For so long human beings have endeavored to do what they wanted to do on earth, with little regard for what the real purpose of life was, that it has seemed unnatural to experience spiritual maturity—a state of affairs that has been lost to human experience for so long it takes a little while to get accustomed to the idea. It is the same sort of thing, I suppose, for a baby when it is born into the world, any one of us, to get accustomed to the idea of being in the world; some strenuously object. But we have some increasing consciousness of what the real state is, not so much from the standpoint of our experience yet but at least of a larger vision.
“For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: It might have been!”
For anyone with any measure of spiritual maturity and spiritual vision there are so many “might-have-beens.” Over the years I myself have had opportunity to handle such things in myself when I saw the passing of what easily might have been. One might almost come to the point of tears at times, inside at least. It was said that on one particular occasion the Master wept because He saw what might easily have come in the creative cycles spoiled. Here is something that perhaps we might profitably look at—because while we ourselves may at times have spoiled something, if we do assume mature spiritual responsibility for others we will repeatedly experience the foolishness of others which spoils things. I have seen creative cycles working to a point where something tremendous might have occurred but somebody began to judge or got impatient, somebody quit, and everything in that cycle was lost. I wonder how keenly we are aware that when there is a failure of some kind you can’t repair the damage. I wonder how this could be illustrated for our understanding. Again I am a little cautious about using analogies in case they become a part of the Emissary ritual.
Life moves on. This is the most obvious characteristic of life. There is a connection here between life and time. You can’t halt time, you can’t halt life—it keeps moving. Human beings for a long time have been out of step with life. The result is that a greater and greater lag develops [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/exact-alignment.html] between the human experience and the action of life itself; we are inclined to keep dropping further and further behind. Life moves on, but we’re fiddling around in some restricted area, reacting to this or trying to work something else out; and we are more and more separated from the experience of life in consequence, because life is not going to hang around with us while we do that sort of thing; it just goes on, and we get left behind. If we get left far enough behind, the connection becomes so tenuous that it eventually breaks. We need to see that life has a schedule. Yes, it keeps moving regardless of human beings. There is no one on the face of the earth who can stop it, so we had better pay attention.
Life is a characteristic of God. Life is creative therefore; it builds. We say, “Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.” Life does the building. Life has built a lot, seemingly a lot of it without any help from human beings at all. Nature moves easily because it is alive. What human beings have built on earth, this tower of Babel, is not really alive. It only appears to be alive because of the blood sacrifice which is offered into it. The lives of human beings are poured into this monstrous thing that has been built, so that it appears to be alive. Everyone is convinced that it must be sustained at all costs. Every generation is offered in human sacrifice to this. It is becoming such a sophisticated monster these days that it is found that it is hard to discover more prospects sufficiently trained in expertise to feed into this monster to keep it alive. [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/two-pyramids.html] What an unnatural thing. It has nothing to do with the true design. It has resulted from theft: human beings stealing what they are able to lay their hands on and creating something in their own image and likeness. The principal characteristic of the image and likeness of human nature is to be dead.
So there is this monster. [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/as-we-near-climax.html] And there is the true state, which operates in any case on the basis of life, even if human beings are not particularly participating in the operation. They are all involved in their own operation. The operation of what is called nature is seen merely as an adjunct to the human scheme of things. But regardless of all these futile human efforts over the millennia life is still present on earth and everywhere else in the universe, doing its thing. By reason of life there is creation. God creates. In the beginning God creates. In the beginning of each moment the creation continues, and life is the means by which this happens. Human beings have been principally a drag in the matter, falling further and further behind the movement of life, so that what might have been because of the movement of life in human experience could not be. How sad: what might have been.
We seek to present ourselves before the Lord, that life might have an opportunity of working in association with ourselves because we are going to stay with it; we are not going to drop behind. We are going to let life have its way, that there may be on earth the evidence of spiritual maturity. That is the only way it comes. When the human form with its capacities moves in concert with life there really is something on earth powerful and effective. Life merely moving through other forms here on the surface of the earth, forms other than man, achieves a great deal, doesn’t it, in spite of the absence of man. What would happen if man were present, present with life?
We need to come into step. Life is creative; it is a matter of building. In order to illustrate this we might use the analogy of a staircase. There is a staircase of life, upon one step of which we now stand. If we keep standing on that one step, life moves on up the staircase, so to speak, and we can never catch up on that particular staircase. We have to find out where this step, at the level where we have been, fits into another staircase that is moving with life. We can’t linger, we can’t fiddle around, without being left behind. We can look at this simply in the light of delay, but we can also look at it from the standpoint of some sort of reaction. We may have found a step which for the moment has seemed pleasing and comfortable; we want to stay there. Well, that is delay. But on the other hand we may become involved in a reactionary attitude of some kind and eject ourselves from that step. We will land up on another step somewhere but not on the same staircase.
I am sure there have been occasions in your experience when you may have thought of something or other that had occurred as being pleasing; it was in the past now but, according to your memory at least, it was pleasing. There is a sort of lure here. Now you find yourself in a rough world; therefore it seems desirable to get back there into that prior state. That prior state may be way back, or it might even be just yesterday. If one is in the present moment and looks backward to something that happened in the past, desiring to be there to re-experience what had been known before because it was comfortable or warm or whatever, if there is a reversion in this way, obviously it is something unreal; something imaginary; it’s a fancy. This is what happens to many people: reverting into the past and trying to live in that experience. It is better than the one they have now; therefore they try to live in that experience. But that experience doesn’t exist in the present moment; it only exists in the individual fancy. This basically is a factor in virtually all mental and emotional illness, where people are trying to live in a world of fancy. Virtually everyone does it, but most people don’t do it completely; they can be recalled into the present moment.
But every time this is done a person is, to that extent, disconnected from life, which is moving in the present moment. It is not moving back there, because “back there” doesn’t exist in the present moment. So a separation occurs on this basis or, as I say, on reactionary basis of various kinds. Sometimes after some violent reaction a person sees the appalling damage that was done. He is very repentant and he wants to let it all be restored again, but it never can be. That step is lost; that step is gone. That is why it is said that the Master wept on that particular occasion: something was gone. And no matter how much everybody might have liked to have gotten it back, it was gone! We can’t get it back, and we find ourselves on a step at a lower point in the cycle of life than we would have been had we kept moving on that staircase. This lower step doesn’t exist anymore in actual fact in the present moment. Life is moving on that higher step in that particular staircase, so you have to move out of that particular staircase and find another.
This is something that has been repeated and repeated ad nauseam during the course of the unfoldment of this Ministry. I wonder how many staircases we have covered. [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/the-stairs.html] Nothing is ever gained by losing connection with the staircase, the step of which one is on right now. Let’s stay on that staircase, not on that step but on that staircase. In other words life moves on and we are to move with it, which means relinquishing that step.
It may be said that there is a little creative cycle which works out for each step. At the beginning of the creation of the heaven and the earth, “The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” That is always the case at the beginning of a step. It is always the case at the beginning of any particular aspect of a creative cycle: it’s dark. Well the human mind wants to know, wants to find someone to tell it what’s happening, so that it can get adjusted to it. But that is not the way it works. Life is doing the building, not the human mind; and life is moving in these creative cycles. It is our responsibility, if we are spiritually mature people, to stay in step with that movement, and we will find, using the analogy of the staircase, a particular step where we are now. But there is one just ahead, and relative to that step just ahead, always darkness is upon the face of the deep; but because we are yielded to the movement of life which moves us onto the next step. We don’t move ourselves onto the next step by any effort that we can put forth mentally or physically. Life does the building. “Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.” Life propels those who are willing to be propelled, from step to step. Regardless of what the human mind thinks about it, that is the way it works; and it is none of the human mind’s business to try to figure out what it is that is happening or what it is that should work next. Let it be what it is in the creative cycle, and it always begins with darkness. That’s fine. We don’t object to darkness at night, do we? We find that a very satisfying time. We go to bed and we can get some sleep. That is the way it works, isn’t it? The mind needs to settle down, be quiet.
So in this spiritual movement with life, in the creative cycle, life is bringing something forth by reason of the fact that we are present. Let it bring forth whatever it is. It is not going to bring it forth better, or an improved version, because we indulge in a great deal of speculation as to how life works. It achieves absolutely nothing except frustration and futility, which I suppose is an achievement in a way, because it may bring a person to his senses, that he is wasting his time. How much effort has been put into this business of the human mind grinding out all its ideas about God and life! Who cares what way it is from the standpoint of the concept of the human mind? It isn’t any of those ways in fact. Life just merrily goes on its own way, regardless of what human beings are thinking about it; and if we associate ourselves with what is actually happening and not with what is happening in the imaginations of our brilliant minds we move up the staircase. A person who is capable of moving with life up the particular staircase of the creative cycle where he or she finds himself is exhibiting spiritual maturity.
Each cycle starts with darkness. Because it starts with darkness the human mind feels uncomfortable, even though it has experience of being quite comfortable when night falls. There are various aspects to the creative cycle on each step. The initial one is darkness before you take the next step. But then the cycle works out: there is light. We can see what we are doing, we experience what we are doing, we understand what is happening, and it is all wonderful, and we go along with it. But if we decide that it is all so wonderful we would like to just keep on that step, then we are separated once more from life. Life is characterized by movement, and we must keep moving.
Our interest is in life. Our concern is to live. How about having the conviction of life, so that our total interest is in living?—to let life be our experience now so that we move in the natural cycles in which life is moving. When we are with it we move in those cycles. We don’t try to figure them out, and if there is darkness on the face of the deep we are quite content. That is the way it is at that point. That is part of the creative cycle. Leave it in life’s hands but move with it, and very shortly, as you may recall according to the story, the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters and the Word was spoken, “Let there be light: and there was light.” Day dawns.
We have these cycles because of the earth's rotation, which are comparable to the steps in which we may be moving with life. These steps are related to what is happening, not only to us but to everything else. That is one type of step in one kind of staircase. We may recognize another type of step relative to the variation in the lengths of the days and the nights during a year. The days are getting shorter; we are moving towards the winter solstice when days are very short. There is a pulsation here, a movement from step to step; and there are various staircases and various steps, but they are all in unison; they all work together. And if we are on one step, we are on all the other steps too. It behooves us to stay on whatever step we are aware of, because thereby we find ourselves associated with all the other creative cycles that are moving. And we are not afraid of the dark. We should have sufficient experience of this happening, over and over again, that we get used to it. Here is the evidence of the creative cycle moving. Let’s find out what it is going to be, by just keeping moving on through. There is no need for trepidation if there is association with life.
There is reason for trepidation if we lose our connection with life. This is what human beings do, because they think it is much safer to hang on to the things that are known. Doing that, there is separation from life to that extent, and it is not safe; it is deadly. The only safe thing to do is to move on and allow whatever it is in that creative cycle to reveal itself. It is in life’s hands. It is in the hands of the Lord. We are not going to buck Him. We are not going to argue about it. We are certainly not going to get into a battle with the Lord about it. We just simply are willing to let it unfold the way it should. How very beautiful this can be, and we need no longer find ourselves considering those words: “For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: It might have been!” It is sad when a step is missed, because we have to move right over onto another staircase then.
We have some experience of these things. Because of that experience there is a certain understanding of what it is with which we are associated: the real movement of life, the resurrection and the life. It is the only safe thing. We have the opportunity of being with it, a willingness to move from step to step with ease and naturalness. When we move with life we participate in creation. Something is being built, a living vibrant form. We may think of this form in terms of the Body of the Son of God. That’s part of it—life pulsing naturally and easily through that form because all the parts of that form stay with it. Here is the basis for health. There is no individual health that you can somehow extract from somewhere and get it for yourself. We either all are healthy because there is a Collective Body which is healthy and we are participating in that Body—then we know the meaning of health—or, as long as that isn’t so, there is nothing we can do to make ourselves individually healthy in any true way. We can perhaps be a little less unhealthy but what it would be to experience the reality of health is an unknown quantity. So we share this opportunity of moving together with life. We have some experience of it.
This which is being created by life is being created all over the earth but it emerges in a conscious way with certain ones who then have the opportunity of consciously staying with life in the expression of spiritual maturity. Here is the resurrection occurring. And the resurrection is not just of Emissaries, so called. The word Emissary is a good word, it points to something that is quite valid and very meaningful, but it is not exclusive: the resurrection of the body—the body of man, of which we are all also a part—the resurrection of the body of man into the experience of the Body of the Son of God. We play our particular parts in this because our concern is with life—the movement of life, the quality, the character, of life. This is our supreme interest. Nothing else can hold a candle to that. When that is supreme to us we begin to live. We begin to move with life, and because of this life is moving in the flesh on earth freely, to achieve what is needful of achievement because of that freedom of movement.
We don’t have to have a philosophy. You know that it isn’t a matter of philosophy. It isn’t a matter of thinking about life. There are all kinds of humanly created structures based in this business of thinking about God and thinking about life and trying to believe what is thought. We have all the major religions of the world and all the sub-classifications of people thinking about all these things, but in fact most of them doing virtually nothing. So that isn’t the way. We don’t need to study any of the religions of the world; we don’t need to study the political systems of the world, or any of the systems that human beings have created on earth—these dead monstrosities into which life is fed generation after generation. Human sacrifice, blood sacrifice! That didn’t disappear in the past somewhere. It is more massive in these days than it has ever been in the past. Everybody goes along with it. Oh yes, it is to be expected that our children will all be fed into the maw of this monster—Moloch!—just to keep it alive or give it the appearance of being alive. It isn’t alive. The only life associated with it is the life which may still linger on in human beings, and it doesn’t linger on very long.
But being associated with the real experience of life because we are willing to move with it, we are not going to fiddle around; we are not going to waste time fussing about all the things that human nature fusses about. If you are fussing about something, then that is human nature, and you don’t need to magnify what it is you are fussing about as though it was something tremendously important. The fact that you are fussing about it is the evidence of your own subjection to human nature. Leave it behind. Keep moving, so that you don’t miss a step and so that you don’t find yourself under the necessity of moving into another staircase.
As I say, this has happened over and over again in smaller ways and in larger ways in this Ministry, and it is a sad experience whenever it happens, for anyone who has any vision and awareness of what was taking place. Foolishness! We can easily let go and keep moving with life, the beauty of life, the glory of life, which brings forth according to whatever is true of its own design. We need to learn to trust it, to trust the Lord, so that we don’t think we have to keep improving upon what life would bring forth if we took our sticky fingers off it and let it move easily and freely to bring forth all things new to the Glory of God.
Regardless of where we are geographically speaking we are all together in life, we are all together in the present moment, we are all together in the Spirit of the Living God. Let us move all together on the staircase that is present with us now, so that we do not have to experience unnecessary sadness. How beautiful life really is when we are willing to let this be revealed in our momentary expression to the Glory of God.
Sometimes silence is spoken of as being pregnant. There is an awareness, surely, in these moments of a fulness characterized in the external sense by silence. But it isn't dead; it is living and vibrant. Mention was made of the invisible this morning, the invisible which is one with the visible but which all too often is ignored because of the activity and noise in the visible realms. [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/awaken-to-oneness.html]
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We might again take note of the mist which went up on the face of the earth. This is the occurrence immediately before 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. Whatever may have been involved in that original creation, we have the present state of affairs. The dust of the ground evidently has already been assembled into the form of man, so that presumably does not need to be done over again. But the mist which went up on the face of the earth, while it may still be present, has not been within the range of human experience for a long time. There has been another state. The first necessity has been to generate this substance within the range of human experience, that the mist might go up upon the face of the earth once more and water the ground.
The distinction in these days to what it was before is that man is already formed but, as we have noted, in a state comparable to coma, a coma state in which he dreams unpleasant dreams. Sometimes the dreams become a little more pleasurable but it's all the unreal state. There is the necessity for re-creation. We have referred to this as restoration, or resurrection. It isn't really a re-forming of man of the dust of the ground. He is already formed but exists in this coma state, dreaming his nightmares the while. We saw the need for awakening, restoration, resurrection, the breathing once again of the breath of life through man's nostrils, or through the facilities that are available for this experience. Man, being formed, is composed of those factors of design within the form which make the breathing of the breath of life possible. Restoration, or resurrection, relates to the living soul experience, a new state.
We have spoken of the present state in terms of a dying soul. If the form is left to its own devices in the coma state it will die, but it may be recalled to life by reason of the breath of life. There are those, you amongst them, who have some awareness of the breath of life, consciousness beginning to return; it is not altogether a state of darkness. There is a natural state of darkness and an unnatural state of darkness. The unnatural state of darkness is this coma state, but there is what might be called divine darkness. Darkness is an essential factor in the creative process. In the beginning darkness was upon the face of the deep. Out of this condition light came. Does that mean to say that when the light came there was no more darkness? The light related to a specific creative process. Where that specific process was not in operation it was dark, and even when it was in operation there was also darkness as a part of the creative process. It was said that light shines in the darkness and the darkness comprehends it not. There is a natural darkness which does not comprehend the light.
We have taken note before that the conscious mind only occupies a rather thin surface layer of the total mind composition. The vast majority of it is subconscious, so called: below the level of consciousness. The conscious mind rightly is the enlightened aspect of the mind, which is capable of seeing and understanding. Do you suppose that each individual is supposed to see and understand everything? If a person were capable of seeing and understanding everything then there would be no need for everybody else, would there? It might be said that the extent, the natural extent, the real extent, of the seeing and the understanding of the individual conscious mind is properly somewhat restricted. It would be appalling if consciously we saw everything. That would drive us crazy. We see enough rightly. We don't need to see everything. There are a few others around who can see the things that we don't see. So the conscious mind of the individual is somewhat restricted in its awareness, rightly so. People fuss a good deal about what they don't know, but let us be thankful for what we do know.
Of the total mind the conscious mind is a very small layer. There is vastly more other than the conscious mind, and that is dark. It is supposed to be dark. Of course nowadays human beings are inclined to try to pry into it. The psychiatrists and psychologists are interested in unearthing things out of this darkness, but there is nothing wrong, really, with the state of darkness. And there is a tendency to stir up a hornets' nest if we become too much involved in exploring the dark alleys, so to speak, with our conscious minds. The conscious mind doesn't belong there. Obviously there is something wrong with thesubconscious minds of human beings, just as there is something wrong with their conscious minds, but this is because of a faulty operation, not because the machinery couldn't work the way it was designed to work. It isn't a matter of trying to cause what is properly dark to become light. That messes things up worse than ever. Let us keep our sticky fingers out of the depths of that pie and be willing to let what God created—without understanding what that means either—be the way it is designed to be without human interference. What does need correcting is the manner of operation of this equipment. It wasn't intended to be in human hands when that human state is unreal.
There shouldn't be any unreal state. The real state is something different. We are becoming somewhat aware of the reality, so that we might feel safer in relinquishing the unreality. The question might be asked, "Is it safe to wake up?" That is the question that seems to be posed to human beings, and they are inclined to say, "No, it's safer to stay asleep." Of course it isn't put that way: "It's safer to hang on to what is known than to open the door to something that is unknown." How interesting!
So there is natural darkness and natural light. I suppose this is symbolized by day and night insofar as this planet is concerned. I don't think any of us particularly wish to get rid of night. Even if you live in the high Arctic you still need to go to bed, even though the sun is above the horizon; sleep is required. Then the conscious light goes out temporarily. The sun rises again in the morning, and there we are. So we need to recognize that there is proper darkness and proper light; but there is also improper darkness, and the improper darkness includes the conscious mind which thinks it sees but doesn't. It simply sees something which is imaginary, unreal, a part of the dream experience.
We all know the difference between what is our state when we are dreaming and what our state is when we wake up. If you are wise you let the dream just simply vanish away. Some people get to trying to analyze dreams, find out the deep, dark significance of them. It is deep and dark and should be left that way. If we actually accept the opportunity to wake up into the state of reality the former things pass away, and no one in the state of reality would be in the least interested in trying to revive the former things or clothe them with some great significance. They had no significance at all, and fundamentally that is true of human dreams. People like to make their experiences seem significant somehow, but in the unreal state none of them are significant. They don't mean anything. I suppose that could be a rather shattering realization if one came to it and remained in the unreal state; then there is no point to anything. Of course there are people who come to this recognition. It's a valid recognition but they don't really understand why it is so and why there is another experience possible then.
So there is light and there is darkness in the true state. The present human experience, the unreal experience, the dream state, is occurring within an already existing body that is to be recalled to life, recalled out of the coma. Within the scope of this body there are those, ourselves perhaps and others, who are beginning to awaken. Consciousness is returning. Just to us? No, to the body of mankind. Do you think that when you wake up in the morning you are totally awake instantly? It may be true that some people wake up a little quicker than others. There are some who claim that they are never awake until after their fifth cup of coffee. Well they're not awake then either! But regardless of the rapidity with which we may seem to awaken there is always a cycle of awakening. It never is instantaneous. Some cells related to the conscious mind are animated first and so the light dawns, the sun rises and conscious experience comes again.
Of course we need to understand that our present experience in the human state may be used as an analogy for what really needs to happen. As long as it's the human state and we are under the necessity of using analogies, we are not yet awake—partially awake perhaps, so that there is sufficient light to observe the analogy. Then we can say to ourselves, "Oh yes, I see," without really seeing yet, because the analogy merely refers to something that is to be experienced and is not the thing itself. But there is an awakening here occurring in the consciousness of mankind at various levels, and this awakening relates to particular people. After all, the consciousness of mankind is the collective consciousness of all the individuals who compose it, and we are amongst those individuals. So as the dawn comes and there is some measure of awakening, there is a new consciousness of breathing the breath of life. If you are asleep you are still breathing but you don't know it. Other people may, who are within hearing distance, particularly if snores arise. But when you awaken, while you may give no particular thought to the matter, you are capable of thinking of the fact that you are breathing. While you are asleep you can't. You may think of yourself as breathing in your dream; that's not the same thing, is it? So breathing in one's dream state, in the human nature condition, may be analogous in some way to breathing the breath of life, but it isn't breathing the breath of life.
Beginning to awaken we sometimes stretch and breathe deeply. Even in the human state it's not a bad idea to do that when you wake up. There begins to be then, as there is awakening to the reality in experience, an awakening to the breathing of the breath of life; and even our individual breathing of air, which is necessary, begins to be seen as the breathing of the breath of life when we are awake to the reality. A person may say, "Well you're just breathing the way you were breathing before." No, not if you are awake to the reality. Then you are breathing in a new way. All that we do is made possible by the fact that we breathe, not only from the standpoint of the oxygen that we take into our lungs but also, as we are aware, from the standpoint of the ingestion, so to speak, of what has been called the negative life essence [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/the-from-steps-uranda-1936-there.html], so that there may be generated within us the essential current that moves over the nervous system, for instance. This also relates to mental activity. You know very well that when you have a head cold you don't think too well. You are not only clogged up in your sinuses but you are clogged up in your mind. There is an inadequate current being generated for essential mental activity. At least this current is one aspect of what is required to permit mental activity. It is the negative aspect. There is another aspect also.
So we may see all this if we begin to live on the basis of the expression of the spirit of God. Because we have awakened to this, our breathing is for a different purpose. Most people just breathe to stay alive and to enable them to do whatever it is they want to do. That's the unreal state. We awaken to a new state, where breathing is not included in our experience for the purpose of enabling us to do whatever we before thought we wanted to do. It is included in our experience now so that we may do what we are here to do, and that's something quite different. Our breathing is required for our thinking; obviously it is required for our physical aliveness; it is required for whatever we may experience in the way of emotion; and it is required for whatever may be possible in the way of spiritual expression. We begin to breathe for a purpose. Purposeful breathing we could call it. Maybe this was the idea back of what has come to be thought of as yoga, at least in the breathing aspect of it. So human nature tries to breathe in some special way, but to what end? Well the mind thinks up something or other that looks spiritual and formulates various ideas which may be included in the human nature paraphernalia. It's all thought of as being great and meaningful. It's all part of human nature still. The awakening doesn't come because the conscious mind gets busy and follows out some technique. If there is a genuine awakening it comes because of the movement and the action of the creative cycle, the creative cycle that is working through what was described as the mist, fine spiritual substance. Therefore our first concern has been to allow the generation of this substance within the scope of our own experience.
We are already here, so we don't need to get the dust of the ground together or have anyone do it. Somebody did it already. All that's been done, but there is the necessity for breathing the breath of life if the living soul is once more to be restored. I'm not speaking of personal, individual restoration. This relates to mankind, and our participation in this process is only meaningful because we are a part of mankind. It is something that is happening by reason of the creative cycle that is moving and comes within the range of the awareness of those who have generated sufficient spiritual substance, sufficient mist out of the earth of their own flesh bodies, to have this awareness, or to begin to have it.
The mind of course gets to questioning: "Well why should some people generate more than others? And why should some people come to this understanding therefore and others don't?" The individual human mind is not supposed to understand everything. Let it stay out of its usual self-active endeavors, because the only way that the substance will be generated, so that whatever understanding is necessary may come, is as the mind occupies its proper position, which is not that of God. So all these inquisitive questions can be flushed down the toilet, because what's going to happen is going to happen. How we will be included in that happening depends very largely on our own choice in the matter, and if we insist upon retaining a busy mind the happening may not be all that constructive in our experience.
This movement, this creative cycle, is moving relative to the conscious mind, which, as we have seen, is rather a thin layer. It is also moving relative to what is below that layer of consciousness, and there is a far vaster field there for it to move in. The majority of what is to be achieved by the movement of this creative cycle, spiritual movement, occurs below the level of the conscious mind. Again, the conscious mind, involved in its old habits, will be inclined to look over its shoulder so to speak, or down into the depths, to try to find out, "Well what's going on down there? Is anything happening down there?" What difference does it make to the conscious mind? What is occurring is occurring, and what the conscious mind thinks about it is not going to make much difference, is it? So why bother! Why not let what is happening happen?
Of course this creative movement is doing something in the depths, and occasionally, by reason of that, something pops up to the level of the conscious mind out of those depths. We might perhaps refer to that as a factor of earthly heredity, which puts in an appearance and we become consciously aware of it. Then there's something for the conscious mind to do, if it wants to do something. But that certainly is not to become subject to what it is that arose to the surface and began not only to involve the thinking processes but also the feeling processes. So there is something that the conscious mind can do: avoid becoming enmeshed in whatever it is that is occurring, refrain from becoming identified with it; just let it occur. If it was occurring deep down enough the conscious mind wouldn't know anything about it. It's only when it begins to come up into this twilight zone, close to the surface, that the conscious mind becomes aware of it. But fundamentally the same thing is required in either case: Let it alone; don't become involved with it. But people are inclined to; they get all involved with these emotional experiences and with their mental activity, and it carries them away into outer darkness once again. They sink down into the coma once more and become a part of the state of unconsciousness. To the extent that our living includes the right control of thought, feeling, speaking and acting, then there is the breathing of the breath of life.
In times past I have suggested that it is or may be helpful, particularly if one has breathing problems, to consider that the exhaling of the breath is the offering of a blessing. We are concerned to offer a blessing. Recently there has been a little elementary chanting done. Now you don't chant, very effectively at least, while you're breathing in! The blessing occurs because you are breathing out, and the accompanying sound, when it is fitting, enriches the blessing that is being breathed out. As has before been noted, people who have difficulty with their breathing usually think of it as difficulty with their breathing in. If they would stop being so concerned about breathing in and simply breathe out a blessing the inward breath would be more or less automatic. But people fight for breath, and it's a battle. Breathe out a blessing. One may deliberately do this. It's something that may be done on many occasions, certainly for instance in the attunement field. There is a blessing even in the very air we breathe out. The plants love it.
So we have an increasing consciousness that everything that finds expression and release through us carries a blessing. When it does, here is the experience of the living soul. [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/prana-from-steps-to-mastership-uranda.html] Man was created to be a blessing. He has been a curse to himself and to everything else. Well the restoration is the restoration of man to be a blessing, and that blessing is available to the extent of the living soul experience. The living soul experience is dependent upon breathing the breath of life. Breathing is an essential pulsation if we are to live, and when it is the breath of life then every thought, every feeling, every word, every act, is a blessing, an outbreathing of a blessing. We don't need to stop blessing our environment when we breathe in. We don't think too much about breathing in and out when we are busy doing whatever it is we are doing. We don't have to stop doing what we're doing in order to breathe in; so the pulsation is there, but the blessing is continuous. We've seen something of this represented in our unified chanting—the sound never goes away, even though all of us are still breathing and from time to time have to take a breath in without sound.
To the extent, then, that we are participating in this awakened state, the state of reality, there is the experience of the oneness of the invisible and the visible, of God and man, and so the breath of life is breathed into the nostrils of mankind by reason of our breathing. As we noted before, it isn't some external God somewhere who is coming to offer this artificial resuscitation. It is a breathing from within the body of mankind. Are we in it? We can't help ourselves, can we? Well when we begin to breathe the breath of life the body of mankind begins to breathe the breath of life, and there is the initiation of the resurrection in a more specific sense. There are those who are awakening and taking responsibility for the awakening. The restoration is to consciousness, real consciousness; not the phony consciousness which human beings have had until now, but real, the awareness of what is real. What is real is present, so it is the awareness of what is present.
Part of that awareness relates to what is spiritually present, what is vibrationally present, what may be thus sensed so that we may touch in feeling what needs to be touched. This is only possible when the heart is pure. The heart which participates in the circulation of the bloodstream or the lifestream in the body is an essential aspect of the mechanism by which the bloodstream is purified. There are various ways by which the bloodstream is purified. One of them relates to the lungs: the breathing, in other words. But the blood must be purified; when it is purified there is a pure heart. When the lifestream is purified the heart is purified. The lifestream is purified by reason of its movement. If it becomes stagnant it gets filled with sludge and pretty soon it quits circulating. So there must be movement, there must be action. What's that? God in action on earth! Jehovah, isn't it?
Movement, action, purification, breathing, steady breathing, a natural pulsation—all this begins to work within the body of mankind, and on this basis the cycle of resurrection occurs. This is rather a different endeavor, if one could call it that, from those undertaken by human nature schemes in the world the way it is. They don't achieve anything in the end, whereas what is undertaken by the action of the spirit of God gets the job done, so that the coma may vanish by reason of the restoration to a state of consciousness of the real world which is already present, the new heaven and the new earth which have always been here but have been unknown to human consciousness in the coma state. So here is the restoration occurring, to the extent that we are willing to participate in the cycle.
The cycle in which we participate is not another cycle from what is happening in the whole body of mankind. It's the same one. It's all one. But we have a certain experience because of a certain level of consciousness restored, which may not be true of other people. The fact that it isn't true of other people is no reason for judgment. Obviously there is a proper field where it is dark. We have taken note of that fact. There is improper darkness and that passes away, but there are those who participate in allowing the proper darkness to be a reality in the experience of the body of mankind. In other words all people do not need to function at the conscious level. It would be an impossible expectation for all people to do this. It's not necessary. There are those who rightly function at the conscious level, and this perhaps may be seen as relating to what we have called the priesthood. But the priesthood is not something separate from the body of mankind. It is an essential part of the body of mankind, the body of mankind which is man in the image of God, one with God. Here is the restoration. Here is our field of creative responsibility.
Praise the Lord! Thankfulness surely fills us this morning as we have this, another special opportunity of being together with one accord in His presence. In the spirit of thankfulness we may find ourselves in agreement with His spirit and with the expression that is to be brought forth by reason of His spirit in this hour. We are here to let His will be done, assuming individual responsibility for this. Seldom has it been true, of those who were gathered together in a particular formation of human beings, that all have been willing to accept their individual responsibility. The wandering of human consciousness, the failure to come to point, has characterized even those who have offered themselves to the Lord for His purposes. Is it so of us this morning? Or is it conceivable that this number of people, each one individually here present this morning, is capable of coming to point and staying there? There is no other reason why anyone should be present. In the spirit of thankfulness then we stand together in agreement with the Lord in spirit. In form you are sitting, but in spirit, standing.
There is a familiar passage that I would read to you, from the 2nd chapter of the Book of Genesis: “But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. 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.”
This has produced a rather strange picture in the imagination of many: probably of a large person assembling some dust, dampening it down perhaps, and forming a little clay figure, and then somehow providing artificial resuscitation so that this figure came alive. Of course there wasn’t anyone around with hands, to get the job done along these lines, and the whole exercise is based in the concept of separation: the Lord God on the one hand, the dust on the other. This ignores the fact, the truth, that heaven and earth are one, that God is not some kind of figure separate from His creation, or His creation separate from Him. Oneness prevails: this is the truth. It might be said, using human language, that creation takes place from within; but then here again other strange concepts are engendered.
Again, using human words, we have taken note of the undimensional and the dimensional, the invisible and the visible, the unmanifest and the manifest. Here are two aspects of one thing: the manifest takes form by reason of the unmanifest; the unmanifest is revealed by reason of what takes form. There is no separation. There are not two separate things: the Creator and the creation. It is only in human consciousness, where the state of human experience is that of separation from himself, that the concept of separation exists. It is unreal. The reality is oneness. If we do not know that in our own experience we proclaim our ignorance, we proclaim the darkness of our state; and even though the light may be present the darkness comprehends it not.
There has been an inclination to see the external things around us from the standpoint of the unreal state, which beholds what is seen as being separate. The person sitting next to you tends to be seen as being separate from you. The world, beyond these walls, seems to be separate from us, within these walls. What has been called the Emissary ministry is looked upon as being separate from the various forms of human composition that exist in the world. Very often the population of the earth seems to be divided in the consciousness of Emissaries as being composed of Emissaries and non-Emissaries, but the fact of the matter is that there is only one composition. This composition not only includes mankind as a whole but everything else as well. If this is so, then the futility of trying to manipulate separate things into a state of oneness may be seen. It is an attempt to do the impossible, because oneness already exists. We cannot make the state of oneness. It is already made. It is already the fact. It is already the truth. It is a matter of knowing the truth for ourselves, individually speaking and all together. When we know the truth the concept of separation previously held vanishes away. It is unreal. Separation never really existed.
Again, we are impressed that the condition in which human beings have been existing is a dream state, just as insubstantial as the dream from which you may awaken in the morning. As the awakening comes, the dream vanishes. As the reality is known, the unreality is found to be nonexistent. We have some understanding of these things but how much experience? How real is reality to us? Or, on the other hand, how real is unreality to us? In the human state unreality seems to be real; consequently, attempting to exist in this unreal state, we must be living a lie. As long as we are living a lie we are excluded from the experience of the truth. This has been the worldwide condition of human experience. The truth has remained unknown except perhaps as an intellectual concept, which is not in fact the truth. The truth is not an intellectual concept. It is what it is, whatever that may be.
So we come this morning once more into position to acknowledge the reality, the truth that is. To the extent that we actually do this the unreal dissolves. While we may still be aware of the dream state in which human beings exist, and in which we ourselves have existed, it is known to be unreal. As long as human beings have existed in this unreal state they have been useless. Most people are not in favor of acknowledging their own uselessness. Hopefully, they anticipate that if they are not useful now, one day they will be; evolution may take care of this. Of course most are un- willing to admit that they are useless now, but it is the fact of the matter to the extent that one is existing in an unreal state. One is not very useful about one’s daily tasks if one is asleep and dreaming, and this is the condition in which human beings are. So there is need for awakening out of sleep, that the dream state may automatically dissolve. Most are inclined to think of the present dream state as some sort of nightmare, which it indeed may be; but usually when human beings become involved in nightmares at night they are quite anxious to wake up. Not so in this nightmare state of unreality in which human beings exist. Very few seem to be anxious to wake up. There is anticipation that somehow the nightmare can be turned into a delightful dream if we work at it hard enough.
If we have seen the necessity for awakening and have undertaken, ourselves, to experience something of this, we become increasingly aware of the necessity as it relates to the whole body of humanity. We become aware of our own responsibility to provide what is necessary to allow for this awakening. It may be that there are those who are in too deep a coma to experience any awakening, but we would not make any assumptions in this regard but offer what is necessary to allow this awakening to be made possible.
We need to see this in perspective. If we ourselves have experienced any measure of awakening to the truth, this certainly didn’t happen because we put our minds to it. What is happening, to bring to pass the awakening within the body of humanity that is now occurring, did not happen because someone, somewhere—the Lord God presumably, whoever that might be—is laying this trip upon the human race. That would imply a state of separation, a state which doesn’t really exist. Anything that is occurring is occurring because of the state of oneness. I mentioned the idea of something happening from within. Whatever word is used to describe what takes place will inevitably produce in human consciousness some misunderstanding, because human consciousness doesn’t know the truth. Human consciousness is still in the dream state. But words may be used as reminders of something that is naturally known when one is awake. So if I use the word within, don’t translate it literally, as the human consciousness is inclined to do, according to its own structured state. If we use the word invisibleit doesn’t merely mean that we can’t see it with our physical eyes; it means that it is not a part of the manifest world, and yet is one with it. There is no separation between the invisible, in this sense, and the visible. They are one. But there would be no visible if it wasn’t for the invisible, and I suppose you could say that the reverse is also true. The whole exists, and the composition of the whole includes invisible and visible, heaven and earth. It is impossible, in actual fact, to separate the two. If it seems as though they are separate, such a view is unreal; and yet it is the view held in human consciousness by all people—the unreal state, the sleeping state, the dream state, crying out, in a way, for awakening.
So the means of awakening is present because of the state of oneness. The invisible is present in the visible. So the opportunity to awaken is actually present, actually working, actually part of the creative operation. It is there, whether human beings know it or not, like it or not, or are in agreement with it or not. Because of this creative movement some awakening is beginning to occur. If we ourselves experience something of this it shouldn’t give us fat heads, because it could well be said that from the human standpoint we didn’t do it. It happened by reason of something humanly unknown, certainly unknown in the unreal state. It is unknown in the unreal state because it is reality. But obviously something is happening in this invisible sense, not only here on earth in this little speck of dust but throughout the whole universe—and who knows what that means?
Human beings have a very limited view of the universe. They postulate certain theoretical understanding on the basis of that view, which is much like the gentlemen who were examining the portions of the elephant, you may recall, and all describing the elephant differently because they couldn’t see the whole creature. They only saw the little part and assumed that because they saw the little part this was evidence of what the whole creature was like. Of course it wasn’t true in that instance and it isn’t true from the standpoint of such observations as human beings make of the very large, as they think of it, or the very small, as they think of it. Nothing is seen accurately, because it is seen from the standpoint of the structured state of separation. After all, the person who is observing is standing over here, and that’s over there. But it isn’t; it’s all one thing, and the observer is not separate from what he is observing. This has been discovered in certain instances, where the very observation alters what is being observed. And, in any case, what is being observed is not understood, altered or not.
Awaken! Emerge from the coma, from the dream state, from the nightmare state, into the real world. People are accustomed to thinking of the real world as being what has been built on the surface of this planet. That’s not the real world at all; that’s a phony state. But there is something moving creatively which is designed to restore the awakening state of consciousness to human beings, who now suffer from the sleeping state of consciousness, or the coma state of consciousness, which doesn’t amount to a row of beans, although it is thought of as being so grand and great. So there is this invisible creative influence, one with the visible, and therefore producing in the visible what has been set in motion from the invisible.
One of the things that has been set in motion is the awakening of human consciousness to the truth. This has been set in motion, whether anyone wants to know the truth or not. Of course it makes a difference from the standpoint of the person concerned, as to whether he is willing to know the truth or not so willing. If he is not willing to know the truth, ultimately there is no state possible, because there is only one state and that is the state of the truth. There is a little interim in human experience because human beings are still alive, in other words associated with the invisible, but in a coma. Their capacity of consciousness is filled with dreams rather than with reality. When these dreams become extreme in nature, people of course are put in institutions; but fundamentally there is no difference, only in degree of craziness. Sometimes those in institutions are inclined to take the attitude that the crazy people are outside, and they are not far wrong either!
So we have an awareness of what may be described as a creative cycle moving in the invisible, which is reflected in various ways by the visible. It is reflected in our own experience by what has occurred in our own states of consciousness. There has been the beginning of an awakening, and we have immediately seen that we have a consequent responsibility in the matter of the continued unfoldment of the awakening process. What is happening is going to happen anyway, whether we are on hand to do anything or not; however if we are on hand and beginning to awaken, then we have a particular responsibility for making the awakening a creative and constructive experience for those others in the world who are in the process of awakening also. We can’t pick and choose. We can’t go around looking into everyone’s eyes, or wherever you would want to look to find this out, and deciding that this person is awakening and that one isn’t. There is no need. The process is at work. We don’t have to do anything about that.
But there are those who will reveal the fact that they are beginning to awaken, and these are the ones who are of primary concern to us if we are to be obedient to the instruction that was given long ago: “Feed my sheep.” Incidentally the instruction was not given: “Starve my goats.” That would indicate separation, wouldn’t it, and judgment, as though we were capable of determining who was a sheep and who was a goat—using these terms to describe those who were willing to awaken and those who were not willing to awaken. It is true that there is what might be called a sorting-out process involved, but in a sense that’s none of our business. “Feed my sheep.” While it may not be so true in the animal world, sheep in this analogous sense eat a different diet to what the goats do. So it may turn out that the goats starve, but not because we deliberately withheld the essential food. If they were willing to awaken and classify themselves as sheep, then there would be plenty of food; and we have a responsibility for providing this food so that the awakening may occur in a controlled way.
It is quite obvious that the world is teetering around these days a good deal; and there is a certain amount of fear, some conscious, some subconscious, that everything is completely going to fall apart. There may be some truth to this, because the unreal certainly is going to prove itself to be unreal. But the reality needs to be on hand in human consciousness. It is on hand in actual fact but hasn’t been on hand in human consciousness. When it is on hand in human consciousness then the state of oneness is known, the truth is known. As it was put, God is not willing that any should perish. He has gone to a lot of trouble, after all, in the creative process, to produce human beings, and He is not going to write them off if He can avoid it.
So there is a creative process involved here, which in a very specific sense was initiated some nineteen centuries ago, and it has been in operation ever since, below the surface, within, invisible. It begins to push out toward the surface now, so that the surface consciousness of some human beings is beginning to awaken. One might call this resurrection, something that is occurring in the overall sense. Some people imagine somehow that God is particular about certain people: “Well I’ll awaken you and you and you, but all the rest, go on slumbering.” No, there is oneness, isn’t there, and while it may prove to be selective in one sense it is not because of anything that is happening from the standpoint of the invisible but merely from the standpoint of the choices which human beings make. They either select themselves or exclude themselves. They are capable of doing that. Thus far it has been exclusion principally, obviously not completely or no one would still exist on earth. So there have been the life signs, so to speak, in the body of humanity; but there has been a state of coma, an unawareness of the real world and only an awareness of the dream world, which is associated with the state of coma.
This creative cycle is working and there are those who are in the process of awakening. I rejoice, and I am sure you do too, that this is happening. It has happened with respect to ourselves, in whatever measure, and we begin to know that it is happening. We begin to be able to see that this invisible creative cycle is at work and is the fundamental cause for everything that is occurring on the surface. The things that occur on the surface occur there by reason of the reaction in human consciousness in the coma state. Of course that doesn't provide a clear reflection of what would be true if human beings were awake and participating in the process; then obviously the results made apparent in the world would be quite different. At the moment that is mere speculation but we can see how it would work that way. We do not know what would be produced. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard” It’s not necessary. The invisible is quite capable, actually, without our help. But there is something we are here to do, related to what is occurring on the surface, in the visible sense, and we have a part to play in this to the extent of our wakefulness. If we try to play the part while we are still asleep it won’t be very effective. There may be the appearance of movement and of action—there are sleepwalkers, after all—but it won’t provide what is really necessary. Awake! Arise! In one sense the alarm is sounding.
As it says here: “But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.” This has been thought of in terms of the need for the garden which was to put in an appearance: there needed to be irrigation; it was dry. But here is a symbolic presentation of something, which may have some literal meaning too. But the literal meaning relates to the truth, doesn’t it? Not to the fantasy, not to the dream. We have a lot of people in the dream state who have been busy trying to interpret the Bible, for instance, and doing it, as they suppose very often, literally—fundamentalists. They say that this that the Bible says is what we should pay attention to. Yes, we should perhaps, but we need to see what is said first.
The mist went up from the face of the earth. We know something about that. We know that there is a generation of spiritual substance from physical substance. Here it is being said in specific words for those who are capable of understanding. If you see only droplets of water arising upon a dry land, then you don’t see very much. But if you see an invisible substance which at the level of mist presumably is somewhat visible—but water vapor in the air is not necessarily visible; there always is some water vapor in it anyway—then we may be able to recognize the spiritual substance that is being described. And it waters the ground; in other words it is the means by which animation occurs physically speaking. It is the connection between the invisible and visible; it relates to the heaven in between. So by reason of a generation of this substance something could begin to happen in the creative process to bring forth man. And it wasn’t someone manipulating the dust of the ground into clay and producing a little human figure, but something from within, something occurring through this mist, the undimensional taking form dimensionally on the basis of the true creative process, the natural creative process which occurs in the state of oneness.
Whatever actually happened, we don’t need to concern ourselves with that back there. We are quite aware of the fact that it happened: we’re here! We don’t need to go back there. What is required is required right here, and what is required now operates on exactly the same basis but there is a different situation. Human flesh is around. The earth is already present in the sense of the flesh body of mankind. Well a mist needs to go up on the face of the earth. There needs to be the generation of the essential spiritual substance, which in turn waters the face of the earth, brings a greater animation. We see this in various ways, mostly destructive; but it is all based in the same creative movement. There is the generation of this substance, and if in our own living we find ourselves associated with this generation we begin to be in agreement with what is happening, and being in agreement we begin to awaken and we begin to see what is happening.
We begin to accept responsibility in the happening, because heaven and earth are one. We are not separate from it. We are not going to stand back somewhere and say, “Well now I am coming in the name of the Lord for all these people out here who are beginning to awaken.” That wasn’t the way it worked in the creation in the first place. The Lord God was not over here and the creation over there. Oneness prevailed and it was by reason of the presence of the Lord God in the invisible sense that something happened visibly, and it happened visibly because there was the connection present—obviously it would be there if there is a state of oneness—to allow for the creative process to work. That connection is described as a mist which went up on the face of the earth.
Now, this is happening; and if we awaken to the happening we find ourselves to that extent one, both with the Lord God and with the happening. In other words it is not happening merely to those miserable people out there who need to be awakened. It’s happening right at home, and the reality of the Lord God only emerges, in fact, to the extent that the happening is known in our own experience. The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground; well this is what He is doing now in the sense of restoring man, or re-creating man, who is not separate from Himself: man, made in the image and likeness of God, as it has been put. That merely describes the state of oneness, that man is not in fact separate from God. He is only seemingly separate from God in his own view in this dream state. Awaken and the truth is known, the truth of oneness. And so, in awakening, the Lord God is then known to be present within His creation, if you want to put it that way, but as an essential element of the creation. Nothing would exist at all but for this fact, and we awaken to this truth in our own experience. Because we so awaken we are associated with the Lord God increasingly in a conscious sense relative to the creative process by which this awakening happens. In other words the process becomes more specific, more direct; and we have a responsibility in this. This is the realm of our integrity.
So we rejoice to associate ourselves with this creative process, in the increasing awareness of the reality, the Lord God and His creation. We are aware of the oneness because it is one in us. It’s the only way we can know it. If we think it is going to be a oneness somehow in the future, well the state of separation still exists insofar as we are concerned and we are of no value. Whatever is useless proves, sooner or later, its uselessness. So we share this immediate awareness of responsibility in the expression of the Lord God in oneness with His creation, which includes our own physical forms, our own minds, our own realms of emotion, our own ability to allow the invisible to be made visible. In this way the fulfilment of the creative purposes of God, by which all things are made new in the realm of human consciousness, comes to pass.
O Lord, Thou who art present always in the midst, we would acknowledge this truth and, being one with Thee, let this invisible truth be made visible in all the ways of our living. Thereby we are filled with thankfulness, filled with joy, filled with an increasing awareness of the creative power of Thy spirit and of the creative processes now occurring in which we may, and necessarily must, in oneness with Thee, play our part. The enfoldment of Thy love extends forth by reason of our presence with Thee on earth, that all who will may awaken to the truth and be restored to life. Aumen.
