The Positive and Negative Aspects of Identity

The  Positive  and  Negative  Aspects  of  Identity

Martin Exeter   July 8, 1984

The immediate circumstance is the one we have—when our thought does come to focus here, then the action of spirit may open up something new and fresh. We speak glibly of the current of the spirit but it is very real and always present. We have at times, I’m sure, been inclined to let it slide by, unassociated with it. If we do that too much and too often we’ll find ourselves forced into a comer, which says in effect: Come to focus and allow some real thinking to occur, to occur in the assumption of the particular responsibility that is waiting to be assumed by you. And whatever responsibilities you may have now, or think you have, I’m sure it would be safe to say that “they ain’t the half of it!” There is something far greater, far more.

I think when we speak of oneness, very often the concept of the blob appears in consciousness, where everything loses identity. Oh yes, there's one great big identity, but all the little ones somehow or other got lost in the shuffle. We are quite aware that we are responsible for the unique differentiation of the one spirit, which immediately refutes the concept of the blob. We have a certain awareness of the necessity of the positive and negative aspects of identity. The positive and negative are active in what has humanly been described as the atom. There is considerable differentiation in this field. There are an abundance of elements, and then combinations of elements, combinations of atoms composing molecules, molecular structures built into cells, and so on—seemingly a very complex business but giving evidence of a certain design. Things work in a certain way. That way would never put in an appearance at all if it weren’t for the factors of positive and negative.

We have recently been talking about primary identity and secondary identity. Secondary identity has taken over in human experience to the exclusion of primary identity, at least insofar as any awareness is concerned. This emphasizes the matter of balance, amongst other things, because it’s not supposed to be all secondary identity, nor all primary identity. Perhaps when we have looked at secondary identity as exemplified by human nature, then that needs to pass away. But if we think of these things in terms of positive and negative—the primary identity positive, and this could be called a heavenly identity presumably; and the earthly identity negative—here are two aspects of one identity, both essential.

Nothing can ever be brought to focus without the active presence of positive and negative. We can see this in many different ways, but we can see it from the standpoint of the aspect of heavenly identity and the aspect of earthly identity. Heavenly identity in heaven wouldn’t be of much value on earth. It is by reason of the fact of the aspect of earthly identity that heavenly identity has value on earth. There are these two aspects of identity and they are not supposed to obliterate each other.

There has been a tendency for human beings to drift toward a neutral state. We have this word “unisex” these days, as though everybody becomes the same and you can't tell the difference really. Well I doubt if it would ever get quite that far. But certainly from the standpoint of the appearance of things it seems that the blob is appearing—a state of nothing. The state of nothing is the state where positive and negative are not active. Very often the idea of oneness brings a picture of two aspects so fusing together that there is only one aspect. But if there is only one aspect, that’s nothing. The something only comes because there are two aspects, because the positive and negative are present. We have male and female in this regard too. Very often it is felt that what really is necessary is for male and female to so get together, so press up against each other, that ultimately they'll just fuse; and then supposedly you just have one person. No, you just have nothing! because nothing is the state where positive and negative are not active. So it isn’t that; oneness isn’t that.

Oneness requires the various aspects which compose the design. There is just one design, but it isn’t a blob—it is really rather a complex design, very interesting. It works the way it does, whether human beings understand it or not. But we can recognize that our experience of unique individuality is based in the fact that positive and negative are active. We see this, individually speaking, because there is a heavenly aspect of identity and an earthly aspect of identity, and we are no longer interested presumably in trying to obliterate the heavenly aspect of identity by making such a big fat earthly aspect of identity; that’s called the human ego. If we really succeed in that we’re dead, we’re nothing, because the positive heavenly aspect has been obliterated from the unified experience.

The unified experience is illustrated by the concept of the atom. It is one thing, but it has a composition—the simplest one, perhaps the hydrogen atom: one proton, one electron—but even in the simplest design the positive and negative are active; otherwise there would be nothing. So we are concerned that this should continue to be so. We may recognize that there is positive space and negative space. We can see this from the standpoint of male and female. A male has certain space which he rightly occupies and the female likewise. Now there is a design in relationship to that space. It isn't as though anybody has the right to invade somebody else’s space. We need to recognize that there is a design and there are certain ways in which the design works.

The working of the living design is controlled—it isn’t haphazard. In examining into such things those who do this sort of work come up with various theories as to why things work the way they work, and perhaps they postulate certain laws which are supposedly controlling the way things work—but it is a lot of theoretical nonsense which excludes the experience that is available for human beings by which they might participate individually in this matter of the positive and the negative, first of all with respect to oneself.

There is the positive heavenly aspect of identity and the negative earthly aspect of identity. If we begin to look at it this way we do not need to assume that the negative earthly aspect of identity is human nature. It has only become human nature because that negative earthly aspect has tried to obliterate the positive heavenly aspect. This is exactly what human beings have done. They have become lopsided, grotesque creatures, unbalanced creatures, irrational creatures consequently. And certainly I doubt if anyone could question the fact that we live in a very irrational world. Why is that? Did someone come from outer space and make it an irrational world? Was it bequeathed to us by an irrational God? No, irrational human beings made it that way and keep it that way. All right, we are interested in letting that pass away. We don’t wish that it should pass away leaving nothing, but rather leaving the activated positive and negative.

The first requirement is, as individuals, to allow a balance to come between the positive heavenly aspect of identity and the negative earthly aspect of identity. If a balance comes individually then there may be a natural unfoldment where there is a balancing out between those who are individually balanced. We have the peculiar spectacle of imbalanced, irrational human beings trying to balance themselves out amongst themselves, as though two irrational people would make one rational person. It doesn’t work that way. Unless there is balance in the individual, how could it be expected that there would be balance between individuals? People rush helter-skelter into peculiar and irrational designs of relationship. We are concerned with the restoration of balance, so that there is proper positive space and proper negative space related to each other. Nobody can figure out what that relationship is mentally. Nobody can make it happen on the basis of human emotion. These things are brought to pass by reason of spirit.

In order that there may be a focus of spirit so that it becomes intelligible, there is the need for what we have called a lens. There is a positive and negative aspect to the lens. Only because this is so can spirit be brought to focus in rational experience. This is why the importance of balance is emphasized. If one aspect excludes the other aspect there can’t be balance.

We ourselves have a certain experience of the awakening of the heavenly aspect of identity. We are still very much tarred with the brush of the earthly aspect of identity, so that this looms very large and seems to be the most important part of the experience of identity. Most people are a little reluctant to begin to relinquish their grasp on this aspect of identity for fear that if they did so they would become nothing. But the fact of the matter is they become nothing by hanging onto the earthly negative aspect of identity, so that that becomes all there is. When it becomes all there is in the experience of the person, that is nothing—all experience, all life, is dependent upon the two aspects—positive and negative. They must be there.

We have seen the positive and negative aspects as it relates to spirit: love and truth. Love and truth establish what is illustrated by the lens, and the focus which appears is life. We have some recognition of how this has unfolded within the range of our own experience. The One called Jesus is recognized as bringing to focus the spirit of love. We have had the opportunity of recognizing that the one called Uranda brought to focus the spirit of truth. Here is the lens which allowed the focus of spirit, the focus of the Father, to appear: the spirit of life. Here is the focus with which we are directly concerned—I have a particular part to play in that regard. That is the point of focus, but the point of focus would not be there at all if it were not for the lens. And the lens relates to the spirit of love and the spirit of truth, not just from the standpoint of certain individuals, in this case Jesus and Uranda, but from the standpoint of each individual.

It is love and truth which permit a lens to be a reality by reason of the presence of a person on earth. We are very much aware that the spirit of love and the spirit of truth in human experience have been very roughly handled, very largely excluded. We have a great deal of hate, a great deal of resentment, a great deal of fear, rather than love; and we have lies and falsehood rather than truth. That’s a pretty rough lens. And what does it bring to focus, do you suppose? What is called death, rather than life. The exclusion of love and truth dissolves the lens which would bring to focus life. The exclusion of love and truth causes the experience of the lack of love and truth, which I have described with certain words, and so, fundamentally, nothing is brought to focus—nothing, we call death.

We share the particular opportunity of letting these two aspects of spirit form the basis of our character, the basis of the lens which we are, so that, individually speaking, life may be brought to focus. The fact of the matter is that we cannot function merely as isolated individuals. The very moment that love and truth begin to characterize one’s own experience in living, one finds that one is related in a design. This is the way that this living form of the messiah has begun to put in an appearance. It is always true that if any are bound none are free. Here we are moving in a creative cycle which is absolute. When none are bound, all are free. The creative cycle of course dissolves what has maintained the isolated state in which human beings exist for a few short years.

Once again there begins to emerge the real body to give focus to spirit, which may be called the Son of Man—that’s the earthly aspect of identity—in balance with the Son of God, which is the heavenly aspect of identity. And the word Son is used because of the use of the word Father: whatever it is of spirit which fathers the Son, the Son who has these two aspects of identity. As this occurs there is life. “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” But it works according to the real design of things. It doesn’t work when human beings ignore that and try to maintain a condition pleasing to themselves—in the final analysis it never really is.

In the development of this body it has been within a certain setting—there are many aspects to that setting—wherever the body is beginning to emerge. There are many things in those settings, useful things when right use is made of those things by the focus of spirit in expression through the emergent body. We cannot rightly lay claim to any of those things, humanly speaking. If we do we are thieves. We have noted before that the world is a den of thieves because all human beings everywhere have done this: tried to possess for themselves the things that are in the setting where the body of spirit should live.

There is the human view, isn’t there, that we have a right—to a certain amount anyway—of the things that are present in the setting. But it is there in order to provide a facility for the development of the body, and for the active function of the body: the right use of what is present in that setting. And who is it that can make right use of that? Certainly not the earthly aspect of identity all on its own, which is what has been undertaken by human beings everywhere and still is maintained as a right from the standpoint of those who are beginning to allow this body to take form.

We come again to an awareness that the positive and the negative must be active in balance. The action of the positive aspect, where the action originates, has meaning because of the presence of the negative aspect, which allows that action to occur. And there is no distraction. There are no thieves aboard. It is a house of prayer. The body which takes form is a house of prayer. It is filled with the spirit of the Father, revealed through the two aspects of identity unified—heavenly and earthly. They are distinct in their fields of operation but they are one in the operation. It is one operation, and we share that operation as we relinquish the role of thieves in favor of a state of prayer. It rests in this fundamental factor of the positive and the negative—they must both be present and in balance. And we have the opportunity of participating in the process by which this happens, so that we may be balanced rational people.

© emissaries of divine light