I would like to continue a pattern of meditation which is closely related to the classwork which we have been sharing during this week that now draws to a close. We have begun a series of meditations on the subject of the Magic of Creation. And tonight I suggest that we continue that basic theme, with special attention to its relationship to man, or mankind, and therefore its relationship to us tonight. I would like to read a little from the 2nd chapter of Genesis, beginning with the 1st verse: “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.”
Now it is interesting to note that outside of this reference, which is most significant, we hear nothing about the seventh day, or keeping the seventh day, or keeping the Sabbath, or having a particular day of rest, until the time when the children of Israel were wandering in the wilderness and the Ten Commandments were given at Mt. Sinai. It is interesting to note that in all this interval the subject is ignored, and yet during that interval there were many who were very closely related to God, as was Enoch, for instance: “He walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.” You remember our meditation on that point not too long ago. Yet here the point is emphasized: God rested from the work which He had made, on the seventh day. We are not to assume that God did not do any more work, but He rested from the work that He had made, on the seventh day.
In our classwork we have begun to realize that the seventh day is the Seventh Cycle, or period, or step, in the outworking of the life of man. Now in the Divine State, reaching the seventh day would mean something quite different from our present circumstance. In the Divine State, when the seven cycles were completed, that meant that the individual had completed his purpose in life on earth for that particular incarnation. Whether it took seven hundred years or seven thousand years was beside the point; the cycles of outworking leading to ascension were seven in number, depending upon the individual and the pattern of being, the purpose on earth. We have recognized that in relationship to fallen man the seven cycles of the seven days, or seven periods, lead to the restoration of man to the Divine Estate of oneness, that we may come to that place of consciousness where we may experience what the Master spoke of as Oneness. He pointed out that He and His Father were One, and in His closing expression of ministry He gave that Great Prayer—in the 17th chapter of John it is recorded—and He prayed “that they all might be one as we are”; that those who should follow Him and let His Body take form and have meaning on earth might truly be One, even as He and the Father were One.
The attainment of that state of Oneness is that which we experience on the seventh day, when we cease all self-activity and come to rest in the Lord, so that from that time onward we are functioning on a basis of Oneness. God rested from the work which He had made, in the sense of His work without regard to the work of God being made manifest through man. The period of Oneness, of correlation between Creator and creation through Oneness with the crowning creation, was supposed to be the Sabbath Rest.
The days of the week have continued to remind man of the seven cycles of creation leading to Sabbath Rest, but man has allowed his awareness of these basic principles of being to degenerate into the idea of keeping a day. Whether it be Saturday or Sunday, on the basis in which human beings keep the day, makes little difference. There is great argument about whether it should be Saturday, or Sunday, or Friday, or some other time; but the Sabbath in the true sense, in that which is meant by the Biblical text dealing with this subject, is not something that can be kept merely by setting aside one day a week to cease physical labors in the ordinary human sense and then go back to physical labors in a self-active pattern on Monday morning, or whatever time may be humanly designated. No man or woman keeps the Sabbath—I care not what the religion, I care not what day the human being seeks to keep—no man or woman keeps the Sabbath until he or she has attained to the day of rest; which is to say oneness with God on earth, so that from that time on self-activity ceases and the Divine Pattern of function is made manifest from there on, twenty-four hours a day, day in and day out without limit, keeping the Sabbath. For the true day of rest is the cessation of self-activity; rest in the Lord, oneness that is attained when we truly follow our LORD and KING and let His prayer be answered so that His Kingdom comes in us, His control or dominion is established in us and through us, and we attain to that oneness of which He spoke so many times. This then is the Sabbath Rest for man in this present state of things. But once that day of rest, that Sabbath Rest, has been attained and known, a new week begins, a new cycle of outworking in the achievement of the purpose for which that human being came into the world—and in that new week he does not function self-actively; he lets the works of God be done so that MAN is doing God's work.
When God first created man, or mankind, God ended His works in the direct sense of creative action so that man could begin the works of God. But this human beings have failed to see, recognize and realize. God's work was done in the sense of direct action on earth, but God's work was not done in the sense of the work of God which was supposed to appear through mankind. So we see how it is that since the fall of man there has been a failure to let that seventh day have any meaning, that day of rest. Man has failed for twenty thousand years to enter into the Sabbath Rest. The seventh day has had no meaning, even among those who call themselves by some name utilizing “Seventh Day,” or Saturday, as the Sabbath. These things are but symbols, and a symbol has no meaning the moment it is disassociated in consciousness from that which is symbolized. We have many, many symbols which we must use in the interval of transition and resurrection, but a symbol ceases to have meaning the very moment it is disassociated in consciousness from that which is symbolized. And that which is symbolized is the day of rest, when man ceases his self-activity and begins to let Divine Activity be made manifest on earth because man lives on earth.
We have recognized in our class meditations something of the pattern of these cycles and their relationship to the Four Forces, and we have recognized that we here, as a unit moving toward our pattern of fulfilment—and it applies to the Unit as a whole, as well as to the Class—we here have reached the third day of the creative week. We here have come to the point where if we are to continue on and have real meaning we must let the waters be gathered together unto one place, that the dry land may appear, that the physical substance with which we are to work may be made manifest, and that the life expression symbolized by the grass of the field, the herbs and the trees may be made manifest, the expression of creative life begin to appear.
Now this actual manifestation of creative life is supposed to appear in the third day, and the third day has dawned for us right here. The question has been posed: What are we going to do about it? For as long as human reactions, petty things, discords and frictions remain, we are not going to have the waters of truth drawn together unto one place so that the dry land may appear. And when the dry land appears in this sense, we will have that with which to work in the achievement of our purpose, our goal on earth.
We have succeeded in taking the first two steps toward the goal. In the period of time we have labored, in the period of time we have lived, we have taken two steps toward the goal, and the third is ready to be taken in the cycles of time. Will we take it? How long will we delay? For this gathering of the waters unto one place is exactly the same thing that is spoken of in relationship to the day of Pentecost: “And they were with one accord in one place.” When we reach a point of being with one accord in one place, in agreement on earth as touching all of these things, then something wonderful and beautiful is going to happen. How soon? How soon shall it be?
“These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.”
It is interesting to note at this point that there was no rain on the face of the whole earth until the time that is spoken of … well there was the beginning of something more or less like rain after the submersion of Lemuria, the Motherland; but until the time of the flood, or the submersion of Atlantis, there was comparatively little rain, and none at all until the submersion of the Motherland. Why? The larger portion of the earth's surface was land; the water was nearer to the surface of the land underneath. In other words the water level was very high. During the day the sun's rays drew the moisture up into the atmosphere, and at night, the cool of the day, that condensed and came down again on the earth's surface as dew, and this action of the dew upon the face of the earth provided all the moisture that was necessary. There were some few clouds, but no heavy dark ones; there were lovely clouds, but they evaporated in the air itself with the fluctuations of the atmosphere. But no rain—no rain was needed. Actually rain as we know it is an unnatural thing, something that was not originally designed for this earth.
“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” There is the 7th verse of the 2nd chapter of Genesis: “… and man became a living soul. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden …” Eden is the whole earth, and eastward in Eden is in the days of our tomorrows. That we might do what? “… and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.”
Now we have studied these points before. I do not know how much time we will take with them tonight. There is something else I wish to bring to your attention. “And a river went out of Eden to water the garden.” Notice the wording: “And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; And the gold of that land is good … “And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.” Of these four rivers there is only one on the face of the earth today that carries one of these names—the Euphrates.
Four Rivers. But there is One River that went out of Eden, out of the earth, to water the Garden; and this One River divides into Four Heads, so that there are four rivers. Now is this not the reverse of what we ordinarily think? The tributaries of a great river feed the river, so that whether it be four rivers coming together into one, or whatever other number—the various branches, brooks, larger streams, until finally the rivers—they all come together and form One River. But here is a river that, according to the wording in the allegory here, had one trunk as the source of it and divided into four rivers and went somewhere; these four branches extended into various parts of the earth. But notice that it came out of Eden to water the Garden. “And a river went out of Eden to water the garden.”
Now as we think of these four rivers we must surely be reminded of the Four Forces. One river. And water is what? Truth. One truth, which has a division into four primary patterns, four parts. And this river comes out of the earth to water the Garden, the Garden which God planted eastward in Eden. This that was in the Garden eastward in Eden was formed, and then it was caused, or supposed to be caused, to manifest. At first it was; gradually it took form according to the patterns established in the Garden eastward in Eden. But this river came out of Eden to water the Garden. Water we know to be the symbol of truth, and here we have the river, and it divides into Four Heads as it moves from its source. These four heads are the Four Forces—the Four Forces of the creative cycles of being.
Man has sought in times past to understand something of the creative processes of being but he has failed to seek first the Kingdom, the realm of control, and the wisdom necessary to function in the Kingdom. He has tried to discover something of the laws and principles of creation so that he could apply them himself, for his own purposes, to satisfy his own desires; and he has discovered much. Being loosed in the bottomless pit of knowledge, he has discovered so much, but he still fails to comprehend the basic principles of the creative life, and the Magic of Creation by reason of which we may begin to know the magic of living. And here we have the Four Forces.
We have recognized that these Four Forces divide up into particularized patterns, but when we speak of them in their segregated sense, what are we talking about? We are talking about the truth, aren't we?—the truth, which is the design factor plus the control factor. So one remains as it was, water; the second was air; the third, earth; and the fourth, fire. We will notice that fire is the symbol of love, as also is gold. Gold is used throughout the Bible in a symbolical manner, and the first river is that which “compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good.”
Now these four rivers are pictured in relationship to four lands, or four sections of the earth—which is a somewhat degenerate pattern—but in any case, in relationship to four lands or Four Spheres, four places for living; or we might say four sections of the earth. In relationship to what? In relationship to the Garden which God planted eastward in Eden. But the initial purpose indicated for this river is that it should water the Garden which God planted eastward in Eden. Now we know that no flowing river of water, as we think of a river, could water a Garden which remains yet in the invisible realm, in the days of our tomorrows. It could not be. But once we begin to comprehend the great significance of the beautiful symbolism here, it ceases to be merely a few words with little meaning, contained in an allegorical story. It begins to take on rich significance and tremendous value for us here tonight.
The truth was supposed to flow out of the earth to water the Garden
which God planted eastward in Eden,
something which was yet to come into manifestation,
something from the invisible realms.
This is clearly indicated in the wording of the previous text which I read to you: “And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew.” “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth.” Didn't you ever read your Bible, you folks looking so puzzled over there? That's what it says: “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew.”
And then the Lord God formed man. We have recognized that God formed all of these things in the Garden before He created man, but they were not yet in form as we know them today. It was not until after man himself was created that the things that God had created in the Garden were given form on earth. They were given form, they were created, from the standpoint of the Garden which God created eastward in Eden, that it might come on earth and take form. But that process of giving form to the grass of the field, every plant of the field and the herbs of the field, did not take place until after man was created. The creative pattern was established in the Garden, and that was a creation just as surely as any creation can be a creation. The difference is that man has presumed that all of these things were established on earth just as we know them today, before man was created. God did create all of these things before He created man, but then in the process of creating man He established man on earth and used man as the focalization of a creative field established in the future, by reason of which all of these things that had been created in the Garden of Eden might be given form on earth.
I grant you that there is not too much here in the record to specifically, in the ordinary sense, support that, but there are some peculiar wordings which, if they are to be conceived to have any significance, cause one to stop and think. This 5th verse in the 2nd chapter of Genesis—you want to read it for yourself: “And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew.” Now what does that mean? I know what it means, but I cannot give you a great deal of material here as evidence. You can draw your own conclusions. Then in the 7th verse we have the statement: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.”
Everything that God had created up to that point was in the Garden of Eden, yet to be given form in the outer sense. The Lord God finished His work, and the work of man in oneness with God began. And in relationship to this we have the Four Forces, which are manifestations, four distinct aspects of manifestation for the truth of design and control. I have pointed to design and control as aspects of the truth. Now you can begin to see the Four Forces as aspects of the truth. They issue out of the truth, the river which was designed to water the Garden which God planted eastward in Eden. This perhaps suggests to you that you do not yet know everything there is to know; that we need to take the next step and continue on, so that we can come to the seventh day.
In the days of the disciples, at the time of the Master, they let the first part, just the first dawn of the fourth day, come into manifestation and then they lost the cycle, they lost the pattern; they fell out of the design and the rest did not come into manifestation. They got to the dawn of the fourth day. We are in the dawn of the third day. Now this next day does not have to be very long, in this sense, for it to really begin to manifest and to for us to come to the dawn of the fourth day. For remember what I told you: all Four Forces are always in operation, but in each cycle one is dominant. Do not imagine that you can divide any one of the four from the other three. You cannot. They are all part of One River. They are all part of one thing. They are the revelation of truth with respect to the Four Forces, or aspects of creative action.
We have in times past touched upon the point of wisdom. “If any man”—anywhere, in any generation, any man or woman, which includes us tonight—“If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.” We talk about desiring to receive something of the Lord, and yet man has ignored the processes Divinely Designed and Ordained, by which man might receive something from the Lord. That which is to come from the Lord must come out of the Garden that is planted eastward in Eden. There is no other way. We either receive it out of the Garden eastward in Eden, through the days of our tomorrows, or we do not receive it. You cannot receive something of the Lord, in the sense of that which is to take form in life in this moment, after the moment is here. In other words the contact must be with the future pattern that is given form through you in the moment, but the contact cannot be just in the moment. You cannot in this present moment, without regard to the future, receive something from the Lord.
You have to live in the present with your proper contact with the future,
and let that which is of the future come into manifestation with the leading edge of the present moment, so that it may take form on earth.
That is the way by which man allowed as many of the things of God to come forth on earth as he did—the grass, the herbs of the field, the animals, the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, all the rest. Remember that in the creative cycle, out of the water God created the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air. Water is the symbol of truth, and all of this was still in the vibrational sphere, in the Garden which God planted eastward in Eden, after the creation of man. And God said, “Let us make man [or mankind] in our image, after our likeness.” And so God did: “Male and female created he them.”
Now the Four Forces are part of One River, the River of Truth. The truth about, or the truth of, love itself—whether you think of it as the gold of the land of Havilah, or the Fire that Burns, or whatever other term you may wish to use; that which is—cannot have meaning except as it is given form and a name. And how shall even God's Love have a means of manifestation, a name and a form, except by reason of the truth? It is only as you gain an understanding of the truth about love that you can begin to truly know love. “And he shall lead you into all truth.” “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free,” with respect to love, God's Love, with respect to all things whatsoever.
How can we be free? By trying to change that which is already manifest? Or by remembering that the things that God created prior to the creation of man were all in the Garden which God planted eastward in Eden? The herbs of the field were not yet growing in the earth. “And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew.” It was through man, after man was created, that all of these things—the vegetable kingdom, birds and fish and animals and all the rest—were given form, coming out of the Garden which God planted eastward in Eden. And as that was allowed to have manifestation, by reason of man's function with God, that was established on earth in relationship to the patterns of life on earth.
Later it is mentioned—the story gets mixed up just a little in the allegorical portrayal—but you will remember that all of the creatures which God had made were caused to pass by man and mannamed them. Remember? I could read you the story. Did it not ever seem to you to be a bit strange that God created all these creatures and presumably had them running everywhere on the face of the earth, and then, after God made man, man was caused to stand, as it were, in a certain place and all these creatures lined up and came by in single file and man named them? Isn't that a ridiculous picture, the way you might ordinarily think of it? What does it mean? How did man name them? It was man's function that caused them to pass out of the Garden that God planted eastward in Eden, past man into the earth. They were given form by reason of man's sharing of God's creative action.
Now later on, when man first fell, this power was still inherent in man; he had not completely separated himself from it. He was trying to get some of these things out of the Garden into the earth and he distorted them, and we have some creatures on earth that God did not intend to manifest as they do—like mosquitoes, for instance. That was one of man's failures in relationship to letting the things of God come out of the east, out of the Garden into manifest form.
If we begin to see this, begin to comprehend something of it, we must begin to recognize that whether it be a flower, or whatever it was in the beginning of things, that took form on earth under man's hand, God created it and established it, but it was not yet in the earth. “And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew.” So we see that it was man's business, having dominion on earth, the manifestation of God's power, it was through man that all of these things took form on earth, without any exception, no matter what it was.
And this River went out from the earth to water the Garden. Now the Garden is eastward in Eden: man's function in relationship to the truth. Man was doing something from the standpoint of the earth, in oneness with God of course, while God was doing something from the standpoint of the invisible. And it was at the point of contact, in relationship to visible and invisible, that the forming began to appear, so that that which was of the invisible could be established in the earth. All of this worked out on the basis of Four Forces, four aspects of truth, from the standpoint of design and control; for the control and design aspect is present with respect to the Four Heads of the River of the Water of Truth. And once we begin to function in relationship to the Four Forces, we begin to have wisdom. Wisdom—the sense of the fitness of things. That is to say we begin to have an awareness of:
how things should fit together,
what their cycles are,
what their seasons are,
and how they can manifest
So it is our part to let the creative work of God in the invisible realms have meaning in the visible realm on earth, to share that creative work of God now and forever. That which is accomplished from the standpoint of healing, where did it come from? Out of the east. To whatever degree we function correctly in relationship to the days of our tomorrows there is a healing, recreative process in the body. It does not appear after the moment has come; it is coming to us from out of the east, and if we have a sense of the fitness of things, wisdom, we begin to function correctly because we know the truth. We eat what we should, we breathe the air as we should, we have the exercise that we should. We do all the things that we should do in order to let this come out of the east into us and through us.
Here we begin to have a little glimpse, if we will but receive it, of the creative principle, the true creative cycle, or the Magic of Creation. Once you begin to actually realize these things—you will not grasp it all in a moment—but the basic idea, the basic truth, the basic law and principle, you begin to be in position where you can the more readily let the waters be gathered into one place, let the divisions among you cease, so that you begin to have a true sense of the fitness of things on a unified basis; not conflict between each other but coordination with each other on a basis of that which is coming out of the east, if we will but receive it, so that that which is in the Garden may manifest on earth, and then the Garden will be on earth.
You will notice, “The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground,” etc. That is the 7th verse. Then the 8th verse: “And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.” And then the 9th verse: “And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” The Lord God caused these things to be, but it is clearly indicated that it started coming out of the ground after the Lord God had formed man. The Lord God had created all these things up to man, prior to this, but they were in the Garden. “And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew.” Then, “The Lord God formed man.” And it was after that that the Lord God caused all of these things to grow out of the ground. “And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree,” etc. You see, you didn't stop to read it before, did you? That is what it says.
And once you begin to get the idea, you see that man is essential for the manifestation of any creation of God, and that man shared in the manifestation of every creation of God that has ever appeared on earth. If any creation of God is to ever appear on earth, then man must share it.
Man shared it, even in the sense of himself, because he himself was thereby made manifest. But man was the first thing to take form on earth as such. Now if these things mean anything to us we should see the vital importance of letting this third step be taken, letting it become an actual reality, letting the petty differences and frictions and difficulties vanish away in the face of a unified acceptance of a high, a sacred, and anoble goal. Are we sufficiently mature, sufficiently noble as men and women, to let this be an actual reality so that we can begin to share the creative work of God on earth?
In this Class we have opened the theme of the Magic of Creation. We have noted the four forces and something of the cycles of outworking wherein each of the four forces is dominant in its turn. All four always work together insofar as we are concerned on earth but each is dominant in its turn; and if you try to make one dominant when the other ought to be, it will not work. Man defeats himself so often because he does not recognize the basic principles of the creative action. It is only as we carry it forward in its proper sequence, proper steps, that we can experience the true pattern of fulfilment. Today I would like to emphasize a point which I touched upon briefly, I believe, and that is that on the fifth day we have again the beginning of the cycle, and we see that on the fifth day the emphasis is upon water. Let us note:
“And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.”
There are several points to be noted here of particular importance to us at the moment, one of course, that on the fifth day we again have the dominance of the water cycle. But let us note what it is that is brought forth by the waters: the fish of the sea, that which is to function in the water itself; and the fowl, that which is to fly in the firmament above the earth, the firmament or the atmosphere. Now we remember that air symbolizes spirit, and the creature that was to move in the air of the spirit was brought forth out of the water. I suppose you are all aware of the fact that there is a definite difference between fish and fowl and what we classify in the animal kingdom, because while an animal will decay, a bird or a fish will evaporate, if they are left dead. The dead animal form will decay but a bird or a fish evaporates. Now what is it that is brought forth by water, or truth, that is supposed to be able to function in the air of the spirit? Birds are used Biblically as symbols of thought. There are the destructive birds and the constructive birds, symbolizing thought or the nature of thought. Thoughtis supposed to be able to reach into or fly in the air of the spirit; but it is brought forth out of the water, out of truth. We need to see that there are those things that function in truth, and you take them out of truth—that is, the basic pattern—and they cannot function; the fish will suffocate in the air. So we need to begin to realize that out of truth there are those things which are brought forth in the experience of our own lives which are supposed to function in one of these two elements: water and air; truth, as such, and the air of the spirit.
Then we note that the next step is air. We remember the establishing of the firmament, dividing the waters that are above and the waters that are below, etc. And on the sixth day, the Lord said, or God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth,” etc. The third step is earth, but the second step in the cycle is air. While these creatures, including the body of man itself, are brought forth on the sixth day out of the earth, what is the primary characteristic of the land animal or of man? The air he breathes. And it is said with respect to man, “And God breathed the breath of life into man's nostrils, and man became a living soul.” The breath we breathe, the necessity of breathing air—and it is the air in relationship to earth that begins to let the pattern take form. And then of course follows again the fourth step. But we begin to see that all these things work according to definite patterns, and the cycles repeat endlessly.
You will recall that while man was brought forth on the sixth day out of the earth, but particularly focalized in relationship to air, we have on the seventh day the pattern of rest. The seventh day would be in relationship to the earth factor itself, and the pattern of rest from the standpoint of the Divine activity, letting the cycle begin in relationship to its own true nature, the cycle of creation continued, and the movement out of the process of being created to the process of sharing the expression of life from the Creator. Now the day of rest—whatever day may be set aside as primary in this regard; there are those who feel that Friday is the day for rest; some, Saturday; and some, Sunday—in any case, the day of rest has been greatly misunderstood. Rest from what? Rest from all thy labors. Rest from all thy labors! That is not rest from the labor that is of God, or from the work, the action. It does not indicate cessation of movement, or cessation of living. God is not glorified by a cessation in living. “Rest from all thy labors.” The commandment there with respect to keeping a Sabbath day was given to a self-active and stiff-necked people. Human beings are, in their self-centered or fallen state, determined to function according to what they want. They insist on laboring according to their idea, for their own purposes; and this day of rest was emphasized in the commandments because of the necessity of man realizing that there comes a time when man must cease from all his labors, all his own self-active labors, and come into a state of oneness with God, which does not suggest that he will cease functioning. It does not suggest that he will become a nonentity and have no meaning.
People wait for Saturday night or for Monday morning, or something of the sort, so that they can plunge back into their labors. They did not learn the lesson of the day of rest, the seventh day, whether it be from the standpoint of a week or a pattern of life, the cycles of being. If we begin to reach maturity as men and women, we cease from all our labors and begin to rest in the Lord, which is to say oneness, which allows the activity of God to manifest through us. As far as we are concerned we utilize every day as a day of attunement with God and, while we allow the pattern of Sunday, because it is the ordinarily accepted pattern, to be a day for a cessation from the regular work, that is not in the true sense keeping the Sabbath. No human being has reached a point of keeping the Sabbath until he or she has matured into a Divine Man or Woman, so that that individual is no longer concerned with his own labors. “Thou shalt not labor”—in the pattern of his own, your own, cycle of function; your own purpose, self-centeredness. We are allowed six days, or six steps in the creative cycle, to allow us to move from the state of the fallen realm to the state of restoration—six steps.
Now we have noted that from the standpoint of the Class we have proceeded to about the third day. These six steps are allowed to all human beings. We, from the standpoint of the Class, have reached a point of about the third day, the point where we can let the waters be gathered together and let the dry land appear; let the manifestation of the substance we are to work with actually appear in the pattern of our lives and ministry so that, through our service in sharing God's creative cycles, we may cause the green grass of life to appear in those whom we serve.
The process of giving an attunement is to gather the waters into one place, let the dry land appear, let the grass be brought forth out of the earth. Until we begin to see the definite relationship between the creative cycles as outlined here, our own individual patterns of fulfilment in moving toward a Divine State of Restoration, and our ministry from the standpoint of serving, we cannot see clearly what we are doing. As we here as a Class permit the waters to be gathered together into one place and the dry land appear we can have the manifestation of new life in ourselves, and all the fruitful things of life, which are symbolized in the vegetable kingdom, in the animal kingdom, in the birds, in the fish, etc., can begin to have meaning in us—a fruitful life, results appearing, something being accomplished. But we cannot have the fifth day, or the completion of the third day even, we cannot have the sixth day of fulfilment, unless we let the first days have their true meaning.
Now with respect to the fourth day, let us remember that it was the clearing of the atmosphere around the earth that allowed the light of the sun and the stars to reach the surface of the earth so that that light could be seen. The sun and the moon and the stars were not created on the fourth day, as some have supposed. That makes it seem that the earth was the center of the cosmos, that it is the most important thing that there is anywhere, and that God, on the fourth day, decided that this earth itself needed some stars out there in the sky. That leaves us with a completely false concept. Actually what happened was that the earth's atmosphere cleared of the heavy cloud blanket, so that the light of the sun and the moon and the stars could reach the surface of the earth, and if man had been on earth at that time he could have begun to see these bodies in the sky; but they were there before that. But the light of them was brought in to the surface of the earth on that day, and the cycle began to move on the basis of the seasons: “And they shall be for days, and for years, and for seasons.” So the cycles of the seasons began to open up on the fourth day. Everything began to fall into its proper place. What is the right season? It is the season where there is the fitness of things, wisdom, the recognition of light, or God's love and creative power causing all things to work out in their season, according to the fitness of things. So when we let the cloudiness of the mind and heart be cleared away so that the light of the Son of Godcan reach us, we begin to reach a point where we can work in harmony with the days and the years, the seasons, so that all things may come in their proper pattern. The fitness of things—until we have that experience and let the fire have meaning in us and to us and through us, we cannot move to the fifth day, where we begin to let the reality of life appear for ourselves and for others. We are still back behind the day of the clearing until these cycles work out.
So our present purpose is to let the waters be gathered together into one place,
let the atmosphere clear, and let the dry land appear
so that the light of the sun can manifest on earth
in relationship to ourselves.
We remember that the only begotten Son of God is everywhere, at all times. Some people have imagined that the body of Jesus was the only begotten Son of God, and we see how they have by reason of that superstition, that false idea, nullified their own lives. There was a revelation of the only begotten Son of God, but we are to be sons and daughters of God, and Jesus was not, in His manifest expression in form, the only begotten Son of God, in the sense of a being. But He was revealing that which issues forth from God all the time. The only begotten Son of God—that is, that which issues forth from God all the time—is the spirit of God, the reality of His wisdom, His intelligence, His understanding, all that issues forth from God at all times. That was revealed through our Lord on earth. But He as a being was not the only begotten Son of God. He was the focalization for Deity in relationship to this earth, and He still is. So in that sense He could be called the only begotten Son of God. But the idea that He, as a separate being, was the only Son that God ever had is an utterly fantastic superstition. We have to begin to realize that the only begotten Son of God is just as much available to us in this moment as it was to Jesus, which is to say that that which is issuing forth from God in this moment is available to us. Well then, when we let a clearing in consciousness take place on the fourth day, the light, the fire of God's love, that which is of God, reaches us. The sun, the sun in the sky, is a symbol of the only begotten Son of God. Without that which comes from the sun we could not live. Just so, without that which is the only begotten Son of God we cannot truly live; we exist for a moment and die.
So now we are at the point where we can begin to let these things be a reality in us, if we will—if we will let the petty divisions be set aside, if we will reach a point where the water of truth blends the pattern of consciousness into one thing, so that we can let the dry land appear and the light of the sun reach the surface of our earth, coming from God through us into the world—not just coming down from the outside but coming through us, from the inside out. [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/from-within-outwards.html] The light of the Son, the only begotten Son of God, begins to reach the surface of us not from the outside, but from the inside expressing outward. Once we begin to see that and let the reality of the spirit of God, that which is issuing forth from God, have manifestation through us because we are sharing in the reality of the only begotten Son of God—which is not in any sense limited to Jesus Christ, although the God Being who was manifest through that body was and is our LORD of Lords and KING of Kings, the focalization of God Beings for us—but the moment we let that which is issuing forth from God have manifestation through us we become a son or daughter of God, and so our relationship with God is established and we can begin to move into the reality of the fifth day, and finally to the sixth, which leads at last to the seventh, the place where we come to rest in oneness with God. Now the Master said, "My Father and I are one. We are one.” And He said, “Follow me.” He, the outer, was completely at rest in the inner Being, so that He was not laboring as a man; He was letting God do the works. “The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.”
Until we reach the point where we have followed Him through these recreative cycles
to the point where we let the Father do the works,
we have not fulfilled our initial mission on earth;
we are not ready to begin to truly serve.
Let us correlate this with the basic, fundamental principles that are revealed in relationship to the day of Pentecost. We see that the Four Forces were at work in their natural sequence, and after ten days, “They were all with one accord in one place. There came a sound as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared as if it were cloven tongues of fire sitting upon each of them.” Now let us go backwards, so that we see clearly the pattern of manifestation in relationship to what our LORD pointed out would be the manifestation of power. For He said, “And ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you.” Mankind today does not have that power. The churches do not have the power; they just talk about it, but it does not manifest. It began to manifest, but they violated the laws, the cycles, and threw it away. They allowed it to come to the point of the fourth day; but they violated the principles of the first four days and refused to let the fifth, sixth and seventh days manifest; so it was not the fulness of the coming of Pentecost. They only thought it was. So the fifth, sixth and seventh days did not manifest in relationship to the disciples; they did not let it manifest. They threw the power away, and the churches since that time simply have not had it. Now it is time for us to let that power manifest. How shall we do it? By following out the cycles of creation.
Let us note what they did do. The fourth of the four forces is fire. “There appeared as if it were cloven tongues of fire which sat upon each of them.” That is the fourth step. Let us back up. Something filled the whole house where they were sitting—the house, the physical aspect of being, or the earth. And then we go back of that: “And there came a sound as of a rushing mighty wind.” Wind, air. So we have fire, earth, and air. We are backing up now to find the starting point. “When they were all with one accord in one place”—"Let the waters be gathered together unto one place”—"there came a sound”; there is movement. Remember how it was in relationship to the beginning of creation: “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters; and God said, Let there be light.” So we have water, air, earth, and fire. The same cycle was used exactly. Water—”with one accord in one place.” And the moving—”There came a sound as of”—what?—”a rushing mighty wind” (“And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters”) “and it filled the whole house”—earth—“where they were sitting. And there appeared as if it were cloven tongues of fire sitting upon each of them.” The four forces at work, clearly portrayed in relationship to the day of Pentecost. And they came in their right sequence: water, air, earth, and fire. But the disciples did not let the cycle continue; they did not even let these fully manifest. They did not go to the fifth day, and then the sixth, and then the seventh, at which point they would have reached a state of oneness with God, which would have allowed them to carry on the work of our LORD on earth. The work of our LORD has not been carried out on earth since He left. The disciples let it get partway, to the fourth day, and then they spoiled it.
They spoiled it, and the work of the LORD has not been done by any of the churches, by any of the people of the churches. They have been playing children's games. The power of God has not been made manifest through any church, no matter what it was called. Whether it was Buddhist, or Mohammedan, or so-called Roman Catholic, or so-called Protestant, it makes no difference. No one of them on the face of the whole earth is letting the power of God manifest in any real sense—not in the sense that the LORD intended. Why? Because they have not stopped to see the reality of the creative cycles—the Magic of Creation. They have not recognized our relationship to those cycles. They have not even seen how Peter spoiled it. The power disappeared almost at once, and yet they still imagine that Peter was doing a wonderful thing. He spoiled it; he did not do a wonderful thing. He led those who followed him into patterns which violated the laws of God and the creative cycle. And the power was lost, and man still does not have it. He imagined that he had it, but he did not. What he had was not the real manifestation of power, the power of God at work on earth. And it does not come until the reality of the day of rest—that is, when man goes through the cycle of restoration.
This creative cycle, then, is something which must manifest through us. It is not something we can ignore and have the power. If we follow Peter of old, and his impulsive nonsense, and his sacrilegious defiance of God's laws and principles which the Master had clearly revealed to him, we will not have the power. There is only one waythat that power can manifest, and that is according to these laws and principles of being. And so we begin to give heed to them; we begin to realize that until we pass through the third day—and we are just in the third day here—and the fourth day, and the fifth day, and the sixth day, and come to the seventh day, we will not have the power. We will not be in the Garden of Eden. We will not be letting the things which God prepared, in the future, come into manifestation through us.
Man has wandered around in the wilderness, he has had all kinds of fantastic concepts, he has followed fanatics, he has been governed by prejudice and fear, and has failed to let the will of God be done on earth as it is in heaven. He has failed to let the Kingdom come. It is not here. They talk about a spiritual kingdom: “It is not supposed to be here; it is just a spiritual kingdom.” No, it is a Kingdom on earth. “Thy kingdom come” into form on earth. So until we realize these things and see what they did at the time of the day of Pentecost, why they failed, why the power was lost, we cannot go through the cycle successfully and let the power reappear. Now this opportunity is open to any man or woman anywhere—anywhere, at any time, if they will follow through in the cycle. But man has been trying to leap from the state of mere existence to the state of being a son or daughter of God. And since he could not do it while he lived, he did it when he died. It is just foolishness—plain, simple foolishness. We must begin to realize that unless we individually and collectively take these steps we are not going to have the manifestation of power. Unless we see this cycle working in relationship to what the disciples did do, letting it start—they spoiled it, they threw it away, but it did start—we cannot possibly have any real hope for doing better. But we should be able to do better than they did. If we do not, it is just too bad. Someone had better do better sooner or later, and if it is to be someone else, why are we here?
We have reached the point where we can let the waters be gathered together into one place; we can be with one accord in one place. We can yield to the spirit of God, let the firmament appear, to divide the waters from the waters. We can hear the sound as of a rushing mighty wind. We can let the water be in the sea and let the dry land appear, and it can fill the whole house where we are sitting, right here, just as well in this hour as any other. [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/2022/04/repose-peace-serenitybe-still-and-know.html] But I know you will probably postpone it a little longer. People always postpone it; they would not let it be today. But it could be now. We could let it reach the surface, we could let the dry land appear, we could let the light of the sun appear, and then we could move on into the fifth day, doing what has never been done by any groupof people anywhere since man fell. Others have reached the point of the fourth day, but no group of people since the fall has ever passed through the fourth day—not one in all history, on the face of the whole earth. And of individuals, our LORD, He showed the way through the Seven Days of the Creative Cycle, and we are called upon to follow Him. People imagine that they are following Him when they say, “I believe that Jesus died on the cross to save me from my sins.” That is sacrilege and blasphemy. They are not following Him. We do not follow Him unless we go through the seven-day cycle and finally come to rest in the Father, as He prayed: “That they may be one, as we are.” But no one knows that oneness until he reaches the seventh day—the seventh day in the cycle, where you come to rest in God and cease from all your labors, and you do not wake up a few hours later and plunge back into your own labors. Once you leave your labors behind it is forever.
And the days of the week have been here to remind man of this down through the millennia and man has ignored the plain, obvious truth. He has imagined that because he stopped working on the seventh day and either made a long face and would not let anyone play at all, or went out and had a game of golf or something, that he was keeping the Sabbath, or the day of rest. The day of rest has not been kept. You find that the Seventh-Day Adventists, for instance, really go overboard talking about keeping the seventh day, but they do not do it. They do not do it. It is not what day in the week you have for rest, if you do not reach the seventh day—and it has to be the seventh day; the sixth day will not work; the first day will not work—come to the seventh day in the cycle of creation, the seventh step, the point of restoration to oneness, the point where we begin to truly let the Garden of Eden appear again on earth. That is what the Master did, and He said, “Follow me.” And human beings have imagined that they were, by keeping some day of the week—Friday or Saturday or Sunday. From the standpoint of relaxation it is all right; we use it as a period for meditation in services, and so on. But you cannot find in a day of the week the day of rest; for the day of rest comes as a cycle, a step in the creative cycle. Until we begin to actually see this, and know it, we will keep on deluding ourselves.
Whether it takes six months or six years to get through the first six days for any individual, he will come to his day of rest when he lets himself be restored to oneness, when he reaches the point where he ceases from all of his labors and lets the Father do the works from then on. And there will be no return to doing your works on Monday morning. The cycle was not completed by the disciples; they spoiled it; they did not let it appear. Man has thrown it away time after time down through the ages, and he is doing it still. Of all the millions who think they are following our LORD, unless they are moving through that cycle to the day of rest from self-activity they are not following Him, no matter what they think, or what church they belong to, or anything else. The smug self-righteousness which bars the way of man if he would really move forward! Until we come to the day of rest—rest from all our labors, rest from all self-activity—and from that day on let the LORD do the works, we have not kept the Sabbath. A day in the week can be used as a symbol of the Sabbath, but a day of the week is not the Sabbath. The commandment is not talking about the days of the week. “Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the sabbath; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, or any of thy family.” No. The six days of creation, which are not twenty-four-hour days for us, fortunately—if you had to do it in six twenty-four-hour days you would not have a chance—but the six days of creation must work out through you if you are to come to your day of rest, rest in the Lord, oneness, letting the Father do the works from that moment onward.
We have reached the third day in six months. In six months we have reached the third day. But you have not yet let the waters be gathered together into one place. You have not yet let the dry land appear. You have not yet let the sun appear at the surface of your earth, and that is just the fourth day. Unless we go on through the days of creation, individually and collectively, we will not come to the day of rest; and unless we come to the day of resting in the Father we will not have the power. The power started to appear so that they could have their fifth day and their sixth day and come to the seventh day, but would they let it come? No. Impulsive Peter, and all the others that followed him, went out and started dissipating it, violating every law of God and throwing away the rich blessings which would have changed the world nineteen centuries ago. It was not until after that—after all of this waste, after they had failed to let God's will be done on earth as it was in heaven—that the Book of Revelation was written. The cycle was opened so that man would have another chance, and we are living in the days of that chance.
That is why I am here.
That is why you are here.
One more chance.
If man does not take this one he will destroy himself—not because God so ordained it, but there is no other way of reaching man. All of the religious concepts in the world mean nothing from the standpoint of the coming of the Kingdom or the fulfilment of the will of God: the outworking of the seven days of creation in man that we might come to the Sabbath. We cannot have a Sabbath just by resting on Saturday, or Sunday; that is not the Sabbath. The Sabbath is that step in the creative cycles where you come to rest in God, where you have finished all of your labors and from thenceforward you let the Father do the works.
So the question is, What will we do about it? What will you do about it? How important is it? Is something else more important than going through this creative cycle and reaching the Seventh Day, the Sabbath, where we come to rest with one accord in one place? I could not begin to describe to you the joy and the glory and the wonder of that privilege of coming to the Sabbath, the real day of rest, the things of God restored on earth, and you restored to the state of Divine Men and Women. But you will never get there unless you take the path that leads through those six days of creation, unless you let the creative magic have meaning in you. Otherwise you will go the way of all the millions that have existed on the face of the earth for a moment and died. What shall it be? The way of God or the way of man? The way of life or the way of death? The way of failure or the way of victory? Only as we go through the cycles and come at last to the Sabbath, which is symbolized by the days of the week, can we know what it is to be what God created us to be.
