from
Glory To God In The Highest
Uranda June
26, 1953 Class
Gradually the pattern is unfolding
so that you can begin to perceive with the eye of your heart the beautiful
reality of the divine design, and seeing it, you begin to relax into it, you
begin to let its control have meaning. You can, on the basis of faith—not
seeing clearly—when there is trust, begin to let control have meaning, but the
fulness of control in the reality of truth appears when you have begun to see
for yourself the beauty of the divine design. Until you do begin to see for
yourself, there tends to be a feeling that you are going to lose something,
that something is somehow being taken away from you, or that you are being
forced into some type of pattern where you lose your independence. Independence
to be a dying soul is not of much value.
When we enter into the glorious
liberty of the children of God as living souls, we find that we have the
privilege of living in the kingdom that is at hand and are no longer enjoying (?)
the seeming privilege of being independent in a prison cell from which the only
release will be death. And so you are beginning to see the beauty of the divine
design, and relaxing into it you begin to let control have meaning. And you are
finding that gradually your questions are either answered or they tend to
become unimportant. Have any of you noticed that? Your questions are either
answered or they tend to become unimportant.
In season all things are made clear. But you must learn to see for
yourself, and you are learning to see with the eye of the heart, with the
guardian angel of the mind, the conscious mind, at work in you.
This morning I would like to
direct your attention to one of the outstanding keys to a realization of
reality that can be found in scripture or Holy Writ anywhere, an outstanding
key which has, from the standpoint of its true purpose and meaning, been
virtually ignored. As long as we ignore the keys, we cannot use them to unlock
the doors and let the things of God come in. It is not a matter of you climbing
up, it is not a matter of you opening your prison door and going out of it. It
is a matter of opening the door—you have to do that; you have to use the key—but
you let the Master in, and when He comes in He begins to prepare a place for
you, He begins to make the place over; not just an ordinary re-modeling, but
the former things are caused to pass away. “Behold, I make all things new.”
Instead of imagining that you must somehow escape from a prison, you let the
prison be rebuilt into a mansion, a mansion of soul, in which the things of
heaven are present and made manifest.
This particular key was given to
man at the time our Master's body was born on earth in the form of a babe.
There were many remarkable revelations of the reality of Shekinah at the time
of the Master's birth, but the central key is the angels' song. The central key
is the angels' song: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good
will toward men.” Let us look at this expression from the standpoint of reality,
with the eye of the heart. “Glory to God in the highest.”
What is the glory? The Shekinah
cloud of glory. “Glory to God in the highest.” That carries to the highest
focalization of Deity, going beyond the range of human consciousness or awareness.
“Glory to God in the highest.” And the expression was made in relationship to
those who dwell on earth. So if there was a recognition of “Glory to God in the
highest,” we see with the eye of the heart how there was a great cone, shall we
say—or what we have illustrated by the use of the word tent—a great cone
allowed to settle down over the earth, the base of it enfolding the earth as in
a net, and the point of it extending upward to God in the highest.
And what is it that shapes this?
What is it that gives it form? Glory—the Shekinah cloud of glory. And it was
brought to the earth, enfolding man, centered on earth in the babe that was
born. And “Glory to God in the highest,” signifies that the cloud of glory,
made manifest to man through the form of the babe that was to become a man,
extended to God in the highest, that there was no break, no point of
separation, no veil, except the inability of human beings to see. The cloud of
glory, the Shekinah, extended to the earth, enfolding the earth and carrying to
God in the highest. Glory all the way. The Shekinah cloud of glory here—and all
the way to God in the highest.
And then, following, when that is
a reality, what does follow? “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth”—enfolded
in the Shekinah glory something begins to manifest—peace on earth.” “Peace on
earth, good will toward men.” The coming of the Master was the supreme gesture
from God, the zenith of God's gift of love to man; and only in relationship to
love can there be peace; and it is clearly indicated it was on earth— the
supreme gesture of goodwill.
Instead of seeing God as an
avenging God, seeing God as a bloodthirsty God, seeing God as One who is always
looking for a chance to torture human beings, instead of seeing God as One who
had somehow conceived in His own mind the idea that He would not forgive human
beings until His own Son was sent into the world and slain on the cross, we see
that at the time of the Master's birth the divine expression, the angels' song,
conveyed to man the supreme gesture of love and goodwill. If there is goodwill,
can we say that in the pattern of that goodwill there is a desire to get even,
to make people pay for their sins, to make people suffer, etc.? No.
What is the natural result when
human beings allow themselves to be enfolded in the Shekinah cloud of glory
that extends all the way to Highest God? First there begins to be a sense of
peace—peace on earth, from which peace had been banished for so long and from
which it was again banished. Peace on earth, the result of the working of God's
love within the Shekinah cloud of glory. And then goodwill. Goodwill from God
in the highest, through the Shekinah, to all the children of men. Goodwill: the
willingness to let all differences be past, to let all wrongs be as if they had
not been.
This is not the message of a
bloodthirsty God through His angels, His avenging angels, to the cringing
cowards dwelling on earth. This is the message of a God of love, who does not
require any blood sacrifice. This is the message of Highest God to the children
of men through the Shekinah cloud of glory made manifest on earth and centered on
earth in the body of a babe. Peace on earth.
And the angels sang the song even
though there was no room in the inn for Him. People were so busy there
celebrating, they were so busy with important affairs, that there was no room
in the inn, no bed available to Mary. They were busy with such busy business.
And the angels sang the song even though they had to move the ox from the
stalls and put in a little fresh hay in the manger to make a place for the
birth of the babe—the lowliest place. And still, even though that was all that
man could provide for the coming of the LORD of Lords and KING of Kings, there
was still the angels' song, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace,
good will toward men.” No judgment, no condemnation, the open invitation to
come—to come and let the beauties of the kingdom of heaven be revealed in the
lives of the children of men.
In conjunction with this there were
other evidences. This song the angels sang was heard by the shepherds who
tended their flocks. And there we have again the pattern of the shepherd.
Suppose a good shepherd is herding his sheep and one of the sheep wanders off a
bit, gets over in a dangerous place and the shepherd brings it back. Suppose
one of the little lambs is straggling behind.
Does the shepherd come along with the staff and start beating it, and
say, “Get up in there where you belong or I will beat you to death. I will have your blood if you do not get in
there”? And one of the sheep wanders
aside a bit. No, God is not like that.
Human beings have attributed to God their own dastardly attitudes and
conceive God to be as limited as they themselves are, and they have built their
concept of religion on that basis. And instead of seeing the glorious
significance of the angels' song, they have continued to weave the patterns of
assumption and belief on the basis that prevents God's love from being
received, His power from manifesting, His truth from being known.
And so human beings have continued
to die. Remember, God did not curse man.
God did not require that anyone should die at any time, under any
circumstance, and least of all did He require that His Son should die. And once
you begin to see that God did not require the death of any human being anywhere
at any time, that God did not produce the condition which would cause death,
that He did not require the death of our Lord on earth, or His body—once you
begin to actually see these things, the truth of the matter, you can begin to
have a new attitude toward life and toward God.
The angels' song to the children
of men was, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward
men.” And where is there in that the death sentence for God's Son on earth? The
patterns of religion and belief and worship, and their supposed way of
salvation—all figments of fancy, assumption, pure and simple—have deluded human
beings.
“Glory to God in the highest, and
on earth peace, good will toward men.” The shepherd, the pattern of the
shepherd—not concerned about punishing the sheep. What was the parable the Master gave? the
ninety-and-nine that were safe in the fold, and one had wandered away. And the
shepherd went out and found it and carried it back to bring it healing and
restore it to its place in the fold. We cannot understand life, the magic of
life, the principles of living, or even how to give an attunement, until we see
that.
Seeing it, we begin to recognize
that the wise men who followed the star came to the place where the Master was
born directed of the spirit of God. And what was the star? First we have the
pattern with the shepherds—the glory, the Shekinah cloud of glory. And then
come the wise men—wisdom, the sense of the fitness of things, a function in
relationship to the mind, to the truth. And what do we see? The wise men following the star. And the star
is what? The light that glows. The cloud of glory, the light that glows, and
then the fire of love. And within the fire One like unto the Son of God. The
Shekinah pattern of Being was established in relationship to the Master's
birth, and He used it all the way through His ministry. He talked about it. He
revealed it over and over again.
He said, “Let your light so shine
before men”—the light that glows. “Love the Lord thy God”—the Shekinah fire,
the light that glows, the Shekinah cloud of glory—let these things manifest in
you. He said it so many times, so many ways. The Shekinah fire of love in the
manifestation of the divine pattern on earth. The Master said, "And ye
shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," free to live, to
move and to have your being in the Shekinah of our God. And so shall you share
the victory and do your part toward finishing the work which you came to do.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
