Extending the Hedge

Extending  the  Hedge

Martin Cecil   May 22, 1966

The sovereign soul

Who lives self-governed and at peace,

Is centred in himself, taking alike

Pleasure and pain; heat, cold; glory and shame.

He is the Faithful and Illumined One, glad

With joy of light and truth; dwelling safely

In the Central Way, with senses subjugate.

By this sign is he known:

Being of equal grace to comrades, friends,

Chance-comers, strangers, lovers, enemies,

Aliens and kinsmen; loving all alike,

Evil or good.

Within the Hedge he lives;

Restraining heart and senses, silent, calm,

Let him express Reality, showing

Pureness of soul, abiding on the Rock,

Tranquil in spirit, free of fear, intent

On Me, expressing thought of Me.

That Faithful One, so devoted, so controlled,

Comes to the peace beyond—My peace, the peace

Of highest Heaven!

Bhagavad Gita

“Within the Hedge he lives.” Do we know the reality of that hedge? What is it? Can it be observed?

You will recall how it was with Job, who was a perfect and an upright man, one who feared God and eschewed evil. The picture is portrayed in this first chapter: “And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?”

“Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought? Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.” Of course the way satan says this makes it appear as though this were a terrible thing. But this is the divine state, the perfect state. What is referred to here as the hedge not only extended to include Job himself but also extended into his environment to encompass all that he had on every side. This is the divine state.

The hedge insofar as most human beings are concerned who have any awareness of the reality of it surrounds such a very small place. It doesn't even extend to include very much of the physical body itself. It is a secret place, a hidden place, deep inside a person. If we put it that way, then the person is mostly outside; but deep inside there is this place, the place of true being. There is a hedge about it.

Because it has been so deeply hidden, man has found himself living outside of it. This is the fallen state, where man has excluded himself from the garden. But the hedge itself is invisible. It is light but light is not visible until it is reflected. This hedge is not visible until it is reflected. It cannot be reflected until it emerges into expression. It must radiate forth to be reflected. We have little experience in this regard until we ourselves begin to find a dwelling place within the hedge. We remember the 91st Psalm: “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty”—that is, within the hedge. Until that which constitutes the hedge is allowed to radiate forth it remains unknown, because there is nothing in expression to be reflected.

The hedge relates to control. Only that is included within the hedge that is under control. When we consider this from our individual viewpoints we may recognize that the reality of our identity is within the hedge, but it does not include very much because, for the most part, that which should be included is not under control. If we assume the position of being what we are in reality, then we are looking forth from the secret place, first of all toward that which constitutes the outer form, the physical body, mind and heart, which is surrounding the hedge. But the hedge is inside and we are inside the hedge. If we can take this position, looking out, then we extend the opportunity to accept control to our physical bodies, minds and hearts, that which is called the soul.

When human beings talk about their souls they are usually thinking of something inside somewhere. Exactly what it is is hard to say. I think, generally speaking, it is the human ego, isn't it? When human beings talk about their souls they are thinking of their human egos. “I hope my soul is saved. I hope my human ego will still be around after I'm dead.” This is a vain hope. Something may be around for a while, but it won't do you much good. In actual fact, as it is put in the Book of Genesis, God made man from the dust of the ground, “and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man”—composed of the dust of the ground, which is certainly an indication of the physical body—“became a living soul.” Human beings tend to have the thing reversed in a rather distorted fashion. They think of themselves as being their physical bodies, and talk about their souls. The fact of the matter is that when we assume the correct identity we may refer to our souls, recognizing that this indicates the physical body with its mental and emotional capacities.

You can say of your soul, “My soul stands in need of salvation.” It is probably going downhill. How is salvation going to be offered to this soul? By extending the hedge through it, so that the soul is included in the hedge. To start with, the true identity is within the hedge, within the soul. Until we begin to accept the reality of true identity for ourselves, even though we do not know exactly what it is yet, we cannot offer control to the soul. We offer control to the soul. We are not expecting it to come from someplace else.

It may be true, and usually is for human beings, that there isn't very much prior experience of the reality of discipline. Human beings in their fallen soul state are ungoverned and undisciplined. They know very little as to what the reality of control would be. This is because there is identification with something that is ungoverned. There may, therefore, be the need to develop experience in the field of discipline. We have emphasized this point. A person needs to learn to obey, so that the soul may have a little practice in this regard. If the soul is ungoverned the individual is identified with it. This he will be in such case. If the soul is ungoverned it means that the reality of Being is not in control; therefore the identity is in the soul. There is very little awareness of what is meant by control, and so it becomes necessary to undergo a certain rigorous training so that the soul may learn what it means to be obedient. Now the soul will have all kinds of ideas about this. It will no doubt decide that it will be obedient about this if the control is offered in a way that will be pleasing to the soul. This is not learning obedience; this is learning to please oneself. It is an endeavor to try to get things to work in a manner that would be pleasing to the soul, which is not the point at all. Things need to work in a manner that is right, from the standpoint of Divine Being, and in this regard the soul is not particularly consulted. If the soul imagines that it will only be obedient when the control is offered in a satisfactory manner, satisfactory to the soul, that is, it will never learn to be obedient.

So we may recognize that there is a certain rigorous training in this regard, because the fallen soul, which stands so much in need of salvation, is, of all things, rebellious, stubborn. Certainly a person has to learn to accept discipline, but from whence? He himself is not identified with the reality of Being; he is in no position to extend discipline to his own soul; so it must come through somebody else. It doesn't really matter through whom it comes, as long as a person is willing to learn. The soul is very anxious to pick and choose whom it is going to obey. Well that's no good. It's not going to learn anything on that basis at all—it's just maintaining its own supposed independence. Finally the soul discovers that on this basis it dies. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” The soul that rejects control dies. So there is an initial requirement here, which has been emphasized over and over, although rather few have taken it very seriously, the requirement of rigorous discipline in which the soul relinquishes the right to try to set the pattern for itself. It becomes willing to learn to be governed, because until there is a beginning point here, the individual himself, in the sense of identity, will have no basis for acceptance of the reality of himself.

You see, these things go together. To the extent that you accept identity with the reality of your Being, your soul will be under control. If your soul is not under control you may recognize that to that extent you have not accepted identity with the reality of your Being. When you begin to discover something of yourself in this divine sense, in the secret place, it will be because your soul is learning to be obedient, to be controlled. The control which is extended shifts as the identification centers in Divine Being—it shifts to you. You then are the one who is exercising the control over the soul. In other words it begins to move away from the external patterns of control, which are absolutely essential to start with when discipline is being learned, to your own control extended to the soul.

We may remember what our Master said about friends. He said, “Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.” This is not the usual human view of what a friend would be, is it? You accept someone as a friend because he is not telling you what to do; that is the usual human approach, isn't it? You don't like people who are telling you what to do. But let us look at this from this viewpoint which I have now introduced. You are beginning to accept identity within the hedge, within your outer form of manifestation, and you recognize that you must extend control to this outer form of manifestation. If your body with its consciousness is going to be your friend it is going to have to accept your control absolutely—do absolutely what you command it. It is not going to have any right to follow out its own designs and desires. You are no longer mixed with the desires of the soul. You recognize that these desires are of the soul which must be under your command. You require this of your soul, and to the extent that there is a willingness on the part of the soul to accept it you have gained a friend.

There is the necessity of handling the situation with wisdom and understanding. You are not going to try to jam anything through. If you did it would be evidence of the fact that you were not identified with the reality of Divine Being. You have understanding of yourself. You do not accept excuses from the soul, but you give opportunity for the soul to learn. The control that needs to be extended springs from your own true Self, which has an awareness of the One Law, for instance; it has an awareness of the basic principles of Being and life which are to govern the function of the soul. You have a new outlook. You are ten feet tall—you stand above, and you look down to the soul which is to accept your government. The government is control. To the extent that you extend this control, and to the extent that your soul accepts it, the hedge begins to move through so that it may encompass your soul. That has something to do with salvation. Your soul may be with you in heaven. If you are not in heaven how could your soul be with you in heaven? And yet this is the only way the soul can experience what it is to be in heaven. Therefore you, in your own experience within yourself, must be in heaven before you can include your soul in it.

I wonder if you have ever taken the attitude that somehow or other you were going to experience heaven without any necessity on your part of taking the responsibility for providing it. Human beings say, “God will provide.” Yes, it's true, because the reality is present, the heaven is there. But God's provision means nothing, it has had no meaning to human beings, simply because no one took Him up on it, so to speak. There has always been a waiting for something to happen, for someone somehow, somewhere, to do something, which then we would gladly accept and experience—provided always that someone else did it. Now we begin to see that we ourselves have this responsibility. We are not separate from God in fact. We have been separate in our own awareness, certainly. Why? Because we've been identified with the soul, the soul that sank. This was the fall. So it needs restoring. He restoreth your soul. Who is he? That is you. If your soul is to be restored it must be because you accept true identity within the hedge and require the soul to come under control.

The soul has been quite accustomed to accepting controls from every direction but the right one. Of course, it has accepted some from the right direction or you wouldn't be alive, but it is accustomed to being governed by everything round about, and it is not going to immediately be in position to experience your control in the complete sense. But here is the interesting thing. You yourself cannot observe what this control is any more than it has been accepted by the soul. Here is the reflection. When the soul has accepted control, to whatever degree it has, you will have a reflection. You may be in position to observe what that control means. It becomes evident to you. That which is extended—the hedge—is invisible until it is reflected by something.

The first reflection appears in your own soul because it is coming out through the soul—it is radiating forth. We may well remember Uranda's words expressed long, long ago, understood by virtually nobody: Let love radiate. Well, what are you going to let radiate? You don't know, because the light of love is invisible until it is reflected by something. We begin to assume the position of control in relationship to the soul which we had previously thought we were, and we extend that control on the basis of our present awareness of the working of the Law and of the principles of Being. We have some awareness in this regard. We know that the soul has no business reacting to external influences. This is one of our commandments to it: “Stop it.” We say, in effect: “Respond to me. Never mind those things round about out there. Respond to me. I shall provide the control, and the control I provide will be characterized by the qualities of my Divine Being, of which I have some present awareness.” Perhaps it is rather an inadequate awareness, because not too much has been reflected yet, but there is something. To the extent that the soul obeys, you begin to observe a greater revelation of your own true character reflected on the screen—of your soul, to start with.

Except from the standpoint of extending control in the current of the spirit of love, truth and life, we are more concerned with that which is to be handled beyond the soul. The soul is the instrument by means of which we contact the environment. The soul is the means by which we create the environment. So the hedge begins to extend out through the soul and includes this much—not very much when you come to consider the larger environment of this world, which is certainly not included in heaven yet, but you include your soul so that you may find yourself functioning on the basis of patience and tranquility, an attitude of understanding and love toward that which is in the environment. This may extend through the soul because you have had understanding and love toward your soul. If you ignore the soul and try to get to the environment beyond without it you won't be successful, because what you offer to the soul will be, in essence, what you offer to your environment. It has to pass through the soul to get to the environment. You can't get to the environment without it.

This emphasizes the particular words contained in the second of the two great commandments: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”—as thy soul. If you don't love your soul, no love can move through your soul to anyone else. If you dislike your soul and try to love somebody else it won't work. There are a lot of people who are trying to do this, and they are very unhappy, because it doesn't work. If you don't like yourself you're not going to like anybody else, really. You may have some preferences with respect to the environment, but the reality of love is unknown, because the reality of love, to be known, must be reflected by something; and it can't be reflected by something if it is not reaching that something. It won't reach that something unless it passes through your soul. It can't pass through your soul if you don't love your soul. So there must be understanding and tolerance and love for the soul. Your attitude toward your outer self, in this sense, will determine your attitude toward others. You can only love your neighbor as yourself. That's the fact of the matter. If you don't love yourself you don't love your neighbor.

Here we begin to see some more of the procedure, some more of the principles, some more of the way it works—looking at it all the time from the standpoint of identification with the reality of our own Divine Being. We need to become accustomed to looking at things this way. If we're always mixed up with the soul we're always in a mess, we're always mixed up. We need to be able to stand back in right identity, within the hedge, and then begin to function on that basis—in which case we will extend control to the soul, because we need the soul. We must have an instrument of action if we are going to achieve anything on earth, so we are concerned with the welfare of the soul, not for itself but for our own action in the fulfilment of the purpose for which we are here. And the soul will need some training. It is going to have to buckle down into a pattern of government. The soul rebels, no doubt—it is accustomed to rebelling. We have to rein it in. You have to work with yourself. And this is one way we learn to serve. If we have never learned to serve in this fashion we are not going to be of much value serving others, because we have never done it ourselves. This is one of the troubles, isn't it, with people who try to teach others in the world. They never taught themselves. I'm speaking about life and living. We need to teach the soul how to do it.

In this process there is a need for assistance, because our centering in the reality of our own selves is not adequate right off the bat. This is one of my reasons for being here, to provide some assistance in this regard, but I certainly couldn't provide assistance if I hadn't done something about training my own soul and requiring that it toe the mark—if it tends to get off on a tangent, to rein it back quickly, so that it may be kept within the hedge, which is the same thing as saying kept under control. And when we have a reasonably effective soul, servant, we find a friend. It is a friend to us when it is doing whatsoever we command it, absolutely. Then there is a state of oneness, which is the experience of love, and in that oneness the hedge may be extended further. It may begin to include some of the environment.

Whatever responds and yields may be included in the hedge, because it is under control. That's the only way by which anything can be included in the hedge. As long as something won't come under control it can't be included in the hedge—no matter how much a person may say, “Well I want to come in, I want to be in the kingdom, I want to experience heaven. Why don't you let me come through the door?” Nobody is preventing anyone from coming through the door. But in order to do it there must be the acceptance of control. It can't be done on any other basis. Don't take the attitude that you, as the soul, are going to determine what the nature of that control shall be. If the soul maintains the right to do this it is not coming under control. It needs to relinquish this supposed right so that it is willing to accept exactly what is offered. And there is an exactness about this which is absolute too. It isn't something which is, “well, almost right, you know; after all, we have to be sweet and loving and kind and gentle.” Oh yes, when control has been accepted—but coming close, it is an absolutely exact thing. There is no room for deviation at all. And a person who has some concepts of what love is, in its gentleness and in its sweetness and in its softness, will be rudely disillusioned; because if that attitude is maintained the individual won't come through the door. It is absolutely exact; there is no deviation whatsoever. If a person is trying to make it work on the basis of a human concept of love, or anything else, he is going to find that it doesn't conform to his concept at all, because he is resisting the process of coming through, resisting the acceptance of control.

We need to remember this from the standpoint of the fact that when we take the position of offering the control to the soul we require this of the soul. We don't let the soul get away with anything. Now this is a sticker with human beings, because so often there is the cry, "Well this isn't love." Isn't it? How do you know? You don't know what love is until you come through, and you can't get through without passing that flaming sword, coming through the hedge, coming through because there has been an acceptance of control. Oh, human beings will wriggle every which way to try to get through without it, but it can't be done—it can't be done. When we know this for ourselves, then we are in position to extend the control to the soul, so that it may come within the hedge; and coming within the hedge, we may have something to extend beyond into the environment. Let love radiate. The radiation can begin to go forth, and that which comes under control reflects that radiation and we see it.

So we have a new look at the hedge, a larger understanding of what it signifies. And it is something more than control. Control is one of the elements of truth. There is a design present, which is the other element of truth. And there is love, of course, which is inseparable from truth. These are all contained within the hedge. It is a flaming sword—the fire of love and the sword of truth. It is a protection when we are within it. It looks rather a savage thing when we're outside—a flaming sword, for heaven's sake!—but it only seems this way when it is pointed at us. When we stand on the other side we have hold of the handle and it's all right. It turns every way and nothing can pass it that does not accept control, that does not accept the nature of the kingdom. So it is a protection, isn't it? And the further it extends out, the more is contained back of it, the more is enfolded in that protection into which nothing enters that works abomination or makes a lie or defiles. Nothing can get through. Nothing can get through to you when you are within the hedge in conscious identity. The reality is there now, always has been, but we've been so busily involved with the soul that we overlooked the truth of the matter.

So let us stand where we belong and see things from that standpoint. And our first view relates to our own soul. The word is, “Come up hither, come inside the hedge, and I will show you things which must be hereafter”—the soul may become aware of that which needs to find expression hereafter. And when we begin to share this attitude and viewpoint, this position, how easy to take responsibility for the soul and for the environment around us. We are protected, and nothing can get to us that would be destructive. It is our desire, in that state, to enfold as much of the environment as possible that will come into the hedge. If we all function correctly, and others stand with us, I wonder how long it would be before the world could be included within the hedge sufficiently so that everything outside of the hedge would cease even to seem to be a threat? Once the hedge reaches a certain point in its expansion, then the available territory for what won't come into the hedge becomes more and more circumscribed. And the things that don't belong in heaven on earth get squeezed out. That can happen with quite a rush when the time comes. But in the meantime we have something to do right at home, right here, because until the soul is included in the hedge none of the environment is going to be, really, because it is through the soul that we work.

I thank God that we have the privilege of an awareness of these things, and the opportunity to let them become real to us. They are real, but probably not very real to us yet. Unfortunately we have had the habit of thinking of unreal things as being real, but as we come into place, in right position, we let that change and we accept reality as being real—and we may serve.

© emissaries of divine light