The Great Cosmic Story
Spiritual Legacy of Uranda and Martin Cecil
March 17, 2024
March 14, 2024
Perfection—The Absolute Cause
Perfection — The Absolute Cause
Ann Foorman and Martin Exeter May 3, 1985
Ann Foorman — We come together in this beautiful hour, as the music just expressed, to “Worship the living God,” to be the living God in expression. “The Lord walks on earth again in the beauty of holiness,” and we know the Lord; we love the Lord; we respect and acknowledge that beautiful character in one another. I rejoice this evening to let the Word transform the world, and it begins in my consciousness. I would read a few words from Revelation to begin with. “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God.”
We have come to fulfil those words, to overcome the world as it has been created by man, by us, and to let the real world—the new heaven and the new earth—be the living reality. I would say, It is done. I have overcome the world, the world that was referred to, and had to be referred to for so long, in the words, “I am in the world but not of it.” There is something unfulfilled, in a way, in those words. And in some other words, “My kingdom is not of this world”; here is something unfulfilled. The Word through us this evening may fulfil the job that we have come to do, to let the son of man, which is the Son of God, walk on earth and proclaim, “The kingdom is the world.”
I have been sent into the world not to judge it, but to save it, to reprove it, to overcome it. I was chosen out of this world, ordained to bring forth fruit that might remain. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world, and I am not offended or ashamed by the prince of the human nature world coming, which means the perceived feeling connections that I might experience with the world that is ending. It has often been spoken of, the time of the end, or, “And then shall the end come.” Well the end is come for the unreal world, because it ends in me.
In this day let it be said by the angels of the son of man, out of the clouds of heaven, out of this holy city of habitation where we dwell, “His kingdom, my kingdom is the world." And as was spoken by the Master years ago, “Now is my kingdom not from hence.” I am in the world, the real world, and the world is made by me. We create the real world. And this gospel of the kingdom is being lived, and its word spoken, preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations. Arise ye nations! “Come, ye blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world,” the real world.
These things I speak, that the joy of the Lord might be fulfilled, that all may be one in experience, even as we are one in this very moment: I in them, and Thou, O Lord of Life, in me.
Martin Exeter — These are most precious and beautiful words, spoken by a precious and beautiful angel.
We are here present on earth to bring forth the fruit which shall remain. Our purpose certainly is not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; rather, our presence is in the world to bring forth the fruit of the tree of life. There were two symbolical trees spoken of within the state of man as it originally was: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It might be said that these two trees are one: they represent the creative process by which dominion, the dominion of God, is maintained on earth by reason of man. We can see a representation here of cause and effect, of heaven and earth, both essential aspects of one thing.
By reason of the tree of life, cause may be brought forth, the cause of life itself. Because of this cause the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil puts in an appearance. Some have felt that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was unnecessary: it was just there to test human beings as to whether they would eat of the fruit of it or not. This is a very shortsighted and self-centered view. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil indicates an understanding of the design which is to take form in the earthly sense. These two symbolic trees represented the perfect state.
We might pause to consider for a moment that word perfect. It is a useful word because it points to something absolute. The perfect state is the real state, the true state. The word “perfect” is only necessary because of the relative view of human beings. This relative view put in an appearance in the experience of mankind because of the eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the eating of the fruit of the results of the cause tree, the tree of life. Here were the results present in beautiful form, a true design, a living design under control, the process working out without interpretation by any human mind. Those results appeared in form in the objective world in which man was designed to live. It might be said from our perspective now that those results were perfect: they were an accurate portrayal of the living design by which the purposes of mankind and this earth could be fulfilled.
We know something, at least, of what happened when there was the eating of the fruit of this design tree. Here was human emotion coming into the picture, presumably with the objective of improving the manifest design in a way which would be more emotionally pleasing. The effects of eating of the forbidden fruit, as it has been called, were unknown. There was no other world than this one world. Some other world was inconceivable, in just the same way that now, in this other world which has become not only conceivable but experienced, the perfect world is inconceivable. In what has been called the fall, action was taken contrary to the design, supposedly in order to satisfy human emotion. Of course the mind went right along with it, rationalizing the procedure as being what it should be. This is the way that human nature, which then put in an appearance, has been functioning ever since. The mind has been used to rationalize what might be called the heart’s desire, to make it seem as though the fulfilment of the heart’s desire was reasonable, logical, sensible. We are well aware of what has been produced in consequence: a human nature world populated by human nature people.
Now it might be said that the reverse procedure is necessary. We have some understanding of this and some evident willingness to participate in a recreative process, the results of which are presently totally unknown. Just as the results of what would happen by reason of eating the forbidden fruit were totally unknown, so is it totally unknown in the reverse direction now. In response to emotional involvement with the objective world the mind, in support of that, has naturally assumed a rebellious and disobedient attitude toward the spirit, exemplified by the tree of life. It has been necessary along the way—and you have all had some experience of this—to let the mind refuse to support emotional involvement with the objective world of effects. It has been necessary deliberately to do this. I suppose this is tantamount to saying “No” to Eve. Eve, at the behest of the serpent in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, has been intent upon squeezing satisfaction out of the experience in the objective world. Heretofore the mind has gone along with that, and in doing so has been rebellious toward the spirit of life. There has been an endeavor to bend life to human purposes. All human effort may be seen in this way.
For a moment we might consider what has happened within our own experience with respect to this matter of life. Being somewhat less rebellious and disobedient than most, we have begun to see that there is a life process totally transcending human purposes, the purposes of human nature. If we consider our individual experience, we all have what may be called personal lives. These personal lives include very personal things; they also include our professions, what we are doing in the external sense. Viewing this personal life, would you say, relative to yourself, that the personal life is supreme and any spiritual vision you may have is included in your personal life as a part of it? Or, on the other hand, is your experience of that larger spiritual nature simply including as part of it what is necessary with respect to your personal life? Which aspect is supreme? Which aspect is dominant?
The perfect state is the holy state, the state of wholeness, the wholly heavenly state.
Mention was made of being in the world but not of it. It is important that we should be in the world, because it provides us with the associations necessary within the consciousness of mankind by which reproof may be extended. We don’t stand on a tub and shout imprecations and reproof at any who may be passing by. We do it in a more fitting way, without much noise or bombast, in simply dealing with what we become aware of within ourselves.
So we have this field of operations through which may be extended what we have come to know by reason of our association with this larger spiritual process and our experience in it. Surely this is supreme; it is, after all, the absolute state, the perfect state. When considering what you are going to do in a personal sense, what is it that emphasizes itself initially? Do you see everything from the standpoint of the working of the creative process of which you have an awareness of being a part? Anything of a personal or professional nature is simply included within that; it is not a thing of itself. All too many, obviously, have this personal and professional life as being the thing, and scarcely any awareness that there is anything that transcends that.
We reach a point where the personal and professional life is entirely incidental to what we are here to do in the transcendent sense. There are things which it may be our responsibility to attend to, and we attend to those things to the extent that we are able to do it, without violating the transcendent state. I have many things requiring my attention which are not directly related—there is nothing that isn’t in some way related—but not directly related to the transcendent purpose. Those things I fit in as it is possible to do so; if it isn’t possible to do so, they don’t fit in; they just slide by; because finally there must be an association with the absolute. I think it was said of Noah that he was perfect and upright—or was it Job? they both had a similar statement—perfect and upright, one that eschewed evil, etc.; nothing on the side, no leaks. The question arises how absolute our experience is in this regard.
Most people have their personal foibles, the things which they are accustomed to doing, and woe betide if such things are interfered with. Is there anything of this nature which, if it is interfered with, would cause you to react in an angry or resentful way? “You have no business interfering in my personal life,” would be the attitude taken by some. It may be qualified a little: “I’ve always done things this way, I’ve always done things this way at this particular time; and now you (or circumstances, someone) are injecting into the picture something that is going to disturb this routine.” Well I hope so! because that shows up where the routines are and where we are still bogged down, mired, in the human nature state.
It is kind of a paradox, isn’t it, that perfection is an absolute state, and yet in that absolute state there is absolute flexibility, there is ease of movement with the living design. We have not known what that living design was; we are due to find out. And the living design, which comes into experience as we receive it, as we come into position to eat of the fruit of the tree of life, involves constant change, and we cannot settle down into our supposedly comfortable coffins—call them “ruts”. I think it is very revealing that you can buy coffins these days with innerspring mattresses, so that people can settle down permanently. What makes human nature comfortable is what needs to be recognized so that one may let it pass away.
We have been richly blessed with so much, in fact. Oh, one can always look around and see other people who have things and experiences that we don’t have. How do you feel about that? It should not matter at all what anyone else experiences. The question is as to the nature of our own behavior; that is all we are responsible for, because this is absolute. “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,” absolutely right, regardless of human foibles. I don’t think we need to spend time in isolating and identifying human foibles. Anyone with some intelligence should be able to do that for him- or herself, particularly the human foibles which are characteristic of oneself. It is sometimes useful deliberately to interfere with those foibles and not do the thing to which you are accustomed. Do something else just to begin to break the thing up so that there may be material available to give form to the living design. We discover what the living design is when there is material available to give it form, material which may have broken loose from within ourselves, not being held in those old, dead structures to which we have become accustomed.
What is the nature of your lifestyle? Does that control you? You must have that lifestyle; it would be very disturbing if you didn’t have it. There is nothing wrong with the lifestyle, perhaps. It is the fact that you would be disturbed if you didn’t have it that is the wrong thing, the thing that needs to be recognized and dealt with. It isn’t as though there was some God somewhere who arbitrarily wants to impose on human beings some painful state of affairs that is going to make them miserable. I think this is very often the view of some of the religionists: God’s will is a pretty painful business, seemingly. But it isn’t at all; it is only painful to human nature, that’s all. If you want pain, keep human nature around and you’ll have plenty! That makes some people happy, apparently—very odd.
But we have this absolute state: Be perfect. The word perfect causes a reaction in some people; they don’t know what it means anyway. It is only a useful word to us because we recognize that it relates to something absolute, something unknown. You can’t define perfection; it doesn’t include all the human concepts and ideas of what that would be. It is what it is, and is an experience unknown to human beings. But it’s useful to have a word to identify it. Maybe you can invent a word that wouldn’t cause reaction—I doubt it! So we use words, but we use them with understanding because we know what they mean. And our concern is to be perfect, perfect and upright, one that fears God and eschews evil, one who allows the expression of the spirit of God to find release in daily living, whatever the circumstances may be, pleasing or displeasing to human nature.
Angelically we don’t care whether human nature likes it or not. You know, this has been my attitude for a long time in offering what I have. I have never said anything to please anyone. Maybe that’s why so few have come around! But what I have said has been acceptable to angels, unacceptable to human nature maybe not right away, because human nature is pretty dumb, blind. It doesn’t know what’s going on, and so it may take a little time for human nature finally to come to a recognition of what it is that’s been going on and decide that it doesn’t like it. And we have the evidence of this in various ways. But I do not condition unnecessarily what I say to please anyone. I think it is because of that that you are here now. I suppose you could say, “Like it or lump it.” If there is any genuineness in a person they will take it even though they have to lump it. But finally, as human nature begins to fade, it is liked, it is wonderful; it is a joy unspeakable to start with but becomes speakable as one moves along; it becomes expressible. We share spiritual expression, and the quality of our living backs it up, and there is factually no compromise.
This, as you know, doesn’t mean that one cannot be reasonable, one cannot consider back and forth. I have done a lot of consideration back and forth with people over the years, but that has never changed the absoluteness of the truth. We may—I don’t think it’s using subterfuge, really—use diplomacy, shall we say, to assist people to understand what initially they don’t understand. And because they don’t understand it they may react adversely to their lack of understanding, not to what it is that is being offered but to their misunderstanding of it. So we are easily entreated, shall we say; but there is something so strong, so solid, so immovable, that there comes a sense of security in relationship to it. Others begin to experience that security; perhaps you have yourselves, because there is something in that sense unchanging. It is always going to be there; it is not going to be pushed around by human nature.
When we all accept this basis for our living, then the end comes. To the extent that this is done, it comes quickly; and who would want this miserable state drawn out for centuries to come? I doubt that this is possible anymore anyhow. When you have a sliver under your fingernail it is better to suffer some sharp pain for a few moments getting it out than to leave it in there festering and suffer for months. Let’s do what needs to be done, knowing that human nature won’t like it but also knowing that it is the most glorious experience for those who are willing to let human nature go. And we prove this when we ourselves let it go, and that reproves everybody else.
Nick Giglio — Martin, it is glorious. I’m still around, and if I could still be around, anyone could still be around! I love God and eschew evil. And I don’t just like it or lump it; I love it, and I love you. That’s why I am here, to move freely, openly, and with full zest and power in the transformative purposes of life. So it is, Martin, and so shall it be, because I am here, because we are here with you in love.
Martin Exeter — So it is. I am sure that what Nick has just said finds an echo in all your hearts. I have been richly blessed by your love and the love of many others, and I suspect that most of you sense that I love you.
© emissaries of divine light
March 11, 2024
What Is Perfect Function?
What Is Perfect Function?
Uranda May 4, 1954 Class
It is not enough merely to gain a reasonably accurate vision of the basic principles of the Divine Pattern. We must reach a point where we recognize the nature of man's variations and his deviations so that we can intelligently work to correct them. Merely acknowledging them, merely seeing them is of no value. Attempting to arbitrarily upset them or override them, accomplishes nothing. We must learn how to deal wisely with them.
In our consideration of Biblical history we have recognized the pattern outworking up to and including Jacob's Blessing, as it is called, upon his sons. There is a great deal here that we might study yet more, but I think we will pass it by for the moment, and if time permits we may touch upon some of the other points later. But we recall that Jacob left this sphere of things and there was the burial; they had the body embalmed and the Egyptians mourned for him three score and ten days—seventy days—three score and ten days, and Joseph took “chariots and horsemen; and a very great company and went up to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond Jordan, and there they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation: and he made a mourning for his father seven days. And when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians: wherefore the name of it was called Abel-miz-raim, which is beyond Jordan. And his sons did unto him according as he commanded them, and they buried him. And Joseph returned into Egypt, he, and his brethren, and all that went up with him to bury his father, after he had buried his father.”
So, that particular point was passed and then we note the influence of internal trends in the individual. “And when Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him. And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying. Thy father did command before he died, saying. So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they did unto thee evil: and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him. And his brethren also went and fell down before his face; and they said. Behold, we be thy servants. And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God? But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.” It is interesting to note the pattern of Joseph's expression carrying out the pattern of the Divine Attitude:
“Fear not:
for am I in the place of God?
But as for you, ye thought evil against me;
but God meant it unto good,
to bring to pass, as it is this day,
to save much people alive.”
YouTube Audio
Now there is one of the points where all responding ones tend to fall down, tend to fail to grasp adequately the significance of this important aspect of the Divine process of outworking. In this connection we recall the text, “All things work together to perfection for those who love and serve the Lord.”
All things work together to perfection for those who love and serve the LORD
This does not mean that everything is going to be the way you would like it to be, it does not mean that it is going to be comfortable and entirely satisfactory to the concepts of your mind, or that you will have what you want, whenever you want, the way you want it. It means that human beings think evil and try to produce evil—and even though there may be many things that are not according to the right pattern of function in relationship to your own personal problems, your own personal life in relationship to others, will be caused to bring forth a blessing if you stay centered and let it be so.
The human mind is inclined to judge and say, “Well now, this is against me. That, I do not like. The other thing is contrary to God's Will.” Suppose Joseph had said, when he was in the pit and heard his brothers talking about selling him as a slave, “Well I know it is not God's Will that my brothers should sell me. What an insulting thing. What a degrading thing is this. I know this is not God's Will.” No, it was not God's Will, it was not His Design. It was merely the manner in which He utilized the situation. God does not produce the ill thing. The ill thing, whatever it may be, or may have been, is not and was not necessary, but since that is the case by reason of human function, God can and does use it to advantage. It is a process of out-maneuvering man.
If you function effectively with God, regardless of the oppositions and the difficulties and the problems that arise, either now or in the days of your ministry that are ahead of you, you will find that, staying centered, God is capable of out-maneuvering man, out-maneuvering the intents and purposes of human beings so that He can cause that which man does to bring forth a blessing. But it does not mean you are going to have it, all the way along, the way you think you would like to have it. It will not be the best that could be probably, in many respects, but all things work together to perfection for those who truly love and serve the Lord. And what is perfection? I believe you have studied this somewhat in your Class work, but perhaps it would be well to re-emphasize it a little.
What is perfection?
Perfection is not, as far as we are concerned, some ideal future state. As far as we are now concerned, the Edenic State, that which is to be after the restoration is complete, is not perfection. What is perfection, as far as we are concerned now? Perfection is right function under the circumstances as they are, the right attitude in meeting problems that arise and dealing with them. Right function in circumstances as they are, is perfection.
In other words, we use perfection in dealing with that which is not right and we do not have to have everything right in order to have perfection. If you think that you have to have everything right all around you in order to function in perfection, you are wrong—you do not. You learn to function in perfection in relationship to all adverse things, all ill things, all things that are not as they ought to be. It does not take a perfect environment in the sense of having everything on a perfectly pleasing basis to function in perfection. That which is perfect today probably would not be perfect tomorrow, probably would not have been perfect yesterday. That which is perfect today is the right meeting of the situation as it is today, including all of the ill things, all of the adverse factors.
We must not think of perfection as a fixed and static thing, as something final, as something that simply does not change. The perfections of God are forever changing. We may say that there are perfect basic laws that never change, yes. Those laws do not change but the patterns of their application are forever changing and it is because of this that human beings so readily develop false concepts about what the perfect law is; they see its working in a given circumstance and they jump to a conclusion, “This is the eternal law.”
All they have seen is an application of its working in relationship to a specific condition and generally speaking, the human vision is not great enough to comprehend all of the factors which were being dealt with in that specific application of the perfect law. And once you begin to see this, you can readily understand how human beings, approaching the problem from the wrong direction, are subject to, well, all sorts of fantasia. It becomes something that produces all sorts of appearances, and the human beings may be ever so sincere and earnest and believe that they know what they saw, and to some extent maybe they did, but all they saw was the working, without a comprehension of the reality of the law. In this connection we might well take just a moment to recognize a particular concept or idea which should be helpful to you in the days to come. I think we will undertake to use an illustration or two.
If any of you have ever functioned in relationship to irrigation, Just as one illustration, you have a ditch which is bringing in your head of water. From that main supply ditch you establish certain laterals. But when the head of water first starts coming through the ditch it is usually full of trash, twigs, dirty, completely unsatisfactory for releasing out into these little ditches for irrigation of the plants which may be involved. Now the ordinary human being sees that dirty head of water coming down the ditch and he begins to tear his hair and rend his garments and get all upset and bothered; he says to himself, “I expected some good water here that I could use and look at this dirty head of water coming down here. Shut it off! Shut it off! It is no good.”
In the vibrational sphere of things when the current starts moving, the first manifestation of it is generally a dirty head of water of some sort. It is full of trash. It is not in any sense a revelation of what is back of it. The first current coming through always has the job of cleaning up something, clearing out something, and it is never, in appearance, what it is going to be. When the wind starts to blow, a breeze comes up, at first there may be a blowing of loose leaves and twigs all over the place, but once they have been blown away there is no manifestation of such things. A clearing. So that which first appears in the working of the power of God is not to be misunderstood. It will never come out the way you think it is going to, not to start with anyway, and probably never anywhere along the line because you will need to gain a larger vision. Unless you have had experience, unless you know, you will develop some concepts with respect to that which is to be, which are not true. So do not let such things upset your pattern of consideration.
Now to take this same idea into a little different field, suppose we have a mass of raw material. We might carry this out to a particular orbit in relationship to our own sun. There is evidence that a planet was demolished, there was a collision of a planet or perhaps something else, a comet—we are not going into that at the moment—but whatever it was, a planet blew up, was broken all to pieces, and in the orbit where this planet belongs, revolving around our sun just as our earth does, we have the planetoids, and these irregular bodies—some very small, some down to dust particles in fact, gravel, all different sizes, and some chunks quite large, a good deal bigger than a house for instance, and some of them a great deal larger than that, like this mountain out here—start suddenly floating into space, great chunks of this planet, and they are out there now, moving around in their orbit, started out in the orbit but there they are, the raw material. Now just suppose we should reach a point in the Cosmic outworking of things where the time had arrived to gather up all this raw material and put it together in the form of a planet. It is a little larger order than I suggest should be assigned to you at the moment, but it is an idea—and one of the things that needs to be done some day. Now, we have the sun, and we have the planets revolving around the sun at different distances—we will not attempt to portray that in any true sense at the moment—but the idea that these planetoids, chunks of an exploded planet, are circling around the sun in a particularized orbit. If we were going to start gathering that up to re-establish a planet pattern, what would we do?
Well, we would have to devise some means of exerting force on physical substance. We will skip that part of it for the moment. You might go out and try it so I will not tell you about that. But it would be a process of gathering this substance together, and as it came together it would have to be whirling like a great whirlpool. There would be a suction pattern involved, and it would have to work on a sort of funnel pattern, something like the principles involved in a nebula; and all of this whirling around, revolving, gathering the substance up to one point, would make it appear like a horrible, well, mess of chunks of material and dust and one thing or another, everything swirling, and nothing very fine about it.
And suppose you folks were getting this job done, and hard at work at it, and I came along and looked at it and said, “I thought you were going to make a nice planet? I thought you were going to have something lovely here? What is that mess? There is not any planet here. These chunks do not know where they are going, they do not know where they are going to land, it is just swirling, swirling. There is no planet, there is nothing. And here you talked about having a planet.” And I started treating you with scorn. It would show how little I knew about creative processes, would it not? Because it has to be swirling and in seeming turmoil before all of the factors can come to point; the gravitational factors, so that all this substance can be welded together, as it were, drawn to a particularized pattern. And the form of the planet has to appear before you start being concerned about getting vegetation on the outside of it, putting animals on it, or whatever other pattern of creation you are going to have. There are many forms of creation other than what we have here and man is inclined to think that if there is not a creation like we have here, well it is not a creation, there is no life, etc. But you would have to get the substance together before you could begin to people your planet, get the animals established, the vegetation and what-have-you.
Now this process of swirling, utter confusion from any ordinary standpoint, could be called evil. [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/nothing-is-wrong.html] But perfect function on your part in the focalization of the creative power of God, would mean that you would have it swirling until that part was done. But suppose you started to get this swirling process under way and this person said, “Well now, I do not like this business. I am going to go over here and create a flower. There should be a flower that should go on this planet. That is a mess. I am going to create a flower.” And this person left his job and said, “I am going to create an animal and then a bird. I am going to have things ready. I will have a pair of them. I do not think that is ever going to work. I do not know where I will put my bird when I get it done.” But anyway, they started leaving their jobs. What would happen? The whole thing would go to pieces. So there would be chaos instead of seeming chaos.
Perfect function then is on the basis of the immediate need. There might come a time later on when it would be perfect function for you to create a bird or a flower or something of the sort, but if you started creating birds and flowers while you were supposed to be getting the planet ready to start with, maybe some angels with little white coats would come along looking for you. The point is that it would be plain crazy. Perfect function at any moment of time is on the basis of the circumstances as they are, regardless of whether they are good, bad or indifferent, regardless of whether they are pleasing to you or not, or pleasing to anyone. Perfect function in any moment is correct function in relationship to that situation, and if you are going to evaluate the situation you should not be nearsighted while you do it, because the situation might include a lot of factors that you start to ignore.
If you see some particular point in a situation and say, “Well now, I do not like this. Perfect function, Uranda said, is action with respect to the situation as it is. Now here is the situation. I am going to do something about it.” That is not the situation. It is only a part of the situation. It is only one aspect of it, one point of the situation. Do you know the whole situation? Correct function is in relationship to that which is brought to focus in the realm of your understanding and vision and correct action. And that which is the focus point in relationship to yourself may contain the essences of all the factors, but if you are not alert you will overlook them and you will be trying to do something with a situation on a basis which is totally wrong, because you have not stopped to consider the fact that the focus of a situation as it comes to you, as it comes within the range of your observation, and perhaps influence of action, must not be assumed to be the whole thing.
If someone drove a nail through a wooden wall and you saw just a point of that nail sticking through the wall, you would know better than to assume that that point was all there was to the nail. You would know that there was a lot of the nail that is not visible, and the head of it was around on the other side. You might be able to drive it back a little bit, but if you wanted to extract that nail from the board you would have to go to the other side of the board and pull it back. The focus of the situation as it comes to you is only that, and do not assume it is the whole thing. It may contain essences of the whole thing and if you are alert you will know what to do about it. But right function in relationship to the situation as it is, not merely as it seems to be, is perfection. Perfect function on the basis of what is the actual fact, not merely the appearance of the moment.
The impulse of the human mind or heart may be to do thus and so, but you learn to distinguish between the impulses which arise on the basis of reaction to external things and the impulse of the spirit of God. There is an important point! Very important. You learn to distinguish between the impulses which arise in yourself as a human being, on the basis of a reaction to external things or to some factor within yourself, and the impulses which come to you through the working of the spirit of God. Actually, it is very easy to make that distinction, to distinguish between them, but you cannot put it into just so many words. I cannot say a sentence or two here and clarify the matter for you; no one can. It is something that works out through training. You have to be assisted along the way. It takes training and experience and application.
So you learn to distinguish with respect to the impulses which come within the realm of your awareness, and you learn to act on the basis of that which comes to focus in relationship to yourself, but you are taking into consideration all that is focalized in that which you see, and perfection in function is right action in relationship to that which is at the moment, and an hour later it will be different; it will not be the same. Tomorrow will be different. Factors will change. Nothing is static. So right function in one moment is never arbitrarily right function in another. No. Some people imagine that if it is perfect action, well then, perfect action is perfect action and you can indulge in perfect action any time. Well, you can, but it is not the same thing as it was yesterday. It changes always. And so perfection of function depends upon the factors with which you are dealing.
And so we have the Word here, of Joseph, “But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.” And so we begin to see how all things do work together to perfection for those who love and serve the LORD, for those who are properly centered, and who are servers, and only for them do all things work together to perfection.
© emissaries of divine light
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