House of God—Gate of Heaven

House  of  God — Gate  of  Heaven

Martin Cecil   July 20, 1977

Sunrise Ranch — Three  Month  Class

 

Our approach toward everything is from the holy place. We do stand in the holy place when we have a sense of sacredness with respect to all that transpires in our experience. While there may be many things going on that are not righteous in the world we nevertheless are in position to stand above such things with­out being involved emotionally and to enfold and encompass everything of our worlds. There is a radiance of holiness enfolding all things because of our presence, which gives opportunity to those who are in our worlds to become aware of the reality of this holiness.

Of course there are various reactions to the fact. There is this quirk in human nature which seems to want to destroy anything that is evidently sacred. It is a reaction of shame, guilt and fear. This enfoldment of all that is going on in our worlds was summarized by the Master's words, recorded, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” And so we extend the spirit of forgiveness. Perhaps this is easier to do with respect to events that are not too close to us, but obviously the reality of our spirit of forgiveness will be dependent upon its factual experience in specific instances.

Daily we have opportunity to prove whether we do enfold our world in the spirit of forgiveness or whether it is merely a theory off the top of our heads, because I'm sure you find that there are many occasions when things arise which seem reasonable to condemn, and people who seem to be in a position where they may rightly be con­demned, when what is necessary is the spirit of forgiveness. When we stand in the holy place this is natural to us.

There are those who say, “Well, I can forgive but I can't forget.” Forgiveness and forgetfulness go together. It could be said that it is rather helpful if one doesn't have too good a memory. The trouble is that people have poor memories about the things they should remember and good memories about the things they should forget! There cannot be forgiveness without forgetfulness—insofar as one's own consciousness is concerned whatever it was has just gone, not that it could not be recalled, because someone would likely come along and remind you of it. Of course, a very prevalent human nature approach is, on the part of those who want to stir up a bit of trouble, to remind people how badly they have been treated, and most people go right along with it. But if we have the spirit of forgiveness it is all gone, the slate is clean and we have not been badly treated. In any case, we are living in the moment—nothing's happened yet.

So we stand in the holy place, and in the holy place we have a sense of the sacredness of things and we have a growing consciousness of the real quality of the tone of life with respect to all areas of our living. The mind usually wants to pin things down somehow and says it should be this way or it should be that way. The only thing that can be pinned down is the quality of spirit. When that is right in the moment and one is standing actually in the holy place, then it becomes quite apparent what the right thought, the right word, the right action, would be. Again, not because we have it all stored up in our little notebook in the file but because we let something emerge in the moment that is fitting for the moment on the basis of the sounding of the true tone of life.

Now we've begun to see more clearly something of the tone as it relates to the field of sex. People, again with their minds, tend to want to have things pinned down in this field—“Well, is this right or is that wrong?” It can't be pinned down. This is the creative field of angels. The sex principle is present with respect to all angelic function. This does not mean that it is merely that angelic function is the intimate function between male and female. The sex principle is at work everywhere and one aspect of this centers in this particular field. However, it is in this area where the sex principle comes to point in the creative expression of life moving through the physical form that is the core of living. In other words if a person is not clear in this intimate area, intimate with respect to him‑ or herself—I'm not talking about relationships with someone else, at the moment, but having a clear consciousness of the nature and quality of the tone of life as it sounds in this most intimate part of one's own being—only as that is as it should be will all the other aspects of living be as they should be.

We can have a sort of veneer of righteousness with respect to various areas of living—at least it passes as righteousness, because human beings are not all that perceptive—and still have something cloudy, gray, if not black, in this core pattern of one's own most intimate place. When this is clear, when the tone of life is sounding clearly here in this core place, in this holy place—and it is a holy place—then all the other areas of living will be conditioned, by this holiness. But if it is not there in the core there will be nothing adequate to condition the rest of one's living. So it is very important to be clear in this area, not clear from the standpoint of mental standards that may be set but clear from the standpoint of an awareness of the nature and quality of the real tone of life in this field.

It is to emphasize this that we have considered various matters pertaining to the field of sex, so that you might begin to sense the clarity of this tone in this area. It is never a matter of trying to get things to conform with some human concepts of what might be right or fitting in the external sense. We need to be care­ful of other people's concepts in this regard, of the way other people see things and think, but we ourselves need to be clear within ourselves so that we understand spiritually. We know that the actual emergence into expression of what is springing from this core of clarity may take a vast variety of form. We do not begrudge other people the forms that they may hold at the present time. This is why the subject needs to be approached with the very greatest of care, because no matter what is said someone is going to misinterpret it. You might remember that in what I'm saying to you.

All that we are concerned with at the moment is to get a feel of the pure expression of the creative principle in this core experience, and how it comes out in expression will be on the basis of the inherent design in spirit. As we begin to be­come aware of certain aspects of this design as it merges we rightly are very pro­tective of it. It is not something that is exposed to the profane view, so to speak. There is a veil, rightly, about it. There are those things in our own most secret place—which should be the holy place—which are nobody else's business except the Lord's. In other words human beings, having little sense of the sacredness of things, tend to bandy about considerations in fields which are in reality, or should be, holy. Talking about these things, trying to figure it out—that's just a mental trip. It never achieves anything because one never under­stands anything until there is a clarity from the standpoint of one's spiritual perception, of the real nature of the tone in this most central area. So we are not trying to force it into forms: Would it be this way? Would it be that way? It will be the way it should be, when you are moving with that tone; and it will emerge as it should emerge, initially on the basis of the state of affairs as it is present with you an individual. What is present with you as an individual will be distinctly individual and it will not apply to any one else. We cannot have overall rules and regulations and at the same time allow the emergence of the true kingdom state in experience.

As I have pointed out before, it has been necessary in the human nature condition to maintain some sort of structures, some sort of rules and regulations, so that everything wouldn't get entirely out of control. And in order for this to work at least partly there had to be a majority of people who would accept them. These rules and regulations in the external sense have had their purpose, and still have in the world the way it is, and we are not interested in trying to throw off all these shackles. But we know that there is a true state which needs to emerge and it can only emerge through a pure heart, and a pure heart will not be known as long as there is continuing reaction to externals. This is what muddies the heart. Only when the heart is open toward heavenly heredity and the true sounding of the tone of life does there begin to be purity. In that purity there is a clarity of vision.

Those who have presented themselves before the Lord in human nature, seeking to draw close to the Lord in human nature and to experience an increase of spiritual awareness on this basis, always run into the evil because human nature cannot approach the Lord. It has to be left behind. We can't persist in identification with earthly heredity and approach the Lord at the same time. That would be a con­tradictory attempt. So those who try this—and all good human beings seeking for better spiritual understanding make this approach; they are not conscious of any other possibilities as a general rule.

So there is an approach, rising up in relationship to the spiritual expression plane of being, which permits an awareness of what one might call a bright effulgence, as though one might approach the sun for instance. Well certainly it is not wise to look at the sun if you don't want to damage your eyes. And it is not wise to persist in trying to approach the Lord on this basis of the only consciousness a person has from the human nature standpoint, and that is of the general effulgence, that is actually the veil or the flaming sword which prevents a person from going any further. And because he is prevented from going any further, very often the individual says, “Well I've arrived. This is as far as you can go. This is heaven. This is Nirvana. This is wonderful. Such a brilliant light here; it must mean something.” One might, perhaps, see that what is to be experienced is not this, rightly. This is the human nature experience.

But the veil becomes transparent rather than opaque, even though the opaqueness is pretty bright. Vision is only possible on the basis of this trans­parency, and the transparency of the veil is the purity of heart. As long as the heart is not pure there is opaqueness. Sometimes that opaqueness is pretty black, but it can be the other end of the spectrum, pretty light. And people are fooled by this; whereas before it was black, now it is light. But it is still this side of the veil, so to speak. And we can't penetrate through the veil, but we can let the veil penetrate through us on the basis of our expression. And it is this penetration of the veil through us which brings with it a sense of clarity. The veil instead of being opaque becomes transparent. We ourselves become transparent. That doesn't mean that anyone can look at us and see all the way through, but in our own experience there is a transparency. This relates to the matter of guilelessness. Some think of this as being simply that the person is naive, but there is a true state of guilelessness which doesn't prevent one from seeing what is present but rather being unmoved by what one sees. It seems to others who observe, that one is pretty naive, but in fact you know what is going on but you don't emphasize what is going on from the standpoint of earthly heredity, because it doesn't mean that much to you.

And so there is this clarity which comes on the basis of the sensing of the true tone of life in one's own experience, and particularly in this central core area of ex­perience where the focus of the working of the sex principle is. The sex principle works everywhere but it has a point of focus and that is the most intimate place in one's own experience, the secret place of the most High. It has been secret to human beings because there has been no inclination on the part of most to keep anything sacred. And the words sacred and secret are alike, in a way.

So there is concern to allow a greater clarity to appear in this core place in our experience. And we are not trying to establish any mental ideas about it but to let it be fluid, let it be what it really is, s o that w e can sense what is fitting. Here, as there is movement in this way, is the evidence of the emergence of the angel, the angel who is incarnate on earth for the purpose of utilizing everything to advantage in the achievement of the purpose for which he or she is incarnate. Everything is used. But being used by the angel, it is used out of the holy place. Everything is seen as being sacred and the understanding of how things can be used begins to emerge by reason of the purity of heart. There is increasing clarity of vision, increasing experience of the transparency of the veil. And it is not just anymore a vague effulgence. It becomes increasingly specific in relationship to the immediate field of action. There is a consciousness of being present in ones human facilities, which are in the immediate cir­cumstance, to handle what is present in the circumstance for the purpose for which, as an angel, one is present on earth. And that handling rightly is righteousness. We make right use of everything. Our first consciousness of this may be a rather generalized awareness but it comes increasingly to point in our specific experience when we are living from the holy place, when everything with which we are dealing is seen as being included in the creative field of our action as angels. I am speaking of a shift in consciousness from the merely human to an awareness of the merely human; in other words the merely human is not the accepted identity. It is accepted as the only facility one has to do what one is here to do. One will utilize that facility on the basis of its capacity to be utilized. We do not imagine, as angels, that we can do anything by reason of the human facility. We are very conscious of certain limitations in that human facility. As angels it might be said that we can do anything, but we can't do anything in this particular circumstance except as the facility makes it possible. So we are concerned to develop the capacity of that facility to make more that is possible to us possible of expression on earth, because there is vastly more that we can do than our human facility will permit. We begin to see things from the true viewpoint rather than the reverse view­point. 

People in human nature identity approach it from below—“Well how can I permit my capacity to be more valuable in the hands of the Lord?” That is the human approach and on this basis you run into the effulgence, because you're still a human nature person who wants to be improved somehow so that you might be more valuable in the Lord's service—a very good idea from the human standpoint but it simply doesn't work. We have to be right for anything to work. So there is the need for this change in consciousness, which begins to become more familiar, of looking at things from the angelic standpoint, of accepting the truth, to the extent that it may be experienced at this point. But the truth will never be experienced as long as we stay in the human nature state—and we will stay in the human nature state as long as we approach everything from the standpoint of the human nature state. So we begin to align ourselves with the angelic state and the angelic outlook, the angelic viewpoint, and lo and behold, as this is done consistently we find the reality of our own true expression.

It appears—not in the sense that we can analyze it or get it all classified and categorized, but in the sense of a flow to living, momentary living. We begin to live from the standpoint of the angel and we see when the facility that we have makes a mistake, or what appears to be a mistake to the facility, probably. We are not thrown by that. We are not, if we are the angel—it isn't the angelic mistake in any case. Again, mistakes are only mistakes if we repeat them too often. If the angel is present and a mistake is made then some­thing is learned from the standpoint of the working of that facility, and you do not need to let that happen again. It wasn't a mistake; it was a means of learning. I suppose most people don't learn the first time; it takes several mistakes of the same nature for a person to finally wake up to the fact that it is a mistake even. And even when he realized it is a mistake it is likely to be repeated again. But let it not be too often. One is quite capable of learning and one will do so very easily when the approach is from the angelic standpoint. You see the element in the human aspect of yourself which prevents an adequate expression of yourself, you do something about it. As an angel you take responsibility for yourself. This does not preclude the possibility that other angels may come and minister unto you. But no matter how many angels minister unto you, you still hold the primary responsibility with respect to the human aspect of yourself.

Now we were considering the matter of incarnation and the term of incarnation. As the angel begins to come forth, of course, the reason for one's presence on earth becomes apparent—not necessarily to the human mind, but one has a sense of meaning, of the creative cycle in which one is moving as this pertains to what is moving through other human beings in whom the angel is also incarnate. You have an overall view.

We have that now, don't we? We understand what the overall purpose is—the restora­tion of man. That to the human part of us is just a statement of words which doesn't really mean very much, but to the angel it means everything because that is the reason why you as an angel are here on earth. You may have had a rather sick human state to get out through but nevertheless you begin to see how even these things are used to advantage. You can look back, I'm sure, upon your experience in the past in the human sense and you can see value to those expe­riences. You didn't want any part of them at the time, but looking back you can see value and you could see that something was working out. Something is working to bring you to this moment, in this particular setting, at this particular time. Every­thing that is back of you comes to point. You begin to be aware, then, of creative cycles that have been working out in spite of the fact that you didn't know anything about them, because they were not working out on the basis of you in the human sense. They were working out on the basis of you in the angelic state and the human aspect of you had very little consciousness of that.

Now the consciousness of it is beginning to emerge because the angel is beginning to emerge and you begin to see things from this standpoint. You are concerned that all the seeing, here in the field of your responsibility, should be from this standpoint. If it slips back into the human view of things on occasion, then you become aware of that. You step back from the human view into the angelic view again. You can deliberately do this. The angel can begin to work consciously with the facility, and as this is done there begins to be the increasing consciousness of the real tone of life. When there is this state of increasing holiness there is the state of increasing life. When there is the state of increasing unholiness, that is the state of death. One cannot be unholy and live. This is why human beings don't live very long. In the human sense there is the necessity of being holy, and when there is the experience of holiness there is the experience of the angel who lives. It is not as though life was being acquired, that we were getting it somewhere, some generous God somewhere was handing out life because He approves of us. No. The life is already present—life is the nature of the angel, and in the experience of the angel there is the experience of life; there is the experience of the reason for one's presence on earth, alive. And that life naturally is born through the physical form with its capacity of consciousness, and consequently there is the increasing expression of angelic life known, humanly speaking, on earth.

We move with the creative cycles for which as angels we are here. We do whatever is necessary in that cycle right up to the point of its completion. Now the human nature view of this is “until I die.” But it isn't that at all—because the angel doesn't die; the angel completes the creative cycle on the basis of the facility through which this expression was appearing, and miracles can occur in this facility as the angel comes forth increasingly. So that the restrictions which have been present in the human form, in one way or another, are not seen as being necessarily permanent. The angel can come forth.

The angel who you are is very ingenious in this matter of coming forth so that there isn't a coming forth with great intensity through some restricted area, which would blow the whole thing. The coming forth is through those areas where there is a certain freedom of coming forth, and then this will exert an influence on the areas of restriction and they will begin to relax, and there will be an increasing coming forth.

So we become aware of the fact that we are here on earth to do something very specific as angels in company with other angels, and we use everything to advantage on the basis of righteousness—righteousness which springs forth because we stand in the holy place with a continuing sense of the sacredness of our mission, or destiny on earth. Sacredness shouldn't be correlated in consciousness, as it sometimes is in human nature, with the goody‑goodyness. The ex­pression of sacredness can sometimes be pretty harsh. You have only to recall some of the Master's words recorded in the Gospels, when He was speaking to the hardness of human hearts, specifically indicated as the scribes and the Pharisees in that setting. Sacredness is sometimes pretty tough. Love can be very gentle but it also can be very hard. And human beings can hammer themselves to death against it—it won't move! God has never moved His position. He stays in place. That's just wonderful, isn't it? We can depend on it, then.

So we are here present in this particular creative cycle, however long it may be in the individual sense, to do certain things. And if we have done everything that can be done on the basis of all the factors involved, which would include our own earthly facilities, then there is no point in staying around, is there? If you can't do anything anymore then you don't stay around. But as long as something is being done and there is a reason for you to be there, well you better stay there, not duck out. Human beings have the inclination to duck out, while they are still apparently alive on earth, of all kinds of things. The pressure gets too much and they duck out. Well eventually the pressure gets too much and they duck completely out. We don't do that; we don't duck out.

But at the same time we become aware of when creative cycles are complete; we become aware of this with respect to others, those with whom we may be working, and we help in the matter, we have something to offer. But also in relationship to ourselves we become aware of the fact that the appointed time is complete. There is nothing wrong with that. No doubt there will be residue left behind, but then we are leaving residue behind everyday. It is only a final experience insofar as that physical form is concerned. But if it is residue, it needs to be left behind. That doesn't change the angel any. The only difference is that there is no means of incarnation for the moment. Probably that's a temporary relief. You have to pick up the pieces anyway a little later on.

All these things relate to an increasing consciousness of our purpose as angels, rather vividly portrayed in a passage in the Bible—about Jacob; he dreamt a dream. “And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And, behold, the Lord stood above it.”

That illustration presumably means something to us now—from the standpoint of the fact that angels are incarnating and then completing their sojourn and returning from whence they came. It also relates to the ascending and descending processes that are going on in us as individuals—something coming down from God out of heaven, to the extent of the pneumaplasmic substance available, finding expression on earth; and because of that expression, something returning and ascending as an increased generation of pneumaplasmic substance; sweet incense be­fore God—ascending and descending.

“And Jacob awaked out of his sleep”—it is what we are supposed to be doing­—“and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.” That's what we awaken to, isn't it? Most human beings are asleep to it. They think that the Lord is someplace else. But when we awake, “Surely the Lord is in this place; now I know it.”

“And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” That is a shocking realization when one first awakes. “What's been happening all this time and I knew it not? This is a sacred place, a holy place, and I've been profaning it, defiling it.” So fear may enter in a little. “What's going to happen to me?” Of course, the individual was getting along all right before he knew this, apparently. So the fact that he knows it, is not going to make all that much difference to the effects; but presumably it will make some difference, in the person who knows it, to the causes which find expression in his living.

This is the house of God—the physical form—the house of God—and this is the gate of heaven. What is the reference here? To the pneumaplasmic body—the pneumaplasmic substance that is present is the gate of heaven through which the ascending and descending processes may occur. We awaken to this out of our prior dream and we know the reality of the holy place. If we have awakened truly we never forget it.

© Emissaries of Divine Light