and suspicion. UB 140:5.18
The rulers of the Superuniverse major sectors. UB 15:10.14
Any and all things responding to the personality circuit of the Father, we call personal. UB 0:6.1
Personality is never spontaneous; it is the gift of the Paradise Father. Personality is superimposed upon energy, and it is associated only with living energy system identity can be associated with nonliving energy patterns. UB 0:5.4
The Universal Father is the secret of the reality of personality the bestowal of personality, and the destiny of personality. The Eternal Son is the absolute personality, the secret of spiritual energy morontia spirits, and perfected spirits. The Conjoint Actor is the spirit-mind personality, the source of intelligence, reason, and the universal mind. UB 0:5.5
The personality of mortal man is neither body, mind, nor spirit; neither is it the soul. Personality is the one changeless reality in an otherwise ever-changing creature experiences and it unifies all other associated factors of individuality. The personality is the unique bestowal which the Universal Father makes upon the living and associated energies of matter, mind, and spirit, and which survives with the survival of the morontial soul. UB 0:5.11
In the contemplation of Deity, the concept of personality must be divested of the idea of corporeality. A material body is not indispensable to personality in either man or God. The corporeality error is shown in both extremes of human philosophy. In materialism, since man loses his body at death, he ceases to exist as a personality; in pantheism, since God has no body, he is not, therefore, a person. The superhuman type of progressing personality functions in a union of mind and spirit.
Personality is not simply an attribute of God; it rather stands for the totality of the co-ordinated infinite nature and the unified divine will which is exhibited in eternity and universality of perfect expression. Personality, in the supreme sense, is the revelation of God to the universe of universes. UB 1:5.12-13
Personality is one of the unsolved mysteries of the universes. We are able to form adequate concepts of the factors entering into the make-up of various orders and levels of personality, but we do not fully comprehend the real nature of the personality itself. We clearly perceive the numerous factors which, when put together, constitute the vehicle for human personality, but we do not fully comprehend the nature and significance of such a finite personality.
Personality is potential in all creatures who possess a mind endowment ranging from the minimum of self-consciousness to the maximum of God-consciousness. But mind endowment alone is not personality, neither is spirit nor physical energy. Personality is that quality and value in cosmic reality which is exclusively bestowed by God the Father upon these living systems of the associated and coordinated energies of matter, mind, and spirit. Neither is personality a progressive achievement. Personality may be material or spiritual, but there either is personality or there is no personality. UB 5:6.2-3
Personality is a unique endowment of original nature whose existence is independent of, and antecedent to, the bestowal of the Thought Adjuster. Nevertheless, the presence of the Adjuster does augment the qualitative manifestation of personality. Thought Adjuster, when they come forth from the Father, are identical in nature, but personality is diverse, original, and exclusive; and the manifestation of personality is further conditioned and qualified by the nature and qualities of the associated energies of a material, mindal, and spiritual nature which constitute the organismal vehicle for personality manifestation.
Personalities may be similar, but they are never the same. Persons of a given series, type, order, or pattern may and do resemble one another, but they are never identical. Personality is that feature of an individual which we know, and which enables us to identify such a being at some future time regardless of the nature and extent of changes inform, mind, or spirit status.
Personality is that part of any individual which enables us to recognize and positively identify that person as the one we have previously known, no matter how much he may have changed because of modification of the vehicle of expression and manifestation of his personality. UB 16:8.3-5
Human personality is the time-space image-shadow cast by the divine Creator personality. And no actuality can ever be adequately comprehended by an examination of its shadow. Shadows should be interpreted in terms of the true substance. UB 1:6.1
Personality is designed and bestowed by the Universal Father. UB 21:2.6
Personality is that cosmic endowment, that chase of universal reality, which can coexist with unlimited change and at the same time retain its identity in the very presence of all such changes, and forever afterward. UB 130:4.6
The scribes and rabbis, taken together, were called Pharisees. They referred to themselves as the “associates”. In many ways they were the progressive group among the Jews, having adopted many teachings not clearly found in the Hebrew scriptures, such as belief in the resurrection of the dead, a doctrine only mentioned by a later prophet, Daniel. UB 137:7.6
Philosophy is man’s attempt at the unification of human experience. UB 196:3.30
The satisfaction of happiness. UB 3:5.14
Polygamy is the survival of the female-slavery element in marriage. UB 69:9.7
Social and political prestige. UB 69:5.7
Existing in possibility [1], not in actuality; becoming as distinguished from being; possible, or in the making as opposed to actual or realized; latent.
The craving to be master. UB 69:5.8
Power is ordinarily limited to the designation of the electronic level of material or linear-gravity-responsive matter in the grand universe. Power is also employed to designate sovereignty. UB 0:6.2
Universe power includes all forms of energy which, while still responding to Paradise gravity, are directly responsive to linear gravity. This is the electronic level of energy-matter and all subsequent evolutions thereof. UB 0:6.7
Space-force has been changed into space-energy and thence into the energy of gravity control. Thus has physical energy been ripened to that point where it can be directed into channels of power and made to serve the manifold purposes of the universe Creators.
On Uversa we refer to the realm of universe power as Gravita. UB 42:2.14
The truest prayer is in reality a communion between man and his Maker. UB 91:2.3
And thus does prayer function as the most potent agency of religion in the conservation of the highest values and ideals of those who pray. UB 91:3.3
Prayer ever has been and ever will be a twofold human experience; a psychologic procedure interassociated with a spiritual technique. UB 91:3.6
When the prayer seeks nothing for the one who prays nor anything for his fellows, then such attitudes of the soul tend to the levels of true worship. UB 91:4.3
Prayer is the technique whereby, sooner or later, every religion becomes institutionalized, and in time prayer becomes associated with numerous secondary agencies, some helpful, others decidedly deleterious, such as priests, holy books, worship rituals,and ceremonials. UB 91:5.6
Do not be so slothful as to ask God to solve your difficulties, but never hesitate to ask him for wisdom and spiritual strength to guide and sustain you while you yourself resolutely and courageously attack the problems at hand. UB 91:6.5
Prayer is not an evolution of magic; they each arose independently. . . . True prayer is both moral and religious; magic is neither. UB 91:8.2
Genuine prayer adds to spiritual growth, modifies attitudes, and yields that satisfaction which comes from communion with divinity. It is a spontaneous outburst of God-consciousness.
God answers man’s prayer by giving him an increased revelation of truth, an enhanced appreciation of beauty, and an augmented concept of goodness. Prayer is a subjective gesture, but it contacts with mighty objective realities on the spiritual levels of human experience; It is a meaningful reach by the human for superhuman values. It is the most potent spiritual-growth stimulus.
Words are irrelevant to prayer; they are merely the intellectual channel in which the river of spiritual supplication may chance to flow. The word value of a prayer is purely auto-suggestive in private devotions and sociosuggestive in group devotions. God answers the soul’s attitude, not the words.
Prayer is not a technique of escape from conflict but rather a stimulus to growth in the very face of conflict. Pray only for values, not things; for growth, not for gratification. UB 91:8.10-13
Prayer is indeed a part of religious experience, but it has been wrongly emphasized by modern religions, much to the neglect of the more essential communion of worship. The reflective powers of the mind are deepened and broadened by worship. Prayer may enrich the life, but worship illuminates destiny. UB 102:4.5
Prayer is designed to make man less thinking but more realizing; it is not designed to increase knowledge but rather to expand insight. UB 143:7.4
Prayer is self-reminding—sublime thinking; worship is self-forgetting—superthinking. Worship is effortless attention, true and ideal soulrest, a form of restful spiritual exertion. UB 143:7.7
Prayer is entirely a personal and spontaneous expression of the attitude of the soul toward the spirit; prayer should be the communion of sonship and the expression of fellowship. Prayer, when indited by the spirit, leads to co-operative spiritual progress. The ideal prayer is a form of spiritual communion which leads to intelligent worship. True braying is the sincere attitude of reaching heavenward for the attainment of your ideals. UB 144:2.2
Prayer is the breath of the soul and should lead you to be persistent in your attempt to ascertain the Father’s will. UB 144:2.3
Prayer is the breath of the spirit life in the midst of the material civilization of the races of mankind. Worship is salvation for the pleasure-seeking generations of mortals.
As prayer may be likened to recharging the spiritual batteries of the soul, so worship may be compared to the act of tuning in the soul to catch the universe broadcasts of the infinite spirit of the Universal Father.
Prayer is the sincere and longing look of the child to its spirit Father; it is a psychologic process of exchanging the human will for the divine will. Prayer is a part of the divine plan for making over that which is into that which ought to be. UB 144:4.7-9
- Prayer is an expression of the finite mind in an effort to approach the Infinite. The making of a prayer must, therefore be limited by the knowledge, wisdom, and attributes of the of the finite; likewise must the answer be conditioned by the vision, aims, ideals, and prerogatives of the Infinite. There never can be observed an unbroken continuity of material phenomena between the making of a prayer and the reception of the full spiritual answer thereto.
- When a prayer is apparently unanswered, the delay often betokens a better answer, although one which is for some good reason greatly delayed. No sincere prayer is denied an answer except when the superior viewpoint of the spiritual world has devised a better answer, an answer which meets the petition of the spirit of man as contrasted with the prayer of the mere mind of man.
- The prayers of time, when indited by the spirit and expressed in faith, are often so vast and all-encompassing that they can be answered only in eternity; the finite petition is sometimes so fraught with the grasp of the Infinite that the answer must long be postponed to await the creation of adequate capacity for receptivity; the prayer of faith may be so all-embracing that the answer can be received only on Paradise.
- The answers to the prayer of the mortal mind are often of such a nature that they can be received and recognized only after that same praying mind has attained the Immortal state. The prayer of the material being can many times be answered only when such an individual has progressed to the spirit level.
- The prayer of a God-knowing person may be so distorted by ignorance and so deformed by superstition that the answer thereto would be highly undesirable. Then must the intervening spirit beings so translate such a prayer that, when the answer arrives, the petitioner wholly fails to recognize it as the answer to his prayer.
- All true prayers are addressed to spiritual beings,and all such petitions must be answered in spiritual terms, and all such answers must consist in spiritual realities. Spirit beings cannot bestow material answers to.to the spirit petitions of even material beings. Material beings can pray effectively only when they “pray in the spirit”.
- No prayer can hope for an answer unless it is born of the spirit and nurtured by faith. Your sincere faith implies that you have in advance virtually granted your prayer hearers the full right to answer your petitions in accordance with that supreme wisdom and that divine love which your faith depicts as always actuating those beings to whom you pray.
- The child is always within his rights when he presumes to petition the parent; and the parent is always within his parental obligations to the immature child when his superior wisdom dictates that the answer to the child’s prayer be delayed, modified, segregated, transcended, or postponed to another stage of spiritual ascension.
- Do not hesitate to pray the prayers of spirit longing; doubt not that you shall receive the answer to your petitions. These answers will be on deposit, awaiting your achievement of those future spiritual levels of actual cosmic attainment, on this world or on others, whereon it will become possible, for you to recognize and appropriate the long-waiting answers to your earlier but illtimed petitions.
- All genuine spirit-born petitions are certain of an answer. Ask and you shall receive. But you should remember that you are progressive creatures of time and space; therefore must you constantly reckon with the time-space factor in the experience of your personal reception of the full answers to your manifold prayers and petitions. UB 168:4.4-13
Prejudice blinds the soul to the recognition of truth and prejudice can be removed only by the sincere devotion of the soul to the adoration of a cause that is all-embracing and all-inclusive of one’s fellow men. Prejudice is inseparably linked to selfishness. Prejudice can be eliminated only by the abandonment of self-seeking and by substituting therefor the quest of the satisfaction of the service of a cause that is not only greater than self, but one that is even greater than all humanity—the search for God, the attainment of divinity. The evidence of maturity of personality consists in the Transformation of human desire so that it constantly seeks for the realization of those values which are highest and most divinely real. UB 160:1.13
Of all the dangers which beset man’s mortal nature and Jeopardize his spiritual integrity, pride. is the greatest. UB 111:6.9
Pride is deceitful, intoxicating, and sin-breeding whether found in an individual, a group, a race, or a nation. It is literally true, “Pride goes before a fall.” UB 111:6.10