^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 Centre 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.”

2. CHIEFS OF ASSIGNMENT

^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 3,000 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.

3. INTERPRETERS OF ETHICS

^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.

4. DIRECTORS OF CONDUCT

^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.

5. THE CUSTODIANS OF KNOWLEDGE

^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 lodgement in the minds of these perfect and replete repositories of the truth of eternity and the intelligence of time.