The  Priesthood  Is  The  Veil

from   The Priesthood and the Veil

Martin Cecil   January 26, 1975

Deep reverence, a deep respect, a deep and humble love—

all these things are part of the experience of coming into the Holy Place.

When we come together for our services we should have a keen awareness that we are gathered in the holy place, in the sense of the very room itself; otherwise each time we have to build again the consciousness of the truth of the matter, and that always takes time. So I remind you this morning that we are gathered in the holy place. 

The holy place is holy because it adjoins the Holy of Holies. Between the two, in the symbolical representation of the tabernacle or the temple of old, there was the veil. One side of the veil is a part of the holy place; in fact it constitutes one wall of the holy place. On the earthly side of the veil is contained what we may well describe as the earthly dimensions. We are familiar with these: the dimensions of the physical world, the dimensions of the mental world, and the dimensions of the world of spiritual expression. Here are the earthly dimensions—half of the veil is a part of the earthly dimensions—visible from the earthly side of the veil. 

The veil has been a veil of separation between the heavenly dimensions and the earthly dimensions. What is the other side of the veil from the earthly side is also part of the dimensional world. There are the heavenly dimensions—obscure to those who identify themselves in the material realm of the earthly dimensions—but the heavenly dimensions are present nevertheless. We are not concerned with any more earthly dimensions than those of which we are now aware. Our concern is with an awareness of the heavenly dimensions. This requires that the veil become transparent, not that it should be removed. 

There is, rightly, the connecting link of the veil, which itself constitutes a realm of dimension. When it becomes transparent to us, what is of the heavenly dimensions is found to be present in our consciousness. We note how this is so from the standpoint of observation through a window. We're not out there with whatever it is that is being observed. What is out there is actually present in our own consciousness. Insofar as we are concerned, that is the only place it is. The same principle holds true with respect to the realm of heavenly dimension. We don't need to get through the veil or out the window, so to speak; we stay where we belong, but what is the other side of the veil is included in our capacity of consciousness. This is so when the veil is transparent to us and no longer opaque. 

The visible side of the veil is a part of the holy place; the invisible side is a part of the Holy of Holies; so again we see the means of connection here. You remember the statement made a number of times in the Bible with respect to the time, times, and half a time—three and a half. Three and a half would bring us to the center of the veil. There is half of the veil in the holy place and there is half of the veil in the Holy of Holies: half of the veil related to the earthly triune world, and half of the veil related to the heavenly triune world. In this fashion a connection is made between the two. 

The priesthood properly serve in the holy place, and rightly they are symbolized by the veil. The priesthood are visible. If they are the true priesthood they connect heaven and earth; they connect the heavenly dimensions with the earthly dimensions. They may be seen and heard by those who are present on the earthly side of the veil, but if they are the true priesthood they are more than what can be seen and heard. 

In this setting I can be seen as representing the priesthood to you, and as you look at me I am seen as being a part of the veil. In this particular setting I bring something specifically to focus in this regard. You see me sitting here, a physical form, obviously with some sort of mental capacity, and to the extent of your response you have an awareness of some spiritual expression. So, representing the priesthood in this setting to you, all of this is to a certain extent visible, perceptible. But you also know that there must be something more than that; it's not just a physical form sitting here with its jaw moving and vibrations of air producing sound; there must be something which generates whatever it is that gives evidence of life. So there is the visible part and also the invisible part. 

The invisible part cannot be located by the use of the material senses, but you find, to the extent of yielded response, that something moves into your consciousness which is not of any of the material levels of your being. In other words, according to your response the veil becomes transparent and what is the other side of the veil is found to be emerging into your own consciousness. You're not going through me, so to speak, to the other side of the veil—but what is the other side of the veil can cross over in order to be experienced in your consciousness. And this occurs according to the extent of your response, or the veil becomes opaque according to the extent of your resistance. The opaque veil is at the same time a mirror. According to resistance you are reflected back to yourself, and what you see you may impute to me but it is really you. 

We have seen the important necessity of relinquishing points of resistance, even though they may be unconsciously held, that we may indeed, as it is put in Revelation, turn to see the voice that speaks with us. We have to turn away from the state of being embedded in ignorance and misunderstandings, because if we are ignorant and have misunderstanding, those will be points of resistance in us and we can't see anything through the veil. All we see are these things simply reflected back to us. When they are reflected back we may see the reflection very clearly, mind you, and we may therefore imagine we are in position to judge most accurately what we see. Well, we may be able to analyze and discern the reflection, but when all's said and done, it's what was already in ourselves. Then in that analysis we will probably impute it to somebody else. But it wasn't; or if it was, that wasn't the point; it was also in oneself. 

Turning to see the voice is, of course, yielding in response to the veil—turning toward the veil and yielding in response to what is revealed, by reason of that response, from the other side of the veil. The priesthood constitute the veil; therefore if someone is to become aware in his or her own consciousness of what really is in the dimensional heaven the other side of the veil he must turn toward the veil. There's no other way of becoming aware; for to become aware, what is the other side of the veil must come through the veil. If one is not looking at the veil one won't see it, and even if one is looking at the veil one will not see it unless one is yielded in response. Anybody can look at the priesthood, but not everybody will become aware of what is the other side of the veil which the priesthood is. If there is resistance, all that will be seen is a reflection. 

Insofar as the true priesthood are concerned, they are not the same as human beings who are not participating in the priesthood, and yet other human beings will see them as being the same because they themselves will simply be reflected back. This is obviously what happened insofar as Jesus was concerned. The vast majority of those who looked at Him merely saw a reflection of themselves. This was particularly true of those who deliberately resisted Him, spoken of as the scribes and the Pharisees. They accused Him of being a servant of the devil. Very revealing! Who were the servants of the devil? The ones who saw their reflection in Him. So this is the way it works. 

If we are to turn toward the veil in a yielded response to the dimensional heaven beyond the veil, we must come into the holy place. We must have a consciousness of the sacredness of the place where we are. There needs to be a deliberate letting go, that we may come into the holy place. There is that which is on the other side of the veil in the vibrational sense, and being of a higher vibrational nature, the heavenly dimensions, there are no problems about it coming through and winding up in your consciousness. Only as you are in the holy place are you in position to observe the veil, and only when you observe the veil are you in position to yield to what is the other side of the veil. 

In this setting I represent a particular focalization of the veil for you; just as you, if you participate in the true priesthood, represent particular focalizations of the veil to others. In the collective sense of the true priesthood, human beings anywhere on earth cannot become aware of what is the other side of the veil, in the heavenly dimensional sense, without turning to that true priesthood, without turning toward the veil. Now that turning toward the veil is done unconsciously to start with, and a person may not realize what's happening, or he may imagine something. He may imagine that he's turning toward God, for instance. He may imagine that that is what he is doing, according to his own concept of how he's doing it. But if it is a true yielding toward God, the fact of the matter is that the person will have turned unconsciously toward the veil, which is manifest on the earthly side; in other words, toward the priesthood. He may have no idea about a priesthood, or a veil, or anything else, but that is what is happening in a person if there is a genuine turning in yielded response toward God, because no man cometh unto the Father but by the means provided—the means which was Jesus when He was on earth but which is now the true priesthood on earth today. 

We recognize the need for something more than just one person, something more than Jesus. There was a need for something more when He was on earth, something more to appear, which didn't, to any great extent at least. So it is in the present unfoldment of things; the greater manifestation needs to appear. Then the veil becomes evident on the earthly side of it, so that people who were responding unconsciously can become conscious of it at some point along the way. This was indeed described in the 1st chapter of the Book of Revelation by these verses: "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day..."—yielded to the tone in the present moment. When else is the Lord's day? Tomorrow? "...and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet." 

To turn toward the Lord requires that we turn toward the veil, we turn to see the voice that speaks. "And I turned to see the voice that spake with me..."—turned toward the veil, turned toward the priesthood. If in turning toward the priesthood you look at the priesthood and you say, "That's not the veil," and turn away, then what else is there? Human beings have been looking for some other way for a long time, but there is no means of becoming aware of what is on the heavenly side of the veil without turning toward the veil. Turning toward the veil requires that one turn away from what one was looking at before; and what one was looking at before was what was impinging upon one from the world around, stirring one's emotions in various ways—sometimes in pleasing ways, sometimes in displeasing ways; it makes no difference. As long as one is embedded in that it is impossible to turn toward the veil; so there must be a relinquishing, at least in some measure, of those things, before the voice can even be heard. 

The initial hearing of the voice is invariably an unconscious hearing. The individual doesn't realize where the voice is coming from. But it must be heard if there is to be a turning toward it. In other words if a person is going to pay attention to the quality of that tone in his own living he must turn toward it, and to that extent turn away from the seeming requirements of the material world, which demand that a person behave thus and so if he is to survive, let alone "get ahead," as they say. This is the concept that people have. They daren't turn away from that strident voice that they hear in the world. So the initial turning is subconscious; but when it becomes a conscious thing the veil must be seen as the veil, and it will not be seen as the veil unless it is approached with humility, with a sense of awe, of deep respect, toward what constitutes the veil. If what constitutes the veil is approached as, "Oh well, it's just a bunch of people like everybody else," there won't be any sense of sacredness in the attitude of the person who is approaching the priesthood, and if there's no sense of sacredness he can't come into the holy place, and if he can't come into the holy place he can't see the veil as being the veil. Holy, holy, holy. 

How much of that feeling of holiness is in you in this moment in this place? Because that will determine the extent to which you have come into the holy place. And when you begin to see the veil, behind which is the Holy of Holies, you would naturally be filled with a deep sense of awe. Fear God! Fear God and eschew evil!—that is, relinquish your involvement with all this impinging upon you from the material world and regain your sense of awe, that you may come into the holy place. 

A deep reverence, a deep respect, a deep and humble love—all these things are part of the experience of coming into the holy place. If one doesn't have that, one is not in the holy place. If one's mind is flitting around here and there, and emotions are feeling this and that in the material sense, the individual is excluded from the holy place by his own attitude. Holy, holy, holy. That is the way it is in the holy place, and the veil becomes visible as the veil. When this is so, there is the fulfilment of these words: "And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw..." 

"I saw what is here described as seven golden candlesticks. I saw with respect to my own being that I am more than a material person existing in the three-dimensional material world." We begin to become aware of something greater, that there is something the other side of the veil, that there is the veil—the veil, another dimension—and three dimensions, three heavenly dimensions, the other side of the veil, besides the three earthly dimensions. There are seven; but golden: gold, the symbol of value, the symbol of love, the symbol of the reality. These golden candlesticks were represented in the holy place of the tabernacle, the candlesticks permitting the light to shine in its natural radiance and balance with respect to each level of dimension. That is what we begin to become aware of, isn't it? To the extent that we really have turned to see the voice, to the extent that we have yielded in response toward the veil, this begins to flood into our consciousness. 

"...And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man." This is really a reverse description, isn't it? We are familiar with the son of man, with the material state and with human beings in that material state, so that becoming aware of the spiritual aspect of our own being, but still identified with the material aspect of our being, what we begin to see is like unto what we think of ourselves, like unto the present experience. We do not see that spiritual man is the original, so to speak, and material man is the reproduction. Looking at things from the material, self-centered standpoint, spiritual man is seen as being a sort of an adjunct of material man. "Well I, as material man, am going to become spiritual now, but I'm still going to be material man. Now I just add spiritual man to me." Which isn't the way it works at all. 

Spiritual man is the original, and material man is properly like unto the Son of God. It's not that the Son of God should be like unto the son of man; we recognize there are some changes needed in the material experience we have known. But here is the awareness of spiritual man, what is the other side of the veil in the individual sense, in one's own personal awareness of oneself. Let us consider this passage from the first verse: "And he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John." 

"By his angel"! If this is to have any significance to you it is still by His angel, the spiritual aspect of your own being, which in the dimensional world is the angel of the Lord. It goes on to describe this one that was supposed to be like unto the son of man, but the description indicates that he wasn't just like unto the son of man. Then, finally, “And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. 

Here is the reaction, one might say, when there begins to be a true awareness of the real nature of spiritual man. Material man is utterly corrupt, and there is the sense of being so worthless that you need to fall down dead. And you do! You need to pass away as material man, except as material man becomes like unto spiritual man, or the evidence of spiritual man on earth. "And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me..." Here is the positive expression of spiritual man. "...saying unto me, Fear not..." 

"Don't be afraid of me"; it's quite all right to have awe and reverence, respect, but not fear in the sense of being afraid. "...Fear not; I am the first and the last..." I was before material man, and I am after material man. "I am he that liveth, and was dead…"—dead insofar as material man was concerned. "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death..."—the keys by which the absence of heaven and the absence of life may be dissolved in material man's experience. 

This is what is present on the heaven side of the veil. This is the reality of each one, individually. This is what emerges through the veil into your consciousness, into your experience, to the extent of your yielding and, thereby, turning to see the voice that speaks with you. The voice that speaks is more than a physical sound, it's more than a material appearance. The veil which the priesthood is has two sides: the side of earthly dimension and the side of heavenly dimension; the side of material man, the son of man, and the side of spiritual man, the Son of God. Only as you come into the holy place can you approach the veil, and you can only come into the holy place as you have a deep sense of the sacredness of the place where you are. Holy, holy, holy.

© Emissaries of Divine Light