27:0.1 Primary supernaphim are the supernal servants of the Deities on the eternal Isle of Paradise. Never have they been known to depart from the paths of light and righteousness. The roll calls are complete; from eternity not one of this magnificent host has been lost. These high supernaphim are perfect beings, supreme in perfection, but they are not absonite, neither are they absolute. Being of the essence of perfection, these children of the Infinite Spirit work interchangeably and at will in all phases of their manifold duties. They do not function extensively outside Paradise, though they do participate in the various millennial gatherings and group reunions of the central universe. They also go forth as special messengers of the Deities, and in large numbers they ascend to become Technical Advisers.
27:0.2 Primary supernaphim are also placed in command of the seraphic hosts ministering on worlds isolated because of rebellion. When a Paradise Son is bestowed upon such a world, completes his mission, ascends to the Universal Father, is accepted, and returns as the accredited deliverer of this isolated world, a primary supernaphim is always designated by the chiefs of assignment to assume command of the ministering spirits on duty in the newly reclaimed sphere. Supernaphim in this special service are periodically rotated. On Urantia the present "chief of seraphim" is the second of this order to be on duty since the times of the bestowal of Christ Michael.
27:0.3 From eternity the primary supernaphim have served on the Isle of Light and have gone forth on missions of leadership to the worlds of space, but they have functioned as now classified only since the arrival on Paradise of the Havona pilgrims of time. These high angels now minister chiefly in the following seven orders of service:
- Conductors of Worship.
- Masters of Philosophy.
- Custodians of Knowledge.
- Directors of Conduct.
- Interpreters of Ethics.
- Chiefs of Assignment.
- Instigators of Rest.
27:0.4 Not until the ascending pilgrims actually attain Paradise residence do they come under the direct influence of these supernaphim, and then they pass through a training experience under the direction of these angels in the reverse order of their naming. That is, you enter upon your Paradise career under the tutelage of the instigators of rest and, after successive seasons with the intervening orders, finish this training period with the conductors of worship. Thereupon are you ready to begin the endless career of a finaliter.
27:1.1 The instigators of rest are the inspectors of Paradise who go forth from the central Isle to the inner circuit of Havona, there to collaborate with their colleagues, the complements of rest of the secondary order of supernaphim. The one essential to the enjoyment of Paradise is rest, divine rest; and these instigators of rest are the final instructors who make ready the pilgrims of time for their introduction to eternity. They begin their work on the final attainment circle of the central universe and continue it when the pilgrim awakes from the last transition sleep, the slumber which graduates a creature of space into the realm of the eternal.
27:1.2 Rest is of a sevenfold nature: There is the rest of sleep and of play in the lower life orders, discovery in the higher beings, and worship in the highest type of spirit personality. There is also the normal rest of energy intake, the recharging of beings with physical or with spiritual energy. And then there is the transit sleep, the unconscious slumber when enseraphimed, when in passage from one sphere to another. Entirely different from all of these is the deep sleep of metamorphosis, the transition rest from one stage of being to another, from one life to another, from one state of existence to another, the sleep which ever attends transition from actual universe status in contrast to evolution through various stages of any one status.
27:1.3 But the last metamorphic sleep is something more than those previous transition slumbers which have marked the successive status attainments of the ascendant career; thereby do the creatures of time and space traverse the innermost margins of the temporal and the spatial to attain residential status in the timeless and spaceless abodes of Paradise. The instigators and the complements of rest are just as essential to this transcending metamorphosis as are the seraphim and associated beings to the mortal creature's survival of death.
27:1.4 You enter the rest on the final Havona circuit and are eternally resurrected on Paradise. And as you there spiritually repersonalize, you will immediately recognize the instigator of rest who welcomes you to the eternal shores as the very primary supernaphim who produced the final sleep on the innermost circuit of Havona; and you will recall the last grand stretch of faith as you once again made ready to commend the keeping of your identity into the hands of the Universal Father.
27:1.5 The last rest of time has been enjoyed; the last transition sleep has been experienced; now you awake to life everlasting on the shores of the eternal abode. "And there shall be no more sleep. The presence of God and his Son are before you, and you are eternally his servants; you have seen his face, and his name is your spirit. There shall be no night there; and they need no light of the sun, for the Great Source and Center gives them light; they shall live forever and ever. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things have passed away."
27:2.1 This is the group designated from time to time by the chief supernaphim, "the original pattern angel," to preside over the organization of all three orders of these angels—primary, secondary, and tertiary. The supernaphim, as a body, are wholly self-governing and self-regulatory except for the functions of their mutual chief, the first angel of Paradise, who ever presides over all these spirit personalities.
27:2.2 The angels of assignment have much to do with glorified mortal residents of Paradise before they are admitted to the Corps of the Finality. Study and instruction are not the exclusive occupations of Paradise arrivals; service also plays its essential part in the prefinaliter educational experiences of Paradise. And I have observed that, when the ascendant mortals have periods of leisure, they evince a predilection to fraternize with the reserve corps of the superaphic chiefs of assignment.
27:2.3 When you mortal ascenders attain Paradise, your societal relationships involve a great deal more than contact with a host of exalted and divine beings and with a familiar multitude of glorified fellow mortals. You must also fraternize with upwards of three thousand different orders of Paradise Citizens, with the various groups of the Transcendentalers, and with numerous other types of Paradise inhabitants, permanent and transient, who have not been revealed on Urantia. After sustained contact with these mighty intellects of Paradise, it is very restful to visit with the angelic types of mind; they remind the mortals of time of the seraphim with whom they have had such long contact and such refreshing association.
27:3.1 The higher you ascend in the scale of life, the more attention must be paid to universe ethics. Ethical awareness is simply the recognition by any individual of the rights inherent in the existence of any and all other individuals. But spiritual ethics far transcends the mortal and even the morontia concept of personal and group relations.
27:3.2 Ethics has been duly taught and adequately learned by the pilgrims of time in their long ascent to the glories of Paradise. As this inward-ascending career has unfolded from the nativity worlds of space, the ascenders have continued to add group after group to their ever-widening circle of universe associates. Every new group of colleagues met with adds one more level of ethics to be recognized and complied with until, by the time the mortals of ascent reach Paradise, they really need someone to provide helpful and friendly counsel regarding ethical interpretations. They do not need to be taught ethics, but they do need to have what they have so laboriously learned properly interpreted to them as they are brought face to face with the extraordinary task of contacting with so much that is new.
27:3.3 The interpreters of ethics are of inestimable assistance to the Paradise arrivals in helping them to adjust to numerous groups of majestic beings during that eventful period extending from the attainment of residential status to formal induction into the Corps of Mortal Finaliters. Many of the numerous types of Paradise Citizens the ascendant pilgrims have already met on the seven circuits of Havona. The glorified mortals have also enjoyed intimate contact with the creature-trinitized sons of the conjoint corps on the inner Havona circuit, where these beings are receiving much of their education. And on the other circuits the ascending pilgrims have met numerous unrevealed residents of the Paradise-Havona system who are there pursuing group training in preparation for the unrevealed assignments of the future.
27:3.4 All these celestial companionships are invariably mutual. As ascending mortals you not only derive benefit from these successive universe companions and such numerous orders of increasingly divine associates, but you also impart to each of these fraternal beings something from your own personality and experience which forever makes every one of them different and better for having been associated with an ascending mortal from the evolutionary worlds of time and space.
27:4.1 Having already been fully instructed in the ethics of Paradise relationships—neither meaningless formalities nor the dictations of artificial castes but rather the inherent proprieties—the ascendant mortals find it helpful to receive the counsel of the superaphic directors of conduct, who instruct the new members of Paradise society in the usages of the perfect conduct of the high beings who sojourn on the central Isle of Light and Life.
27:4.2 Harmony is the keynote of the central universe, and detectable order prevails on Paradise. Proper conduct is essential to progress by way of knowledge, through philosophy, to the spiritual heights of spontaneous worship. There is a divine technique in the approach to Divinity; and the acquirement of this technique must await the pilgrims' arrival on Paradise. The spirit of it has been imparted on the circles of Havona, but the final touches of the training of the pilgrims of time can be applied only after they actually attain the Isle of Light.
27:4.3 All Paradise conduct is wholly spontaneous, in every sense natural and free. But there still is a proper and perfect way of doing things on the eternal Isle, and the directors of conduct are ever by the side of the "strangers within the gates" to instruct them and so guide their steps as to put them at perfect ease and at the same time to enable the pilgrims to avoid that confusion and uncertainty which would otherwise be inevitable. Only by such an arrangement could endless confusion be avoided; and confusion never appears on Paradise.
27:4.4 These directors of conduct really serve as glorified teachers and guides. They are chiefly concerned with instructing the new mortal residents regarding the almost endless array of new situations and unfamiliar usages. Notwithstanding all the long preparation therefor and the long journey thereto, Paradise is still inexpressibly strange and unexpectedly new to those who finally attain residential status.
27:5.1 The superaphic custodians of knowledge are the higher "living epistles" known and read by all who dwell on Paradise. They are the divine records of truth, the living books of real knowledge. You have heard about records in the "book of life." The custodians of knowledge are just such living books, records of perfection imprinted upon the eternal tablets of divine life and supreme surety. They are in reality living, automatic libraries. The facts of the universes are inherent in these primary supernaphim, actually recorded in these angels; and it is also inherently impossible for an untruth to gain lodgment in the minds of these perfect and replete repositories of the truth of eternity and the intelligence of time.
27:5.2 These custodians conduct informal courses of instruction for the residents of the eternal Isle, but their chief function is that of reference and verification. Any sojourner on Paradise may at will have by his side the living repository of the particular fact or truth he may wish to know. At the northern extremity of the Isle there are available the living finders of knowledge, who will designate the director of the group holding the information sought, and forthwith will appear the brilliant beings who are the very thing you wish to know. No longer must you seek enlightenment from engrossed pages; you now commune with living intelligence face to face. Supreme knowledge you thus obtain from the living beings who are its final custodians.
27:5.3 When you locate that supernaphim who is exactly what you desire to verify, you will find available all the known facts of all universes, for these custodians of knowledge are the final and living summaries of the vast network of the recording angels, ranging from the seraphim and seconaphim of the local and superuniverses to the chief recorders of the tertiary supernaphim in Havona. And this living accumulation of knowledge is distinct from the formal records of Paradise, the cumulative summary of universal history.
27:5.4 The wisdom of truth takes origin in the divinity of the central universe, but knowledge, experiential knowledge, largely has its beginnings in the domains of time and space—therefore the necessity for the maintenance of the far-flung superuniverse organizations of the recording seraphim and supernaphim sponsored by the Celestial Recorders.
27:5.5 These primary supernaphim who are inherently in possession of universe knowledge are also responsible for its organization and classification. In constituting themselves the living reference library of the universe of universes, they have classified knowledge into seven grand orders, each having about one million subdivisions. The facility with which the residents of Paradise can consult this vast store of knowledge is solely due to the voluntary and wise efforts of the custodians of knowledge. The custodians are also the exalted teachers of the central universe, freely giving out their living treasures to all beings on any of the Havona circuits, and they are extensively, though indirectly, utilized by the courts of the Ancients of Days. But this living library, which is available to the central and superuniverses, is not accessible to the local creations. Only by indirection and reflectively are the benefits of Paradise knowledge secured in the local universes.
27:6.1 Next to the supreme satisfaction of worship is the exhilaration of philosophy. Never do you climb so high or advance so far that there do not remain a thousand mysteries which demand the employment of philosophy in an attempted solution.
27:6.2 The master philosophers of Paradise delight to lead the minds of its inhabitants, both native and ascendant, in the exhilarating pursuit of attempting to solve universe problems. These superaphic masters of philosophy are the "wise men of heaven," the beings of wisdom who make use of the truth of knowledge and the facts of experience in their efforts to master the unknown. With them knowledge attains to truth and experience ascends to wisdom. On Paradise the ascendant personalities of space experience the heights of being: They have knowledge; they know the truth; they may philosophize—think the truth; they may even seek to encompass the concepts of the Ultimate and attempt to grasp the techniques of the Absolutes.
27:6.3 At the southern extremity of the vast Paradise domain the masters of philosophy conduct elaborate courses in the seventy functional divisions of wisdom. Here they discourse upon the plans and purposes of Infinity and seek to co-ordinate the experiences, and to compose the knowledge, of all who have access to their wisdom. They have developed a highly specialized attitude toward various universe problems, but their final conclusions are always in uniform agreement.
27:6.4 These Paradise philosophers teach by every possible method of instruction, including the higher graph technique of Havona and certain Paradise methods of communicating information. All of these higher techniques of imparting knowledge and conveying ideas are utterly beyond the comprehension capacity of even the most highly developed human mind. One hour's instruction on Paradise would be the equivalent of ten thousand years of the word-memory methods of Urantia. You cannot grasp such communication techniques, and there is simply nothing in mortal experience with which they may be compared, nothing to which they can be likened.
27:6.5 The masters of philosophy take supreme pleasure in imparting their interpretation of the universe of universes to those beings who have ascended from the worlds of space. And while philosophy can never be as settled in its conclusions as the facts of knowledge and the truths of experience, yet, when you have listened to these primary supernaphim discourse upon the unsolved problems of eternity and the performances of the Absolutes, you will feel a certain and lasting satisfaction concerning these unmastered questions.
27:6.6 These intellectual pursuits of Paradise are not broadcast; the philosophy of perfection is available only to those who are personally present. The encircling creations know of these teachings only from those who have passed through this experience, and who have subsequently carried this wisdom out to the universes of space.
27:7.1 Worship is the highest privilege and the first duty of all created intelligences. Worship is the conscious and joyous act of recognizing and acknowledging the truth and fact of the intimate and personal relationships of the Creators with their creatures. The quality of worship is determined by the depth of creature perception; and as the knowledge of the infinite character of the Gods progresses, the act of worship becomes increasingly all-encompassing until it eventually attains the glory of the highest experiential delight and the most exquisite pleasure known to created beings.
27:7.2 While the Isle of Paradise contains certain places of worship, it is more nearly one vast sanctuary of divine service. Worship is the first and dominant passion of all who climb to its blissful shores—the spontaneous ebullition of the beings who have learned enough of God to attain his presence. Circle by circle, during the inward journey through Havona, worship is a growing passion until on Paradise it becomes necessary to direct and otherwise control its expression.
27:7.3 The periodic, spontaneous, group, and other special outbursts of supreme adoration and spiritual praise enjoyed on Paradise are conducted under the leadership of a special corps of primary supernaphim. Under the direction of these conductors of worship, such homage achieves the creature goal of supreme pleasure and attains the heights of the perfection of sublime self-expression and personal enjoyment. All primary supernaphim crave to be conductors of worship; and all ascendant beings would enjoy forever remaining in the attitude of worship did not the chiefs of assignment periodically disperse these assemblages. But no ascendant being is ever required to enter upon the assignments of eternal service until he has attained full satisfaction in worship.
27:7.4 It is the task of the conductors of worship so to teach the ascendant creatures how to worship that they may be enabled to gain this satisfaction of self-expression and at the same time be able to give attention to the essential activities of the Paradise regime. Without improvement in the technique of worship it would require hundreds of years for the average mortal who reaches Paradise to give full and satisfactory expression to his emotions of intelligent appreciation and ascendant gratitude. The conductors of worship open up new and hitherto unknown avenues of expression so that these wonderful children of the womb of space and the travail of time are enabled to gain the full satisfactions of worship in much less time.
27:7.5 All the arts of all the beings of the entire universe which are capable of intensifying and exalting the abilities of self-expression and the conveyance of appreciation, are employed to their highest capacity in the worship of the Paradise Deities. Worship is the highest joy of Paradise existence; it is the refreshing play of Paradise. What play does for your jaded minds on earth, worship will do for your perfected souls on Paradise. The mode of worship on Paradise is utterly beyond mortal comprehension, but the spirit of it you can begin to appreciate even down here on Urantia, for the spirits of the Gods even now indwell you, hover over you, and inspire you to true worship.
27:7.6 There are appointed times and places for worship on Paradise, but these are not adequate to accommodate the ever-increasing overflow of the spiritual emotions of the growing intelligence and expanding divinity recognition of the brilliant beings of experiential ascension to the eternal Isle. Never since the times of Grandfanda have the supernaphim been able fully to accommodate the spirit of worship on Paradise. Always is there an excess of worshipfulness as gauged by the preparation therefor. And this is because personalities of inherent perfection never can fully appreciate the tremendous reactions of the spiritual emotions of beings who have slowly and laboriously made their way upward to Paradise glory from the depths of the spiritual darkness of the lower worlds of time and space. When such angels and mortals of time attain the presence of the Powers of Paradise, there occurs the expression of the accumulated emotions of the ages, a spectacle astounding to the angels of Paradise and productive of the supreme joy of divine satisfaction in the Paradise Deities.
27:7.7 Sometimes all Paradise becomes engulfed in a dominating tide of spiritual and worshipful expression. Often the conductors of worship cannot control such phenomena until the appearance of the threefold fluctuation of the light of the Deity abode, signifying that the divine heart of the Gods has been fully and completely satisfied by the sincere worship of the residents of Paradise, the perfect citizens of glory and the ascendant creatures of time. What a triumph of technique! What a fruition of the eternal plan and purpose of the Gods that the intelligent love of the creature child should give full satisfaction to the infinite love of the Creator Father!
27:7.8 After the attainment of the supreme satisfaction of the fullness of worship, you are qualified for admission to the Corps of the Finality. The ascendant career is well-nigh finished, and the seventh jubilee prepares for celebration. The first jubilee marked the mortal agreement with the Thought Adjuster when the purpose to survive was sealed; the second was the awakening in the morontia life; the third was the fusion with the Thought Adjuster; the fourth was the awakening in Havona; the fifth celebrated the finding of the Universal Father; and the sixth jubilee was the occasion of the Paradise awakening from the final transit slumber of time. The seventh jubilee marks entrance into the mortal finaliter corps and the beginning of the eternity service. The attainment of the seventh stage of spirit realization by a finaliter will probably signalize the celebration of the first of the jubilees of eternity.
27:7.9 And thus ends the story of the Paradise supernaphim, the highest order of all the ministering spirits, those beings who, as a universal class, ever attend you from the world of your origin until you are finally bidden farewell by the conductors of worship as you take the Trinity oath of eternity and are mustered into the Mortal Corps of the Finality.
27:7.10 The endless service of the Paradise Trinity is about to begin; and now the finaliter is face to face with the challenge of God the Ultimate.
27:7.11 [Presented by a Perfector of Wisdom from Uversa.]
