The Transforming Fire

The  Transforming  Fire

Martin Cecil   April 15, 1979

In the story of the resurrection of Jesus, His body had been placed in a tomb which was in a garden. We have taken note before of the symbolical representation which is here portrayed, because indeed He had accepted the state of mankind into His own body so that this might be represented thereby, revealing the condition of the body of mankind in its present state; namely that of being in a coma in a tomb. But the tomb is in the garden. From inside the tomb, with the stone upon the mouth of the sepulcher, it would be impossible to tell that the tomb was in a garden. However from the standpoint of anyone in the garden it was obvious that the tomb was in the garden. Here we see a rather clear portrayal of what the experience is in the human nature state in the tomb.

There is a rather low level of awareness of the tomb state, but no awareness of the garden state; at least only perhaps in imagination, but in fact, no—because there is something blocking the connection between the tomb and the garden. This is portrayed as a stone, and we might be reminded of the hardness of human hearts. This hardness, this impurity, maintains the cloud cover, the blanket, the veil, through which nothing can be seen.

This veil is something of a mirror. The heart merely reflects what is present in the tomb. The connecting substance of the heart is also the substance of separation between heaven and earth in the experience of human nature consciousness. It should be a window through which heaven may emerge into the earth, but it has rather been a mirror simply reflecting what is present in the earth, what is present in the tomb state of human nature. Human hearts are all involved in that. That is the impure heart and the hard heart. It is a stone which blocks the connection between the garden and what is now the tomb.

What is now the tomb is not the way it should be. Certainly this has been brought about by what is called the fall of man—human failure in other words—and is not the creation of God. The essential factors of the creation of God are all present but the human nature consciousness has superimposed this veil, so that there is no awareness of the reality of the garden; just a vague hope perhaps, interpreted in various ways according to one’s system of beliefs. It is true that there is a garden but it is of no particular value merely to speculate about it, to build up some delightful imagination, while sitting in the tomb.

When the stone is removed from the mouth of the sepulcher it then becomes evident to the one who is as yet in the tomb that the tomb is in a garden. He can see out through the window that there is a garden. He can’t see very much of the garden that way but merely becomes aware of the reality of the garden. In some measure I’m sure you will recognize this as relating to your own experience: in the tomb, yet the stony heart in the process of being removed from the gate between the tomb and the garden, so that a glimpse of the garden is experienced. That glimpse is not imagination. Of course when a person has such a glimpse there is the human nature tendency to try to build that up in imagination to be something more than it actually is. We know that we need to learn to accept the situation as it actually is without embellishing it with our imagination, because immediately when we do that we remove ourselves from the present moment and from the experience of things as they are. We find ourselves then in a realm of fancy.

I’m sure we have all reached a point where we are not too interested in indulging in this sort of fancy. Insofar as we are concerned it should be the real thing or nothing. So there has been a little glimpse of the fact that the tomb state of human nature is not isolated in fact from the garden. It has merely seemed to be so from inside the tomb, as long as the hardened heart prevented awareness of the reality of the garden. This is the situation pretty well for most human beings on the face of the earth. Maybe with some there is an occasional glimpse through a crack: “Oh, there is a garden.” It looks a little far away. You can’t squeeze through the crack to get into the garden. Therefore the only way to experience the garden is to die in the tomb and hope that, having died in the tomb, by some magic means you will be transported out into the garden. This is a human fancy.

We need to see what the facts are as these facts relate to our own experience. And if we do have some sort of glimpse of a garden beyond the tomb, let us recognize that it is real and that the tomb in fact is in the garden and indeed is rightly a part of the garden; heaven and earth are one. It is not as though one were going to demolish the tomb, once out in the garden—“We don’t need the tomb anymore.” Well it wouldn’t be a tomb anymore if there was no corpse in it, so if the corpse was found not to be a corpse really but merely in the state of coma, so that it could be aroused, the stone rolled away, then the experience of the garden becomes a reality.

You know, most analogies break down somewhere along the line. Actually it is a matter of letting the garden come into the tomb. We may see the tomb in different terms. We have used the word womb to describe it. It is a place of change, gestation, a creative place in fact, rather than a place of disintegration. As a tomb it is a place of disintegration. As a womb it is a place of integration. It participates in the creative process. It is included in the garden in other words; it is not separate from the garden. And what is happening in the earth relates to what is happening in the heaven. The action of the heaven engenders a creative process in the earth, so that there are changes wrought in the earth in what was before considered to be a tomb. Human beings really do consider this earth to be a tomb. They are going to die here. It is a great big graveyard.

We belong in the garden, but the tomb is in the garden; so the tomb is part of our environment but we no longer see it as a tomb. We see it, as I say, perhaps as a womb. We see it as a part of the creative process. This earth is not meant to be a receptacle for disintegration. There is some disintegration going on, obviously, and this is right, under the circumstances as they are; but it really is a matter of integrating what is now present in the earth with heaven. Here is the process of change, a process of transformation, a process of transmutation, a process of resurrection. This is what should be occurring relative to the earth.

Things have been at a standstill pretty well for quite some time insofar as this creative process is concerned. Human beings, looking at it now, see it pretty much as a circle: human beings are born to die and all the rest of nature seems to be following out the same sort of circle; lift the earth up a bit and then down it goes, round and round. This is not the true creative process; this is something that is in effect now because human beings are not man. Human beings restored to the state of man provide a facility by which the true creative process can work. This can be described as a spiral rather than as a circle. But for the moment we have to settle for the way things are and the way things have been for a long time. Human beings always see things they look at through their own state of consciousness. This state of consciousness might be described as a circle state of consciousness, going round and round. So, looking out through this circle state of consciousness a circle is seen, and of course what is so seen is accepted as though it was what is really there. In a sense it is what is really there if one is in the circle state of consciousness, but it is not what really should be there.

It could be said that things have been held in abeyance on earth for a long time for the sake of fallen man, that the restoration might put in an appearance. In order for this to happen human beings have to be kept from destroying themselves utterly. They’ve done their very best in this regard, and they have almost succeeded a few times, but our presence here this evening witnesses the fact that it was a near miss. Man is rightly the means by which God acts on earth directly with respect to the creative process. Man created in the image and likeness of God allows this to happen. There was indeed a period of time when it did happen, but obviously in that situation, while it cannot be imagined as to what it actually was, it could be seen that a very great vibrational intensity of power was in focus and in expression by reason of man. There was no veil between heaven and earth. The substance of love was maintained in the experience of man, and we have described that substance as fire, the fire of love, the substance of love, an intense fire.

This is the creative fire, the fire of transmutation, the fire by which the creative action of God through man could transform the earth. That process of transformation was initiated, and we have some evidence of it in this beautiful earth. Take a look at some of the other planets and you won’t find anything comparable in this solar system. The earth is the way it is, not merely because it is a certain distance from the sun, following out a certain orbit, but because man has been present on this planet, making possible the creative process. The creative process, under the hand of God through man, is a very intense affair; in other words the furnace, the fire, is very hot.

When man removed himself from his position as the means by which this fire might be maintained at its proper heat he no longer was the channel for the expression of that fire, and so things began to cool down. This was partly because of the fact that man was no longer a clear channel for the fire, but it is also partly so that man himself would not be destroyed. Man fell to a level where he did not belong. He fell into the earth, out of heaven into the earth, where the fire burns, where the transmutation is occurring, and even though the fire had been reduced in intensity it was still hot. All human beings since that time can testify to this fact. Experience in the world is supposed to be experience in the valley of the shadow of death, experience of inevitable suffering—famine, war, miseries of all kinds. This is the historical state of affairs insofar as human experience and memory of it are concerned. But the fire was reduced to be one-seventh as hot as it was wont to be.

In the story about Nebuchadnezzar, you will remember that it was heated up as though that was the unnatural condition, but the fact of the matter is that that is the natural condition, that the fire should be seven times hotter than it now is in human experience. If it were seven times hotter right now, how many human beings do you think could stand it? How many would there be left in a week’s time? Yet if there is to be restoration this reheating of the furnace must occur. The reheating of the furnace means that human nature can no longer exist. Human nature is burned up: human nature is cast into the lake burning with fire and brimstone. This is supposed to be hell, or a picture of hell, the devil’s domain. But this is the way the devil is eliminated.

That ultimate elimination cannot occur until the normal level of heat has been restored. The normal level of heat comes again into the earth because there is a facility in the human sense to make this action of God or earth possible. We see what is required perhaps and we also comprehend in some measure our own responsibility in the matter. Human nature is going to be burned up whether human nature likes it or not. It won’t like it! It doesn’t like it now, does it? One of the favorite human pastimes is complaint, certainly. So the fire has burned at a lower intensity and man has survived in consequence—not man; fallen man. Human beings have survived in the tomb. The body of mankind is still there, not really alive, just in a coma. There is a vast difference between a human being in a coma and a human being leaping upon the mountains and skipping upon the hills. So the state of man as now known, the fallen condition, is in no way revealing of what the true condition is, the true living condition of man as a living soul.

Physically speaking there is a collective body present, recognizable still, after a fashion, as having the potential of man. If you see someone lying in a coma in the hospital there may be a recognition that there is a potential person who might again be up and about. So it is with the human state now, the state of human nature now. It is the coma state in the tomb. The precedent has been set by which the experience of the coming forth from the tomb could occur. You may recall that Mary Magdalene came early in the morning into the garden and approached the tomb while it was yet dark, yet she could discern that the body wasn’t in the tomb anymore, the body of Jesus. Because it was dark in the garden, when she became aware of a figure standing by she assumed it to be the gardener. Of course we know that it was in fact the Master, and when He had spoken her name she recognized Him, and she fell in front of Him intending to touch Him, take hold of His feet perhaps. But He warned her, “Touch me not.” Why? Because here was the fire, here was the process in operation, with the fire being heated seven times hotter than it was wont to be heated in the human nature condition. And that could, and would, have been fatal to Mary if she had touched Him. There was something happening. This transmutation was going on.

Human beings may be very thankful that the fire heretofore hasn’t been any hotter than it has. It has been bad enough, hasn’t it? You have only to look at the fiction of history to tell that there has indeed been a lot of suffering on earth down through the ages, but never sufficient to eliminate human beings altogether. The fire wasn’t that hot. But for the restoration to occur, for man to be resurrected, he must again be man, through whom the normal intensity of fire finds expression. When he is restored man, that intensity of heat doesn’t bother him because he is not in the area where the transmutation is taking place. There is some intensity for a time while he comes out of that area. This relates to our own experience. Some have been hopeful that they could skip right into heaven. But even emerging into the garden, in whatever measure this is done, just as with the Master’s body, there was still something happening in it when He was in the garden; the transmutation was occurring still. This was all a continuing aspect of what had been experienced in the crucifixion and the events which immediately preceded the crucifixion, all very painful. The fire was already in the process of being heated and it was necessary to pass through that. So He didn’t bypass that experience and somehow maneuver His way into the garden. He had to go through the way He had to go through, thereby setting a precedent for the body of mankind. But it can be seen that the body of mankind established for itself the suffering aspect which may allow for the transmutation in the garden.

These things have been set by human beings long ago, and what has been sown must be reaped. Yet it isn’t the annihilation of the human race; it is the resurrection of man. Who is to say what the composition of man restored would be? Is there any value to speculation?—for instance to wonder whether it would include four billion people, or maybe only four million. Who knows? What is the point of speculation? Whatever it is it will prove itself out, and it will prove itself out exactly, and there is nothing that human beings can do to change it. Individually speaking we have a choice, but in the overall sense human nature is going to pass away. All those individuals in the body of mankind, subject to human nature, have a choice. God is not willing that any should perish. Let me read a passage from the Second Epistle of Peter. He is leading up to something here:

“Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts. And saying, Where is the promise of his coming?”—the coming forth of the angel, the coming forth of the Archangel, the coming forth of the Son of God—“Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God”—now here we are; we are concerned with the Word of God—“For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water.” Here is this different state of affairs on earth than is known now. “Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.” There is the passing of one world. “But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.”

“Reserved unto fire”—the fire has been at a relatively low temperature so that the world could be reserved for the high temperature. “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” Don’t be impatient. “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” He is not willing that the human race should pass from the face of the earth.

“But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” There are those who have examined this particular verse and have seen the fulfilment of the threat of nuclear war. That could be too. The way this is put, it looks very much like it, doesn’t it?—the elements melting with fervent heat. But we also see it from the standpoint of the substance of love, the fire of love, the intensification of the fire of love, so that human nature may be burned up and all the works of human nature may be dissolved. This is what is being said. Peter evidently had some vision in this regard.

But we recognize that it is not a matter of survival, because human nature is not going to survive. Only human nature thinks in terms of survival. In the angelic outlook, why would there be any thought of survival? There is no concern in the matter. The angel survives; the angel is. So the approach is not concerned with survival in the human nature sense, because human nature is not going to survive and the works of human nature are not going to survive. What does happen then? Do you think human nature can find out? Do you think the human mind can figure it out? It all looks to be so fanciful. “This has never happened before!” That’s right! It never happened before. If it had happened before, this state of affairs wouldn’t be here. But just because something never happened before doesn’t say that it can’t happen. Mind you, in the human nature state everything has happened before. There is nothing new under the sun at all. It has been an endless and boring repetition. But now the earth is reserved unto fire, and we are here as angels to let the transmutation take place in our own experience, so that while the tomb still seems to be a tomb insofar as human nature is concerned, we have the garden experience.

Obviously the tomb needs to be transmuted, so that it is no longer a tomb. It is a tomb by reason of human nature and by reason of the works of human nature, so that if it is to be transmuted so that it is not a tomb human nature and its works must be dissolved. Here we begin to enter into a realm which is unknown, certainly unknown to human nature. If it were known to human nature human nature wouldn’t know it, because human nature wouldn’t exist. Using words, there are all sorts of apparent contradictions and paradoxes that emerge—you may have noticed that—but remember, it is not a matter of trying to get understanding from the words. The understanding comes by reason of the spirit of the words, and when we share the Word of God in this sense, whatever human words may be used, may be necessary, can be put to work, and we see no contradiction, no paradox, because we are not hung up on the words.

The Word of God is supreme and the Word of God may take many forms. Obviously it does. We have only to look at this creation on the surface of the earth. The Word of God has taken many forms. Some of these forms seem to be contradictory; they seem to be in conflict. Certainly insofar as human beings are concerned this is the case, but it is assumed, looking at things through the circular vision of human nature, that conflict is the hallmark of all nature. There is a terrible warfare going on in the pond down here—so the circular vision of human nature tells us. But human nature never really knows what is going on, even in its own affairs.

So we are concerned to be so clear of our subjection to the human nature state that the fire of love may intensify to whatever degree is necessary, in other words may be restored to its original heat. I don’t think any of us would wish this to happen in a moment. It must happen gradually, but let us not try to make it happen too gradually, because it is going to happen anyway one way or another, and if we’re hanging back we’re going to get burned for sure. The true transmutation which is to be experienced, the resurrection, is not painful, because there is the acceptance of the angelic nature, which is not being transmuted. Human nature is being transmuted; it is being burned up; but the capacity of human consciousness remains for the right use of angelic consciousness. So there is a transmutation in human consciousness to allow for the acceptance of the intensity of angelic consciousness, so that the coming forth of the angel into expression in the world does not destroy the form through which it comes forth, through which you come forth.

I’ve touched on various things this evening relative to the matter of resurrection, so that there might be some increasing awareness of what the experience is liable to be. To the extent that we stay true to angelic nature, then we need not be shocked by the experience, but if we still nourish human nature we will be shocked. Choose ye this day whom ye will serve. All people are being forced into a choice, whether they like it or not, because of the increased intensity of the fire emerging by reason of the fact that there are some angels in the process of coming forth from the tomb into the garden, or letting the garden come into their tombs, if you want to put it that way; because they are really not going anyplace. They are staying right here. It is certainly not a matter of escape, as you well know. It is a matter of handling what needs to be handled as angels right here, letting the kingdom come, letting God’s will be done in earth as it is in heaven. For His, indeed, is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

We all have the opportunity of sharing in the experience of the substance of love. To the extent that the veil is still present because of the impure and hardened heart, that substance is held at bay somewhat so that the heat is not all that intense, but it is growing more intense in spite of any maneuvering that human nature may do. Is it not our joy to experience this substance of love, this fire of love, which we have seen as relating to the matter of friendship? What is so fearful about that? But at the same time it is an intense fire which burns up human nature. Human nature knows not the Lord, knows not friendship, knows not anything. Let it burn up. Stay true to this substance of love. Stay true to the reality of friendship.

© Emissaries of Divine Light