Giant Stature
Martin Cecil June 30, 1974 am
It is a pleasure to see the Chapel so well filled this morning. I would extend a particular word of welcome to the ones who are now present to attend a Class over the next four weeks. We are assembled this morning to serve, which is the same thing as saying we are assembled to live. The reason that we are all present in this particular place at this particular time is because, whether any of us knew it or not, we were brought here by the spirit of God. Most, presumably, have been brought in a more or less cooperative spirit. There are those who sometimes come kicking and squealing, so to speak, but regardless of what the individual experience is, the reason for the coming is always the same: the working of the spirit of God. Now, what those words mean, “the spirit of God,” is still to a very high degree unknown. We may describe some of the characteristics of the spirit of God by using words which we think we understand, for instance the word “love.” Obviously, a person who had never experienced love wouldn't understand this word when it was used. No doubt we could, although it wouldn't be very profitable, talk to a corpse all day long about life, but there would be no comprehension, simply because there was no experience. For true understanding there must be experience. Merely to define something on the basis of intellectual terms does not tell us what it is. All too many human beings have been fooled into thinking that they knew, when all they had heard was an intellectual definition. Even the words, in such case, are liable to be translated differently by different people. Such extent of understanding, so called, is a very unstable thing; the only real basis for comprehending anything is through experience.
It is important, therefore, that there should be spiritual experience. If the only experience that a person has is of a physical or intellectual nature, his comprehension is bound to be extremely limited. Most people are involved in these two levels of experience and find themselves greatly restricted. Consequently, we may recognize that most people may be described as pygmies. Apparently there are great numbers who are content to be that way all their lives; however, once there begins to come the reality of spiritual experience, then there is the awareness of giant stature.
Now, of course, when I speak of spiritual experience I am not necessarily referring to religious experience. Religious experience, for almost all who touch into that field, is limited or restricted to mental and physical experience. The very word “religion” is derived from a root meaning “to bind,” and people do indeed tend to be bound by their concepts, mental concepts, about spiritual things. And how restricted people are on this basis! They become rigid and emulate Lot's wife; she, you may recall, turned into a pillar of salt. So spiritual experience is very largely unknown to human beings, who are vastly more familiar with material and intellectual experience. But always, if our experience is limited to those levels, it is bound to be very restricted, and falls into the pygmy classification. Now, no doubt there are some great minds on earth who might be inclined to dispute the point, and there are those who look at those great minds and might be inclined also to dispute the point, but those levels of experience, physical and mental, are extremely restricted and a person can never find the truth of himself if he limits things to that.
Spiritual experience in the true sense relates to the spirit of God. Now the spirit of God can be recognized intellectually as being, at least in the mental and physical sense, quite unrestricted; therefore, if there begins to be experience at that level the giant stature may emerge. Now the emergence of that giant stature has tended heretofore in human experience to be channeled into the restrictions of the material and intellectual levels of being, and so the giant is compressed into the pygmy. In actual fact, where there is true spiritual experience, what was heretofore pygmy expression physically and mentally may take on the evidence of the giant.
Now, as I say, this has been largely an unknown quantity insofar as general human experience is concerned. There may have been some recognition of the giant stature as related to somebody else. One would immediately think of the One who lived on earth nineteen centuries ago, called Jesus. Here was a giant indeed, and the fact of that gianthood has been made evident by the tremendous effect that that one life had on the whole world of mankind. He was not at the time seen as being a giant; He was not so recognized at all. But the effect of the fact that He was a giant, whether anyone recognized it or not, is quite obvious in what has occurred subsequently in the lives of human beings the world around. So it is spiritual experience that permits a person to know him- or herself as the giant which he or she really is. Now, in describing this giant experience, we have made mention of the angel. The spiritual experience of the angel, which constitutes the individual's true identity, is in fact the birth of the giant expression into the world through the physical form of the individual and his capacity of consciousness.
In the animal kingdom there is very often the herd experience, the herd or the flock. Human beings have tended to participate in a similar experience at their own level. It is said of people that they are gregarious—they flock together—and there is a great deal of evidence of this, of course. Cities constantly increase in numbers and there is an endeavor on the part of most people to find some sort of a sense of belonging in the herd, or in some particular aspect of the herd. Of course, various human ways of organizing herds have been undertaken; some of them are even named after animals, Elks and Lions and what have you. This has seemed to be necessary in human experience for various reasons, but one of them relates to the fact that the true sense of belonging is absent; therefore there is the endeavor to manufacture it, and human beings flock together on this basis—I suppose you could say, in this sense, emulating the animals—the endeavor to generate somehow a sense of belonging, to be accepted into the herd. When one is young and tender this seems to be extremely important, partly because there would be, supposedly, a rather painful experience if one refrained from being absorbed by the herd. The individual doesn't want to stick out, so to speak; he wants to be camouflaged by the necessary protective coloring, and part of the motivation for what is done in such case relates to what seems to be required to be accepted into the herd.
Now, of course, all this has very little to do with the truth of the person; it has very little to do with spiritual experience, in other words. It relates primarily to the material levels of being, and to the mental level in the sense that one conforms to the way that others think. If this is done, of course, the individual loses the true identity which would otherwise emerge; he accepts a false identity which has, in fact, been imposed upon him by others, by people round about. But if everybody is doing it, it seems the thing to do and it takes a certain amount of—what shall we call it?—guts, strength of character, to withstand this pressure. And it is pressure; it is pressure to stop growing, to stop moving in the cycles of maturing under the influence of the spirit of God.
Anything that happens to human beings—the processes of physical growing up, for instance, the processes which develop the capacity of consciousness—is all brought to pass by reason of the spirit of God. If a person therefore neglects to move with the spirit of God but moves, rather, with the influences and pressures which cause conformity with the pygmy state, then the processes of creative development stop. This is more or less clearly recognized in the world the way it is, because human beings begin to die very quickly; they begin to participate in a process of disintegration. A peak is reached, seemingly, in the early years of so-called adulthood and then it's all downhill thereafter—the pygmy state which shrinks and shrinks until it becomes nothing. Whereas what should be happening is an expanding creative process by reason of the working of the spirit of God and a natural cooperation with that working. If one resists it, if one objects to it, fights against it, contends with it, then one remains a pygmy in a shrinking condition.
Presumably you who are here present have at least cooperated in some measure with the working of the spirit of God to bring you to this hour and to make it possible for you to have a beginning understanding of what I am talking about. The unrestricted state is known in spiritual experience and we are presumably here, all of us, to learn what that is, to be educated. This is true education, something that is thoroughly neglected in the world in the general sense, the drawing forth, the coming forth, the expression of true spiritual being.
Now, because all human beings are born into what is well described as a material state, a self-centered state, the only approach that can be made, to start with, toward spiritual experience is a self-centered one; and people are inclined to make such an approach because they feel there must be something more to life, for instance. But this is translated in their own consciousness: “something more to my life.” Well, if this causes the individual to turn toward what is, in effect, higher than himself, this is the starting point for the changed experience which would allow acquaintance with the spiritual state; but the spiritual state is not a self-centered state, so one cannot bring one's self-centered motivations into the experience of the spiritual state. To the extent that self-centered motivations remain, the individual is blocked; he finds the door closed; he can't get any further. And this is why much of religious experience has seemed to be such a hard struggle. It is a hard struggle to try to get through a door that's closed, and a person keeps hitting his head against the hard wood; there is a contest, and ultimately the head, of course, is broken, because you cannot force your way into spiritual experience—whatever that would be—by self-centered methods.
So, if we are concerned to come to know the truth of being, to emerge into the giant state, then we can't maintain a self-centered approach; we can't, for instance, maintain the approach which causes the individual to try to make spiritual progress—anything that simply relates to oneself is the self-centered state. A person may have the best of intentions, mind you; he may say, “Well, I need to make spiritual progress in order to serve others; therefore I must be concerned with myself.” Now this is a rather clever rationalization which makes sure that the individual is trapped in self-centeredness, and as long as a person is trying to make progress he is trapped. Now, of course, not all people think of progress in spiritual terms; some think of it in intellectual terms. They are going to be more and more educated and they are going to make progress on this basis; they are going to be giant pygmies. Now, there is a variation in this regard, obviously—some pygmies are bigger than others—but the self-centered approach leads absolutely nowhere. It leads to the shrinking pygmy condition which finally vanishes; whereas the opportunity for the giant experience is present because the spirit of God is present—only for that reason—and the spirit of God is not self-centered.
One cannot experience the spirit of God, one cannot have the spiritual experience, while remaining self-centered, obviously, because the spirit of God is not self-centered. If one tries to carry one's self-centered endeavors, no matter how good they may seem to be, into the experience spiritually, one is blocked at the door, so there is no possibility of coming to the spiritual experience by making progress in a personal sense. Now, this seems an impossible state of affairs to the self-centered person. “How am I going to get there, then?” Well, the answer to that is, “You're not; the self-centered person is not going to get there, ever.” It is because self-centeredness is relinquished and the identity that is known in that state of self-centeredness is relinquished that there may begin to be the experience of another state. That other state we have called the spiritual state, but calling it “the spiritual state” doesn't acquaint anyone with what it is; in fact, it may engender a whole host of ridiculous concepts, and the individual is inclined to say very often, “Well, I don't like it; I don't want to be spiritual.” How does he know? He has never been spiritual. He never knew what it was. What he is saying is, “I don't like my concept of what it means to be spiritual, therefore I am not going to be spiritual,” which is not logical at all; it's stupid, because the spiritual state remains unknown until it is experienced. It is never experienced on the basis of one's concepts about it. The spiritual state isn't one's concepts about it; it's something entirely different. So, obviously, there is a need to relinquish one's concepts about it. Any concept that a person may have will not be the experience, no matter how good the concept seems to be.
Now, that spiritual experience is a collective experience. I wouldn't like to use the words particularly, but to convey an idea, it is the experience of the divine herd. But this is an entirely different situation. It isn't a matter of nudging one another, so to speak, getting close together so that we can feel that somehow we belong, because the belonging is a spiritual experience. When it is spiritually experienced, then the evidence of that belonging may appear mentally and physically; but, obviously, physically we don't all become one blob of humanity.
There are individual physical forms; but spiritually we are one—this is the truth of the matter—one in what is called God, and the experience of that oneness in God is the experience of belonging where we belong. It does not reduce our sense of individuality, but it adds something which is incapable of being experienced merely from the mental and physical standpoint. Human beings endeavoring to have the sense of belonging on that basis are bound to fail; it is never satisfactory.
The spirit of God is not self-centered. The creative movement of the spirit of God relates to the whole; it relates to everything that is happening everywhere in the whole of what we call the universe and much more than that. If we find ourselves one with that it may indicate something to us of the giant nature of the stature that is involved and it also shows how utterly insignificant this pygmy state is. It only seems to be significant to human beings because pygmies are being compared with pygmies and there are some pygmies bigger than other pygmies; and there seem to be a lot of pygmies, therefore it's a big state—or that's the way it seems—when actually it is totally insignificant. The true state of experience relates to the spirit of God, and we must have that experience to know what it is.
Pygmies have been very much inclined to sit around discussing what they think it would be. By the way, in this matter of the herd in the external sense, the individual endeavor to belong somehow, and therefore to betray what is highest in themselves in order to do it, relates also to those who sometimes think of themselves as Emissaries, or Ontologists, or whatever. They say, in effect, “Let us conform to what we think an Emissary is, or align ourselves with the principles of Ontology, and then we'll belong; we'll belong to the Emissary herd.” Well, there's no more advantage to belonging to the Emissary herd in that sense than belonging to the Lions Club! Either of these experiences will actually block the experience of the true belonging in the spiritual state, belonging in what is called God. But let us remember that because we can mouth that word it doesn't mean we know what it means. Regardless of the fancy concepts we may have about it, one of the things that proves to be necessary is that we forget them all, because any concept will finally stand as a block, as a door through which we can't go, as a closed door. It is only when we begin to relinquish concepts in favor of experience that we begin to come to the point of knowing.
Now, we have all, in one way or another, betrayed ourselves, violated our integrity, by endeavoring to conform with the herd. The motivation was that we wanted to have a sense of belonging. Now, that motivation is a true motivation but mistranslated if we think it means to be one of the herd. What it really means is to move out of the herd into spiritual experience. There, we have the sense of belonging because that's where we belong. We do not belong anywhere else, so no matter where else we may go we will never have the true sense of belonging. A lot of people, of course, settle for a limited condition in this regard, imagining that that is all that is possible in this unhappy world. But if a person does that, he is violating his integrity; he is revealing weakness certainly. It is not a matter of trying to belong to any of the human herds, but of coming again into spiritual experience, where the only true sense of belonging is known.
Now, the spirit of God is not self-centered, so it is not only concerned with you. What a shattering realization! This is what Christians particularly are very anxious to experience, that Jesus really loves “me”! Self-centeredness piled on self-centeredness! The spirit of God is not self-centered. The concern is with the whole. This was, of course, particularly revealed by that giant who was called Jesus. He wasn't in the least concerned for Himself. He wasn't trying to get anything for Himself. He wasn't trying to make spiritual progress. He accepted the spirit of God as His own experience, the nature, the quality, the character, of the spirit of God, which is not self-centered. Anybody can do this. It's there to be accepted; we wouldn't exist if it wasn't there. And He was concerned, consequently, with what the spirit of God was concerned with, the whole. Now, if one is concerned with the whole and one is a part of the whole, therefore in that sense one is blessing oneself as a by-product; and it proved out that way with Him. His concern was to pass through the experience that was necessary to open the door for the whole, and it opened the door for Him because He was a part of the whole. The opening of that door was called resurrection. Now, if changes are necessary, as they surely are, in the human state of self-centeredness, how are they going to be achieved?
By the working of the spirit of God; in no other way whatsoever.
There is no way which human beings can think up to cause the essential changes to occur. They don't know what the changes should be anyway, other than that self-centeredness needs to be relinquished. So it isn't a matter of trying to get the spirit of God to work for “me.” It is working through the whole, and if changes occur in the state of self-centeredness which has been your experience heretofore, they will occur because of the working of the spirit of God through the whole and because you are included in that whole. It isn't as though some mythical God is going to reach out to you and say, “Well, I'm particularly fond of you, therefore I'm going to select you for some changes.” I suppose, then, He would say, “To hell with everybody else!” No, if it works it works through the whole, and one must be associated with the whole to let it work. As I say, sometimes such association begins to be experienced while the individual is still kicking and squealing, but how much easier it is if he goes along with it, doesn't resist it, doesn't try to maintain a separate life, a separate self-centered life “for me, my human ego; I'm going to get satisfaction if it's the last thing I do.” It will be! It seems such a dismal prospect to all too many people, the thought of losing the human ego and all the delights that the human ego is going to experience in the pygmy state. Oh, my!
The spirit of God is present. We couldn't be together in this hour if it wasn't so. It is a very impelling force which by one means or another has brought us here to this occasion. As there is a willingness to begin to share wholeness—that is, to see things as a whole—essential changes by which the pygmy is re-created to become the means for the expression of the giant occur, occur through each one according to the need of each one. But not to produce a bigger pygmy, a pygmy who is more effective in serving other pygmies. To what end? It's all a waste of time. The serving relates to what is undertaken and being achieved in the whole by the working of the spirit of God, and when we accept this viewpoint, so that we begin to forget ourselves, paradoxically we immediately find ourselves. As long as you are intent on remembering yourself, you never find yourself, because the self you are remembering is not you. People remember themselves in the self-centered state by well, I suppose it could be summarized by the statement: They do what they want to do. But they do not realize what it is that is impelling them to do what they want to do. It is, in fact, when traced to its ultimate source, the spirit of God; but the spirit of God working in a person who does what he wants to do is clearing out the rubbish, and in such case the individual has classified himself with the rubbish, so it is clearing the person out.
What does anyone imagine he is going to lose by being concerned with the spiritual experience? Obviously, there would be no contention with respect to movement toward the spiritual experience if the individual didn't think he was going to lose something. But what is he going to lose? He is going to lose his self-centered human existence. Is there any cause to be afraid of that? What is he going to find? Him- or herself, the truth, the giant state, real being, and share with the spirit of God in the recreation of the world. Part of that re-creative process requires the disintegration of the self-centered world which human beings have produced and in which they imagine that they can find some sort of satisfaction and fulfiiment. And how many generations have gone through their existence hopeful in this regard and ended up with nothing? Why repeat this meaningless round of nonsense when the unrestricted state is available for experience? Relinquishing the old state of self-centeredness and concerning ourselves with the whole, we may find again what it means to live.
Our Lord and Master, we lift our hearts of response to Thee in the awareness of the fact of Thy presence, without any adequate consciousness as yet as to what these words, “Thy presence,” really mean. But offering ourselves in yielded response to Thy spirit, we may come to know the truth in experience. O Lord, I am thankful in this hour for those here present, representing many more the world around, who are offering themselves in whatever measure to the working of Thy spirit, that coming to spiritual experience they may know the truth and allow the creative power of Thy spirit to accomplish Thy purposes, which are not unrelated in this little corner of the universe to what is occurring everywhere else, in the Christ. Aumen.
© emissaries of divine light
