Page:The Urantia Book, 1st Edition.djvu/361

Rh casion on the pilot world of circle number three when the transit trio announce that the last venture of time is about to ensue; that another creature of space seeks entry to Paradise through the portals of eternity.

The test of time is almost over; the race for eternity has been all but run. The days of uncertainty are ending; the temptation to doubt is vanishing; the injunction to be perfect has been obeyed. From the very bottom of intelligent existence the creature of time and material personality has ascended the evolutionary spheres of space, thus proving the feasibility of the ascension plan while forever demonstrating the justice and righteousness of the command of the Universal Father to his lowly creatures of the worlds: "Be you perfect, even as I am perfect."

Step by step, life by life, world by world, the ascendant career has been mastered, and the goal of Deity has been attained. Survival is complete in perfection, and perfection is replete in the supremacy of divinity. Time is lost in eternity; space is swallowed up in worshipful identity and harmony with the Universal Father. The broadcasts of Havona flash forth the space reports of glory, the good news that in very truth the conscientious creatures of animal nature and material origin have, through evolutionary ascension, become in reality and eternally the perfected sons of God.

The superaphic counselors and advisers of the second circle are the instructors of the children of time regarding the career of eternity. The attainment of Paradise entails responsibilities of a new and higher order, and the sojourn on the second circle affords ample opportunity to receive the helpful counsel of these devoted supernaphim.

Those who are unsuccessful in the first effort at Deity attainment are advanced from the circle of failure directly to the second circle before they are returned to superuniverse service. Thus the counselors and advisers also serve as the counselors and comforters of these disappointed pilgrims. They have just encountered their greatest disappointment, in no way differing from the long list of such experiences whereon they climbed, as on a ladder, from chaos to glory—except in its magnitude. These are they who have drained the experiential cup to its dregs; and I have observed that they temporarily return to the services of the superuniverses as the highest type of loving ministrators to the children of time and temporal disappointments.

After a long sojourn on circuit number two the subjects of disappointment are examined by the councils of perfection sitting on the pilot world of this circle and are certified as having passed the Havona test; and this, so far as nonspiritual status is concerned, grants them the same standing in the universes of time as if they had actually succeeded in the Deity adventure. The spirit of such candidates was wholly acceptable; their failure was inherent in some phase of the technique of approach or in some part of their experiential background.

They are then taken by the counselors of the circle before the chiefs of assignment on Paradise and are remanded to the service of time on the worlds of space; and they go with joy and gladness to the tasks of former days and ages. In another day they will return to the circle of their greatest disappointment and attempt anew the Deity adventure.