Chapter One
THE ABSOLUTES

A wind of limitless proportions sweeps across the creation, setting the condensing stars in their courses and ordering the affairs of existence. Irresistibly it carries total reality through the ceaseless metamorphosis of being, in fragmentarily glimpsed but perfectly synchronized obedience to the plans and dictates of God. It is the will of God manifest. It is the starwind .

From the providence of the Supreme (1304:7-1305:1) to the infinite plans and purpose (364:4; 365:4), the unified urge of primordial purpose and eternal destiny is powerfully described in The URANTIA Book. From the organic unity of all time-space reality and action (56:2-4; 1276:3) to the metamorphosing of potentials to actuals in the Seven Absolutes of Infinity (83:2-4; 1151:13; 1298:3), the excitement of the unified march of infinity is communicated throughout The URANTIA Book.

Levels of Existence

The URANTIA Book portrayal of reality is a breathtaking panorama of universes, gods, men, and angels painted in immense range and scintillating detail. Even this staggering picture is purposely limited, necessarily distorted, a condescension to human levels of comprehension (6:4; 1152:3,5; 1154:1; 1163:4-13).

URANTIA Book cosmology rests, among other things, on the way a single reality at one level is a multiple reality at another. A company, functioning as a unit at one level, exists and works at another level as many employees. At a level farther removed, it grasps, walks, thinks, and speaks as a synchrony of hands and feet, minds and tongues.

Total reality, or infinity, teaches The URANTIA Book , is one reality but also, at another level, seven: the Seven Absolutes of Infinity (4:14-5:18; 1154:5-1157:2).

The Seven Absolutes of Infinity

Existential--timeless, spaceless, beginningless, endless--the Seven Absolutes of Infinity fill the brimming curve of infinity at the absolute level of existence. Within their flawless depths stir and move the realities of every object, thought, feeling, and person that is or ever will be.

Separate, like limitless, invisible oceans of creative light, the Seven Absolutes of Infinity intercombine their individually unique potencies into vast functional associations called triodities and triunities (1146:3; 1151:13).

These near-absolute associations of absolutes, sparkling with the entwined powers of their upholding primordials, in turn downstep themselves as associations and dilutions. And so it continues, the progenital ocean of intermixed creativity deepening, thickening, swirling, becoming the form and fabric of the streaming galaxies, whirling atoms, and countless things and beings physical, spirital, and mindal.

The Existential Flower

At the level of absolute unity, the Seven Absolutes of Infinity can be visualized as a single, all-encompassing flower of being. Outside of time and space, furling and unfurling petals within whose nurturing fabric all reality evolves, it pulses with a vitality of which life itself is only a pale reflection.

The top and bottom halves of the drawing titled "The Existential Flower" represent actual and potential reality, respectively. (Potential reality, teaches The URANTIA Book , is just as real as actual reality.) The Existential Flower is adorned with six dimensions, boundless petals clustering the circle of its vast-rooted beauty. These are the three dimensions of potential matter, mind, and spirit plus the three of actual matter, mind, and spirit. The domains of matter, mind, and spirit are each shown as a straight axis, one end arcing out as a graceful petal in the potential estate, the other in the actual. Mind intervenes between matter and spirit in both the actual and potential estate.

Six Absolute Petals

Each petal of the Existential Flower corresponds to one of the Seven Absolutes of Infinity (5:2-7; 99:4; 1150:11; 1154:5-1157:2):

1. The Eternal Son. The source, center, and controller of all actual spirit reality.

2. Paradise. The source, center, and controller of all actual physical reality.

3. The Infinite Spirit. The source, center, and controller of all actual mind reality and, under the overcontrol of the Eternal Son and Paradise, the controller of all subabsolute spirit and physical reality, respectively.

4. The Deity Absolute. The repository of all potential spirit reality.

5. The Unqualified Absolute. The repository of all potential physical reality.

6. The Universal Absolute. The repository of all potential mind reality, including coordination of the Deity and Unqualified Absolutes and of all phases and levels of reality.

The Seventh Petal

The unpictured seventh absolute is the First Source and Center of all things and beings. To the Eternal Son and all personal beings, it is the Universal Father, the source of personality ; to Paradise and all physical reality, it is the Universal Patterner, the source of pattern. And so to each of the six absolutes it is the corresponding source (1154:5-1157:2).

As the giver of form, the First Source and Center can be pictured as the central circle on the Existential Flower where the petals join; as the giver of vitality, it can be visualized as the sap coursing through the flower.

The Blossom Unfolds

The dynamics of reality, the universal blossoming, pulse ceaselessly through the Existential Flower. Evolution is pictured in The URANTIA Book as the metamorphosing of reality along the axis of a given domain from the potential to the actual estate. Spirit evolves from the potentials of the Deity Absolute to the actuality of the Eternal Son (83:2-4). Matter and mind ripen from the potentials of the Unqualified and Universal Absolutes, respectively, to the actualities of Paradise (469:3; 470:2) and the Infinite Spirit (104:7), respectively. Newly actualized realities produce, in turn, new potential realities.

This metamorphosing evolution of reality is coordinated with experiential deity: God the Supreme, God the Ultimate, and God the Absolute (83:2-4; 136:2,4; 1151:13; 1266:6-8).

Growth and Perception

Each ascender is destined to be a living part of experiential deity. Growth actualizes, also potentializes, expanded capacity for service and perception of reality, up to the changeless, all-powerful absolutes.

The URANTIA Book teaches that each ascender will ultimately conceive of space and time in terms of the absolutes (1439:7). Seekers after the will of God are destined to live and serve in a seven-dimensional universe (1439:6).

Ascenders are to be agents of the absolutes in the service of the Universal Father as a part of the Supreme. The forward urge impelling them is the starwind: the metamorphosing evolution of reality coordinated with the emergence of the experiential deities in the limitless arena provided by the Seven Absolutes of Infinity.