Here is part of another verse which may provide us with another door of greater understanding. This is from the 17th chapter of John, out of what has been called the Great Prayer Of Intercession [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/the-masters-prayer-of-intercession.html]: “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am.” If there was a necessity to speak these words, obviously those to whom He spoke at the time were not with Him where He was. You may recall another passage [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/spirit-carries-us-up.html] in which He said something again to the effect that “where I am, there ye may be also.”
This invitation has constantly been extended, and yet, from the standpoint of the human nature approach, if there has been any endeavor to touch in with God so to speak, it was with the hope and expectation that He would somehow come and be with people where they are. Any who have had any experience of serving others know very well that this is the demand that is made: “You come and be with me where I am, in the middle of my problems, my difficulties, my needs. Come and be here so that you may make it possible for me to continue to be where I am more comfortably.” And those who seek to serve without understanding usually fall for the demand. In fact if we have heard the instruction, “Love one another,” this is very often the way people imagine that it is to be done: Go and help people where they are. “Sustain human nature, feed it,” is really what is being insisted upon.
The Master’s prayer is that those to whom He spoke, and all who would hear His voice, should discover what it means to be with Him where He is. You may recall the word of the angel: Come up hither. This is not an indication that we should leave the geographical position where we are but that we should leave the human nature bonds and rise to a level where they don’t exist. This all relates to levels and states of consciousness. “Come up hither. Be with me where I am. Come unto me.” The invitations were extended in many ways. By the same token it was being said, “Stop trying to get me to come where you are.”
We need to see this clearly from the standpoint of our own attitudes, both toward the Lord and toward those whom we serve. The invitation is extended by us to those whom we may have the opportunity of serving: “Come up hither. Be with me where I am.” This is our prayer: “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am.” Was He trying to get the Father to do something? No, He was merely indicating what the nature of His prayer was. He was praying that those who were on hand to hear what He said should rise up to be with Him where He was. They didn’t of course. They did not answer His prayer.
We have heard a similar invitation extended to us but sometimes we have tended to reverse its meaning: “Lord, I’m in trouble. Come and be with me where I am.” He is indeed merciful and certainly has extended His hand in many ways to us and to others, just as He did in person to Peter when he started to sink. The invitation had been extended on that occasion to Peter to come and be with Him where He was. So we have heard this invitation and we have responded to it. The question is of course: How much and how consistently?
This morning I was speaking of government, spiritual government, and our opportunity to share in this in a very immediate, practical and meaningful way on the basis of our own spiritual expression, our own attitudes, regardless of where we may happen to be in an external sense. We saw also how it was that the Master found Himself with no alternative when He was on earth but to follow out the course which He did. In one sense it could be said that there was an alternative, but not for Him—because of His own nature, because of the quality of His character and His love. The alternative would have been to leave the world to the results of its own actions right there and then. He didn’t do that. It might be said that He bought time, two thousand years of it thus far. He bought time by accepting the imposition of human nature upon Him. As I say, it was quite within the bounds of His ability not to do that, but if He had refused to do that, then there would have been no more time for human beings, and the results of their own actions would have come very quickly upon their heads and that would have been that; we wouldn’t be sitting here this evening. But He did follow through, thereby buying time and also opening a door, which has remained available since that time, but which has scarcely been seen, let alone been taken advantage of.
In order to explain away the situation as it actually occurred, principally the crucifixion, those who have subsequently called themselves Christians have tried to make it seem as though He died on the cross to save those who believed the idea from their sins. There is a certain truth to this because if He hadn’t carried through that experience, the people who were then living—and who is to say how many generations might have existed thereafter until the ax fell?—but they were saved right there and then. There was no obliteration of the human race from the face of the earth, and so everybody was saved for a while. Of course this is not the sort of salvation that most Christians are looking for; they see it in rather more futuristic terms. But that was the actual fact rather than the fanciful belief. The human race was saved from self-obliteration. So there is some truth, I suppose you could say, to the idea that Jesus went through all this experience to save human beings from their sins, or from the results of their sins which would otherwise have come very rapidly upon their heads. But at the same time a door was opened. It was opened by reason of the resurrection, not by reason of the crucifixion except insofar as the crucifixion led to the resurrection.
The door was opened to come up hither, to be with Him where He is. Of course nobody can do that as long as the human state of consciousness is preserved; and most people have been very particular about preserving it, even those who thought of themselves as being righteous. Our presence on earth, if it is to have any meaning, is to extend the invitation to come up hither. But to extend that invitation we must be “hither”; otherwise there is no place to come to. We are rightly with Him where He is.
Recently I have spoken somewhat about the correspondence that comes to me, and how so much of that correspondence has really been an endeavor to get me to be where the individual is: “Help me, Lord, ere I sink.” Well, as you all know, I have offered a helping hand now and again, but usually when doing so it has tended to be taken as a means of preserving human nature. The individual just wanted his problems, his difficulties, settled, without moving. Well it may seem that something can be done temporarily. As I recall it, the Master offered a good deal of help when He was on earth to people out of whom we never hear another peep, so doubtless they slipped back into their old ways. We’re not really interested in perpetuating human nature, and there are ways of doing it which seem to human beings to be very good. We may have been somewhat trapped in the idea too, that ministering to people meant that we were solving their problems and letting them continue to exist at the level where they were. Most of the healing ministries of the world are on this basis, aren’t they? Perhaps there is a little vision beginning to permeate the consciousness of some, that no one is going to experience health while remaining in the state and level and condition of ill health. It’s impossible to inject health into an unhealthy state and make it stick. You’ll need frequent injections on that basis; it’s something like diabetes, isn’t it?
The word is: Come up hither; leave the level and the state where the miseries are. That is the way that the former things pass away: there is no one on hand at that level where these things are, to experience them, so they’re gone. Our ministry is that of spiritual government, which is extending constantly the invitation to be with me where I am. We will not extend that invitation to others unless we recognize that the same invitation applies to ourselves. If there is the idea of persuading the Lord to give us more understanding, more creative power, whatever that would be, so that we can serve others more effectively, then we are in the same trap as everybody else: “Come, Lord, be with me where I am.” And the Lord is saying, “Come you, and be with me where I am,” and in that positioning then we can invite others to share the same experience.
There is a world that human beings have made, an unreal world we call it, that seems real to people and it will remain seemingly so as long as it is inhabited. By the same token there has been the true world, the kingdom world, which has remained largely vacant, so that the reality of it hasn’t been known. We inhabit the world of our choice. We have presumably chosen the real world. Let’s inhabit it then. Let’s dwell there. Let’s possess the land. Let’s be there. We can’t be there and drag along the weights out of the unreal world. Unreality doesn’t exist in the presence of reality. We give life and weight and meaning to the unreal world to the extent that we are actually living in it. If we are living in it we can’t invite anyone to come out of it; we don’t know the way. But if we have accepted the real world and dwell there, then the unreal world, though we are aware of it from the standpoint of human nature consciousness, no longer carries any weight to us; and there is present in the world then one who may pray to human beings everywhere to be with me where I am. [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/mirage-vision.html]
This reverses the usual view of prayer. But the usual view of prayer is the human nature approach, isn’t it: “Lord, be with me where I am. Come down to me. Don’t expect me to rise up to you.” How ridiculous! Has no opportunity been given, no door been open, to rise up? It surely has. We know the quality of living, at least in some measure, which is present in the true world. Accept and assume that quality of living, and there we are. Then our total concern is with the establishment of the government of the kingdom on earth, where the unreal world has been present for so long. It isn’t a matter of imposition, as we have seen. It isn’t a matter of Jesus coming on a white charger with the hosts of heaven behind Him to impose some sort of an arbitrary kingdom upon the aching backs of all people; that would hardly be the kingdom, would it? No, come up hither. Be where it is. And seeing that we are at the same time inhabiting the earth, then our field of responsibility in this sense comes with us, and what is unwilling to come with us is not forced to do so. It simply falls apart; it simply disintegrates.
This matter of disintegration of the unreal is rather a figment of fancy anyway, isn’t it? How could the unreal disintegrate? It doesn’t really exist in the first place. It’s simply the state of affairs in human consciousness as the elements which have held human beings in bondage are being dissolved. There is a falling away but there is also a rising up. The invitation is extended to rise up and allow the disintegration that is necessary to occur. As we have noted before, there are these two kinds of evil: the evil which human beings have produced in the unreal world and the evil which is part of the creative process. The evil that is part of the creative process is twofold: there is part that is being incorporated or integrated into what is being brought forth, and there is part that is falling away; this is naturally and rightly so. But there is also the evil which human beings have injected into the picture, which needs to disintegrate. It can go with the other evil just as well, when there are those who are willing to let it go.
The first necessity is to provide a point of orientation for those to whom the invitation to come up hither is being extended. You have all been provided with a point of orientation in times past in this regard, and to the extent that you remained oriented and were not too anxious to follow out your own designs and purposes you have been held while some of the evil has fallen away in your own experience. You have not only been held—that was necessary for a while to start with; that was about all that could be done for a while—but then, when sufficient weight had fallen away, you were in position to consider coming up hither. You were not bogged down in all the problems and difficulties and the terrible things that were occurring in your lives. Some of that had been allowed to fall away just simply on the basis of the fact that you held true to a point of orientation.
Now we have that experience; we know how it works. Therefore we know how to extend it to other people: Just to hold them steady while the initial falling away takes place so that there is sufficient agility then—people are not so weighted down—to start to move up, to come up hither, start to experience a new state and level of consciousness and, in combination with that, a new understanding. You begin to know what it is that is happening. Well we offer this experience to all people. We know it isn’t a matter of trying to shepherd people into the Emissary ministry—“You’ll be safe in this corral”; I doubt it, not any more safe than in any other corral—but “Rise up to this new level of consciousness as a person! Experience this for yourself.”
Of course in the initial stages of all this the Emissary ministry has been useful. It has been useful to all of us, hasn’t it? I’m sure you would agree. It has been valuable. It has enabled us to come to a level of understanding where we see what the real nature of its usefulness was. But it isn’t useful in that same way to us anymore because we are not expecting, as we did to start with, the Emissary ministry to take responsibility for everybody. That’s the usual human approach, isn’t it? The government is going to take responsibility for everything. That’s what most people are looking for when they are subject to the sin of human nature. But now it isn’t this. We provide a point of orientation. We also extend an invitation to those who have ears to hear because they have become sufficiently unstopped, got the wax out of them. The evil has fallen away to that extent and we invite people to be with us where we are.
Here is the opportunity, which was the door opened so long ago by the Master. He established the essential time—He bought time, as I said— so that the fact that He had opened a door might finally begin to penetrate the rather thick skulls of most people. And in spite of our own dumbness and stubbornness and all the rest, we began to catch a glimpse of what was really available, what was here, what was present with us and had been all the time, so that we might share a new level of consciousness which was above some of the coarsest features of our previous reaping consequent upon our sinfulness. We found a new level, and we offer consequently the opportunity to others. The door is really open. We don’t know perhaps yet all that this signifies but we have a sensing of something, don’t we? I’m sure we do, and it is this sensing on our part that enables us to stand where we should be, without requiring anything from anyone—just to be where we belong and to handle whatever it is that comes to us.
We handle this on the basis of the spirit of God with which we are now acquainted, and we do not blow up into gigantic proportions the human nature experiences that may present themselves for our handling. Whatever it is that comes to us is just that: something presented to us to be handled by the spirit of God, and we stop being handled by the thing that presents itself. We stand where we belong, having accepted the invitation which was offered so long ago by the Lord in His words, “that they may be with me where I am.” That place is no less available to us now. He said something at one point about going to prepare a place. Did that mean that there wasn’t any place then?—He had to dig a foxhole or something to accommodate those who would be coming? No, the preparation has been going on over the years, not that the place was not available but that people were not available to occupy it. There was a very great deal, obviously, that had to work out, and it has taken nineteen centuries to do it: the essential preparation that there might be those who could be with Him where He is. So this is our right positioning.
All kinds of things come. What is it you think won’t come, so that you might say, “Well I didn’t expect this”? Whatever it is, we are in position to deal with it from the place where we belong. Dealing with it is a matter of rebuke, one might say; not a matter of contention, conflict. If you get into a battle inside yourself at any time, you know that that is not the way. If you are struggling with something, that is not the way. Easily spotted, isn’t it? Something comes, you don’t like it or heretofore it has bothered you in some way, given you trouble, but here it comes again. What are you going to do? “Oh Lord, help me, I’m sinking.” We’re right back where we were before! No, whatever it is that comes, one does not need to give it the power to dominate one’s experience. The only way it can dominate one’s experience is because one personally gives it the power to do so. Sometimes we give it the power to do so at the suggestion of somebody else. That quite frequently happens. “Well you should feel badly about this!” “Oh, yeah? I feel badly about this!” This is the way they promote unions, isn’t it, by stirring up the “feeling badly about things.” Well let’s stop it! We don’t feel badly about anything. We are delighted to receive whatever it is that comes, because it is no longer going to be given any power to determine what our attitude shall be or how we are going to behave and what we are going to say or do. It has no power. It only has power if we give the power to it ourselves. As I say, one may do it at the behest of somebody else, but then you do it nevertheless, regardless of the reason why you do it; that is unimportant. If you give something the power to have dominion over you that it shouldn’t have, you did it. We know that, and we see this happening all around us in the world with people.
We are here to stand where we belong, giving absolutely no power to any of this. Anything that comes on this basis will shrivel and die if it isn’t given our life force. That is what happens. Can the prince of this world bring anything so enormous that you would be inclined to say, “Well I can’t help giving my life force to this”? There were giants in the land, you may remember, which dissuaded the Israelites from going in and possessing the Promised Land when they might have. They took the attitude that they were as grasshoppers in the sight of these giants. Well that was the attitude they took. Power was thereby given to the adversary and they were dissuaded from doing what they might otherwise have done if they had been permitting the expression of the creative spirit of God to govern. So we receive these events of various kinds which come to us clamoring for our life force. If we are so weak and foolish as to dole it out, well we shouldn’t be surprised if we find that we have less. No, this is part of the government of God coming into this situation to handle it. We do not need to fall down and worship the false gods.
We stand where we belong with the Lord, and we find that when we do so—maybe it takes a little practice—but when we do so, what were before giants become quickly deflated and they shrivel away. Some of these giants are of long standing. They have been fed for years and years and they have waxed fat, and they may live on their own fat for a while, hanging around. It was said of the dragon that he was cast into the earth, and he hung around there; and that’s what he’s doing, living off his own fat. But one can do that for just so long and then starvation sets in. When there is no one present to provide the life force for the human nature state in the world, the human nature state ceases to exist. “Well,” a person may say, “there are billions of people providing this life force. What difference is it going to make if I just withdraw mine?” Well you’re doing more than withdrawing yours; you are bringing something into the situation that wasn’t there before. This must be so or you couldn’t withdraw your life force. In other words your life force is being used for something else, for carrying the authority of God into expression on earth.
Here is something solid. We have spoken already about a point of orientation, but it is more than a point of orientation now. It is something that is actually describable as Jehovah. It is God in action. There is something being conveyed in our living in a positive manner. This doesn’t mean in an arbitrary manner. It doesn’t mean that it isn’t gentle at times. But it means that it is something that cannot be turned aside. It is absolutely sure. It keeps on coming, and we are there to see that it keeps on coming, and if there are those roadblocks thrown up in front of us we know that they are nothing once life force is removed from them. They come to claim our life force but we need not be subject to the claim. So the path clears away. Something begins to expand into the consciousness of mankind where we are, and we find that we are in position to handle in a creative way many things that before would have seemed to be impossible.
We have a field of operations that is vast, tremendous, and fear no longer is a factor from our standpoint. Fear merely indicates subjection to the giant. All the children of Israel were shivering in their boots about Goliath, you may recall, until David came along—just a little bit of a lad— and he dealt with the situation in the power of the spirit of God. Well that’s a nice story, very revealing, but we had better see that it gets revealed right here and now because we accept the challenge with understanding and in the power of the spirit of God. Having withdrawn our life force from all these things that have been feeding on us, we have all kinds of life force available then for what is needful in the fulfilment of the purpose for which we are here, and that is what has been called the restoration, the restoration of the government of God on earth. All are invited to accept this government into their own experience.
We extend the invitation. Not everyone will accept it—too bad. Each individual makes his or her own choice. We let them go to it but we provide the means by which they may make the right choice if they will. That is our responsibility. So I thank God for the opportunity of sharing a consideration of these things, not only from the standpoint of expanding our understanding and establishing a greater balance in attitude and outlook and action but that the government of God may be an increasing reality on earth because we and others who share with us allow it to be so established. Let us be together where we belong, with the Lord.
So these limitation factors that are present in human beings which spoil the pattern of individual manifestation, cloud the vision with respect to what is really working out, are often the basis upon which a human being makes an utterly false judgment and then assumes a pattern of self-righteousness which is in the range, the danger range, the range where well, results are questionable shall we say. This matter of the limitation factors can be seen in this regard from a little different standpoint. Again, I am going to use a particularized application of the principle as it relates to me. The same principle extends on out through to you, to the degree that you reach a point of carrying focalization, responsibility, etc.
But many people have found it difficult, so they say, to understand me. Actually it should not be so. But many have imagined it to be so because they try to see me in a position where I am not. They develop a mirage and they imagine they see me in this position or that, and they try to work out a pattern of understanding, or concept or attitude, with respect to the mirage, and then they direct that toward me. Now that leads to this question, “Where am I; where can I be found; where can I be seen?”
In only one place, and that is in the position of complete and absolute and centered dedication to the LORD’s service on earth, without regard to persons or places or things. And the moment the pattern of relationship between me and someone else begins to get in a position where I would have to violate that, I seem to violate the pattern of friendship, or love, or whatever else, because I am in just one place, not some other, just one, and in this one place, on the basis of that pattern of dedication, my function is not as the human pattern of function might be, or might be imagined.
In the first place, even if we were to carry it back to a matter of self-interest, of personal fulfilment. I know that whatever fulfilment I am to have, and I am not particularly concerned about that, but whatever fulfilment I may have must come as a result of Unit fulfilment—a fulfilment in and through those whom I serve, and I cannot have any fulfilment on any other basis. I do not want any. I am not interested. My concern then is not with respect to personal fulfilment of any kind or regard whatsoever. My concern is for the fulfilment of the whole, and I know that whatever fulfilment I need will come automatically in that.
Now human beings tend to constantly imagine that they can establish some kind of a pattern in relationship to me, and it works with men and women both, all kinds of situations, where they can establish a basis of relationship according to their idea of what would be desirable. They think they see something in my being or my living, or something which would make their pattern acceptable. They imagine that it would fit and so they begin to see me in relationship to that, and build up a mirage in relationship to me in a position where I am not, and proceed then to try to make it work on that basis, and it will not, it absolutely will not work. So, I have seen human beings build one mirage after another, adjusting them a little bit, trying to make it work, and it will not.
What do these mirage patterns evolve out of? What is their source? Some kind of a desire on the part of the individual to attain satisfaction, fulfilment, position, love, growth, spiritual growth, unfolding some kind of personal progress, something for himself or herself. Now, generally after a person comes here, he has refined it a little bit, so he puts it on the basis, “Well, I just want to grow. I want to have the knowledge. I want to have the understanding. I want to have the spiritual awareness, etc., that will let me be of real service to God and to man. I want this personal fulfilment, but I do not want it for selfish reasons, understand. I want to be able to serve. But I do want this personal fulfilment.” And there you are. That person, having so set his course is headed for trouble, sooner or later, because if your desire is for personal fulfilment you cannot share with me that which I have to share. I do not care how good your reason for desiring that personal fulfilment may be. To serve God Almighty, you think. It will not work.
One of the things that begins to work immediately in our class program here or your experience on Sunrise Ranch is the process of diminishing, taking away, modifying, removing, the desire for personal fulfilment. And sometimes human beings struggle with that, they imagine that they were making a lot better progress out there somewhere, and they say, “Here, I do not know what is happening to me. I do not feel the same way, and I am not encouraged to make all these steps in personal fulfilment. I want to do this. I want to become something important in God's Service.”
A desire for personal fulfilment for such a good reason, but it will not work. You might as well get it clear to start with. It will not work because if your function here as an individual or class member, in class or out of it, continues to be based upon a desire for personal fulfilment, you are going to fail, and sooner or later, if you persist in that pattern, something will work out, and I will help to emphasize; if necessary, the fact that it will not work. Some experience will begin to show it.
Until we reach a point of absolute selflessness in regard to these things, where our one concern is for the fulfilment of the whole, the outworking of God's Plan, without regard to personal fulfilment—until we reach that point, the individual is constantly going to do those things which will defeat his fulfilment. This is not a paradox really. It may look like it. But the individual who desires personal fulfilment will constantly do those things which will prevent his personal fulfilment. No matter how hard he tries, no matter how hard he works or what he does, as long as his motivating factor is for personal fulfilment for no matter how good a cause, he is going to serve the LORD and KING of Heaven and earth once he has this fulfilment, he will persistently and constantly do those things which defeat him. If you need to analyze that, we might do so sometime. Actually, it is easy to see why. From what we have already studied, it should be evident. But this limitation factor of self-centeredness, given a new dress, is a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Out in the world the individual who is selfish and self-centered obviously has this attitude; he is not particularly concerned about anybody else. But as there is response coming to the point here, the individual realizes that a selfish, self-centered pattern is not going to be acceptable, so he dresses it up. He is going to desire personal fulfilment in order to Glorify God, and serve his brother man, then everything is going to be all right. He has got a new reason now for desiring personal fulfilment, and he prevents that fulfilment.
Now I have pointed out over and over again that certain things are necessary if we are to have fulfilment, that is true, so I am not in any sense contradicting myself. The point is, that if you are functioning on basis, a motivating factor of a desire for that personal fulfilment, even if it is to serve God Almighty, or get to heaven, or be saved, or anything else that is supposedly good, you will defeat yourself. We have to reach a point where our first concern, our primary motivation is for the welfare and fulfilment of the whole, where relinquishing the things personally desired for the benefit of the whole is no longer in any sense a sacrifice. And once we have integrated in consciousness, in the feeling realm, into the Unit pattern, with that centralized dedication, we will be in position to let it work out.
As long as you have a personal desire for fulfilment and that is the driving force, you will not let it work out. You are going to be interfering with your own progress at every turn. You will not let God bless you, you will not let anyone else bless you. You are making a constant hodgepodge of your own life because you will not let it work out. You may say, “Well, I try so hard.” But it will not work. Once we have this centralized dedication, the fulfilment of the Unit is the first thing that is the motivating factor in all that we think and say and do, we begin to have a love and a concern for all, but we cease working on the basis of personalities as such. It frees us from so many traps.
Now we could conceivably take perhaps several weeks analyzing the limitation factors in all their different patterns of manifestation which prevent the progress of individuals. Oh, it is a big field and we could spend a lot of time in it, but all it would amount to would be to come back to this one thing, with a lot of supporting evidence that the individual who desires personal fulfilment, and that is his primary motivating factor, is constantly defeating himself. And the moment we accept the central dedication with respect to the whole, we are freed from so many, many traps because then personal feelings with respect to others is no longer a controlling factor. Either a feeling of love or a feeling of, what shall we say, not caring quite so much? We love all, but there are some we like to be around, and others we do not care to be around too much—there is a differential. But on either basis we are not controlled, our feelings are not controlled by such things, our attitudes are not controlled by such things, which means that we are not controlled by others as human beings, their whims and fancies, their pushings and pullings, and there is the breakdown, there is the barrier which human beings have not surmounted down through these millenia which separate us from the day of the fall.
Personal desires for fulfilment, position, accomplishment, attainment, something; the personal desire to be saved, out here in the world churches; the personal desire for position, the personal desire for particularized security patterns, all kinds of things—human beings trying to attain good, such good goals. They are so well justified. But these are the things that are wolves in sheep's clothing, because they make the individual forget the whole, and he is governed by the people he loves, and by the people he dislikes, by circumstances, by what he thinks will be good for himself. “This will help me grow. That will hinder my growth, so I will stay away from that.” He is trying to make the whole universe revolve around himself as a human being.
Generally, at first at least, if you were to point that out to someone, they think, “Oh, no, I do not want to be the center of everything. I just want what I want.” But you cannot be self-centered, even in the refined sense, without in actual fact trying to get God, the universe, and everyone on the face of the earth, to revolve around you. You are going to be the big hit. Perhaps you never thought of self-centeredness that way, and you think it is extreme. Oh, no, it is not extreme at all.
If we carry out the implications in the various attitudes, I know you would deny it, and say, “Oh, no, I do not want anything like that.” And maybe some will say, “I do not even see how it connects up.” It does, it really does. So the difference is, the self-centered person who seeks personal fulfilment for the best of reasons, to serve God, or to serve me, or to do something else, is asking God, the universe, me, everyone here on the Ranch, to revolve around him or her, and it will not work.
I am not the center of the universe, nor are you. We are out here in this little world, and it is a vitally important world, and we have a big enough task without trying to take on the universe, and without trying to direct God. But that is where self-centeredness leads to, that is why it separates us from God, from life, from opportunity, from privilege, from everything lovely and beautiful, because it puts the individual in the position of trying to exert influence, to the end that it shall all revolve around himself. I do not want it to all revolve around me. I am perfectly content to leave it to the Beings whose task it is to provide that centering. I have no envy of them. I have great love for them, admiration, respect and a deep willingness to obey.
So, we come to the point of realizing, if we will, that we can shed limitation factors almost as you would take off a coat, by this one change. We could spend weeks analyzing the whole field and waste our time. I may touch into the field now and again to be sure that a point is cleared for you, but it comes down to this: Where is the centering of your dedication, and what is the real motivating factor? Personal fulfilment or fulfilment for the whole? If it is fulfilment for the whole, and the dedication is so centered there that all of these pushings and pullings are like the waves around a granite rock, all will be well.
And so, one of the limitation factors that has been at work, and still is on Sunrise Ranch, is because human beings are trying to see me where I am not. A mirage vision. They may think they see me over there. But where is it that we have the mirage? In the desert place where there is not enough water, not enough Truth. And a mirage vision has no reality in it. [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/the-uranda-may31-1953-class-0-0-1-26.html] Many a person, perishing of thirst in the desert, has seen a mirage and started toward it, and if you had been there and tried to restrain him and tell him it was a mirage, he would have called you a liar, he would have fought you, he would have done anything. He says, “I see it”, and he is going to go to it, and goes stumbling out across the desert to let his bones be picked by the vultures and bleached by the sun. So it is, here.
A mirage vision is never dependable, and when I suggest that it is a mirage vision, sometimes the human being tries to tell me I am wrong, and the individual says, “Well I cannot doubt my own senses. I see.” Yes, the mirage on the desert can be seen, you see. But sooner or later, each must learn to look for me where I am and not where I am not. And remember that when personal fulfilment for any individual comes into a position where it seems to be weighed in the balance against the fulfilment of the whole, there is not a single one of you I would not sacrifice, that quickly. If we function correctly, it will not get in that position. If you are not functioning in a self-centered pattern, desiring personal fulfilment or something of that nature, it will never get into that pattern, but if it seems to to you, remember that there is no person on the face of the earth, no matter how much I love that person, no group of persons, the whole lot of you if it comes to that, that I would not sacrifice. It would not be really be my doing it, but I would not yield to the pressure; it would seem to avert it but it really would not, in relationship to the whole, because it is the whole as far as I am concerned.
I love the individuals who work toward that ministry in the whole, for the whole, but personalities, human ideas, desires and determinations that tend to interfere with that whole have absolutely no weight, meaning or value to me. I will modify such things as long as I may. I will make it as easy for you to come out of that pattern, the Egyptian darkness, as you will let it be, but personalities as such, no matter who you are or how important your potentiality, cannot change the course as far as I am concerned.
So, look for me where I am and you will learn to share that fulfilment which is being made manifest in the whole in relationship to me, and all others who share that task. We share it on the right basis or we do not share it. I cannot change the Laws of God, but if I could I would not to please you or anyone else on the face of the earth. It is this way, and it is going to stay that way no matter who comes or goes, who pushes or pulls, no matter what mirage visions may be engendered. It is this way, like it or not. So let us learn to like it.
And remember whenever you find yourself motivated by a desire for personal fulfilment, whether it is just in a moment, and a little thing or a big thing, that is a trap. Stay out of it. Our purpose here is the fulfilment of the whole to the Glory of God, our LORD and KING, and to the blessing of mankind—and the human limitation patterns or factors may be swept away in this. We can go out in the field here, and struggle with this one and that one, and try to overcome this one and change that one, and we can spend our lives struggling at the job, never get it done, and accomplish nothing. There have been many who have been, what shall we say, by some enchantment, carried away into that vast field where they are going to serve humanity, changing this little human limitation pattern and that one, doing this and that and the other thing, steadying the whole mess—and oh, it can be fascinating.
If I had had it in my mind to violate my sphere of responsibility, I think I could have made a journey into that field so fascinating, so interesting, and so seemingly important and valuable, that there are very few of you who would not have followed me if I had taken you into it. I could have done it. I venture there are not many who would not have followed, because I could have made it very fascinating, and seem to be so important, and you would not have known that you had left the true course until you were so far away you could not have ever gotten back. But actually, we do not need to go out there.
We can deal with these problems at their basic point of cause, clear the pattern and move forward. And for those individual needs which may arise, there will be help in its season, but this is the way it is, now and in all the days to come. So let us thank God for it, and work according to the pattern as it is, and not try to make it be the way we think we would like it to be. God bless you each one.
The focus of what is unfolding in the world is here on this continent, more particularly in the United States. There is representation present in the United States from all the nations of the world. The same is true in some measure with respect to Canada. The United States provided a setting for what is now occurring in the development of spiritual experience. Only in such a setting as there has been could the development have occurred that we have known in our own experience. Usually human beings get hung up in the settings, scarcely realizing that a setting becomes valuable and really beautiful only by reason of the jewel which may be present in that setting—something living. The setting is essential to allow the emergence of the jewel.
We could use another analogy. The mother is essential if there is to be a child. It is quite clear that the mother is not the child, but there would be no child if it wasn’t for the mother. So it is with respect to what has been unfolding on earth through the various settings that have been present in the world. These have been necessary to what is emerging of the true design of things. It might be said that the distorted and restricted setting which this world has become was not necessary in the first place, but the Lord is a realist. He doesn’t fool Himself into imagining that things aren’t the way they are, and so He uses whatever is actually present to advantage. God is not willing that any should perish, so, in order that some flesh might be saved, might remain on earth, He realistically accepts the circumstance as it is and works with that, because the circumstance has human beings in it.
We are here, together with some [nine] billion others, and we have a responsibility to awaken to a clear awareness that because of us, and others, it may be made evident that “the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” The earth, the land, has been divided by human beings for gain. This has absolutely nothing to do with the purpose of the earth or the reason for man’s existence, and yet human beings everywhere are all wrapped up in these things, completely ignoring the truth of the matter. But the Lord is very intelligent, very clever: He uses the unfortunate attitudes of human beings to advantage. There may be a recognition that in this regard the United States of America has been playing an important part, allowing for the birth of a new nation. This new nation, which is a spiritual nation, is not, certainly, limited to the United States, but there must always be a starting point.
God never tries to make something out of nothing. There must always be a starting point. The mother gives rise to the child; there would be no child without the mother. All the starting points that are present on earth are used to advantage by the Lord. No matter what human beings think they’re doing, no matter what their particular efforts may be, everything is used to advantage in the true creative process. There is the starting point of the world which human beings have created on earth, and there are all the myriad details of that world.
One of those details happens to be the United States of America, and it has provided a setting in which there might be a spiritual birth, of which we ourselves have become aware because we find ourselves a part of it in our own experience; we know it’s there; we don’t have to imagine it. Canada shares something of the American condition; so this young country has certainly been influenced by its guardian. There is something shared, and out of these two particular countries there is the birth of a spiritual nation. [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/precedents-of-victorytranscendent-nation.html] It certainly isn’t limited to the North American continent but is an event which is transpiring the world around. However, all things require a focus, and
the focus is here present
Out of the mother, out of the particular setting which is here on the North American continent by reason of the people who are here, comes the birth of the child, the child which is not the United States of America or Canada or any other of the nations of the world. It is something uniquely of itself, just as in the human sense the child is not the mother but is something uniquely itself. We need to recognize the creative process at work here, as it is being used to advantage by the Lord; but in our awareness of how it works on that particular scale, we may see the same principles in operation at every other level of experience. The creative process requires a setting, or a mother, out of which something uniquely itself may be born.
Something is to be brought forth—this is the reason why human beings are here on earth—but not according to their own designs and purposes, not according to some vague inspiration which will produce something that is going to be pleasing to human beings, but according to the design of life itself. And the process of bringing forth always requires that there be a starting point, that there be something to start with. There must be some light present if we’re to see anything, and there cannot be light present unless there is the essential substance which will allow the reflection of it at the level that we need to see. Most of you have had some experience in the generation of this substance that is present, and the proof of its presence is the fact that you begin to see something at another level. You have the opportunity of viewing something, because of that light, at a level that most people cannot see because there is no light for them. There is no light for them because the substance which would allow it to be present has not been generated adequately. We have been participating over many years in the generation of the required substance so that we might be able to see at the level where we need to see. There begins to be something seen by reason of the light at the spiritual level.
We might correlate this process with what occurred in the development of the United States of America, because the founding fathers had a certain vision. Their vision was not quite as complete as it might have been but it was all that was possible at the time. They saw something because there was sufficient light at the level at which they saw the something, and that level related to spirit. The Declaration of Independence, and all that followed in the way of developing the theme, was still in the heaven. There was something that had to be proven out. Just to have a Declaration of Independence, or a Constitution, doesn’t of itself achieve what is needed. It is an essential starting point. So there must be some vision; and to have vision there must be light; and to have light there must be the substance which will reflect it, and the nature of that substance will determine what is reflected. Spiritual things are spiritually discerned, and what is to be born originates spiritually.
So, in the United States, in the development of this country, there was some vision at a spiritual level because there was some light at that level. And so the country has taken form from that point of origination. Out of what has taken form it was possible for the conception of something more in the creative process; in other words, the country would then become the mother of a new, unique birth. And this which was being born would not be the mother: it would not be the United States of America, and it would not be any other nation on earth. Out of the nations of the world, but more particularly out of this nation of the United States, which is the focus of all nations, is born the new nation. And we may see that the new spiritual nation, which is present with respect to all nations of the world, is not an end in itself. The new nation is a mother for something else. Here is the creative process, an eternal process.
There is some light reflected here this morning, so that we can begin to see what we are able to see now at a level of understanding that is not generally usual in the world of human beings. This substance essential to the reflection of light is generated because there are those who are willing to draw close to the Lord. The place where one is, is where one should be—exactly there, nowhere else—and it is in the acceptance of what is present in the place where one is that the creative cycle can begin to work.
Here is the something else!
The starting point is the something that is present in the circumstance at the moment. Whatever it is now is the starting point, always, and unless there is a willingness to accept that circumstance and let it be the starting point, there is not, and never will be, a starting point for any human being on the face of the earth. Let’s be wise and accept the circumstance of the moment. When we do this in our attitude then we may become aware of the manner in which the creative process unfolds. But if we reject the starting point, nothing unfolds.
