In the outworking of God's love on earth there are many adjustments that are essential to the sharing of God's love. We have recognized that it is through Divine love that centering becomes possible. No matter how much the human mind may think to try to remain centered, without love it is impossible, and the first and the greatest of the commandments admonishes us to love God with all that we are. We have shared meditations on that point many times, but I would tonight that we might come to know more deeply, more fully, the reality of our KING's provision, in His Kingdom on earth, in this matter.
We have recognized that without centering in love the control factors in truth cannot become effective and the design factors in truth cannot manifest. They become spoiled, distorted, and that which does appear is far different from that which God designed. The reality of the Kingdom requires that control and design shall manifest through the working of God's power. Fundamentally we have acknowledged that all power does come from God and that the power that destroys is from God but not under God's control; it is being used by the human agency, wilfully or ignorantly, to spoil God's design. When God's power is used by human beings to spoil God's design we have a horrible incongruity, something which by its very nature is abhorrent. But man has lived for so long with the distortion patterns of being, with that which is decaying and dying, that he has become used to the abhorrent factors in existence and accepts them as being natural. They are in fact unnatural, but in the self-active expression of the human being misusing God's power to spoil God's design we have the natural result in the condition which we find in the world.
I always feel at a loss for words when I approach the subject of God's love, the love of the Lord of Love. Our KING so loved the world, the earth and the people in it, His whole creation, that He came into the world to restore that pattern of relatedness, that whosoever believeth in Him, the Lord of Love, might not perish but have everlasting life. What does it mean to believe in the Lord of Love? What is there in your consciousness tonight which will allow you to have a deeper awareness of what it means to believe in the Lord of Love?
What if every question, if every problem, all the things which might be deemed a necessity in any way, shape or form, could be dismissed from consciousness so that the whole attention, the whole of the heart or feeling nature, the whole of the mind and the whole of the body, might be brought to point in this one thing?
When there is love on earth, for instance, between a man and a woman, and it is real and it has a spiritual quality, it has a depth, the mutuality of that love establishes a timelessness. When there is a centering in relationship to that love, other things, though they be essential, are seen as secondary to love, no matter how important they might be, no matter how necessary it may be to do the essential work or consider other matters. It is not that they are set aside as meaningless, but the quality of that which is known and felt, the timelessness, and the recognition that that love is primary, gives meaning to everything else. Without that love what meaning would there be? Without love somewhere, somehow—not necessarily limited to marital love—but without love somehow, no human being can live a normal life. Without love there is only emptiness, coldness, meaninglessness. Whatever else there may be, only love can give it meaning. Whatever the need may be, only love can provide the starting point for filling that need. No matter what problem, without love there is no way of really solving the problem, no matter how much the human being may try. The basic pattern of love open to each and every one, without regard to anything else, is the most precious of all, the most priceless of all aspects of love: the love of God, the love of the Lord of Love.
When that love begins to work in and through the human being, and it is held sacred, the human consciousness and heart remain true to it, changes begin to take place. All changes are fundamentally adjustments either to the pattern of life or to the pattern of decay. Sometimes the human being resists the necessity of adjustment, but without adjustment the true expression of love is impossible, because the means of manifestation must become fitting to the expression of love. The endlessness of love is that which makes eternity desirable. Without love one could rightly abhor the thought of eternity. But love is of sufficient importance so that from God's standpoint the centering of all things, including God Himself, is established in love. Our KING, Supreme in heaven and earth, is the Lord of Love, the Apex of All. Love, then, is of sufficient importance so that from the standpoint of God's design, of expression in His own Being, disregarding the human being for the moment, in the Body of God made up of many God Beings the One who provides the apex is the Lord of Love. Not the Lord of Truth, not the Lord of Life, not the Lord of something else in the various aspects of God's Being, but the Lord of Love. He is the Center, the Supreme One, the Apex.
From the standpoint of God, then, in relationship to God Himself, Love is Supreme. To that end we have the second shortest verse in the Bible. The shortest one was caused because someone failed to recognize the truth of the second shortest. The shortest verse in the Bible has two words; the second, three: the simple statement, “God is love.” The shortest verse in the Bible: “Jesus wept.” Why did He weep? Not for the cause that human beings suppose. Not because Lazarus was in the tomb, not because all the others were weeping. He told them plainly, even before He wept, “Lazarus is not dead, but sleepeth.” But when Mary of Bethany forgot to remember that God is love and that the power of God is supreme, when she betrayed the trust He had placed in her to hold the pattern, when Mary doubted God's love, when Mary, who to the Master symbolized the centering of all the fulfilments for which He hoped on earth, yielded to the pattern of appearances and broke and became subject to the things to which the world is subject, then He wept; for in that moment He knew that what could have been would not be. He wept because there was not one, not even Mary of Bethany, who remembered “God is love,” who remembered the importance of staying centered regardless of appearances—not one, of those who should have provided the pattern in that hour. I feel the question rise in your mind with respect to the Disciple John. The pattern of which I am speaking had no direct relationship to him. I am not suggesting that John failed to maintain the pattern. I am talking about something else.
“Jesus wept.” Do you think the Master's life was without love? No. Mary of Bethany was His sweetheart. Mary of Bethany provided the centering, from the standpoint of the negative aspect of Being, for that outworking for which He was on earth, for which He labored. That provision of God's love we can say should have held—but Jesus wept. Why? Because the one whom He had trusted to hold the centering of the pattern in what we would speak of as the negative response of the world, to provide the key, forgot her responsibility. She forgot God's love, and “Jesus wept.” Mary yielded to the wrong precedent. Since the fall there was no other precedent but that of failure; but there was a precedent going back beyond the fall of man, and God's love had to have meaning on earth. There was a keynote of response in the outworking of things, a point where love reigned supreme, where nothing else mattered, and when something else was allowed to matter, Jesus wept.
So from the standpoint of God, from the standpoint of our LORD on earth, love was first. He said the first commandment had to do with love, God's love: to love the Lord thy God with all that you are. When there is this yielding to God's love, letting go in it, what happens? In the world there are crystallizations of every sort, distorted patterns wherever one may turn, nothing exactly the way God intended it to be. In the whole realm of humanity there is that which is moving toward that pattern of fulfilment, the Divine manifestation of the Divine Design, in the flesh of human beings, in their minds and hearts, but so often something other than God's love matters first. “God is love.” The centering of God is love; the expression of God is love; the nature of God is love. If, then, the reality of love is allowed to begin to work through the human heart there is the beginning of the relatedness with God. But the working of that love must do something. It must melt the crystallizations. It must bring about a yielding which allows adjustment to the Divine pattern, so that the delicate factors of the Divine Design may begin to have meaning.
One of the strangest things to me—and, I might mention, to all the angels of heaven—is this: That human beings so often seem to imagine that the essential adjustments are difficult, something to be resisted, something to be avoided as much as possible, that there is somehow suffering in those adjustments. Such an attitude reveals a tremendous ignorance with respect to love and truth and life. One of the greatest joys which any man or woman may know is the joy of going through the patterns of attunement or adjustment necessary to the ever-increasing reality of love, God's love, in life. Instead of resisting the necessities of change the human being should accept them willingly, gladly.
How can the body be healed if there be no change in the body according to the Divine Design? It can't. Only as changes come by reason of the control according to the Divine Design can healing come to the body. Only so can healing come to the mind or heart. These changes are not painful unless the human being makes them so. And if they are painful they are not the true changes; they are partial changes wherein factors other than God's are allowed to play a part, where human factors are imposed. Getting used to God's love is a delightful experience. Remaining true to God's love gives a sense of wholeness and wholesomeness, a consciousness of something holy and sacred. There is such a sweet spirit which pervades, and all fear is cast out, and there is no cause for suffering in any real sense. There is relaxation. There is letting go. There is yielding. There is a response which permits God's power to make changes. How deep does God's love go? To the intellectual level, so that one may say, “I love God”? If so, the moment the attention is centered on the necessities of our daily lives God's love is forgotten. But if it goes deep, deep into the heart, the feeling nature, and penetrates the body, it is there no matter what may demand attention, no matter what one may be under the necessity of doing. It is there all the time.
There is no adequate way to convey in words that which love is. It can be called a fire, and that would be true, but some would be afraid of it. It can be called a consuming fire; not because it destroys, but because it enfolds and contains, because it takes unto itself that which yields—to change, not to destroy it; not to bring it to an end, but to give it meaning. There are so many delicate factors in love, so very delicate, and only as there is an appreciation of delicate design, in truth, can the full beauties of love be known. The human being cannot be taught by lecture, by book, by blackboard design, just what adjustments must take place within himself with respect to this fulfilment. A general idea can be given, principles can be portrayed, but there is that something in each and every one which can appear only in the working of the spirit of love itself in the individual—not something that can be known in advance, not something that can be intellectually predetermined. It is something which can be experienced only in the working of love within oneself. And it cannot be described. That which is true of one may not be true of another, with respect to these delicate factors—in other words, each one has a peculiar design.
In the basic factors we are all alike, in the fundamental. And those things can be recognized and appreciated and known. They can be more or less described. They become common knowledge. But the human being who limits himself to that never knows what it is to live. There must be an unfolding of something beyond the range of that which is intellectually predetermined. There must be the outworking of something which is absolutely unique to the individual himself. It is in the delicacy of the design that the variations in characteristics become known. We may classify any person on earth as a human being. That is a very general classification—all human beings. Then we can make the division between male and female, and everyone is in one classification or the other. But that which is a basic fact does not make the distinction of Being evident. The delicacy of the Divine Design which relates to you is important to the fulfilment of your life, the reality of your ministry of service, the reality of your Being, what God intended you to be. But without love those delicate factors of design, spirit, nature, can never take outer form. They never find expression. They never have any meaning to you or to anyone else. So, while you may be a human being, you are not what you ought to be. You may be a man or a woman, but you are not what you ought to be.
How shall this come forth? By great intellectual attainments? By inventive genius? By mental gymnastics? By human emotionalism? By giving way to feelings of various sorts? Oh no. Of course wherever love is at work there are feelings, but it is a matter of letting that love, that fire, that feeling, work through in the sense of a centering, in the sense of an unfolding. It is such a revealing thing to the eyes of love, but if there are no eyes of love it reveals nothing. And that delicacy of design reaches back into the very essence or heart of God. It is this that characterizes our LORD and KING. If we think of Him simply as a KING in some far-off place, a Lord, perhaps, more or less unapproachable—for those who do not know love it may be true, and it is—then you do not know Him: these delicate factors of Being, so intricate in design, so moving, so all-inclusive, so always new, so ever-changing and yet always the same. That sounds like a paradox to human ears, “ever-changing and yet always the same”—always the same in love but never the same in Being. Always there is that quality of newness, that quality of aliveness, which is beyond human words to describe. These essences, these delicate things which cannot be described, must be allowed an opportunity of movement within oneself. If one is so crystallized in fundamentals that the delicate things are always crushed or given second place, or some such thing, there can never be the unfolding of Being, there can never be the joy of true living, of true loving.
The Lord of Love. Why is eternity a reality? Fundamentally because of love. When one begins to know love as it centers in our KING, the Lord of Love, one begins to realize that even eternity can never exhaust the newness, the wonder, the joy of love. Love, true love, is something that never grows old. It is not subject to time. It is not subject to space or distance. It simply is, and it is eternally new. If there is anything which is not showing forth the quality of eternal newness it is because of a lack of love, a lack of centering in the God of Love, the Lord of Love.
What is it that makes newness, in the sense of restoring physical health, the restoration of the body to the Divine Design? There must come a newness, and the oldness must pass away—not oldness necessarily in the sense of years but from the standpoint of something that is out of design, something which is crystallized, something that is not allowing the delicate factors of Being to appear, so it grows old. It can grow old in five minutes, shall we say. I have met people where things grew old in five minutes, and one was glad to get away. But where God's love is working there is an eternal newness, something different, something alive, something refreshing, something delightful, something thrilling, something so deep and satisfying. In this ever-newness we have the secret of eternal aliveness, which is called Eternal Life. Without that ever-newness of love, God's love, extended life is impossible, because the crystallizations take over and that which is not of the Divine Design becomes evident in control. This ever-newness is the living quality of Being, and without it sometimes human beings reach a point where they so yield to the adversary that they even say such a horrible thing as, “What is the use?” What a depth of something too horrible to name!—“What's the use?”—the meaninglessness that brings such an expression. And where does that come from? From a lack of God's love. God's love is sufficient for all.
There is an interesting thing about our LORD and KING. His love is great enough to include every human being. His capacity to love has never been exhausted. There are not enough beings in heaven or earth, or both together, to exhaust His capacity to love. He has enough for you, and He can share all the love of your being and not exclude anyone else—a place for you in the heart of the Lord of Love. And it will not limit you. It will not make you something less than you are. It will make you something more than you are. It will not circumscribe you in the sense of anything distorting or limiting, but it will give you meaning to yourself and to others.
Blessed ones, love isn't something that you can get all in a lump, as if you might have some trucker deliver a ton of it. Love is something that flows and unfolds and moves. Some people seem to imagine that if they have love, then suddenly, as if they got the ton of it, everything would be thus and thus and thus and so, instantly, in a moment. But love is there for every human being on the face of the earth. It doesn't come by the ton; it comes by the measure of living. It is something that has to express through; and its intricate designs, its changing patterns, provide that something which increases the capacity to know God's love. God in His wisdom arranged that eternity would be available for the expression of love, not that it should be delivered in a lump and when that is gone it is done. It is not something that can be put in a box or jar or can or something, and stored. It is something which in its movement reveals itself. The quality of that movement is determined by the reality of the love that is involved in its unfolding expression.
When one begins to know love one begins to realize that it actually is primary, not secondary, and that God was not arbitrary when He pointed to that fact in the two great commandments. It is primary—it is the first thing, not the second. Once that primary thing is moving there begins to be a relatedness to other things: first to God, and then, according to the Divine Design in the outworking, one to another and to all created things. But you never see love twice the same. If you miss it in any moment, what you miss will never, in all of eternity, be available to you again, because it is never in any two moments exactly the same. All the eternity of the future will be taken up with the natural unfoldings of love in the future, and there is no time in all of eternity to return to something that was missed in the past. If you miss it in any moment it is gone forever. And God's love is too precious to miss, too important to throw away. We have seen that with God it is primary. The Lord of Love centers the Body of God, the Apex of it All—first, supreme. Human beings think to make it secondary? Oh no. If they do they destroy themselves, and day by day throw away, literally throw away, God's richest blessings. Once they are missed they can never be known, because they are gone.
That which is today will appear today, if we let love have its way. One should not waste time in vain regrets with respect to what is past. That will do no good. But one should learn the lesson well enough so that one doesn't today throw away that which should be known today; for God's love is available today, available to you. If you do not let it unfold today the opportunity is gone. Each new moment brings a new opportunity—and a whole eternity before us, endless—for the unfolding of the ever-changing wonders of God's love. Until you begin to appreciate the delicacy of design, the things which can be known only as they unfold—not by the word that is spoken, not to be put in black and white somehow—until one begins to let that delicacy of design have real meaning in oneself, one cannot begin to know the LORD of Love. But you cannot know the delicacy of design unless you are honest, faithful and true, unless you let the truth make you free by reason of your centering. There is no other way of centering than this, by reason of God's love. If you would know the ever-newness of God's love it must be through His love, according to the delicacy of design which God ordains. It is to this end, this fulfilment, that the Lord of Love Himself came into the world, so that instead of excluding love from your life and decaying, you might accept love in your life and share the ever-newness of God Himself.
In the review program as it came to a close this afternoon for this week, the subject of the Shekinah Pattern of Being had been introduced. We will be sharing much more meditation in this particular field, but in this consideration of the basic theme, I would like to draw to your attention tonight a point which has to do with the manifestation of many of the blessings which the world has known, so that we may consider the reason why those blessings appear, something of what is at work, and consequently be more effective in our own ministry. We have all heard many stories about various shrines, the shrines where one may more or less anticipate some form of healing of body or mind, or those shrines where one goes to find a particularized awareness of a spiritual experience. In the Mohammedan world, for instance, Mecca provides a basic shrine for many millions of people on the face of the earth, and we find these shrines present in many parts of the world. We all have heard about one in France, which is under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Church, where there have been many healings—various patterns, which we will not undertake to outline in an historical sense tonight. But a recognition of the principle of the shrine. We find these shrines present in many parts of the world—where there have been many healings—various patterns, which we will not undertake to outline in an historical sense tonight. But a recognition of the principle of the shrine.
As we recall the pattern in relationship to the story of Abraham, for instance, we remember that in many places where he stopped he built an altar unto the Lord, and when he was returning out of Egypt after the famine he went to a place where he had previously built an altar unto the Lord. An altar, a temple, a shrine of some sort, has down through the millennia provided a consciousness of a centering in relationship to spiritual experience. Why is it that at some particular shrine something of this nature tends to develop? What is happening? How does it happen and why? In the consideration of the Shekinah Pattern of Being, we took note of the fact that the spirit of God comes to a point of meeting in relationship to something in the outer physical realm. The Cloud of Glory, as it is seen, is the body of the Shekinah, which we have spoken of as being the essence of undifferentiated truth.
As a background to this approach to a consideration of Shekinah we gave attention to the principles of magic, both white and black. The use of the word “white” in relationship to magic is very often misleading. There are many philosophies or schools of thought in the world which claim to be dealing on a basis of white magic, or teaching the principles of white magic; but when we begin to check into them we find that they are all dealing with black magic, even though they call it white magic. So we want to be careful from the standpoint of terminology, because if we say “white magic” some person who has had contact with some of the schools in the world that presume to teach something about white magic may assume that we are talking about the same thing, when we are not. And this pattern of false translation of idea is something which we must very carefully watch. There are many schools of thought which claim to be teaching the principles of white magic; but when we check into them we find that they are all dealing with black magic, though they call it white magic. However, we recognize that in black magic there is the use of the principle of the shrine or the altar, a place of centering, also—and we recognize the black magic triangle.
Now if we remember the principles which we have also studied with respect to pneumaplasm, and recognize that spirit as such is something that is absolutely and forever invisible to the physical eye of man as he is so constituted, and then remember something with respect to the emanations or radiations which have been noted with respect to the body—how they extend further out from the body when there is a normal condition of health, how they withdraw into the body, and how there are the facts of various colorations—we can begin to put together some of the basic factors which are essential to our meditation this evening.
Remember the point: The spirit of God cannot be seen in its true or pure form. The human eye never sees the spirit of God. We can see the results of the spirit of God—we can see the forms through which the spirit of God operates, but we cannot with physical vision see the spirit of God. And until the pneumaplasm begins to provide a body for spirit, spirit cannot have any meaning in relationship to this world. Spirit as such does not have any relationship to this world, to any physical things, human, animal, vegetable or anything else, except through pneumaplasm.
When we begin to think about the manifestation of the power of God on earth, we recognize that there must be some means by which that power can manifest in relationship to this realm. And yet we know that millions of human beings, having something of the idea that the power of God is a reality and that it should be able to have meaning in relationship to human beings, have assumed that somehow there is just a contact, a connection, that may be made somehow that will let spirit have direct meaning in relationship to the human body or the mind or the heart. But in our studies, meditation, we have seen that such is not the case. We have also recognized that we, as human beings, have the responsibility of generating the pneumaplasm that is to be used. God does not generate the pneumaplasm from an Inner Plane standpoint. We can depend upon God to provide the ever-flowing current of His spirit, but that spirit as such has no meaning on earth until we ourselves provide the connecting link.
So the only begotten Son of God—Shekinah—is issuing forth from God all of the time. And in this connection, let us be certain to remember that God is to the realm of God Being exactly the same as mankind is to the realm of human being. As mankind includes all human beings, God includes all God Beings; and while there are focalizations particularized with respect to God Being—and such focalizations may, for instance in relationship to the LORD of Lords and KING of Kings, be spoken of as God—when we say God, we have reference to the realm of God Being, which includes all God Beings. And when we say mankind, we do not refer just to one human being or one group of human beings; we have reference to all human beings. So mankind is to humanity, or to human beings, as God is to the realm of God Being; and from God, that is, from the realm of God Being in which all God Beings share—an individual and a collective pattern—we have the manifestation, on that level, of the spirit of God issuing forth from all God Beings.
This spirit of God is the only begotten Son of God; which is to say, it is that which issues forth from God eternally. Now this only begotten Son of God can have no meaning on earth whatsoever except as we permit it—except as we cooperate. And man has not learned how to cooperate; which is to say, man has not learned how to live. We look into the world pattern and, regardless of all the religions on earth and all the philosophies and all the beliefs, we have human beings in a miserable condition, suffering all kinds of diseases and difficulties, chaos, a lack of peace, a pattern of decay, subject to death. Man, then, has not learned the art of living, and all the various philosophies have failed to give man an understanding of the art of living. So we are interested in finding this contact, learning how to function in relationship to it and learning how to live—the magic of life, or the magic of living.
One other point we must bring to focus out of our past meditation, and that is the point of balance; how it is that the positive aspects of a given formation, such as a solar system, provide a pattern of energy, or a creative field, in which the negative aspects find a point of balance. That point of balance establishes, for instance, the orbit of this earth. The sun has a gravitational pull which is felt by all of its planets, including this earth, but there is also the centrifugal force which tends to throw the planet out from the sun. There are other energies involved, but we will not take time to study them at the moment. The important thing is that two forces, or energies, are counteracting each other, and the point where they come to balance, where they neutralize each other, establishes the orbit of the earth. From the standpoint of anything that is to have stability, we need the same pattern of principle.
There must be the positive centering; there must be the negative response. Remember, when I use the word “negative” I do not mean “destructive”. If I mean destructive I will say it. Negative things are constructive, and we must use negative things. Negative then means responsive. Responsive: yielded to a given Positive. And the point where negative response and positive radiation neutralize each other establishes a place—or a placing of form in relationship—according to the Divine Design. This point of balance must be seen if we are going to begin to understand the principles that begin to work in relationship to that which is an altar unto the Lord, a shrine, or a Temple that becomes a shrine, etc.
There is no gainsaying the fact that many remarkable things have happened in relationship to shrines in all parts of the world, under all religions. It is not limited to the so-called Christian religions at all. It is not limited to the Mohammedan religion. It is not limited to any of them. We go back in history, or check all of the different patterns of belief on the face of the earth, and wherever there is a shrine, whether in the field of so-called white magic or so-called black magic, remarkable things have happened, interesting things, a manifestation of phenomena which carries conviction to human minds, establishes belief, faith, and consequently cooperative action. Anyone who understands even a little of the principles involved can establish a black pattern of magic, give it an appearance of white magic, make it seem to be based in God's love, emphasize God's love, establish a shrine and develop phenomena. And when the individual comes in contact with this given phenomenon, it tends to make those who see believe that here is something special, something that gives evidence of the reality of God. Actually it does, in one sense, because all energy does come from God, all life forces come from God, whether they are used according to God's Will, Plan, purpose, or not. But most of these human activities utilize a process of stealing life energy to produce a given result. However, we are particularly interested tonight in seeing something of how this works in relationship to heavenly magic, the Divine pattern of magic.
First, an altar—a place, any place. It can be a rock of peculiar formation; it can be almost anything. It can be a tree, a selected tree, that has a certain definite appeal to a number of human beings, where there is a pattern of focalization. It can be virtually any spot on the face of the earth. And in one sense we might say that here on Sunrise Ranch we are in the process of developing a shrine. So it can be here. But if we understand the principles involved we should be able to function more effectively in relationship to the development of that shrine, and the possibilities of greater blessings by reason of the shrine.
First, we have considered the development of pneumaplasm. And in our meditations—to bring in another point which is essential—we have recognized the principle of the hedge: the hedge about the individual, about his house, and about all that he hath on every side. This hedge, in its original or first or primary manifestations, has within it the reality of the spirit of God, but depends upon the generation of pneumaplasm and the coordinated relationship of that which is humanly generated with that which issues forth from God.
We have noted that the moment any resentment pattern, any rebellious pattern, any self-centered pattern of any sort, egotism or false belief of any kind, distorts the vibrational field to the extent that there is no true meeting between that which is generated by the human beings involved and that which is issuing forth from God—anything that disturbs that point of meeting, that point of the beginning of the blending at the point of union between heaven and earth, will disrupt and spoil the result.
In the pattern of the world—generally, where human beings have not carried forward to being pure of heart, where they have not understood what was happening—the basic result has been achieved by classifying the place as sacred; and the individual, the faithful of that particular pattern of belief, would not think of going there and displaying anything that would violate that sacredness. He may have it inside himself; but generally speaking there is a period of preparation of some sort before visiting a shrine, perhaps some fasting, perhaps some praying, perhaps something else. But the important thing is that, within the scope of the individual's consciousness and the degree of purity of heart, there is an acceptance of the idea that that place is sacred. And the faithful individual of that philosophy or religion would not under any circumstance willingly, or knowingly, desecrate that which is held to be sacred. Consequently, by this means, as much in the self-active range as is humanly possible has been eliminated from the vibrational field immediately surrounding the shrine, and the more conscientious everyone is in relationship to the idea of keeping the shrine sacred and of having proper preparation in relationship to it, the more the vibratory pattern is allowed to remain undisturbed.
It has a very definite ceiling; it does not go as high as it could or should, but it is held sacred, and there is a sense of holiness, or of that which is hallowed. At that point, therefore, the individual who comes to that point is giving the best of his or her response. Whatever its limitations may be, there is the willingness to keep the vibratory pattern at the shrine sacred and undisturbed, and at that point the individual gives the best that he knows how to give in response. Consequently a current of power begins to generate, and the shrine, if it is a rock of peculiar formation, say, or whatever it may be, the shrine becomes the symbol in the consciousness of the individuals involved, so that whatever they think of the shrine, they see or image that particular thing. It centers there in their thought and in their feeling, even though they may be far away. So, regardless of where they are, all of these individuals who have accepted the one shrine see one thing—they think of one thing. They have a mutuality of dedication that it shall be kept sacred, that it is holy, and that it is a point to which they respond for some reason; and they see in the mind's eye and in the feeling patterns of the heart the same thing, the same basic symbol. Therefore, whether they are present in person or far away, there is a centering of vibrational factors at that point.
Now the spirit of God is issuing forth constantly—the only begotten Son of God is constantly being born, flowing like a fountain. And when we consider the fact that God sends His rain on the just and the unjust, we begin to see that nowhere on the face of the earth, without respect to persons or anything else, is there a place, a point, a person, where God withholds His spirit. God's spirit is issuing forth so that it is absolutely everywhere. But we look at the world and we see that the world is not in contact with that spirit, and that even in the cases of shrines and temples or cathedrals, or what have you, whatever contact there is is far less than that which ought to be. A little manifestation of power here or there, something that occasionally appears, and it is enough to make people keep thinking, “Well maybe something will happen for me.” It keeps the individual centered but it does not provide the manifestation of the essential power.
We look into the world and we see that nowhere, with respect to any church, any philosophy, any teaching anywhere that we may see out there in the world, has that power been made manifest. Why? There are many reasons, but there has been a failure to recognize the basic principles of man's relationship to God. In our case, then, we are interested in letting the mind be filled with the truth, a recognition of the reality of the Divine Design and Divine Control. We are interested in true centering in God's love and true dedication to the reality of life, the trinity of the spirit, or the trinity of the Shekinah Pattern of Being.
Next we recognize that the uses of the power must be according to God's Will—not according to personalized human desires, but according to God's Will. Now human beings going to these shrines imagine, according to their various philosophies, that they are perfectly willing that God's Will be done. Some of them take the attitude, “If it is God's will I will be healed; if not, I will not,” just to illustrate. And the individuals going there tend to have their personalized pattern of desire, the thing they want, the thing they are longing for. As a consequence, whatever power is actually generated is kept scattered, instead of letting it be centered to the point where there can be a true manifestation of power that will be effective in relationship to the world as a whole, and through changing the world pattern, begin to alleviate, and finally to correct, the situation with the individual. The individuals as such are so hungry, so thirsty, so desirous, that they keep making their own little contacts for their own little purposes, dissipating whatever is developed.
Now if we are going to have anything different from that which is to be found in these various places in the world, we must reach a point where the personal desires as such have no meaning. We must reach a point where we recognize the reality of the Divine Formula: The Lord is your shepherd, you shall not want. To stop wanting—not to even want healing, not to want anything; for anyone who goes to a shrine wanting something and hoping to get something, trusting it will be God's will that he as an individual will receive it, is actually desecrating the shrine, although he does not know it. And most of those who have charge of such shrines in the world do not know it, because they do not understand the principles that are at work.
Here we begin to see that God's Will is not something that functions from the standpoint of the individual, on a basis of, “Is it God's will that so-and-so should get well or should not get well?” In an overall sense we recognize that it is God's Will that all people should be well, but we also recognize that human beings must relinquish their self-active patterns, their self-centeredness, before they can be truly, effectively or permanently healed. Even if they receive a little healing they will reproduce some ill condition, because they assume that they know something which they do not know. They assume that they are living a spiritual life when they are not. So here we cease having a personalized desire, and we must encourage human beings to reach a point where they do not want healing, no matter how much they may need to be healed.
Sometimes human beings get confused on that point. They assume that if it is God's Will that all people should be healed then it is perfectly all right for them to want to be healed, and therefore they start trying to get healing, assuming that it is within the pattern of the teaching, which it is not. It is not all right for anyone to want to be healed—the very attitude of wanting to be healed separates you from your healing. It personalizes the vibrational field in relationship to yourself, without regard to the whole. Our consideration must be with respect to the whole, and if you forget the vital importance of the whole and say, “Even at the cost of the outworking for the whole I would like to have something for myself,” you prevent the fulfilment of the whole, which is absolutely essential to your fulfilment.
You cannot have a true, lasting or real fulfilment without regard to the whole. And for you as an individual human being it is utterly and absolutely impossible to have a real fulfilment, it is impossible for you to truly serve or really accomplish anything worthwhile in life—your fulfilment as an individual depends upon the whole—and at the same time your progress as an individual helps, if it is worked out properly, helps to bring about the fulfilment of the whole. When this point of balance is maintained between the individual parts of the whole and the whole, we can move forward effectively; but the minute the whole tries to progress at the expense of the individual part, spiritually or vibrationally speaking, it will defeat itself; and the minute the individual human being attempts to make progress or attain fulfilment in some fashion at the expense of the whole, then that individual will defeat himself and tend to detract from the whole. Consequently the movement forward, individually and with respect to the whole, must be on a balanced basis, and anything that violates that basis desecrates the shrine. Anything that violates that balance desecrates the shrine.
The Master recognized this principle of the shrine in an outer sense when He spoke of giving alms, which is a pattern of life expression. Alms: the doing, the living, the acting, the wholeness of what we give to others, into life; the whole thing, what we give into life. And that is the seed we are sowing, whatever it is. So, to give in secret. Of course some of our giving must be seen, known and recognized; but the giving that we give where it can be seen must be backed up by giving which is not seen by the human being, if it is to have any meaning. If the beginning of the giving is on the basis of that which is seen, you fail, because then you are acting on a self-centered basis. If that which you give that may be seen of men is simply an expression that has a background reservoir of giving that is not seen of men, then it begins to have power.
We need to begin to see that surface giving, outer giving in the ordinary fashion of things, brings about failure and desecrates the shrine. And that desecration takes place two ways: the individual who gives and the individual who tries to receive. Very often people think they are serving, undertaking to give in service, when it is not service at all; it is a desecration of the shrine pattern. On the other hand, the individual who receives on such a basis is encouraged to receive for self-centered desire, the desire to get healed or to do something else, to get something, to have position or money. Let us remember that every teaching, whether it is Unity or anything else, up and down the line, that says, “If you follow out these affirmations, if you do thus and so, if you know thus and so, you can get a job, you can get a house, you can get an automobile, you can develop security,” etc.—I don't care what they are, what the teaching—anyone that holds out that materialistic reward to appear as the result of following out some particular pattern of being is using black magic. I don't care what kind of sheep's clothing it wears, I don't care what they claim, it's all black magic, without an exception. And we need to begin to realize that these personalized desires of personalized gain, even if it seems to work on the surface—yes, up to a certain point it will; you can demonstrate various things; you can accomplish something for the moment, but you will destroy yourself. You desecrate the shrine. You spoil the pattern for yourself and everyone else.
We begin to recognize the basic principle of selflessness, so that even though we need healing, say, we do not try to get healing as such. What is the correct attitude on your part, if you are in difficulty of some sort and you seek out a server? What is the correct attitude? For you to try to get well? No. Now I have seen this pattern desecrated right here on Sunrise Ranch, over and over again. Someone goes to a server and wants an attunement, for what purpose? To get well or something, to clear a headache—to get something. Well now, those individuals have not realized that they have been desecrating the shrine, spoiling the pattern, reducing the amount of power that is made available by our overall program. What is the right attitude? We cannot immediately change this pattern of attitude out in the world, out in the public sphere where we serve. People are going to come to us looking for help with their health. It is because they are sick that they are driven at last to seek out a server, generally more or less on a desperation pattern. So do we turn them away because their attitude is wrong? Oh no we don't. We accept their response and begin to help them to come into attunement with God on a basic pattern of polarity which will allow them eventually, if they function correctly, to be healed. But if they are seeking healing they have not yet reached a place where they have a right to contact with the shrine, with the secret place. It is on the outside. If what we do, in relationship to those who respond on the only basis that human beings know or understand, is backed up by our right function inside of the shrine, inside of the secret place, then we will be able to do something. But we will not invite those people inside the shrine, the secret place. Oh, into the attunement sanctuary certainly; that is all right.
But what is the shrine? Perhaps it is in your heart. Perhaps it has an outer manifestation point in your home, a little corner where you have an altar. It could be, in its immediate pattern, almost any place or any thing. But that immediate or personalized shrine must be a part of an overall shrine if it is to have any meaning. It must have a center somewhere on earth. If you try to have a personalized shrine simply centered with God as a contact point, a place of contact with God on a personal basis without regard to the whole, you are violating laws and principles, and while it may seem to work a little bit once in a while, you will never have any real fulfilment. Why? Because you have violated the basic principle of recognizing the whole.
You as a person, you are going to contact God for blessings and benefits, or so that your service can increase, so that you can help others and so be a blessing to the whole, you say. You think so, but it will not work that way. Any shrine that is to have meaning insofar as the individual pattern of life is concerned must have a relatedness to a point of centering on earth—not somewhere in heaven; for heaven is at hand anyway; any heaven that is to have any meaning to us is on earth—but the centering of the shrine must be on earth, and the shrine must have a relationship to the whole. If it has its primary pattern of relationship to the individual as such it will not work.
Now it is possible to develop a place, say a meditation chamber or something of that nature, where people can go, and they will contact something of the spirit of God and they will say, “That was lovely, and I had a great blessing.” Or some may go up in the hills or wherever the individual thinks is best, and he can have some kind of a contact and it can be a blessing up to a point. And yet it violates the principles of the deeper shrine unless the pattern is carried out in a recognition of the Central Shrine of the Whole. Whatever we have in a personal sense must have its relationship to the whole on the proper basis or we violate the principles of being and defeat ourselves.
In the Master's instruction on this vitally important point of the shrine, He went on from the point that is translated as alms, or the giving into life of what we do in relationship to others, to what is called prayer, and He spoke of entering into the closet and praying to the Father in secret. We need to realize, then, that somewhere, somehow, if we are to achieve anything, we must become members of a Whole Body. Our Master came on earth to establish the principles of that Body—the One Christ Body, or the Vine with many Branches.
But those who think of themselves as branches or members of that body have scattered ideas; they have never come together with one accord in one place. We have never had an actual blending to that degree right here. We have reached high levels, yes, but never the absolute blending of being with one accord in one place, right here. Sooner or later, I am hoping, I am trusting, in fact I am sure, that you here will reach a point where you are willing to relinquish all of your variations of viewpoint and thought, where you are willing to just utterly and completely trust God, where you are not concerned about variations of belief and concept, where you are not concerned about divisions with respect to our own membership—“I do not think too much of that person,” or anything else—where you are willing to reach a point of trusting God and really coming together with one accord at one point. Sooner or later it will happen. How long will it take? That depends on you. But in any case, it is that toward which we are working.
And when it happens we will begin to have, in the deeper sense about which I am speaking tonight, a real shrine, a point where individuals have forgotten themselves in true selflessness, a point where human beings have ceased all wanting; where personal desires of every sort have been left outside; where frictions, holding back, any ill attitude whatsoever toward others, has been all eliminated; where there is just one thing: responding in center to God on earth, right here, letting it work, because we have set aside all personal desires—“Thou shalt not want”; you shall not want—because we have set aside all personal desires for healing, for wisdom, for anything. There is a level where, moving along the way, you seek wisdom, etc., as an individual thing. But you must come to a point where you stop seeking wisdom, come to a point where you are not wanting anything except to let the will of God be done—to yield utterly to center—and at that point, letting all division cease, you finally demonstrate the reality of trust in God. Because as long as you are afraid that your beliefs will be violated, or think somebody over there believes thus and so and “I don't agree with that,” or “I don't think too much of that person, I don't like the other thing; I really want this,” even if you try to cover it up, “I want healing, I want something or other,” you maintain a separation factor.
If God is a reality—and He is—why take the attitude that you need to want something that is of God? To request it, to try to get it in some fashion, that attitude is one that is declaring, “I am separate from God.” And if you are separate from God you are not one with God. You cannot be separate from God and be one with God at the same time. If you want to be separate from God, that is your business. You have the privilege of doing it as long as you live, and what is left will certainly be separate from God. So that is your business. But to maintain this separation arbitrarily when there is the opportunity to let oneness manifest is really a desecration of the shrine. It is preventing the manifestation of the very thing you want. You may say, “I am justified in wanting this. God's will is that I should get well. Why shouldn't I want to get well?” What did the Master say? “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” “Well,” you say, “then it is all right for me to want the Kingdom of God, is it?”
It is all right for you to want to find the Kingdom of God as long as you are convinced that you are separate from the Kingdom of God, that you do not know where it is. But you must come to a point where you do not even seek or want the Kingdom of God. Why? Because you have come to realize that the Master knew what He was talking about when He said, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” It is here. Well, if it is here, then why keep on wanting it? Why not let it manifest? But it will not manifest if you just sit and twiddle your thumbs, or if you maintain your personalized desires or concepts or beliefs or resentments or what have you. You will be violating the shrine, until you trust God enough to say, “Whatever is true in me will not be violated; whatever is true in someone else will not be violated; whatever is not true in somebody else over there will not get in.” Why should you be so careful to resist that person getting in with that idea that you don't like, that personality that you don't like, or something? “I just don't get along well with so-and-so.” So there is friction in some degree. Maybe just a little, but it is still friction; and if it is friction it is friction, even if it is just a little.
If you are trusting God in actual fact you are not saying, “I'm afraid some false idea is going to get in.” It won't. Don't you worry, it won't. For as long as that other individual maintains the pattern of separateness, he or she will not get in. That person can be right here in the room with us and all the rest finding the centering, and that person would not experience it. That person would not even know what had happened. Maintaining the violations, the desecrations of the shrine, you cannot share the reality of the shrine. If, by the right pattern of response and letting go, we permit the generation of the pneumaplasmic substance and its centering at the point where it is supposed to be, it will be strong enough to carry the current of the spirit of God into the realm of manifestation in relationship to ourselves. What? So that we can get something? No, so that we can share God's giving into the world—not to get anything.
David Barnes Salmon Arm, British Columbia June 22, 2025
words spoken in Sunday service @ Edenvale Emissary Community, Abbotsford, B.C.
The air is clear here at Edenvale—clean and clear and sweet. I've been reminded of a verse from Rumi, as I walk around these grounds: “Things good and generous take form in me, and the air is clear.” Let it rain! Rain washes the air clean and clear and pure. I've been here at Edenvale on many occasions over the past 50 years. The air has been washed clear and clean of old ghosts. It's beautiful.
Yesterday during the AGM business meeting, Carol Robertson read a statement that relates to acknowledging the unceded land of the Stó:lō people—First Nations. I want to kind of “riff” off that a bit, and make a statement, with great respect for the Original People who have been here for ages and ages.
We are part of the Original People, by the way—we have been here since the beginning. We have our elders; we have our ancestors; we have our culture, our language, our legacy, our many generations. We have our teachers and our holy people. I want to read something that I wrote this morning, that takes off on that reference to “unceded land”.
“O what glory fills thy temple … in this place our holy home.”
Here is what I wrote: “I would like to begin by acknowledging that we are here at Edenvale, at Sunrise Ranch, and gathered in various locations around the world, and we stand on Holy Ground—this unceded new and promised land, provided by the Lord our God for the sole use and wise stewardship of this Transcendent Nation that we are, now gathered here.”
“The earth is the LORD’s, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” Unceded by the LORD and by His people—never turned over to a foreign government, or presumptuous human nature authority. We are here to acknowledge that—and to welcome all people into this Transcendent Nation that we have come to know: the language, the culture, the traditions, the teachings, the elders, the ancestors, the prophets and the priests, and the location where we are in this solar system, part of the living body of the sun and the cosmos.
Things good and generous take form in me, and the air is clear
And yet, if the air is clear, how could it be that we are in the midst of this—what did David call it? so beautiful those words: “a full-scale spiritual downpour.” I love these words. Where did they originate? They originated in Divine Being, coming through cosmic mind, into the human mind of a man that we know: David Karchere. They didn't originate in a human being separate from Divine Being and Divine Mind. There is connection all the way through. A full-scale spiritual downpour. I know that Hugh Duff knows—he's been in the midst of it for years and years and years. Beautiful. Fire and rain. Love and truth raining down, transforming, hitting the ground of my being, your being. We know this.
We know this when it hits the ground. We know that when we have fire and we have rain, there's a mist that begins to rise up out of the ground of being, and this is what is experienced when we are in the midst is this clarity that is present. There is a Cloud of Glory that forms, because of this spiritual downpour that has been grounded in the being of my living, of your living, and it begins to rise, and fill the air around us. And through this Cloud of Glory we begin to see who is with us. We begin to see each other in a brand new way, through this clarity that comes. And inside of the Cloud, there is a Design of Being that we begin to become familiar with. It's called the Light that Glows—the Design of Being. And within it there is a Fire, a purpose and the power to fulfill that purpose. And we see each other within this Cloud, this Fire and this Light—and it is impossible to mistake who is present here, with me, with you, in this place. And we discover the reality of friendship, within this Cloud of Glory.
It begins to become so clear and so apparent, and I look, you look, and I say, “This is my Beloved Friend.” We are friends within this Cloud of Glory, and in this Light and in this Fire. This is my Beloved Friend—unashamed to acknowledge and recognize the Eternal Being that I'm with. This is my Beloved Friend.
In this case, reading this “Pulse of Spirit”, this marvelous piece titled, “Let It Rain”— this is my Beloved Friend, David Karchere, [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/let-it-rain.html] who I know in this human form as this man named David. But now I know him at the level of Eternal Being, and that is unmistakable. Hugh or Barb, Keahi, Marilyn, everybody. Everybody may not know it, but I can know it, if that fire and that rain has thoroughly drenched my soul, and transformed. Baptism by fire. Baptism by water. Everything made new.
And this is happening. And that's why the air is clear here, over these days that we've spent at Edenvale. People are living in this way. And there's more to come. It's just a beginning. It's a new day, as Marilyn Manderson said. It's a new era. Something quite, quite new is emerging. And this piece in Pulse of Spirit, “Let It Rain”, speaks to that. We are in the midst of a full-scale spiritual downpour. And it's wonderful to be fully immersed in this fire and in this rain.
