The Two Crossover Points

The  Two  Crossover  Points — Spiritual  Government

Martin Exeter   April 28, 1980   Assembly

From the human standpoint government tends to be seen in terms of form. From our standpoint, of course, we see it in terms of spirit. The control that should be operative in the world of true man is that of spirit. And so, at every level of the living experience, individually and collectively, spirit is supreme.

Some consideration was given this morning to certain areas of form: sports, science, the New Age movement. This was done most effectively and with finesse, providing an emphasis on spirit relative to these particular forms. Spiritual values were prominent in the consideration. In almost any form presently observable in the world as we know it, certain spiritual values can be found. We may be a little selective of these forms, considering those where the spiritual values are most obvious. There is a vast field of form to examine. Three aspects were brought to point this morning—many others might have been—and the three that were brought to point could be broken down, so to speak, in a vast array of subheadings. It is useful to take a look at these forms, particularly if it reminds us of where the real values are, which is in spirit. 

Now in any field of form, these spiritual values are there because of people. The form itself does not provide us with very much, but always there are people associated with them. As was emphasized this morning, there are various qualities that are exemplified by people associated with these different forms. In a sense, I suppose it could be said that it is plainest where the physical approach is paramount; the mind hasn’t gotten in there so much to distort it. Of course it is doing its best to get in there, particularly in the form of politics relative to amateur sport, the Olympic Games being in focus now. Science of course, where the intellect is very active, finds a proliferation of detail, such a state that it covers up ever increasingly the simplicity of the truth. A point that was made was that when man, human beings, try to cast themselves simply in the role of an observer, they immediately create for themselves an imaginary state, because the fact of the matter is that human beings are more than observers. They are a part of what it is that they are attempting to observe, while at the same time proposing to exclude themselves from what it is they are observing. So they cannot see the truth, certainly, because the truth would include the person who is observing it, or observing such facts as he is able to lay his finger on.

I think this is plainly illustrated by what happens when there are a group of human beings together doing something or other, considering something perhaps—maybe a board meeting—and I enter the room. I have always had difficulty in this regard, because I can never observe what goes on without me being present. The very moment I put in an appearance the whole situation changes. Well, of course it does this in any group of people when anyone shows up; it changes in some fashion. It’s somewhat different when I show up, because those concerned had, to whatever extent, forgotten the spirit which I bring when I show up. If there had been a complete acknowledgment and acceptance and expression of that spirit in what was going on, then it wouldn’t really change anything very much, would it? It would just go on the same way.

So if there seems to be some sort of a rather remarkable change occurring, it is a dead giveaway that the spirit had not been there the way it should have been before and now everybody is smartening up. Of course, it may be that they are putting on their fronts too, so as to impress me. But we cannot observe anything without changing it. Observation has a tendency to lead into judgment. It can be seen, surely, very clearly that it leads into false judgment every time. The endeavor to cast oneself simply as an observer and then judge what is seen is leaving a factor out of what it is he is observing—himself—so that any judgments that occur will be on the basis of inadequate input. It will be false judgment; it inevitably must be. People try to stand back and to be unbiased, but they are taking an essential element out of the picture when they do that.

We need to stand at a level where we are not a part of the manifest picture. And I don’t know any other level where one could stand but at the crossover point between the dimensional and the undimensional. That was indicated as being a point with position but no magnitude. There is no magnitude there, so there is nothing to distort the picture. And that point, of course, is at the high point of spiritual substance in the dimensional world, the point of connection between the dimensional world and the undimensional world. Observation can be made from that point which will include an accurate perspective. Spirit is not excluded, God is not excluded. Obviously, if God was excluded there would not be anything, there would not be anything to observe. So there is an awareness of more than the field of observation, and that “more” is essential to the field of observation; it would not exist without it. So the only place we could observe with accuracy is this point which has position but no magnitude. The position will determine what it is we are able to observe. The fact of no magnitude indicates that we are not in the realm of form where the observation is being made. We stand at the point of the I—maybe just the dot of the i—being in this position, we recognize it as a crossover point. Something is crossing over. In other words there is an influence relative to what we are observing, just because of this; but we are aware of that influence as a part of our observation. Now I suppose we could designate this crossover point as the true point of government. Government, as we well understand, is not in position. Government operates on the basis of the Law. And we would not violate that operation when we are present where we belong, at this crossover point. In one sense, I suppose you could say the Law is back of us and in front of us. There are the positive and negative aspects here, in actual operation, and as individuals at that crossover point the operation occurs totally within our jurisdiction.

So government is natural, because we let the Law work. I think government in the human world is unimaginable except on the basis of imposition. Of course it may be, as some have the view, that there should be as little government as possible, in other words as little imposition as possible. But if imposition vanished altogether, in the human sense government would vanish altogether. We see government emerging on a different basis, on the basis of spirit, and the fact that there is the means present by which spirit and form are unified. And the form that comes into evidence then is simply the effect, or the result, the reflection, of what first occurs in spirit in the sense of the undimensional realm. I suppose you could call this a model. It is a model in the human mind. Therefore be careful, when you are considering these models, that you do not try to make them into the thing itself, because, as was suggested, this simply proliferates complications. And because man was created in the image and likeness of God, he participates in creation, and he finds himself creating things necessary to his own concepts, which are then confirmed. But they are simply his own creation at the level of the model, not at the level of the reality. And I think it is true that the Creator uses this method of scrambling the language, the languages of human beings, when they try to build the Tower of Babel. Invariably they must move off into a realm of fancy, and they become enamored with their models and forget the reality altogether. And the model, in any case, can only provide a potential of understanding of a very limited area, because, particularly in scientific models, most of the information is being excluded.

Now we only have the whole encompassment at this crossover point between the dimensional and the undimensional. There is another crossover point, because the dimensional reflects within itself the larger picture. As was noted, there is always a larger picture in which whatever one is considering is contained, and this leads into a realm of incomprehension insofar as the human mind is concerned. How could it go on forever? And if it does, how could the human mind possibly encompass it? Well, of course, the answer to that is that it couldn’t. So why try? The more it tries to fit into its thimble, the more distorted the picture becomes. The mind has the capacity to handle vastly more than it now handles perhaps, but only what is present within the true realm of immediate responsibility. It can do that. If it trespasses beyond those bounds it gets into trouble, and its main activity so far has been trespassing. “Forgive us our trespasses.” The human mind has not reached the point of recognizing even the need for forgiveness in this field, let alone asking for it. But there is a very specific application of this statement in the Lord’s Prayer to this particular field. The human mind is always trespassing. Those of us who are gathered in this Assembly must have a recognition of the need for forgiveness personally in this area, even though we might look out into the human world and see people everywhere who we imagine need it more than us. Well, that is their business. But we need it. “Forgive us our trespasses,” because we stop trespassing. That seems unbelievable to human beings, that forgiveness would mean that one really did not function on the old basis at all. Forgiveness, in the human view, is usually just a way station, isn’t it, until the next trespass.

So we have this smaller pattern within the larger pattern, where there is another crossover point between what we call the dimensional heaven and the dimensional earth. Now these two crossover points—one between the undimensional and the dimensional, one between the dimensional heaven, the invisible heaven, and the dimensional or visible earth—are really one. As a model, I have cut some triangles out of a piece of paper and then folded them together, and you find that the points of the apex fit exactly, one behind the other. So we have an actual living process here, something emerging into manifest form, which in turn emerges beyond whatever that manifest form is to other forms, and beyond, and beyond. But there is a returning cycle, which raises up that in which this creative process has been at work, and there is what we have referred to as ascension--something coming back, something rising up out of the earth through that crossover point into heaven, and out of heaven through the higher crossover point into God. And we don’t need to trespass beyond this. We may have an awareness of the fact that it is an oversimplification to just use the word “God,” but that is about all that is necessary for the untrespassing human mind. But we ourselves find ourselves at a point of observation and action, as well as response, when we are restored to ourselves. That experience comes at the crossover point between the dimensional and the undimensional. I suppose you could call that point, if you want to give it a name, the Son of God, and the point between the heaven and the earth the son of Man. Man is at the high point of the earth, God is at the high point of the heaven; but they are one. There is a differentiation, a creative movement, the reality of life.

Now, in observing these various forms where human beings are contained presently, as was done this morning, we may see that there is always a tendency for human beings to congeal and become the forms. This has happened, of course, throughout human history, and is obvious enough in the world now, even though some of these congealed forms have become finally so brittle that they do not hold together anymore too well. One can see various stages of crystallization here, which is the downward movement. Something starts off by being fairly fluid or even gaseous, and then it becomes fluid, and then it becomes solid. But eventually the crystallized structure does not have any cohesiveness left and it breaks down into component crystals. In observing these forms, we are not overly concerned with what it is that tends to produce this congealing. We know that it is there in the forms. We are interested in the people, and is it more important that they should be in one form than another? They are still people regardless of the form that they are in, and this is the thing that is important to us. We see these New Age communities. The people come into them and tend to become so accustomed to that particular form that they lose the sensitivity which was present to bring them into that form in the first place. Now we have seen this happening within the range of our own program.

There is always this tendency to congeal Emissary-wise, and when that is done the sensitivity to spiritual things begins to atrophy. There is a danger to the view—which may be a true view, actually—that when one has touched the Emissary ministry one is home. That is both true and untrue. It depends on what is seen as being the home. As most people are primarily polarized in forms, there is the tendency to see the form as being the home. And if this is done, then of course the following steps of solidifying occur, and everything becomes crystalline and eventually disintegrates. The disintegration that is taking place in the world of form now, all around us, we see as being necessary, as being good. “It needs to happen, because it frees up the substance,” we say. But how about the forms into which we ourselves have crystallized? When there is a recognition that these should be liquefied (perhaps there is a difference between being liquefied and liquidated!) then the resistance appears and an attitude of horror may be assumed. These holy forms are being called in question. Well, any form is only holy just so long as it is capable of accommodating spirit, because the form of itself isn’t anything.

As we have already noted, with respect to all these various forms, it is the people who are present in the forms, the living people, who are important; and it really makes very little difference to us, properly, as to what the nature of the form is in which these people find themselves. Of course, I suppose, one could see distinctions here that would cause us to pay more attention to some forms than others. Mention was made of the Mafia, for instance, the family and that area this morning. But I don’t think a particularly judgmental attitude was taken, because obviously, there are human beings even in that camp, and many of them have a deep sense of loyalty, for instance. They sometimes have loyalty, as was emphasized, laced with a little fear, and if they were not loyal something drastic might happen. But I don’t know that that is too different from most forms in which human beings find themselves, the job form, for instance. So the important aspects are the spiritual values, and there would not be any spiritual values there, with which we would be particularly be concerned, if it was not for the people. Obviously, there are spiritual values in the animal kingdom, and the kingdom of vegetation and the mineral kingdom, but our immediate concern of government relates to the human kingdom, because here is the place of government relating to all the other kingdoms. We cannot provide right government in these other kingdoms until it is first a fact in the human kingdom. So here is the first order of business. But the values, the spiritual values, are present because of people. And because people are in these various forms we accept them the way they are, both as individuals and relative to the forms. We don’t imagine that we cannot accept a person until he comes out of some particular form, because if we take that attitude, then we are saying at the same time, “We cannot accept you while you are in that form, but we will accept you while you are in this form.” Well, we are not shuffling people from one form to another. We are offering the opportunity of freedom, freedom from subjection to forms. We cannot be free from subjection to forms unless we are free in the spirit.

You cannot just be free from subjection to forms without being dead. There must be something there with which you may be unified on the right basis, according to the true working of the Law. Because even when people are subject to forms, as they are, this happens by reason of the working of the Law. One might say it is reversed application, but it is still the working of the Law. And human beings find themselves in oneness with forms, and the only way that this state of oneness with forms on the wrong basis, on the wrong basis of the working of the Law, can be dissolved is through death. So death is a very necessary ingredient of the picture, as long as there is this reverse application of the Law. But it would be entirely unnecessary when the Law is allowed to operate the way it should. We learn to accept things as they are. So we accept people the way they are. And if they are associated with this form or that form, that does not have all that much significance to us. The people are there, and within the people there are qualities, inherent qualities of spiritual value, spiritual character. This is true of everyone, as long as life remains. The extent of such qualities, of course, varies from person to person.

So we wish to provide the substance of connection, in which the spirit of God may work. It is the substance of connection upward for those concerned, for those who are open to be influenced by it. It is an uplifting experience that begins to bring a person into alignment with the cycles of ascension. And this happens to the extent that there is a focus point established between, first of all, between the undimensional and the dimensional worlds, and then beyond that again into the realm of form, of earthly form, by reason of that crossover point, that connection between heaven and earth. This is our responsibility. And in either case, whichever point we look at, it’s a point. It has position but no magnitude, and consequently we could not fit anyone else into it. So we are not trying to get anyone into anything. But we may share collectively in providing a crossover point. This is our business here in the Assembly presumably, with this particular configuration. There should be a unified point capable not only of generating the essential fine substance, so that it is available, but of letting it connect up with such substance as may be present in other people, wherever they are. As this connecting-up takes place in a more particular sense, we become aware of what it is that is happening in a more specific way. That is what was undertaken this morning in looking at these three areas of form and acknowledging that there are people, and spiritual values consequently, present within the range of these forms.

Now the substance that we provide as connection, we see it as connection; but those who are being connected don’t. They don’t know what it is that is happening, even though they have experiences of the happening. But they are not in position to say, “This is happening because of that.” Mind you, when the happenings become more outstanding, so that they cannot sweep them under the carpet of usual daily experience, then something may come more specifically into the picture with which they are inclined to identify the happening. The Emissaries have been used in this way by most who found themselves associated. Their experience became sufficiently specific to say, “Well, this is happening because of the Emissaries of Divine Light.” Well, that’s all right for the moment. But if that view is held too long one is merely associated with a concept of one’s own mind. And again, the connection with spirit begins to fade, the sensitivity begins to fade, the congealing goes into effect, the crystallization takes place, and it all falls apart. If one is doing that as a person, well, one just falls apart oneself. So we see the essential nature of this connecting substance—which is the substance of life itself—as the opportunity for people of quality everywhere to find themselves associated in an increasingly conscious way with life, with the reality of life. The various ideas that may be in their minds are not of all that much importance, any more than the ideas that were in our minds were of all that much importance. We thought they were important, mind you, and we doubtless tried to lay them on other people; but they were not all that important to us, let alone to anybody else.

In order to keep human beings from congealing too much in whatever forms they may find themselves, we are aware of the value of water. Water—pure water, mind you, the symbol of truth—is what was poured over Elijah’s sacrifice, you may recall, so that everything was sodden; it was quite soft, capable of yielding. And so truth is a vital element here, an element that is present in our own consciousness. At least it must be there if we are to pour the water over the sacrifice. And we stand at the point of observation, knowing that our presence provides an ingredient into the situation that was not there before. And that ingredient includes our own view and understanding of what it is that is taking place. Our own view, for instance, of the farm was mentioned this morning as a somewhat congealed collection of people who had sufficient sensitivity to rise up above what they were experiencing before, and they find themselves in this particular form. Now, our view of that form is very important, as our view of any other forms is important; because this is the way that the water is poured over the sacrifice. This is not requiring anything of anyone else; it is just our own view, our own understanding of the situation. In times past all too many Emissaries had rather crystallized views—in other words they had congealed to that extent—and they looked at other gatherings of human beings through this congealed vision and consequently entered into judgment in the matter: “They haven’t congealed the way they should have congealed.” But the point is that they should not have congealed, if they have, and neither should we. And we are not seeking to congeal people but to free them up, to let them be in a more malleable condition.

And the first force, as I recall, was water. And the water is the truth of our own outlook, of our own awareness of what the situation really is. And we are not concerned about the form except as it may be a factor which is producing some congealing of the people. But we see the people from the standpoint of their qualities of spirit, from the standpoint of the spiritual values that are present there, regardless of what level of congealing may have occurred. And our attitude is one of blessing, because those inherent qualities that are present are to be activated by the action of spirit moving through the creative cycle, which is associated with these people by reason of the substance of connection. This is all occurring at a level of which the human mind has had no awareness—thankfully, because wherever the human mind gets an awareness it always interferes, it always trespasses, or tries to. So we do not see these things in order that we can explain them to other people. The reason I am talking about them now with you is not to explain them to you but so that we may all together participate in pouring a few barrels of water over these various groupings which come within the range of our consideration, which are brought to us in one way or another. Well, these three areas were brought to us this morning: sports, science, and the New Age.

So I am sure that we are all much more aware now of the possibilities in these areas from the spiritual standpoint, and we do not just write them off, as all too many Emissaries have tended to do and said, “Well that form is no good. That congealing condition is no good.” Well, it isn’t much use, that’s true; but there are people there, and we are not writing off the people. And the only way we can sustain a right connection, on the basis of the true working of the Law with those people, is by reason of the fact that we have the connecting substance. And by the way, the substance is the substance of connection in this instance, and not the substance of judgment. So we let it simply be what it is, and we find ourselves associated with these people to the extent that we ourselves are representatives of the spiritual values that are present in them. And the connection is a real connection, because there is the substance here; it is not anymore just a delightful imagination.

Now this has led into the matter of government more specifically, because you can see how, with the working of the Law and the creative cycle and in the movement of spirit, what rightly can be done is caused to happen. And we do not have to go rushing frantically around the world, here, there and everywhere, trying to preach the gospel according to some human concept. We preach it in this way. We preach it by reason of our own living primarily, because we are then representing those spiritual qualities that are present in people in every formation, wherever they may be around the world. But as I say, as we let this happen in ourselves these things are brought to us. Certain things are brought to this Assembly, for instance. We do not imagine that everything is going to be brought to this Assembly, but there will be those things which are ripe at this point, in relationship to all of us and with respect to all those people out there who are concerned with whatever it is that is brought to us. We let it happen. We do not have to go picking through the garbage, so to speak. What is capable of being brought to us will be brought to us as the substance of connection is there.

And so we share increasingly in the reality of spiritual government.

Martin: A very great deal of my ministry has been concerned with this matter of preventing congealing getting out of hand, because we all move together, and if Emissaries begin to congeal, I am not exempt from what is happening. Of course it is useful to become aware of the fact that there is a congealing going on, because then I know something really needs to be done about it. And consequently I have been under the necessity of doing various things to—well, pouring more water on the scene, and in various ways providing what I was able to let things be loosened up. So we all need to be aware of this necessity, because those who are with us more closely as individuals will have the same tendency as everybody else to congeal. And if we go along with it, we are sunk in the molasses.

© Emissaries of Divine Light