Communion of Friendship
a profound influence on heaven
Uranda May 24, 1953
In our most
recent periods of meditation we have recognized certain of the basic factors
concerning friendship; something of what friendship signifies; something of the
opportunity we have that we may be friends to God even as God is a friend to
us. Once the qualities of friendship, the capacities of friendship, begin to
develop in the individual, the relationship so established between God and us
makes possible the divinely ordained position for which man was first created.
God created man in the image and likeness, the same design, the same
principles, the same laws, the same capacities and qualities as are found in
God Himself, to the end that man might be the means by which God could reveal
Himself in action on earth in relationship to the rest of creation.
Man was
supposed to be the connecting link between Creator and creation. Man violated
the basic principles of friendship; he lost the position of being a friend to
God and became the missing link, allowing the appearance of separation between
heaven and earth. In that divine position as the connecting link between
Creator and creation man was, before the violation of friendship, a friend to
God. God has never ceased being man’s friend; and with patience and love and
infinite care He has sought through the generations since that day to
reestablish a pattern on earth by which man might receive the friendship of God
and become a friend to God.
In the pattern
of true friendship there is always, without any exception, to whatever degree
it may be experienced between human beings on earth, a particular quality of
communion. Those who move toward the state of true friendship—which has been in
fact a very rare occurrence—began to experience a state of communion, of
vibrational companionship—which might at times use words for the interchange of
ideas—was not limited to words, for in friendship there is understanding, and
there is a communion of spirit which is unknown to those who have never touched
the true Spirit of friendship; a quality of comprehension of the inner play of
the vibratory field of the One who is counted friend. And this quality of
communion is one of the crowning marks of friendship.
Once we begin
to see that the true state of friendship is the true state of heaven on earth
the idea of the Kingdom of Heaven being at hand does not seem so vague, so
uncertain; once we begin to glimpse the reality of what friendship means, or
what it means to be a friend to God, there is a new vision of heavenly things
made manifest, for we have noted that friends make no demands upon each other.
God is our
friend and he does not make any demands on us. He offers us something; He
invites us to share something, but God makes no demands. We can trust Him. He
is not inclined to take something from us. And we learn, in the pattern of
friendship, to make no demands upon God; for as long as man makes a demand upon
God, whether he thinks it to be in prayer or some other form, he is violating
the principles of friendship essential to the correct relationship with God.
So, as we begin
to comprehend the principles of friendship we make no demands upon God. But we
have recognized in our meditations that where the state of friendship is
established, those who are friends, without making any demands upon each other
at the same time exert a powerful, profound and lasting influence upon each
other. Man, in the limited realm, having failed to know the truth and let the
truth make him free, could well experience this profound influence from God.
But you may
say: “What profound and powerful influence can I exert upon God?” Friendship is
based upon qualities of equality. That is the point! For God first created Man,
male and female, in the image and likeness of God, having qualities of
equality; and it was never God’s intention that man should be in a limited,
dwarfed, subservient or weak position. It was God’s intention that Man should
be made manifest on earth as the image and likeness of God.
There is, in
the limited consciousness of man, a peculiar idea that in what is called heaven
there is a sexless state of things. Angels are supposed to be creatures of
neuter gender. This idea, developed out of ignorance and prejudice, has been
one of the devil’s chief weapons to keep people from drawing near to the throne
of God, for the suggestion of a sexless state suggests to man, whether he
thinks it out or not, that such a state would be a realm without any particular
feeling, without any particular joys of being, without any particular
productiveness; a realm of virtual meaninglessness; and so the self-active mind
of man has maintained a concept that here on earth we could accomplish certain
things, have certain pleasures, be productive in various ways, and creative,
but the moment we get to heaven there will be a static state.
The idea of
sitting on a cloud and plucking a harp, day after day, year after year, century
after century, millennia after millennia: that is the picture of hell!
unmitigated hell; boredom in the 9th
degree! So, by the very nature of the situation we see that this is a lie
about God, that this concept maintains a state of consciousness in man whereby
he is not privileged to know God, or to know the true state of things with
respect to God.
Perfection in
heaven would require right function in the heavenly state, and God is a
creator; God never ceases creating! God is a creator and God could no more stop
creating than you could by holding your breath stop breathing; and there is no
static state in eternity. We are in eternity. We couldn’t get out of it if we
tried to. We are in eternity now; and once we begin to realize with absolute
certainty that our God is a creator, that He is continually creating, and we
are made in the image and likeness of God, then we too have the capacity to let
the creative spirit work through us.
I am talking
about a creative life, so that man begins to reach a point where every thought,
every word, every act is dedicated, under the control of the spirit of God to
creating something lovely, something beautiful, to bringing into manifestation
something that carries a blessing to others, or to the creation as a whole.
Made in the image and likeness of God, it is our business to share the creative
work of God; and God does not need us particularly in some other realm to share
this creative work. God would like to have men and women on earth share the
creative work; right here, to the end that paradise may be restored, to the end
that heaven and earth may be seen as one, which in fact they are. It is only an
appearance that makes it seem to man that they are separated. Heaven and earth
are one already in fact. They have never been anything else.
This quality of
friendship with the Lord was supposed to be on a basis of equality, the
manifestation of God Himself. The very moment any man or woman has the courage
to face the truth, and let the truth make him free, there begins to be a
recognition of the basic truth that man was created to be a means by which God
could reveal Himself, so that man might be God in action on earth. We begin to
see that friendship with God is possible. Friendship requires factors of
equality.
Man has
imagined that God wanted him to grovel in the dust. Man has interpreted
meekness as weakness, humility as a doormat attitude. Humility is necessary,
but only the strong can be humble. Look at a weak person and you will never
find humility. The weak person in the first place does not have the capacity
for humility while he is weak, and in the second place he is afraid to be
humble. He may manufacture an imitation of humility and pass it off as
humility, but it will not be the genuine article. The weak feel that they
cannot afford to be humble. Only the strong ever dare to be humble. Meekness
does not properly suggest weakness. Humility and meekness simply suggest that
man as such has let go of arrogance, wherein he is trying to be superior to
God. He is willing, in his attitude, to accept God on the basis of the divine design,
the qualities of equality.
The point is
that if man were not so insufferably arrogant, if he would begin to be humble
and stop trying to act as if he were superior to God, he would begin to enter
into the pattern of friendship with God and he would begin to have the privilege
of communion with our Friend, our Lord and King. The privilege of communion with our Friend. That communion does not
always require words, although it may utilize words. Communion between friends
is not limited by distance or space. Man imagines that God is far, far away. He
imagines that He could not possibly produce a state wherein there would be true
communion with God.
Some people try
to order God about. I have heard many ministers on the pulpit do what they
called praying, which in actual fact was a presumptuous, blasphemous attitude
in which they were telling God what to do and how he should do it, making all
kinds of demands upon God as if the master-mind of man was necessary to direct
divine activities in heaven in relationship to the earth. Such presumption,
such blasphemous attitudes, cannot be called prayer. And so man has failed to
recognize what true prayer is. Millions of people do what they call praying
when in actual fact it is not prayer, and they wonder why God doesn’t answer
their prayer. The simple point is they never prayed! They only thought they
did. We should begin to learn how to pray; which is to say we should reach a
point of communion with our Friend.
Would it not
exert a profound influence on heaven if heaven were no longer shut up and
denied the opportunity of manifestation on earth? Would it not exert a profound
influence on heaven if we proved to be the friends of God and let heaven, the
atmosphere of friendship—What is heaven? Heaven is the atmosphere of true
friendship—if we let heaven appear on earth. The way is easy. It is the only
easy life available to man on earth. All else is hard.
Until we begin
to let the friendship of God have meaning in our lives here on earth, so that
we can let our friendship for God have meaning in heaven, and refuse to let God
and the things of God out of heaven into the earth, we cannot possibly know
fulfillment. We stop trying to do the impossible and accept the simple, easy task
that God has offered to us—the simple process of working with the positive laws
of being, the simple process of changing from dying existence to living
fulfillment, the simple process of changing from the paths of defeat to the
realm of victory—simply accepting the invitation to be on earth the friends of
God, that we may stop believing so many lies about God, stop having false
attitudes toward God, and begin to be the friends of God.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
