The Crossover Point
Martin Cecil February 3, 1974
There is a principle considered
right at the beginning of the month Class. This principle relates to the true
position of a person—the place of man—who properly provides the means by which
invisible spirit is translated into visible form. This is rightly your position.
In illustrating this particular principle, we have used the capital letter X. The
X does provide an excellent illustration, formed as it is of two Vs, one of
them inverted. The respective points of apex of these two Vs are the same in
the letter X, and this certainly portrays the position of man as the crossover
point between spirit and form. He is the point, when he is in position, by
which the oneness of heaven and earth is made known. If he is not in that
position he does not, and cannot, know the truth of this oneness.
The upper part of the letter X is
a V, which represents the realm of spirit brought to a particular point of
focus in the person at the crossover point where the position of man rightly
is. The lower part of the X represents the realm of form. The realm of form
also comes to point at that same apex, the place where man belongs, a point
which has position but no magnitude. This is where the individual belongs.
The fact of having a body and a
mind present indicates that there is the potential of the expression of spirit—the
translation of spirit into form—spiritual expression. Besides these capacities
in the realm of form there is what is called the heart. There are those who
have been inclined to imagine that the heart is the same as the spiritual
expression, which is certainly not true. There is the capacity of body and mind
and spiritual expression, and permeating these levels of experience there is
what we call the heart, or the feeling realm. It is present in the physical
body, it is present in mental experience, and it is present in relationship to
the experience of spiritual expression. By reason of the heart there is the
possibility of coming back to the place where we belong, so that there may be
the true experience of self, which is at the crossover point between spirit and
form.
This is the point which unifies
heaven and earth in balance. Without being there the individual obviously must
have an unbalanced experience. The point where the individual belongs, where he
may say, “I am”, rightly, is this crossover point between the realm of spirit
and the realm of form. Here is the connecting link between heaven and earth. As
we have noted, there has been a missing link—man in position has been missing.
Man has been missing. Insofar as you as an individual are concerned, your
awareness of yourself has been missing. You have had an awareness of a material
self, which is not you.
You are neither material nor
spiritual in your true position; you are at the point of balance, and that
point is the point where you say of yourself, simply, I am. You do not claim a material identity nor do you claim a
spiritual identity; you just are. That is the point of being—that is the
crossover point, the connecting point between the realm of spirit and the realm
of form. Only when a person is in that point does he know himself and is he in
position to be a balanced expression of himself. That expression is both in
spirit and in form.
In considering how the individual
may come again to himself, there has been the recognition of the need to accept
the true qualities of being. In that acceptance of the true qualities of being
there has tended to be the idea that this
was spirit. No—the qualities are simply the means by which spirit may find
expression. If the individual is in place at the crossover point, then what is
of the realm of spirit may be translated into the realm of form. But what is of
the realm of spirit is an unknown, invisible quantity. In order for the
translation to be made there must be the facility to contain it, and that
facility will include the true qualities of being. Spirit released through that
connecting point reveals its nature in form, but you cannot get hold of spirit
and measure it or figure out what it is. The realm of spirit is an unknown
quantity insofar as the realm of form is concerned. If therefore you find
yourself identified with the realm of form, spirit is an unknown quantity, and
it remains an unknown quantity until you return to your true position.
The primary aspects of spirit are
love, truth and life—using words to describe something unknown. There is the
experience at the moment of what is called life. What is it? Certainly it is an
unknown quantity. But it's real. You may say of yourself, no doubt, “I am
alive.” How do you know? “Well I'm breathing; my heart's beating.” Ah,
something in material being, something in the realm of form—this gives evidence
of the fact that you are alive. “I can move my hand.” But that does not
acquaint us with whatever life is as an aspect of spirit. Where is it? Can you
locate it? It's present, presumably, in you or in what you say is you. What you
mean is it's in this physical body somehow, and it's in the mind too; the mind
is animated sometimes. But where's the mind? “Oh, in my head,” the individual
says. Is that so? You have got a brain in there, but is that the mind? Mentally
speaking, you can be in many places—that's right, isn't it?
We have these material forms and
we are rather thoroughly embedded in them, or have been. Maybe we are moving
out a little; maybe we are willing to let something be transcended in this
regard, but not very much yet, as we discover if we start to think about it.
The true experience is unknown because we're somewhere else than the place
where we belong; and the deeper we plunge into the realm of material things the
heavier the experience becomes.
Human beings have had an imaginary
sense of freedom in their descent through the material realm. And it is a
descent, you know; it ends up with a bang strong enough to get a person six
feet under. There are some illusionary experiences in the material state which
human beings imagine they are enjoying at times. This is what most people do
with their time—devise means by which they can enjoy falling and delay the
moment of impact.
“I will lift up mine eyes unto the
hills, from whence cometh my help.
My help cometh from the Lord, which made
heaven and earth”
— which made both heaven and earth —
The point where true identity is—the
identity which is accurately described by the words I am—is neither in heaven nor in earth but provides the connecting
link between. So we lift up our eyes to the hills, we move toward the hills,
and we start to climb the mountain; but we cannot do this if we are wrapped up
in the false self which is identified by various dualities of false experience.
And people do get very wrapped up in that, don't they? It keeps them from the
mountain, it keeps them from themselves; it limits them, circumscribes them, maintains
a cell-like condition.
Freedom is only known on the
mountaintop, because that is where the truth is known, the truth of oneself—the
place where spirit is translated accurately into form. If you are not in that
place and life still remains for a little while, then spirit is not being
translated accurately into form; it isn't getting through, and what does get
through comes out in the realm of form on a distorted basis.
We say that life is an aspect of
spirit, truth is an aspect of spirit, love is an aspect of spirit. If spirit is
not coming through clearly because the individual is not in the place where he
belongs, life will not be known, just a semblance of life, a trickle of life
coming through. Truth will not be known. If truth isn't known, what is known?
Something that's false, obviously, something that's a lie. And if love is not
getting through, what is known? Certainly not love, rather the evidence of the
absence of love or the distortion of love in some way. Hate is the absence of
love, but there are many ramifications of hate: dislike, resentment, fear. Here
is the experience of what might be called false spirit, because it is what
remains after true spirit has filtered through the place where the individual
is, and if the place where the individual is is down in the material realm, not
very much spirit is going to get through and what does get through will be
distorted.
Human beings in the material
condition do not know what life is; all they know is that limited state of
existence which remains after most of life has been blocked off. They do not
know what the truth is; they haven't the faintest idea what the truth is; all
they know is what comes through after most of the spirit of God has been
blocked off. And they have no idea what love is. Love is almost completely
excluded. Love is not known; truth is not known; life is not known. The reality
of spirit cannot be known as long as the individual is involved in material
identity.
As long as a person continues to
be identified with his form he cannot know the truth; he does not know the
truth of life, he does not know the truth of love, he does not know the truth
of anything. Oh he may have a brilliant pattern of concepts logically fitted
together, and he says, “Well that's the truth.” Nonsense. It's a figment of
fancy humanly invented; it isn't the truth at all. The truth is a part of
spirit, and if there is no means for spirit to be translated accurately into
form the truth cannot be known; it certainly cannot be known by any
manipulations of the human mind. It only begins to be known when a person comes
back to the place where he belongs, the crossover point, so that he stops being
a missing link.
“I will lift up mine eyes unto the
hills”—I will direct my footsteps toward the foot of the mountain and I will
proceed to ascend the mountain. And I know that I cannot ascend the mountain as
long as I insist upon a plains identity; it can't be done. But there is a
longing in the hearts of human beings—and here the heart comes into the picture—to
find something that has not been known. And there are those who become aware of
how much the unknown transcends the apparently known. There is a longing to
ascend the mountain, to find oneself—not to try to escape from oneself, which
is the effort that most people undertake in defiance of the real longings of
their hearts. They run away; they run away in every conceivable fashion.
So let us return to that place
where we belong, because we begin to recognize how stuck we have been in our
material identity, and in the idea of how much meaning something we do in the
material sense is going to give to us. We may be acclaimed, and the acclamation
of others may boost one's ego; but when it stops coming, what then? You realize
you are nothing if your sense of meaning was built upon material things, or
even upon supposedly spiritual things. And who are you? The one who properly
stands where spirit and form come together.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
