from

The  Body  of  the  Messiah

Martin Exeter   July 8, 1984

Day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out, year in and year out, decade in and decade out, I, together with those who have been with me, through services, classes, and whatever came in between, have maintained a spiritual focus on earth. This certainly was not initiated by us. In recent times Uranda, whom a number of you knew in person, provided the point of initiation, but this was just a refocalization of what had been established long ago through that focus of spirit which was known on earth through the One called Jesus.

Over the centuries, what was factually established by Him has been present with the children of men regardless of race, creed, color or anything else. Finally it came again to point, so that this focus of spirit has been reestablished and maintained over the last fifty years. In consequence of this, and not because of any organizational undertakings, there has been drawn together a flesh body, part of the composition of which is presumably present in the Chapel this morning.

Jesus has been referred to as the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One. Human beings have been inclined to look for a messiah—someone, a leader of some kind, spiritual, political, whatever—who might relieve human beings of assuming their own responsibility. Jesus has been looked upon in this way in the Christian world. He did what was required of Him, but what is required of the rest of us? Exactly the same as what was required of Him. The works that I do shall ye do also, is a statement that has come down to us, very graphically defining the reason for the presence of anyone on earth.

In the outworking of this particular creative cycle, initiated way back, a certain clarity of spiritual focus has been established and maintained within the range of our own awareness and, I trust, experience. In any case a body has been forming, not made with hands, not humanly organized, but seemingly inevitable nevertheless. We have all had some awareness of this, some experience of this, and here is at least the beginnings of a flesh body designed to allow a focus of spirit to find creative expression on earth, creative expression within the consciousness of mankind as a whole.

The messiah should not rightly be seen as though this was just one person; the Messiah is rightly Man, the Word made flesh. It seems that in the human tradition there is always the expectation of someone somehow putting in an appearance and then putting things to rights for poor, mistreated human beings. There really are no poor, mistreated human beings, so there is nothing to be put to rights. If, as has been the experience of most, there are troublesome states in which we and others find themselves, these are all self-produced. Human beings are responsible for their troubles, their tribulations. It’s easy to say that, because there are a lot of human beings to spread the blame around; but such a statement doesn’t really mean very much until it comes to focus in oneself. And we have the awareness, I am sure, of the correctness of the statement made by each one: “I am responsible.”

If the messianic experience is ever to come it can only come because there are those who make this statement and also make it stick. You don’t retire from the scene when intensified troubles put in an appearance. There has been prophetic indication that there should be considerable tribulation. This is rather naturally so, to be anticipated I am sure, because human beings behave the way they do. So the harvest comes. It comes generation after generation, but it is evidently coming in a rather particular way in these days, and everybody is busy blaming everybody else. There seem to be very few who would be inclined to make the statement, “I am responsible,” let alone make it stick.

We can look around and observe many things of a destructive nature in the world; we can observe the childish foolishness of human beings playing their games and trying to get things to work the way they want them to work. Of course these human wants are inclined to be in conflict with each other, so the destructive elements are intensified. The opportunity is present because there is at least a beginning in form, in the flesh, of a stable focus of spirit. This spirit has been identified in human consciousness by using the word “God” or “Allah”, or something else. We have indication that Jesus may have used the word “Father.” Whether this is an accurate translation or not might be called in question. At least it has traditionally given the impression that human beings are irresponsible children requiring a firm parent to somehow keep them in line. If that is what was required, the parent has not been too successful in this regard, so we might have a suspicion that that is not what is required.

Again this brings us back to the matter of assuming responsibility, so that we no longer anticipate someone else doing it for us. Is this true with respect to each individual? There have been abundant excuses found, justifications for failure, and usually this involves placing blame over there somewhere on someone else. Somebody is to blame, surely. Well if we want to indulge ourselves in blame, yes, I suppose you could say there is someone. Me! Just me, nobody else. Here is finally something coming to focus. Spirit needs to be brought to focus. Spirit is quite capable of handling all right responsibility. If as individuals we let that come to focus in our own expression of living, then we find ourselves quite capable of handling all that comes to us; but the handling is not for our own pleasure and satisfaction.

The focus of spirit, finding expression through human minds and hearts and bodies, accepts the facts as they are and is concerned to handle those facts in the right way. The right way would not include judging them. Judge not! We are not in the business of trying to make over the human nature state, as though it could be improved into something else. It is what it is, so we are not in that business. But things come to us to be handled by that focus of spirit which is present.

This drawing together of a body through which the spirit of the Messiah may be in expression requires a body of flesh, which includes the consciousness of that body, to be absolutely amenable to the expression of the spirit. Some have begun to realize that the vaunted idea of human free choice is a pipe dream. There is flesh required for the expression of spirit—yielded flesh. The only way flesh can yield is because heart and mind yield and are willing to provide a facility for the action of that focus of spirit—that quality, that character of being, of which one becomes increasingly aware as it is given expression. But where is it going to be given expression? In some supposedly perfect state where everything is just the way one would like it to be? Of course not. It finds expression in the present state the way things are, exactly as they are, or it doesn’t find expression. There is no place else for it to find expression.

All you have is today. All you have is now. We know that. OK, let’s be here now with respect to what is here now and let spirit handle the situation. If we are busy reacting to the situation, whining about it, wanting it to be some other way, people to behave differently so it would be all nice and cushy for us, we are living in a dream world. It’s advisable to wake up; it’s advisable to mature.

The One who is referred to as the Father simply indicates the nature or the quality of what it is that rightly fathers our expression in living, not some benign and benevolent parent somewhere who is going to smooth us down and make us comfortable with all the things we think we want—not that at all! Such an attitude and viewpoint is that of an irresponsible child. Well one needs to pass through childhood to get to maturity; but, for heaven’s sake, we need to come out of childhood somewhere along the way because there is a willingness to grow up and not expect, as children are inclined to do, other people to supply them with everything they think they want.

There is a peculiar absence of maturity, and people never grow beyond self-centered childhood. In a sense human beings don’t become mature; all they become is a means for the expression of maturity. There is only one reason for their existence in the first place: that is to allow for the expression of spirit; and they are not going to allow for the expression of the spirit as long as they are trying to satisfy themselves. Human beings have consistently excluded the experience of the spirit of the Messiah because they have conveniently misinterpreted the idea, for one thing, and said the Messiah is over there: the Messiah is Jesus, for instance. Well the spirit was in focus there, certainly, revealing what it is that is necessary for the whole body of mankind, not something different, the same spirit in focus in the flesh body of mankind.

How is it going to happen? It has to happen through the individual. How else can it happen? If individuals exclude that experience it doesn’t happen for anyone; and if everybody is just sitting there waiting for somebody else to do it, it never happens. But we all have the immediate opportunity—as long as life remains, the focus of spirit is there—to allow that to come forth into expression, to father thought, word and deed. It's there to be done. But if we are letting the circumstances and other people father what comes forth through us, that sounds more like the devil, doesn’t it? That’s not the right father, is it? You have awakened and know what to do—so there is no excuse, is there, for any of us, no justification whatsoever. And we can’t fool ourselves anymore. I trust that’s true. Is it?

We may acknowledge that there is a mess. There is no sense to try to blind ourselves to that. There is a mess in human consciousness, for sure. Someone needs to emerge out of that mess. The mess has, for a long time, been trying to make itself unmessy, an impossible task. There is another state or another experience available which doesn’t try to fix up what can’t be fixed up. Human beings have broken the egg—I think they scrambled it too—and now they don’t like scrambled eggs anymore and they want to get it back into the shell. It can’t be done, it’s a futile undertaking, and yet virtually all human energy is being channeled into this business of trying to get the world balanced somehow so that the anticipated Armageddon doesn’t come. It’ll come for sure; that world needs to pass away. There is a question, of course, as to how it passes away.

Let us accept the responsibility of standing where we belong—in the midst of a mess, if you want it that way—recognizing that there is something happening of a creative process by which what doesn’t belong passes away. This is a very usual experience for human beings; they themselves keep passing away in every generation, because they don’t belong. We don’t belong in the state in which we find ourselves. All right let’s allow that state to change; and it changes by reason of the fact that there is the acceptance of a new father of what finds expression in our living, a new quality of character.

In these moments of quietness the turmoil can subside, recede, and the clarity of spirit can once again be brought to focus in our own experience, because in that spirit which individually we differentiate, all things are made new, not by trying to mend the old but because this new spirit is present, we have experience of it—the body forms. Amazing! And, as you well know, it didn’t form on the basis of people choosing each other; it formed on the basis of all concerned accepting the same spirit. And then, regardless of human notions about whom one likes or doesn’t like, or thinks one wishes to be close to or far from, the process works, and we find ourselves together.

As has also been noted, we sometimes thought we didn’t like the process, we didn’t like the people who were apparently being brought so close to us. We wanted to change them, and there are those who still are in this business of trying to change other people, rather than awakening to what it is of spirit that is present, because only from that standpoint is there a blending and a fusion possible, and only from that standpoint does a person in mind and heart become aware that he is with friends. Amazing! He didn’t choose them but there they are. You don’t have to work at it. In fact if you are working at it you are not a friend, for one thing, and therefore you will not have the experience of being a friend. The only way you can experience friendship is by being a friend. “Love one another.”

We find ourselves associated in one body, to the extent that the same spirit is emerging with increased freedom. There begins to be an awareness of what could well be called the Word being made flesh, being made flesh in spite of human nature and everything else that human beings have produced—a new state, that is not there because of the circumstances round about. The circumstances will sort themselves out as that focus of spirit is maintained. If we become flabby and subject to the circumstances, then we are in trouble. If we find ourselves in trouble, what needs to be done? Come back to the focus of spirit, because there is strength—the creative power by which all things are made new. Probably there is a lot that is present in circumstances round about that needs to disintegrate. We are inclined to try to cling onto it. “Oh, what’s going to happen if that falls apart?” Well let’s find out. If something needs to fall apart, let it fall apart! That’s taking a chance, isn’t it? It’s taking even more of a chance if we don’t let it fall apart.

So we share as individuals the same responsibility. Some people have tried to make me into some sort of a leader, a spiritual leader presumably—for the most part because the individual who made that attempt didn’t want to take responsibility himself, or herself. It’s very convenient to have some scapegoat to hang things on, but it’s all one’s own responsibility. I have feelings and hereditary elements in my makeup just the same as everybody else, and, incidentally, so had Jesus. His meaning is based in the fact that those things did not control Him, not that they weren’t there. Human beings have found a wonderful excuse here of course. “He was something special; He didn’t have all the things that we have.” Oh yes, He did. Let’s not try to escape responsibility. 

I have taken responsiblity and it worked out in a certain way. But don’t let the fact that I took responsibility and it worked out in this way be an excuse for you not to take your responsibility, which will work out in what way? Well you have to take it to find out. But it is exactly the same thing. It’s exactly the same as it was for Jesus—exactly. Certainly the focus of spirit that was present in Him was unique to Him, but that focus of spirit that is the experience of each of us, which is in fact what we truly are, is unique. It is specific for each individual, not a sort of blended thing. We are responsible for differentiating it so it comes out in its unique, specific ways, each person assuming the responsibility for himself; it doesn’t matter what anybody else does; he has that responsibility. If he assumes that correctly he will find that it blends with those who are assuming it correctly also.

And the one body puts in an appearance, the body of the Messiah, mankind, that all things may be brought again into the beauty and the perfection of the universal whole instead of being held out to one side by self-centered human beings who suffer the consequences and then complain about it. Let’s let it all come back where it belongs, we say to the glory of God—the glory of the One whose spirit differentiated composes our individual true identities.

The spirit is referred to as the holy spirit; it is whole. And if there are any portions of what we are, humanly speaking, that may be held out, then obviously the holy spirit has no means of adequate expression. The only hope, if you want to look at it that way, for mankind is by reason of that wholeness of spirit which is a reality because it is differentiated in balance through many.

© Emissaries of Divine Light