Page:The Urantia Book, 1st Edition.djvu/367

Rh 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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