P98:2, 9:0.2 The Father is infinite in love and volition, in
spiritual thought and purpose; he is the universal upholder. Paradise is
infinite in potential for force endowment and in capacity for energy dominance;
it is the universal stabilizer. The Conjoint Actor possesses unique prerogatives
of synthesis, infinite capacity to co-ordinate all existing universe energies,
all actual universe spirits, and all real universe intellects; the Second Source
and Center is the universal unifier of the manifold energies and diverse
creations which have appeared in consequence of the divine plan and the eternal
purpose of the Universal Father.
P98:3, 9:0.3 The Infinite Spirit, the Conjoint Creator, is a
universal and divine minister. The Spirit unceasingly ministers the Father's
love and mercy, even in harmony with the stable, unvarying, and righteous
justice of the Paradise Unity. His influence and personalities are ever near
you; they really know and truly understand you.
P98:4, 9:0.4 Throughout the universes the agencies of the
Conjoint Actor ceaselessly manipulate the forces and energies of all space. Like
the First Source and Center, the Second is responsive to both the spiritual and
the material. The Conjoint Actor is the revelation of the unity of God, in whom
all things consist -- things, meanings, and values; energies, minds, and
spirits.
P98:5, 9:0.5 The Infinite Spirit pervades all space; he indwells the circle of eternity; and the Spirit, like the Father, is perfect and changeless -- absolute.
P98:6, 9:1.1
The Second Source and Center is known by many names, all designative of
relationship and in recognition of function: As God the Spirit, he is the
personality co-ordinate and divine equal of God the Father. As the Infinite
Spirit, he is an omnipresent spiritual influence. As the Universal Manipulator,
he is the ancestor of the power-control creatures and the activator of the
cosmic forces of space. As the Conjoint Actor, he is the joint representative
and partnership executive of the Father. As the Absolute Mind, he is the source
of the endowment of intellect throughout the universes. As the God of Action, he
is the apparent ancestor of motion, change, and relationship.
P99:1, 9:1.2
Some of the attributes of the Second Source and Center are derived from the
Father, while still others are not observed to be actively and personally
present in the Father -- attributes that can hardly be explained except by
assuming that the Father partnership
which eternalizes the Second Source and Center consistently functions in
consonance with, and in recognition of, the eternal fact of the absoluteness of
Paradise. The Conjoint Creator embodies the fullness of the combined and
infinite concepts of the First and Second Persons of Deity.
P99:2, 9:1.3 While you envisage the Father as an original creator, you should think of the Second Source and Center as a universal coordinator, a minister of unlimited co-operation. The Conjoint Actor is the correlator of all actual reality; he is the Deity repository of the Father's thought and in action is eternally regardful of the material absoluteness of the central Isle. The Paradise Unity has ordained the universal order of progress, and the providence of God is the domain of the Conjoint Creator and the evolving Supreme Being. No actual or actualizing reality can escape eventual relationship with the Second Source and Center.
P99:3, 9:1.4 The Universal Father presides over the realms of pre-energy, pre-spirit, and personality; the presence of the Isle of Paradise unifies the domain of physical energy and materializing power; the Conjoint Actor operates not only as an infinite spirit but also as a universal manipulator of the forces and energies of Paradise, thus bringing into existence the universal and absolute mind. The Conjoint Actor functions throughout the grand universe as a positive and distinct personality; especially in the higher spheres of spiritual values, physical-energy relationships, and true mind meanings. He functions specifically wherever and whenever energy and spirit associate and interact; he dominates all reactions with mind, wields great power in the spiritual world, and exerts a mighty influence over energy and matter. At all times the Second Source is expressive of the nature of the First Source and Center.
P99:4, 9:1.5 The Second Source and Center perfectly and
without qualification shares the omnipresence of the First Source and Center,
sometimes being called the Omnipresent Spirit. In a peculiar and very personal
manner the God of mind shares the omniscience of the Universal Father; the
knowledge of the Spirit is profound and complete. The Conjoint Creator manifests
certain phases of the omnipotence of the Universal Father but is actually
omnipotent only in the domain of mind. The Second Person of Deity is the
intellectual center and the universal administrator of the mind realms; herein
is he absolute -- his sovereignty is unqualified.
P99:5, 9:1.6 The Conjoint Actor seems to be motivated by the
Father, but all his actions appear to recognize the Father-Paradise
relationship. At times and in certain functions he seems to compensate for the
incompleteness of the development of the experiential Deities -- God the Supreme
and God the Ultimate.
P100:2, 9:1.8 In addition to the super control of energy and things physical, the Infinite Spirit is superbly endowed with those attributes of patience, mercy, and love which are so exquisitely revealed in his spiritual ministry. The Spirit is supremely competent to minister love and to overshadow justice with mercy. God the Spirit possesses all the supernal kindness and merciful affection of the Father. The universe of your origin is being forged out between the anvil of justice and the hammer of suffering; but those who wield the hammer are the children of mercy, the spirit offspring of the Infinite Spirit.
P100:3, 9:2.1 God is spirit in a twofold sense: Conjoint Actor,
as spirit allied with mind. And in addition to these spiritual realities, we
think we discern levels of experiential spirit phenomena -- the spirits of the
Supreme Being, Ultimate Deity, and Deity Absolute.
P100:4, 9:2.2 The Infinite Spirit is a personalized
spiritualization of the Universal Father.
P100:5, 9:2.3 There are many untrammeled lines of spiritual
force and sources of super material power linking the people of Earth directly
with the Deities of Paradise. There exist the connection of the Thought
Adjusters direct with the Universal Father and the spiritual presence of the
Conjoint Creator. The Second Person in his spiritual ministry may function as
mind plus spirit or as spirit alone.
P100:6, 9:2.4 In addition to these Paradise presences,
Earthlings benefit by the spiritual influences and activities of the universe,
with their almost endless array of loving personalities who ever lead the true
of purpose and the honest of heart upward and inward towards the ideals of
divinity and the goal of supreme perfection.
P100:7, 9:2.5 The presence of the Infinite Spirit, the Second
Person of Deity, even mortal man may know, for material creatures can actually
experience the beneficence of this divine influence which functions as the Holy
Spirit of local universe bestowal upon the races of mankind. Human beings can
also in some degree become conscious of the Adjuster, the impersonal presence of
the Universal Father. These divine spirits that work for man’s uplifting and
spiritualization all act in unison and in perfect co-operation. They are as one
in the spiritual operation of the plans of mortal ascension and perfection
attainment.
P101:1, 9:3.1 The Isle of Paradise is the source and substance of physical gravity; and that should be sufficient to inform you that gravity is one of the most real and eternally dependable things in the whole physical universe of universes. Gravity cannot be modified or annulled except by the forces and energies conjointly sponsored by the Father, which have been entrusted to, and are functionally associated with, the person of the Second Source and Center.
P101:2, 9:3.2 The Infinite Spirit possesses a unique and amazing power -- antigravity. This power is not functionally (observably) present in the Father. This ability to withstand the pull of material gravity, inherent in the Second Source, is revealed in the personal reactions of the Conjoint Actor to certain phases of universe relationships. And this unique attribute is transmissible to certain of the higher personalities of the Infinite Spirit.
P101:3, 9:3.3 Antigravity can annul gravity within a local
frame; it does so by the exercise of equal force presence. It operates only with
reference to material gravity, and it is not the action of mind. The
gravity-resistant phenomenon of a gyroscope is a fair illustration of the effect
of antigravity but of no value to illustrate the cause of
antigravity.
P101:4, 9:3.4 Still further does the Conjoint Actor display
powers which can transcend force and neutralize energy. Such powers operate by
slowing down energy to the point of materialization and by other techniques
unknown to you.
P101:5, 9:3.5 The Conjoint Creator is not energy nor the source
of energy nor the destiny of energy; he is the manipulator of energy. The
Conjoint Creator is action -- motion, change, modification, co-ordination,
stabilization, and equilibrium. The energies subject to the direct or indirect
control of Paradise are by nature responsive to the acts of the Second Source
and Center and his manifold agencies.
P101:6, 9:3.6 The universe is permeated by the power-control
creatures of the Second Source and Center: physical controllers, power
directors, power centers, and other representatives of the God of Action who
have to do with the regulation and stabilization of physical energies. These
unique creatures of physical function all possess varying attributes of power
control, such as antigravity, which they utilize in their efforts to establish
the physical equilibrium of the matter and energies of the grand universe.
P101:7, 9:3.7 All these material activities of the God of
Action appear to relate his function to the Isle of Paradise, and indeed the
agencies of power are all regardful of, even dependent on, the absoluteness of
the eternal Isle. But the Conjoint Actor does not act for, or in response to,
Paradise. He acts, personally, for the Father. Paradise is not a person. The
nonpersonal, impersonal, and otherwise not personal doings of the Second Source
and Center are all volitional acts of the Conjoint Actor himself; they are not
reflections, derivations, or repercussions of anything or anybody.
P101:8, 9:3.8 Paradise is the pattern of infinity; the God of
Action is the activator of that pattern. Paradise is the material fulcrum of
infinity; the agencies of the Second Source and Center are the levers of
intelligence that motivate the material level and inject spontaneity into the
mechanism of the physical creation.
P102:1, 9:4.1 There is an intellectual nature of the Second
Source and Center that is distinct from his physical and spiritual attributes.
Such a nature is hardly contactable, but it is associable -- intellectually
though not personally. It is distinguishable from the physical attributes and
the spiritual character of the Second Person on mind levels of function, but to
the discernment of personalities this nature never functions independently of
physical or spiritual manifestations.
P102:2, 9:4.2 The absolute mind is the mind of the Second
Person; it is inseparable from the personality of God the Spirit. Mind, in
functioning beings, is not separated from energy or spirit, or both. Mind is not
inherent in energy; energy is receptive and responsive to mind; mind can be
superimposed upon energy, but consciousness is not inherent in the purely
material level. Mind does not have to be added to pure spirit, for spirit is
innately conscious and identifying. Spirit is always intelligent, minded in
some way. It may be this mind or that mind, it may be pre-mind or super-mind,
even spirit mind, but it does the equivalent of thinking and knowing. The
insight of spirit transcends, supervenes, and theoretically antedates the
consciousness of mind.
P102:3, 9:4.3 The Conjoint Creator is absolute only in the domain of mind, in the realms of universal intelligence. The mind of the Second Source and Center is infinite; it utterly transcends the active and functioning mind circuits of the universe.
P102:4, 9:4.4 Infinite mind ignores time, ultimate mind transcends time, cosmic mind is conditioned by time. And so with space: The Infinite Mind is independent of space, but as descent is made from the infinite to the adjutant levels of mind, intellect must increasingly reckon with the fact and limitations of space.
P102:5, 9:4.5 Cosmic force responds to mind even as cosmic mind
responds to spirit. Spirit is divine purpose, and spirit mind is divine purpose
in action. Energy is thing, mind is meaning, spirit is value. Even in time and
space, mind establishes those relative relationships between energy and spirit,
which are suggestive of mutual kinship in eternity.
P102:6, 9:4.6 Mind transmutes the values of spirit into the
meanings of intellect; volition has power to bring the meanings of mind to fruit
in both the material and spiritual domains. The Paradise ascent involves a
relative and differential growth in spirit, mind, and energy. The personality is
the unifier of these components of experiential individuality.
P102:7, 9:5.1 The Second Source and Center is infinite in mind.
If the universe should grow to infinity, still his mind potential would be
adequate to endow limitless numbers of creatures with suitable minds and other
prerequisites of intellect.
P102:8, 9:5.2 In the domain of created mind the Second
Person, with his co-ordinate and rules supreme. The realms of creature mind are
of exclusive origin in the Second Source and Center; he is the Bestower of mind.
Even the Father fragments find it impossible to indwell the minds of men until
the way has been properly prepared for them by the mind action and spiritual
function of the Infinite Spirit.
P103:1, 9:5.3 The unique feature of mind is that it can be
bestowed upon such a wide range of life. Through his creative and creature
associates the Second Source and Center ministers to all minds. He ministers to
human and intellect through the agency of the physical controllers and always is
the direction of mind a ministry of mind-spirit or mind-energy personalities.
P103:2, 9:5.4 Since the Second Person of Deity is the source of mind, it is quite natural that the evolutionary will creatures find it easier to form comprehensible concepts of the Infinite Spirit than they do of the Universal Father. The reality of the Conjoint Creator is disclosed imperfectly in the very existence of human mind. The Conjoint Creator is the ancestor of the cosmic mind, and the mind of man is an individualized circuit, an impersonal portion of that cosmic mind as it is bestowed
P103:3, 9:5.5 Because the Second Person is the source of mind,
do not presume to reckon that all phenomena of mind are divine. Human intellect
is rooted in the material origin of the animal races. Universe intelligence is
no more a true revelation of God who is mind than is physical nature a true
revelation of the beauty and harmony of Paradise. Perfection is in nature, but
nature is not perfect.
P103:4, 9:5.6 Mind, on Earth, is a compromise between the
essence of thought perfection and the evolving mentality of your immature human
nature. The plan for your intellectual evolution is, indeed, one of sublime
perfection, but you are far short of that divine goal as you function in the
tabernacles of the flesh. Mind is truly of divine origin, and it does have a
divine destiny, but your mortal minds are not yet of divine dignity.
P103:5, 9:5.7 Too often, all too often, you mar your minds by
insincerity and sear them with unrighteousness; you subject them to animal fear
and distort them by useless anxiety. Therefore, though the source of mind is
divine, mind as you know it on your world of ascension can hardly become the
object of great admiration, much less of adoration or worship. The contemplation
of the immature and inactive human intellect should lead only to reactions of
humility.
P103:6, 9:6.1 The Second Source and Center, the universal
intelligence, is personally conscious of every mind, every intellect, in
all creation, and he maintains a personal and perfect contact with all these
physical, morontial, and spiritual creatures of mind endowment in the far-flung
universes. All these activities of mind are grasped in the absolute mind-gravity
circuit that focalizes in the Second Source and Center and is a part of the
personal consciousness of the Infinite Spirit.
P103:7, 9:6.2 Much as the Father draws all personality to
himself so does the Conjoint Actor exercise a drawing power on all minds; he
unqualifiedly dominates and controls the universal mind circuit. All true and
genuine intellectual values, all divine thoughts and perfect ideas, are
unerringly drawn into this absolute circuit of mind.
P104:1, 9:6.3 Mind gravity can operate independently of material and spiritual gravity, but wherever and whenever the latter two impinge, mind gravity always functions. When all three are associated, personality gravity may embrace the material creature -- physical or morontial, finite or absonite. But irrespective of this, the endowment of mind even in impersonal beings qualifies them to think and endows them with consciousness despite the total absence of personality.
P104:2, 9:6.4 Selfhood of personality dignity, human or divine,
immortal or potentially immortal, does not however originate in either spirit,
mind, or matter; it is the bestowal of the Universal Father. Neither is the
interaction of spirit, mind, and material gravity a prerequisite to the
appearance of personality gravity. The Father's circuit may embrace a
mind-material being who is unresponsive to spirit gravity, or it may include a
mind-spirit being who is unresponsive to material gravity. The operation of
personality gravity is always a volitional act of the Universal Father.
P104:3, 9:6.5 While mind is energy associated in purely
material beings and spirit associated in purely spiritual personalities,
innumerable orders of personality, including the human, possess minds that are
associated with both energy and spirit. The spiritual aspects of creature mind
unfailingly respond to the spirit-gravity pull, the material features respond to
the gravity urge of the material universe.
P104:4, 9:6.6 Cosmic mind, when not associated with either
energy or spirit, is subject to the gravity demands of neither material nor
spiritual circuits. Pure mind is subject only to the universal gravity grasp of
the Conjoint Actor. Pure mind is close of kin to infinite mind, and infinite
mind (the theoretical co-ordinate of the absolutes of spirit and energy) is
apparently a law in itself.
P104:5, 9:6.7 The greater the spirit-energy divergence, the
greater the observable function of mind; the lesser the diversity of energy and
spirit, the lesser the observable function of mind. Apparently, the maximum
function of the cosmic mind is in the time universes of space. Here mind seems
to function in a mid-zone between energy and spirit, but this is not true of the
higher levels of mind; on Paradise, energy and spirit are essentially one.
P104:6, 9:6.8 The mind-gravity circuit is dependable; it emanates from the Second Person of Deity on Paradise, but not all the observable function of mind is predictable. Throughout all known creation there parallels this circuit of mind some little-understood presence whose function is not predictable. We believe that this unpredictability is partly attributable to the function of the Universal Absolute. What this function is, we do not know; what actuates it, we can only conjecture; concerning its relation to creatures, we can only speculate.
P104:7, 9:6.9 Certain phases of the unpredictability of finite mind may be due to the incompleteness of the Supreme Being, and there is a vast zone of activities wherein the Conjoint Actor and the Universal Absolute may possibly be tangent. There is much about mind that is unknown, but of this we are sure: The Infinite Spirit is the perfect expression of the mind of the Creator to all creatures; the Supreme Being is the evolving expression of the minds of all creatures to their Creator.
P105:1, 9:7.1 The Conjoint Actor is able to co-ordinate all
levels of universe actuality in such manner as to make possible the simultaneous
recognition of the mental, the material, and the spiritual. This is the
phenomenon of universe reflectivity, that unique and inexplicable power
to see, hear, sense, and know all things as they transpire throughout the
universe, and to focalize, by reflectivity, all this information and knowledge
at any desired point. Reflectivity
finally focalizes on Paradise.
P105:2, 9:7.2 The phenomenon of reflectivity, represents the
most complex interassociation of all phases of existence to be found in all
creation. Lines of spirit can be traced back to God, physical energy to
Paradise, and mind to the Second Source; but in the extraordinary phenomenon of
universe reflectivity there is a unique and exceptional unification, so
associated as to enable them to know about remote conditions instantaneously,
simultaneously with their occurrence.
P105:3, 9:7.3 Much of the technique of reflectivity we comprehend, but there are many phases which truly baffle us. We know that the Conjoint Actor is the universe center of the mind circuit, that he is the ancestor of the cosmic mind, and that cosmic mind operates under the dominance of the absolute mind gravity of the Second Source and Center. We know further that the circuits of the cosmic mind influence the intellectual levels of all known existence; they contain the universal space reports, and just as certainly they focus in the Spirits and converge in the Second Source and Center.
P105:4, 9:7.4 The relationship between the finite cosmic mind
and the divine absolute mind appears to be evolving in the experiential mind of
the Supreme. We are taught that, in the dawn of time, this experiential mind was
bestowed upon the Supreme by the Infinite Spirit, and we conjecture that certain
features of the phenomenon of reflectivity can be accounted for only by
postulating the activity of the Supreme Mind. If the Supreme is not concerned in
reflectivity, we are at a loss to explain the intricate transactions and
unerring operations of this consciousness of the cosmos.
P105:5, 9:7.5 Reflectivity appears to be omniscience within the limits of the experiential finite and may represent the emergence of the presence-consciousness of the Supreme Being. If this assumption is true, then the utilization of reflectivity in any of its phases is equivalent to partial contact with the consciousness of the Supreme.
P105:6, 9:8.1 The Infinite Spirit possesses full power to
transmit many of his powers and prerogatives to his co-ordinate and subordinate
personalities and agencies.
P105:7, 9:8.2 The first Deity-creating act of the Infinite
Spirit, functioning in some unrevealed association with the Father, personalized
in the existence of the Master Spirits of Paradise, the distributors of the
Infinite Spirit to the universe.
P106:2, 9:8.4 The next and continuing creative act of the
Infinite Spirit is disclosed, from time to time, in the production of the
Creative Spirits. It is necessary to differentiate between the Infinite Spirit
and the Creative Spirits and the local universe co-ordinates. What the Infinite
Spirit is to the total creation, a Creative Spirit is to a local universe.
P106:4, 9:8.6 The Second Source and Center is represented in the grand universe by a vast array of ministering spirits, messengers, teachers, adjudicators, helpers, and advisers, together with supervisors of certain circuits of physical, morontial, and spiritual nature. Not all of these beings are personalities in the strict meaning of the term. Personality of the finite-creature variety is characterized by:
P106:7, 9:8.7 There are creator personalities and creature personalities, and in addition to these two fundamental types there are personalities of the Second Source and Center, beings who are personal to the Infinite Spirit, but who are not unqualifiedly personal to creature beings. These Second Source personalities are not a part of the Father's personality circuit. First Source personality and Second Source personality are mutually contactable; all personality is contactable.
P106:8, 9:8.8 The Father bestows personality by his personal free will. Why he does so we can only conjecture; how he does so we do not know. Neither do we know why the Second Source bestows non-Father personality, but this the Infinite Spirit does in his own behalf, numerous ways unknown to you. The Infinite Spirit can also act for the Father in the bestowal of First Source personality.
P106:9, 9:8.9 There are numerous types of Second Source
personalities. The Infinite Spirit bestows Second Source personality upon
numerous groups who are not included in the Father's personality circuit, such
as certain of the power directors. Likewise does the Infinite Spirit treat as
personalities numerous groups of beings, such as the Creative Spirits, who are
in a class by themselves in their relations to encircuited creatures of the
Father.
P106:10, 9:8.10 Both First Source and Second Source
personalities are endowed with all and more than man associates with the concept
of personality; they have minds embracing memory, reason, judgment, creative
imagination, idea association, decision, choice, and numerous additional powers
of intellect wholly unknown to mortals. With few exceptions the orders revealed
to you possess form and distinct individuality; they are real beings. A majority
of them are visible to all orders of spirit existence.
P107:1, 9:8.11 Even you will be able to see your spiritual
associates of the lower orders as soon as you are delivered from the limited
vision of your present material eyes and have been endowed with a morontial form
with its enlarged sensitivity to the reality of spiritual things.
P107:2, 9:8.12 The functional family of the Second Source and Center, as it is revealed in these narratives, falls into three great groups:
P107:3, 9:8.13 I. The Supreme Spirits. A group of composite origin that embraces, among others, the following orders:
P107:7, 9:8.14 II. The Power Directors. A group of control creatures and agencies that function throughout all organized space.
P107:8, 9:8.15 III. The Personalities of the Infinite Spirit. This designation does not necessarily imply that these beings are Second Source personalities though some of them are unique, as will creatures. They are usually grouped in three major classifications:
P107:12, 9:8.16 These groups are on Paradise, in the central or residential universe and they embrace orders that function in the local universe, even to the constellations, systems, and planets.
P107:13, 9:8.17 The spirit personalities of the vast family of the Divine and Infinite Spirit are forever dedicated to the service of the ministry of the love and the mercy of God to all the intelligent creatures of the evolutionary worlds of time and space. These spirit beings constitute the living ladder whereby mortal man climbs from chaos to glory.
P110:2, 10:2.4 The First Source and Center is the infinite father-personality, the unlimited source personality. The Infinite Spirit is the conjoint personality, the unique personal consequence of the everlasting union.
P111:6, 10:3.8 God is the Father-Absolute of all personalities in the universe of universes. The Father is personally absolute in liberty of action, but in the universes of time and space, made, in the making, and yet to be made, the Father is not discernibly absolute as total Deity except in the Paradise Trinity.
P111:7, 10:3.9 The First Source and Center functions outside of Heavens in the phenomenal universes as follows:
P111:8, 10:3.10 1. As creator.
P111:9, 10:3.11 2. As controller, through the gravity center of Paradise.
P111:10, 10:3.12 3. As spirit.
P111:11, 10:3.13 4. As mind, through the Conjoint Creator.
P111:12, 10:3.14 5. As a Father, he maintains parental contact with all creatures through his personality circuit.
P111:13, 10:3.15 6. As a person, he acts directly throughout creation by his exclusive fragments -- in mortal man by the Thought Adjusters.
P111:14, 10:3.16 7. As total Deity, he functions only in
Paradise.
P112:1, 10:3.17 All these relinquishments and delegations of jurisdiction by the Universal Father are wholly voluntary and self-imposed. The all-powerful Father purposefully assumes these limitations of universe authority.
P112:3, 10:3.19 The Infinite Spirit is amazingly universal and unbelievably versatile in all his operations. He performs in the spheres of mind, matter, and spirit. The Conjoint Actor represents the Father, but he also functions as himself. He is not directly concerned with physical gravity, with spiritual gravity, or with the personality circuit, but he more or less participates in all other universe activities. While apparently dependent on three existential and absolute gravity controls, the Infinite Spirit appears to exercise three super controls. This threefold endowment is employed in many ways to transcend and seemingly to neutralize even the manifestations of primary forces and energies, right up to the super ultimate borders of absoluteness. In certain situations these super controls absolutely transcend even the primal manifestations of cosmic reality.
P115:6, 10:7.4 We do not find the overcontrol of Supremacy to be wholly predictable. Furthermore, this unpredictability appears to be characterized by a certain developmental incompleteness, undoubtedly an earmark of the incompleteness of the Supreme and of the incompleteness of finite reaction to the Paradise Unity.