Reproof—Antispirit Prevails Not

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Reproof — Antispirit  Prevails  Not

Martin Exeter   June 15, 1986  p.m.

"To speak with one voice is to let the King speak on earth."

Commitment—considering this in the light of various varieties of human-nature commitment, we do not wish to accept a fanatical attitude which tends to emerge when it is a matter of the human-nature commitment. While there may be an initial sense of commitment, in due course this dissolves because there is one present who becomes known in expression and, in fact, has no commitment at all. There is simply the participation in the creative process.

We need to be rather careful not to take an attitude of commitment to the creative process. Initially maybe we do, but if there is an approach based in commitment this relates to human nature. Human nature is committing itself to all kinds of causes, and finally has the satisfaction of committing itself to the cause of truth—ah, this is a real boost to the human ego! But it never is a matter of commitment by human nature to anything. Let human nature pass away, that there may be unveiled the natural, consistent, powerful expression of truth in living. This comes because there is space for that expression. As that emerges, the truth is known, and there is no necessity anymore to try to force anything to be so. If at any time you find yourself trying to compel yourself to do something that you feel is aligned with a commitment to the expression of truth, you may know that the human ego is in the saddle.

“He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” The way that is put, it doesn’t indicate there was any great effort or stress or strain. Just be willing to dwell in the secret place of the most High and consequently abide under the shadow of the Almighty. No big deal. Human nature tries to make it into a big deal in order to sustain its own presence and control; but all the approaches of human nature need to dissolve, so that what is left is simply the truth, and it is found to be a natural thing.

We abide in the heaven of spirit. If we actually do abide in the heaven of spirit, then we act, we do what needs to be done. We don't need to hype ourselves up to produce what human nature would think of as results. We know that this is needful if one is to become a super salesman. You have to hype yourself up and it helps if there is a group of people all hyping themselves up: “Go out and sell the product!” We don’t need to hype ourselves up. Just abide in the heaven of spirit.

If we do abide in the heaven of spirit, we are, at the same time, aware of the heaven of antispirit because it is the same place. Different elements are at work in the heaven of spirit to what are at work in the heaven of antispirit, but the work is being done in the heaven. I think this has been something of a mystery heretofore, and we haven’t particularly considered it, because there was the need to come to the point of abiding in the heaven of spirit without fussing about the heaven of antispirit. We would never come to abide in the heaven of spirit as long as we were contending with antispirit. This is why it has been so important to cease judgment, for instance, to cease the conflicts which are engendered by subjection to the machinations of antispirit. Let them go, that we may come into the heaven of spirit and abide there.

Probably in doing so we didn’t count on the fact that if we came into the heaven of spirit we would also be coming into the heaven of antispirit, because it is the same place. But we are able to do what we are here to do by reason of the fact that we are abiding in the heaven of spirit. We are here to do something with respect to antispirit. We noted that this was spoken of in the Book of Revelation as war in heaven. Well we need to be present in the heaven of spirit before there can be the acceptance of responsibility with respect to the presence of antispirit.

I trust we have reached a point where we are sufficiently aware of the heaven of spirit that we can abide there, and at the same time observe the machinations and the antics of antispirit in the heaven without being thrown off balance, without losing our polarity, without being caused to be ejected from the heaven of spirit. We need to be in the heaven of spirit and to abide there, but there is something to be done. The doing presently relates to the restoration of man. This requires the ejection of antispirit from the heaven.

I am sure we are all quite aware that antispirit still throws a bit of weight around in the heaven which we have come to know. There are occasions when it seems he takes over. We have had plenty of time, however, to learn to abide in the heaven of spirit regardless of anything that is going on insofar as antispirit is concerned. We are going to retain our centering; we are going to be on a firm foundation; we will be consistent and trustworthy; we trust the creative process in the heaven of spirit—it’s at work there. The antispirit substitutes a different working in that heaven and heretofore has had almost uncontested control in human existence throughout the body of mankind.

So we come into the heaven of spirit and abide there, and in doing so we become aware of antispirit, rightly so. Some were hopeful that if they came fully into the heaven of spirit they wouldn’t have any more truck with antispirit: “Ah, what a relief! Now we don’t need to concern ourselves anymore with antispirit.” Well we do need to concern ourselves with antispirit, but not in the way that was done before we came to abide in this heaven of spirit. Only when we abide in the heaven of spirit can we deal with antispirit.

The dealing with antispirit was described by the words, “The dragon and his angels prevailed not.” They were incapable of taking charge, taking charge of the one who abides in the heaven of spirit. They can’t be inveigled into allowing antispirit to prevail in one’s own personal experience; and our own personal experience is now wrapped up with experience of the body. So the machinations of antispirit are not allowed to govern at all in the body as a whole, because all abide in the heaven of spirit and have the consequent ability and power to deal with antispirit. But the basic factor of dealing with antispirit is that antispirit cannot prevail anymore, prevail in one’s own expression, or prevail in the expression of the body.

This isn’t a battle in the ordinary sense; it is simply a matter of withdrawing power from antispirit to take control in one’s own experience. Antispirit can only take control as life, the power of life, is given to antispirit to do so. Remove that power and antispirit is powerless. Antispirit only exists because human beings give antispirit power, the power of their own living, or of their own existence as it would then become, not living.

Something was recorded for us in the Gospel of John with respect to reproof. The way by which antispirit can no longer prevail is because antispirit is reproved. One must be in a position of strength, in the position of control, to reprove what needs to be reproved. If one is subject to what needs to be reproved, certainly one can't reprove it. One wouldn’t know what it was to reprove it anyway.

But there are these three matters relative to reproof: the matter of sin, the matter of righteousness, and the matter of judgment. Here are the three areas in which antispirit maintains primary control. We come at last to the specific points where this control is maintained in the body of humanity. These three points differentiate into a multitude of other points, and human beings are always fussing about this multitude of other points, so that the core of the control of antispirit is never even seen. The differentiation of antispirit provides a vast variety of points for contention in the body of mankind. If you start to try to deal with all the quirks of human nature that are present in yourself, you won’t live long enough to do it!

Let’s get to the core of the matter; and we can only come to the core of the matter when we come to the heaven of spirit, because here we are approaching the absolute focus of things. Where the focus of spirit is present, we may have defined that in terms of love, truth and life, which are merely words, but we cannot abide in the heaven of spirit without letting those words become a reality in our own experience of living. When they are a reality in our own experience of living we find that we don’t really need the words anymore. When there is alignment with the truth, all that is true finds expression and there is nothing present in one’s own internal nature, so to speak, which will contradict that.

All human-nature antics are based in conflict. Everyone has been sold a bill of goods on this: that you cannot know pleasure without pain, for instance. If there was merely pleasure and no pain, there would be no need for the word “pleasure” to describe it, would there? It would be the state of affairs. You would experience pleasure without knowing it, without knowing it as pleasure. All you would know it as, would be just the state of affairs. This relates to the experience of the creative process. As the creative process finds expression in one’s own living, that is what is known. It doesn’t require anything else to prove that it’s the creative process; it just is. That’s what is being experienced.

This matter of sin, righteousness and judgment all is indicative of the fact that human experience is separated from the creative process. The reproof of sin, it is said, was required because, as the Master put it, “they believe not on me.” What does that mean? Belief on Him may be seen as unification with the creative process. Belief is not a mental concept or an emotional feeling, at least not the way this word is used in the context which I have quoted. It simply indicates that there has been no experience, insofar as human beings are concerned, of unification with the creative process. It can easily be seen that the Master exemplified unification with the creative process. To experience unification with the creative process is describable as belief in Him, but that’s a very different thing to the usual mental concept or emotional feeling with respect to this.

There is unification with the creative process, and that is the reproof. It is the reproof of the state of separateness from the creative process. Accepting and experiencing unification with the creative process reproves the world of separateness from the creative process. That is exactly what the Master Himself did. But human beings got the evidence out of the way as soon as possible, so that they might not be reproved. So sin remains, separation from the creative process; that’s all it is. Anything that anyone does, any human being does, in the state of separation from the creative process, is describable as sin. It doesn’t matter whether somebody says it’s good or whether somebody says it’s bad, it’s still all sin. So to reprove the world of sin there must be present on earth the evidence, through human beings, of the unification with the creative process. Reproof is immediately there. And which do you think has the most power: unification with the creative process or separation from it? Of course there is no contest!

The same thing with righteousness—as the Master put it: “Because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more”—there is no external evidence anymore of unification with the creative process. Therefore all righteousness, as human beings think of it, is not righteousness at all. It is self-righteousness, insofar as the self of human nature is concerned. The world is full of self-righteous people who would be shocked to awaken to the fact that they were self-righteous. They think they know what is righteous, what is good, what should be done in this situation or that one—everybody is so sure of their righteousness, and yet none of it is righteousness at all.

Righteousness is only known when there is the experience of permitting the creative process to find expression in one’s own living. The Master is not on hand in human form as He was to reveal this, so one has to take the responsibility for revealing it oneself. There isn’t any other way; and there is reproof again with respect to righteousness. As long as human beings can be fooled into fiddling around with all the classifications of sin that have been foisted upon people, and as long as everyone can be assured of their own human righteousness, the antispirit is in absolute control. And human beings can be manipulated constantly, as they are!

And finally judgment, of course: this is the character of antispirit. This is what antispirit promotes, judgment: “Now if you are intelligent people you can see the situation, you see what’s right and what’s wrong.” And everybody falls for it! Probably also, “Well if you stop judging, there is no means of determining how you should go; you would be just a nothing! We have to have our opinions, we have to have our judgments, to go this way and that and prove that we are men and women of substance.” Oh, how the whole world is deceived!

Now, coming into the heaven of spirit we can see this. We begin to see what it is that is operating throughout humanity. We stop looking so much at the surface manifestations which human beings are now enjoined to judge. This surface play, which grabs human beings in their emotions and they get all hyped up about it, has nothing to do with what is really going on. What is really going on is the fact that antispirit has had control of humanity all down through the ages, and still has.

However, we see a little light at the end of the tunnel, to the extent that we begin to abide in the heaven of spirit. Then we see what is happening from the standpoint of spirit, and at the same time we see what is happening by reason of antispirit. We have an advantage over antispirit in this regard, because antispirit doesn’t know what is happening from the standpoint of spirit. It has become so fat in the land that it thinks it will sit a queen forever! Isn’t that what was said? Something along those lines. Fine, let it think that.

But here we are in the heaven of spirit, with a consciousness of the way the creative process works and a participation in that working as we give it expression in our own living. We no longer trust minds and emotions to direct us in the way we should go. We trust spirit; we trust the creative process and we let it work. The prince of this world, the antispirit, is judged; it establishes its own judgment. It’s very true, as the Master said, “With what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged”—much safer not to judge at all, because it’s going to come right back, and it does. Of course coming back, with most people, it makes them judge even more!

Finally we come to abide in the heaven of spirit, and we are not shocked to find out that as we abide in the heaven of spirit we become aware more vividly of antispirit. We understand what’s going on and we know how to participate in the creative process to bring reproof. In the creative process here is the truth, and antispirit is reproved. The prince of this world is judged. It doesn’t know it yet, but we know it first. And by reproof, the fact of being judged, self-judged, becomes apparent to antispirit. This causes a good deal of disturbance. The process is going on, it’s what is happening now, and there is increasing disturbance.

Let the dragon and his angels be cast out of the heaven, because Michael and his angels abide in the heaven. On this basis antispirit can never prevail. We experience strength and understanding, and we are quite willing to let the creative process work. It’s the work of our own living: and we participate in this process, which has been hidden from human understanding, but we come to an understanding, and behold, the world of mankind is reproved—no great battle. But that old serpent, the devil and satan, is cast out of the heaven. He then fiddles around in the earth in the experience of vast numbers of people, but as this matter of reproof is consistent and held steady there is a clarification. Heaven becomes a sea of glass, clear as crystal, and the design present in heaven is unveiled and takes form on earth as the first heaven and the first earth pass away. The two processes work together. The new heaven and the new earth emerge, and the first heaven and the first earth dis-emerge—a simple process when there are those who abide in the heaven of spirit!

© Emissaries of Divine Light