Space for Communion

Space  for  Communion

Martin Cecil   May 4, 1981

Assembly Session — Sunrise Ranch

The realm of communication is vital, but this simply reemphasizes the necessity of the factor of communion. This relates to the core. There should be much concern with respect to this core and our right participation in it, because here is the point of orientation, point of life, if it is to be anywhere. And the evidence of the core is in the experience of communion. 

I think perhaps we've graduated a little beyond the family, the need of friendship, to the awareness of the reality of communion; as it was put, “various facets of one whole,” one core whole—or one conscious mind of the body of humanity, a mind with many facets. Individually speaking we have conscious minds with sundry facets, more in some than in others, more brightly polished in some than in others, but there are various facets. So there is this greater experience of communion which involves the heart as well as the mind. In fact the communion is made possible by the pure heart—then we may become consciously aware of the reality of it. Being consciously aware of something doesn't mean that we can intellectually dissect it, or intellectually describe it, but that certainly doesn't prevent an awareness of the fact of communion. In fact, if one becomes too much engaged in trying to isolate the experience, mentally speaking, you lose it. 

The factor of communion we see as being absolutely essential, because it isn't a movement of one person. It isn't a movement of some great leader who puts in an appearance and undertakes to provide all that is needed. The vital nature of this factor of communion keeps emphasizing and reemphasizing itself to us. Without it there is no evidence of the essential conscious core. 

Now the conscious core cannot operate merely as a conscious core any more than your own conscious mind can operate without your subconscious mind. Insofar as those who specifically compose this core of consciousness which is taking form are concerned, each individual has a subconscious mind. We can't sort of strip ourselves of our subconscious minds and become purely a conscious mind with all the other people who don't have the same consciousness providing us with a subconscious mind. We have one of our own. 

It's because we have one of our own that we have a basis for connection with other people, particularly in that vast sea of the subconscious, which includes all people. So there are no lines of division either within ourselves or between us and other people. If we have set up barriers in this sense, and no doubt everybody has, they're not real. They're merely a human invention, something which is sustained in consciousness. The very moment that it is no longer sustained it isn't there anymore, because it has to be held in place by the sweat of the brow. So we are in the business of allowing these apparent divisions to be dissolved. 

Some are very reluctant to allow this to happen. They want to maintain their own little homes which are their castles. Obviously there is no communion as long as that sort of a state of consciousness exists: “This is me and mine.” This comes again to the matter of possessions. One trait of human nature is centered in this matter of possessiveness. It works in many ways. It may be seen in the miser's state, I suppose, but in lots of areas people try to possess each other. One thing that was emphasized was the need to let people be, to love them as they are, not try to enmesh them in your toils, so to speak. It gets to be uncomfortable and eventually fatal if it's allowed to happen. 

There are those who have an approach toward the Lord of trying to possess the Lord. This is very, very common in the general picture of things in the Christian world where there is this seeming desire to have the Lord all to oneself: “My savior”—all my own—“He's going to come into my heart.” Well what about everybody else? I suppose He's supposed to be big enough to get in everywhere, but He would be encased thoroughly then by everyone. No attempt should ever be made to possess the Lord. That, if it was possible of achievement, would be a very suffocating experience insofar as the Lord was concerned. There is this tendency in human nature to try to possess. Love frees up. Now there is a cohesive quality to love, of course—it holds all things together.

But things are together because they are free to move. It's not as though everything was being compressed into the ultimate solid so there's nothing else but this one compressed thing. If we look at the universal state of affairs, we recognize that things are pretty well freed up, even in what we are capable of observing. There's lots of space. Fortunately, the sun doesn't try to possess the planets. There wouldn't be any planets on that basis. But the sun does hold the planets in their right positions in relationship to itself. But there's lots of space in between. And the planets—the earth for instance—don't rightly try to possess the sun; that would be kind of fatal too. Let the sun be where it belongs. And the evidence of love is the willingness to allow things the space to be where they belong. If there is an endeavor to possess something, then there is a constriction placed upon what should truly be happening. And we realize that the happenings that occur, occur because there is freedom of movement. One of the evidences of life is freedom of movement. 

There are various levels of life which we recognize. There is life relative to the mineral kingdom, which is perhaps not generally recognized but it's a fact, and there's a very little freedom of movement there, so very little evidence of life insofar as human observation is concerned. There's more freedom of movement with respect to the vegetable kingdom, and more still in the animal kingdom. The greatest freedom of movement relates to man—rightly, man as a whole. That freedom which should appear by reason of man as a whole appears because there is freedom of movement within the body of mankind. And no one is possessed into a static state, which is what would happen if possession was allowed to go to its ultimate extreme. 

Space—space for the experience of true communion. There are those who think of oneness in terms of physical proximity, and the closer you can press against someone the more one you will be with them. Were you ever in a crowd? No. It requires that one be in the proper positioning in the space which is available for that positioning. And one allows others to be in their own space. The willingness to permit this to happen is the evidence of love.

We may express love perhaps momentarily by hugging a person, but it would be a pain in the neck, a pain everywhere in fact, if one was all day in a state of a hug. How useless everyone would be! No, it is because we have space around us. And this brings up the matter that was mentioned with respect to trespassing. There are those who tend to trespass in the name of love. It becomes an imposition. Let it be free! Where there is real love there is love of the natural freedom which comes because of the truth, the truth which relates to the matter of design and control, you may remember. 

There is a design, and everybody isn't hooked to everybody else, physically speaking. We're all part of one thing—that's true! But that is at a different level of experience, the spiritual level of experience. If we're so unaware of that spiritual level of experience that we feel it is necessary somehow to press up against other people to have a sense of oneness, then we don't have much spiritual experience, because the more one has of that spiritual experience and spiritual communion the more one is willing that people should be allowed to be themselves. 

There are natural pulsations which move spiritually speaking and which are translated into the realm of form in various ways. We have been considering communication in particular. The communication which comes forth is of a practical nature—in other words there's a reason for it. How much chatter goes on between people which is utterly meaningless! It doesn't have any purpose. It's just noise. It's like the radio which is playing in the background all the time. People feel that they would be lost in oblivion if there wasn't this constant sound. It's a distraction from themselves. But communication has purpose—it always has purpose when it springs from the state of communion. It is indicated that one will have to account for every idle word. My goodness, some people have long accounts! “By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.” The communication which comes forth, when it is a translation of what is present in the state of communion, then has a purpose. It's not idle words, which are not communication! 

Our communications relate to what the creative responsibility is, springing forth from the realm of communion, where there is an understanding of spiritual responsibility. Then something comes forth and needs to be communicated one to another. We use this particular realm of communication to advantage in the immediate purpose which is at hand, namely that of restoration. The communication is designed rightly, seeing that it springs forth from our communion, to acquaint people with the state of communion. Sometimes this can be done by the use of words, sometimes by other means: music, drama, even drama without words. In all kinds of ways we can convey what needs to be conveyed, which is communication. You shouldn't just think of communication as speaking in words. There are other ways—but all of them designed at the moment for the first order of business, which is to acquaint people with the realm of communion which acquaints them with the fact of oneness—which allows for an awakening to oneness, in other words. This is, as I say, the first order of business at the moment. If we, amongst ourselves, communicate with each other, already aware of the fact of communion between ourselves, then our intercommunications all relate to what is required for the greater creative movement toward what we have called the restoration or the resurrection. So there is internal communication, one might say, and there is communication which relates to what is beyond the core. 

Now the core is not separate from the rest of the body. It's all a part of one thing. In that sense the sun is not separate from the planets, because they're all a part of one thing; they're all part of what might be called the solar state. The planetary state is included in the solar state, but it's all one thing as a solar state. We're inclined to think of the sun as being limited to that ball of fire up in the sky, but it certainly isn't, as we well know. If you ever saw the aurora borealis you know that the sun comes quite close at times. And it comes quite close when you sit out in the sun, and it's inclusive of far more. In that sense, I suppose, you could say that we are a part of the sun. We are possessed by the sun in that sense. 

It's all right for possession to occur in that direction. The true state of possession relates to what is true from the standpoint of the Lord. We may be possessed by the Lord, and rightly so. But when the Lord possesses He doesn't cram everybody into a box. He doesn't restrict or limit. He opens up freedom. If the planets are possessed by the sun they have freedom to move in their orbits; there's plenty of space there; they don't run into anything—at least they don't if things are under the right control. 

So possession is by the higher of the lower, one might say, but should never be attempted by the lower of the lower, or by the lower of the higher. Within the possession of the Lord we all have space and we move in that space naturally and should not attempt to alter the space. Let it be whatever it is—allow people to be where they are and what they are.

On this basis the changes come, whatever changes are necessary. If we're thinking of this from the standpoint of the restoration, there are obviously changes necessary but everybody must be accepted as they are. How else could they be accepted? If one sits around waiting for someone to change in a suitable way so that one will then say, “Well now I'm able to provide what is necessary for you,” we'd sit around forever. The only thing that can be done is to take things as they are and allow it to work from there on the basis of the fact that we are capable of the right communication, which permits the changes to occur. 

And the primary change to occur in the experience of people is an awakening to oneness—or an awakening to the fact of a level of communion which before had been excluded from their experience. Now it begins to come back into experience. It only comes back into the experience of others because there are those who have the experience and therefore are in position to provide what is necessary to assist the process of awakening. And it's very easy, because it's not as though nothing was happening in people. The spirit is moving in everybody, so it's ready to produce what is required in everybody. And if there is the provision from the standpoint of communication from those who are already participating in the state of communion, then everybody is assailed from both sides, so to speak. The spirit is moving in them and here is something being provided external that correlates with that, and so it comes quickly. 

There is always that which is resistant, yes—always! And the objectors are always in the forefront with their signs and slogans, but even if there is objection that is no objection insofar as we are concerned because it's a form of response. We don't have to confront it; let the objectors object. We see that from their standpoint it's rather a foolish thing to do. It's not going to be helpful to them. And if there is an opportunity for right communication, well, we may do something about it, but if there are objectors who insist upon objecting we let them object, and are thankful for the response that is thereby exhibited. They must be objecting to something, the something that is happening; therefore they're aware of the happening and they are reacting to the happening; and that is a form of response. And it facilitates the job which we're here to do. We may say it is preferable to have the experience with awakening people to life than to damnation, but either way gets the job done. 

So we are wise as serpents and harmless as doves. We avoid confrontation because for the most part it's unnecessary. Sometimes it is what is offered to us and we have to deal with it, but we don't stimulate it particularly, if we can help it, so that it must be offered to us. We tread delicately. We are willing to receive what is brought to us. And functioning out of the state of communion we are keenly aware of the fact of our weight The core of the atom is where all the weight is. This core that we are to represent is where all the weight is. There may be things flying around that core, but they're not particularly weighty. The weight is at the core and we therefore have no particular concern that we can be thrown off balance by anything that is flying around, because it doesn't amount to anything really. Everything centers in the core. 

Here is the balance point, then; here is what holds things steady and sure. There is an absolute certainty to the creative fulfilment of what it is that is occurring. As that weight becomes more apparent there is the state which shall not be moved. Everything else may move around, and must necessarily move around, until it becomes possessed by the core. And consequently everything falls into place and the wholeness of all things begins to be known in a wider and more all-encompassing way. Human beings awaken to that wholeness. 

We play our parts easily and naturally in that cycle of awakening because we abide in the communion of oneness and allow everything which is included in that state of oneness to find its own natural positioning. We refuse to be possessed by what is associated with us in relationship to the positive point which we provide. The positive possesses the negative but not the negative the positive. The negative takes its correct orbit in relationship to the positive and then there is the creative whole. That is the restoration. We can see this as occurring in many different ways and many different levels and many different fields, but we recognize it in the overall sense, where the core is essential to the restoration of man in allowing all that composes man to come into its correct position relative to the core. And that needs space for it to happen, not trying to cram everyone in to anything, least of all into something called Emissaries of Divine Light. There are those who belong in the core. We praise the Lord for that. But even in the core, you know, there is space. 

We don't all cram together. There are times when we associate more closely in person but other times we have plenty of space. That's wonderful! It doesn't eject us into outer space, so to speak. This is an inner space, the space of the core, and that is beautiful. And we rejoice to let each other have space, that we may all share in right communication one with another; and in right communication, with all parts of the overall body of the Son of God. Surely, to the extent that we are in fact together in the realm of communion, it doesn't matter all that much as to whether we are closely in each other's vicinity in person or not. We are one.

© Emissaries of Divine Light