from
One Heart One Spirit One Mind One Body
Martin Cecil August 20, 1978
Remember it is not the physical numbers that are important;
it is what is generated by reason of those numbers, the substance that is generated,
so that it becomes tremendous. There is the power,
the power of which the human mind knows nothing, but it is there nevertheless.
We have a creative purpose and we
do not experience what happiness is except we participate in that true creative
purpose. How big is this potential do you think? How big specifically is your
potential as an individual? We can see something here which relates
to our participation with others. All of you are gathered here this morning
physically speaking. Individually we may say that we have a body but we might
also collectively say that this is our body, a collective body, the flesh of
many individual bodies. There is a collective body which can be
a useful instrument if there is one mind. For there to be one body in the
collective sense there must be one mind. If this collective body is to be one
body there must be one mind. If there is to be one mind there must be one
spirit. If there is to be one spirit there must be one pure heart.
To what extent is there one body?
To the extent that there is one mind. To what extent is there one mind? To the
extent that there is one spirit, one quality and character of living. And to
what extent is there that one true spirit? To the extent that there is one pure
heart. So our size collectively may be considerably larger than it is
individually but we may look at it individually too and see that the same thing
is true. We each have one body. What is the fact with respect to your body? Is
it holding together pretty well or is it falling apart? Your body is not
isolated, not all on its own—it is related to other people and the
circumstances around you, but also there is this matter of the mental capacity
which is present.
Most people are inclined to think
of their minds as somehow being simply in their heads. Well the brain is in the
head but the brain is not the mind. The brain is a physical implement one might
say, useful. It plays a part. But the mind is not limited to the head; it
occupies the whole body. There are various levels of mind and it extends beyond
the body. The skin does not contain the mind. The mind is larger than the body.
It permeates the physical substance but the substance of the mind extends beyond
the substance of the body.
We have the capacity to express
either human nature or what might be described as divine nature, the nature of
God, seeing that we were made in the image and likeness of God for this purpose
in fact. So we have a capacity that is beyond the body and the mind but the
substance of it is present with the physical substance and with the mental
substance but goes beyond both. We are getting bigger. If we think of ourselves
as being these capacities we are getting bigger. What in fact is happening is
that our capacities of expression may begin to be seen in their true stature.
If we think of our stature simply as being our physical stature, some of us are
quite small, others are bigger, but none of us physically are all that big.
We might consider the occasion
described in the story of long ago when the lad David went out to meet Goliath.
Oh there was a big giant physically, but I suspect there was very little beyond
his physical stature. On the other hand here was little David—a boy. He
couldn't even carry the armor that Saul put on him. But we begin to see that
because of the expression of spirit which was in him, emerging through his mind
and through his physical form, he was much bigger than the giant. This was
factually so, not apparently so but factually so. And of course, as has been
noted, his small physical stature was advantageous because it allowed the stone
to be cast at the right angle so that it penetrated where it needed to go. And
that great giant didn't have a chance. But clearly from the standpoint of
David's spirit on that occasion he was vastly greater than Goliath, much
bigger. There was no question in his mind that here was something that needed
to be done—let's go ahead and do it! “What are all these silly people lying
around for, blinded by the physical stature of this man?”
When we look at all the things
that are going on in the world, that seems to be a giant in the land, doesn't
it? There are several giants striding across the land, exemplified by what are
sometimes called great nations. All this seems to rule the world but there is
something vastly bigger than this. When we begin to experience our own real
size because we stop trying to maintain the viewpoints and the attitudes which
have been inherited from generations past and embellished by each generation—we are willing to let those go in order to accept what is true—then there is a
facility on earth which is far greater than any of these seeming giants, and
what needs to be done can be done.
You remember that Goliath didn't
think much of David. He was going to feed him to the vultures—this little
squirt here! But Goliath lost his head nevertheless. The stature of the living
God in the facility made in His image and likeness on earth is capable of doing
whatever it is that needs to be done here in the world to rebuke human nature,
to get it out of the picture. Now that requires that there be those who hear
the question and give the right answer—so that it is out of the picture in
them. Then there is the facility for asking the question beyond them. But let
us never think of what God creates as being insignificant.
Sometimes there
has been the attitude of apology: We're sorry to be trespassing in the domain
of the devil. Stop being governed by the circumstances that you yourself,
however inadvertently, have created. Stop being subject to those circumstances.
Of course we recognize that the whole body of mankind has a responsibility in
this regard; there is a collective creation, clearly so. But we don't need to
be governed by any of it. There is no necessity to keep generating it anyway.
What we are here to do is to reveal the truth, the creative character of the
living God, which is available to be expressed by anyone at any time.
Stop hiding behind the trees in the garden. The voice of the Lord God came
walking in the garden. Where art thou? Wilt thou be made whole? Of course when
that first question was asked of Adam in the story, he had a whole lot of
blather to offer which had nothing to do with the question at all—when he
might have stood up and said, “Here am I. Here am I to reveal the fact, the
truth, of what I am.”
What cringing, weak, wishy-washy
people there have been on earth for millennia. A few stand out. I am sure you
would think of Moses for one of them, certainly Jesus for another, because they
took responsibility. Jesus—He moved
right with it. But Moses had a few doubts to start with: Let it be by the hand
of another. Which other? Let us ask ourselves that. Who else is going to do it?
Are those who don't see, who don't
understand, who are embedded in the human nature state—are they going to do
it? Of course they're not! Only those who begin to have a glimmering of
understanding at least, who have heard faintly the question and who really know
what the right answer is. These are the ones, these are the hands of the Lord—this is the means by which the job gets done. And there certainly is a job to
be done but it is not such a tremendous job as the human mind would have you
think, because it is not done by human-mind ways at all. It is done in spite of
that, although there need to be some human minds who begin to be governed by
spirit, and therefore who are thinking what needs to be thought, not merely what
they find pleasing to think.
Most people just want freedom of
thought, as they call it, free to think any old thing. “Of course my thoughts
are going to be good, they are going to be constructive. I am going in this
direction.” But it is all destructive, because the only constructive expression
is that which results from the movement of the spirit of God. The spirit of God
can't get to move the mind until the heart is pure. The heart is impure just as
long as human feelings are governed by the realm of effects around them. And
how people delight when they say, “Well I feel this way, I feel that way.”
About what? About the effects.
What is felt with respect to the
living God?
That relates to the first great commandment. When the
heart is totally open to the spirit of the living God the experience of that
spirit is known, but as long as the heart is closed it can't be known. Then the
individual imagines he has to trust this laborious business of trying to think
everything out. It can never be done that way. It multiplies confusion and it
is a fatal disease. The fatalities have been immense over the
millennia and in these days—they could be even more immense almost by the
flick of a switch.
Who has what it takes to accept
the challenge of being a man or a woman? “Gird up now thy loins like a man: for
I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.” This is a very gentle question, “Wilt
thou be made whole?” But it's a tough question too—no ifs, buts, maybes. When
we respond, we respond because we rise, take up our bed, and walk. We do not
remain under the control of our circumstances; we begin to make right use of
those circumstances. It's not as though we were trying to deny that they were
there. They are there, but they need to be handled rightly, and they
can only be handled by the one who is incarnate in this facility, whether it be
the individual facility or the collective one. There is one who is capable of
handling things. That one is present and the facilities begin to become aware
of that fact to the extent that there is the expression of that one. Otherwise
it remains unknown. Of course! We only know what we express.
If we express God we know God. If
that which finds expression in the quality of our living is
fathered by the creative spirit of God, that is what we know. That is what we
are. When we speak of identity let's not think of it as being over there
somewhere. “Oh I need a new identity. I am looking for my identity.” Where do
you expect to find it? Under the stones? You'll find something under there but
not a very valuable identity. The identity is already present but you have no
faintest idea what it really is until you express it, when the quality of your
life reveals the sounding of the real tone of life.
There is one tone which is
differentiated in a multitude of ways but it is still just one tone—one spirit,
one heart, one mind, one body. And behold, all things are made new and the
powers of this world are powerless. They simply dissolve. We come to know this
because the power of human nature in ourselves simply dissolves. Then we know
the way it works, we know the truth—and that only has to be extended on out
and the job for which we are all present on earth is done.
We give glory to God in the
highest, and the evidence of that is peace on earth, goodwill toward and among
men—God's will in expression by reason of man. It is that that creates a new
world of course, but there certainly is something to be dealt with to reach that
point, and we deal with it in our own living moment by moment by moment in the
expression of the truth. And ye shall know the truth because you express the
truth. It is the only way to know it.
And ye shall know the truth, and
the truth shall make you free to live—to be yourself. This is absolutely not
dependent upon what anyone else does particularly, at least in the initial
stages. As we move forward we begin to find that we are moving together and
that there is something being generated on the larger scale. But remember it is
not the physical numbers that are important; it is what is generated by reason
of those numbers, the substance that is generated, so that it becomes
tremendous. There is the power, the power of which the human mind knows
nothing, but it is there nevertheless.
Here is our responsibility
individually speaking. We have no other reason for living on earth. One spirit,
one heart, one mind, one body. Let us let it work the way it was designed to
work, to the glory of God.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
