Handling  Essences  —  the  Highest  Art

Martin Cecil   August 2, 1979   Assembly

Lillian made a comment, when she was speaking this morning, with respect to herself as being responsible for the essences, related to music—but of course her responsibility for essences goes considerably beyond that. There must be those who take responsibility for essences. This Assembly is gathered here to do that, to gain experience in handling the responsibility of essences. Only as there are those who are capable of doing this do we have any ministry, is there the possibility of a living body, a living organism of many people. Somehow the essences must be taken care of.

In the initial stages of this ministry it was a matter of handling both essences and forms, by those concerned, simply because there were so few. We all have some responsibility for handling forms but our primary responsibility is for handling essences. And we cannot handle forms as they should be handled without effectiveness in handling essences. The fact that restoration is possible is so because finally there may be present on earth those who are capable of handling the essential essences by which this occurs. We well know that it doesn’t occur by manipulating forms. It occurs because there are those forms which follow the essences. If there are no essences to follow, the forms are left leaderless. The Master said something about the harvest being ripe, but there were few who were capable of reaping the harvest. Pray that these might put in an appearance, because there could be no harvesting without them. Reference is here made to those who would be capable of assuming responsibility for essences and handling them rightly.

Here is the area of our responsibility, primarily. We all have certain forms which come within the range of our responsibility as well. But as there has been a differentiation of responsibility because there have been more people who have offered themselves for this, then clearly there are those within the developing body who are primarily responsible for essences and those who are primarily responsible for forms. Here is the differentiation—at least in this regard. Whenever we touch upon these things it looks as though, for the moment, there are just two fields: essences and forms. But of course we discover that there is far more than that because the essences themselves have to be handled on a differentiated basis.

We realize that the substance by which the handling of essences is made possible must be generated. We also realize that it is the substance which properly finds its place at all levels. And there are many levels—the level of what we call form is one level of substance but it is only one. We have noted before that it is the smallest area in fact. There is far more substance occupying the space provided by all the other levels. This is so, regardless of us. But within the range of our field of responsibility and within the range of the responsibility of man as a whole there is clearly a very specific design.

We have before noted that we have very specific bodily forms; each one of us has a body. This is very specific. And, while related to each body there is rightly substance of a different nature filling out the wholeness of all levels in the individual sense, we also may recognize that there is this substance present relative to the whole of creation, which has very little to do with human beings. But there is something specific for which we are obviously responsible. And that comes to focus individually in our individual physical forms and expands out from that. We discover that our individual forms are part of a larger physical form which is capable of acting in a coordinated manner by reason of our individual physical forms. We all have something to do at that level, the physical level. But we find that various individuals have specific responsibilities related to other levels, related to essences, as I have called this.

Now these essences are brought to us. We may recognize that there is the substance, for the generation of which we are responsible. This substance, particularly the finer ranges of this substance, plus spirit, may be said to compose essence. Here are the essences which are rightly tools in our hands as incarnate angels. These essences are to be rightly used, and we are responsible for this right use; therefore we are responsible for essences. I am thinking of this in particular relationship to our association in this Assembly. We have to narrow it down a bit, bring it to focus relative to our immediate responsibility. And our immediate responsibility is primarily at the level of essences. We couldn’t handle what is required at the level of those essences if we were not incarnate in physical form. There would be no substance available at the levels required. It is because we are incarnate in physical form that we have a generator, we might say, by which the essential substance of essences may be generated to fill out the whole design—which is our means of handling our responsibilities in a total sense here on earth.

There are some who are primarily responsible at the form end of the spectrum, others who are primarily responsible at the essence end of the spectrum. Now our responsibility relates to the essence end of the spectrum more particularly in this present formation. We always have, of course, some responsibility in this regard in the individual personal sense. But here is something emerging of the Assembly substance, to make it possible for essences to be handled by us. Now this has been going on whether anybody has recognized it specifically or not. Because it has been going on in some measure I am bringing it out now, because there is substance to begin to bring it out. From the standpoint of human nature, the idea might be, "Well why didn’t you bring it out right at the start? Then we could have really got to work." Well I was not exactly waiting but hopeful, shall we say, that you would get to work so that there would be some substance so that it could be brought out. We need to get things the right way around and not, as human nature insists upon doing most of the time, trying to make things work backwards. So we have some substance generated and we can begin to see this in terms of essences.

As I say, in the initial formation of this ministry Uranda and later I were very much involved not only with essences but with forms because there was no other way of handling things. There was no one else who could take responsibility primarily relative to forms, because those who do take primary responsibility relative to forms must have a sufficient experience of essences to do it. But there are those who have the primary responsibility with respect to essences. And we are it now in this particular formation.

So, in handling these essences we find that essences are brought to us. We might say that our inheritance is essences. Heretofore we have talked about circumstances—the circumstances that are brought to us—because the general view of circumstances has been that they were forms. Now we are beginning to recognize that, while there are forms present, the important aspect of what is brought to us relates to essences. Essences are being brought to us to be handled by us. As long as we were involved with the forms, and reacting to the forms, and emotionally disturbed or whatever by the forms, we were incapable of discerning the essences. So obviously something had to happen relative to our letting go of involvement with the forms.

A balance obviously is essential here, because human nature, which is still on hand, tends to swing to extremes—“Oh, we’ve got to let go of forms”—swing over to the extreme of something else which is unknown at that point anyway, and people do stupid things. This is what has produced the idea that spiritual people are very impractical people, useless in fact in the world. Perhaps in some other world somewhere they may be fine. But I have yet to be aware of what that other world is where they would be fine, because this is the world; it’s here. And if mention is made of the world to come it’s not another world separate and apart from this world. There is just one world in fact, which appears one way in human experience and is another way in reality.

Our concern is to let that reality emerge in human experience. The only way that this can be done is to be aware of the basic elements of the true world. And we may speak of these now as essences, because it is in the handling of these essences that we do what is necessary to allow the real world to emerge through the consciousness and into the experience of human beings. This is what has been happening to you, presumably. But we have a responsibility for others. And so this inheritance is brought to us. Heretofore we have looked upon what was being brought to us as the forms of circumstances. But that isn’t really what is being brought to us. The essences of the circumstances are being brought to us for handling.

Now how do we receive the inheritance? We were looking at this before. Usually the forms are judged and if the forms are pleasing, one may welcome the inheritance with some enthusiasm. But if the forms are not so pleasing then there is some reluctance and probably definite rejection involved with respect to the circumstances. But we are looking beyond the circumstances; we are looking at the essences that are being brought. We have before had an awareness of the importance of running to meet the Lord. And no doubt we have translated that in some fashion in our consciousness. But let us see it with respect to the Lord bringing these essences to us, offering us our inheritance. How enthusiastically do we receive our inheritance?—not merely the forms of it but the essences that are present by reason of those forms, because we see how forms and essences are always associated. After all, the substance which composes the essence was generated out of the form. But to deal effectively with the form we must deal with the essence first. So we need to be alert then. We need to have an adequate spiritual discernement so that we can begin to recognize what the essences are. And we delight to receive that.

Now something else was brought out while Lillian was speaking in musical terms, and that is this matter of dissonance as being an essential part of what we might call the symphony of life. The dissonance needs to be resolved into the harmony. And we see in this something we already understand relative to good and evil—these are a part of the creative process. There is movement through the evol to the point of good. And the point of good is the initiation of a new aspect of the creative cycle, and moves again into evol. If we correlate these two states with dissonance and harmony, then we keep moving from one to the other. And we do not object to the dissonance. It is all part of the creative process.

So when the essences which come to us have dissonant elements in them, we do not object to that. We see that this is part of the unfolding symphony and we have to make use of the dissonant sounds in order to allow a resolution to occur in its proper seasons when there may be the experience of the good, the harmony. But we see that resolution as only being made possible by reason of the dissonance which preceded it. There is the process of resolution and then there is the resolution when that process is complete to that extent. It’s complete to that extent in order to provide a starting point for the next aspect of unfoldment. So let us not fasten our eyes on the forms of circumstances so that we totally ignore the essences of those circumstances which are the inheritance being brought to us.

And we need to welcome the inheritance, portrayed by running to meet the Lord. If you have an honored guest coming you, I’m sure, would not be inclined to say, "Well he’s coming; he has to take potluck with us." You prepare something, don’t you? You put yourself out. You do things perhaps that you otherwise would not be doing. And because it is in anticipation of the arrival of the honored guest you delight to do it. It’s a wonderful experience to work through all the dissonant factors. This is all undertaken with great joy and it brings satisfaction in the doing. Sometimes the satisfaction is more in that than the end result, in the human-nature world, because it may not work out just the way you had hoped; sometimes  honored guests are not all that thoughtful.

But from our standpoint we know who the honored guest is. Here is the Lord, emerging into His world. And He does so through the inheritance which He provides for us. And so these essences are brought to us to handle. One could see this relative to preparing the way of the Lord and making His paths straight. We do this in the handling of the essences. When Abraham ran to meet the Lord from his tent door he was just delighted, and inquired a little as to what would be pleasing to his guests. Then he hurried away and made sure that his wife and his servants were doing what they should do to provide what was needful. This portrays something magnificently of our momentary experience. So many people have been hung up on forms, hopeful that the forms would change shape so that they would be more pleasing than they were before, but pleasing to oneself. One’s concern with respect to forms is that they should be pleasing to the Lord, and that is pleasing to oneself simply because it is pleasing to the Lord.

But for the forms to be that way, the essences must have been handled rightly first. It seems very few people have recognized that their circumstances carried with them essences which were to be received with delight so that substance might be enthusiastically generated, in whatever it was one was doing. How much there still is of reluctance in this regard: “Let me get through this task,” very often even “so that I may have time for myself.” Who are you? The only person who wants time for himself, in that sense, is the human ego—in other words, an endeavor to escape so that there may be a reversion back into the hog trough.

We do need to have space into which the essences may come and where they may be handled. And we need to see this with respect to others; others need to have space in this regard too. This was brought out relative to the field of music, by Lillian—that those who have some starting point of spiritual essences in their experience need to have space in order that more substance may be generated. Unfortunately, when space is provided for this, human nature says, “Ah, how nice, this is time for myself,” and they go off and do the things that they want to do in human nature and they never use the available space which was there to receive these essences. We need to see this for ourselves, because if we are responsible primarily for essences we are going to need space. If, when the space is offered, we immediately begin to fill it up with the human nature factors, we have ducked out of our responsibility for essences and we become useless.

In one way or another there has on occasion been much of this because fundamentally, while we say there are those who are dominantly responsible for forms and others who are dominantly responsible for essences, in either situation we couldn’t function without the essences. And so those who are doing the tasks that are necessary—there have to be those who work in the office, who work in the kitchen, who do cleaning and the laundry, and the other things, obviously so. Those who are primarily responsible in those particular fields are dealing with forms. But there is the necessity of recognizing that they can’t deal with those forms except through the essences.

That is the way that forms are handled from our standpoint. We are out of the manipulation business. We are going to handle everything through the essences. And what is necessary in form will come through on the basis of this and not because we manipulated it. This is rather an exciting business actually, because the forms reveal things that we didn’t know they were going to reveal. And we see that and we delight in that; we see the changes coming in this way in form. But still we don’t judge it, because we are still concerned with essences. And even if a person is working in the heat of the kitchen and preparing a meal and all this form is right in front of that person, he has to handle it. But the only basis on which he can handle it effectively is because he is conscious of the essences in that particular circumstance. So it is not a matter of just slapping the form around.

One is dealing with the essences in a very artistic way. When we work with essences we find that we necessarily are artists. There are artists in the field of blacksmithing, for instance, even though that might be looked upon as very definitely a form area of function. After all, if one if making horseshoes, you have the iron and you are heating it and hammering, you’re dealing with the form. But if you have ever seen an expert blacksmith there is a rhythm and a dance to it; there is the evidence of artistry. If a person goes into some field of activity such as that, or cooking in the kitchen, or office work—whatever—with the idea that all it is is a matter of manipulating forms, and if the thing won’t work, well you hit it with the largest hammer you have and then it will work, you will destroy a great deal. And you won’t certainly become a blacksmith, or whatever, because one must be aware of the essences, always, first.

One may need to learn some techniques with respect to form but these are only available to translate essences. And this is our concern. Even if one is hammering something with a heavy hammer and it takes a lot of muscle, there is a delicacy to it. You hit it exactly right. It’s not just “Well any old bang will do.” You have to hit it exactly right. Now I use the blacksmith because that is a good illustration of something apparently very forceful in the area of form. But we can see that it never becomes useful as an art until whoever is operating in that field becomes conscious of the essences. And of course, generally speaking, those who do become proficient in such fields are not aware of what is happening but they do become conscious of the essences. There are many people who think of themselves as cooks, who certainly shouldn’t have that title because they have never awakened to the essences of cooking.

There are essences behind all forms. Whenever the inheritance of form is brought to us the essences are brought too, if we can discern them. And it is our responsibility to be able to discern them so that we may handle these essences intelligently. If we handle the essences intelligently the form will take care of itself. This is not to say that we don’t need to turn over the eggs. We’re part of the form taking care of itself.

Now here is a secret of which you have been aware for a long time. But I wonder whether you have been aware of it in a practical sense—whether these essences have not been seen in terms of spirit separate from substance. Most human beings look at spirit in that way. They do not see that it is only known by reason of the substance in which it may make itself known. And spirit, making itself known in substance when it is there, we speak of as this matter of essences. We could use other terms I suppose; we could say the Holy Ghost. Here is spirit in oneness with the essential substance. Now we are able to handle essences which are brought to us because of the essences that are present in us. Essence relates to essence.

How beautiful life is! How beautiful the experience of creative work is, the work for which we are responsible. But we need to understand the internal facilities that are available to us, and also how to deal with the external factors that are brought to us. It is because we have internal facilities that we can handle the essences that are brought to us. If we do not have it internally we can’t do anything about it externally. It is because we have generated the substance of connection that the substance of action can spill over into our field of action. And we can begin to handle effectively the essences which are our inheritance. We see these essences as being part of the creative cycle, and there is no need to judge what they are. They are contained within the true evil, and we are not going to eat of the forbidden fruit anymore. We receive what is brought to us.

So all things are made new by reason of essences, not by reason of forms, except insofar as the forms have a part to play in moving with those essences, and in some instances, of course, generating the substance which permits the essence to be present. This is true of our own human forms. So here we are together with perhaps something of a new awareness of what it is we are properly doing and how we may handle it. It may be said that you know all these things—they have been talked about for years. But now they begin to come into an actual experienceable state insofar as we are concerned, because something is being allowed to happen. “Behold, I make all things new.” We are responsible for this. And it can only be done on the basis of these fundamental essences.

And so in this particular configuration you have been drawn together to provide a facility for the handling of essences. It is not first and foremost for the handling of forms, is it? You have some forms to handle; we all do. But our reason for being present in this particular setting, in this particular enfoldment, is to be responsible for essences, to provide space for those essences to be brought to us and to allow the generation of substance in ourselves individually and together so as to provide the internal essences, which is the tool or the handle we use in dealing with the external essences. The blacksmith can deal with iron by using iron. We deal with essences by using essences. And this is indeed the highest art.

Within the range of the body which is developing there are those who are primarily responsible for essences. This may vary. Maybe we will swap places sometime! But you are the ones who are here. So there is a great flexibility and easy movement when we are dealing with essences, but now we have the responsibility. We are here. We are responsible for the essences.

And when we do handle our responsibility for essences rightly and intelligently we will find that we handle forms rightly and intelligently, and they will reflect what it is that is occurring from the standpoint of essences. But still we don’t judge the form. We are looking at the essence. We know why the form is doing that, because we know what is happening in the essences. So there is no reason to judge the form—there is no incentive any more to judge the form. Let it alone; it’s behaving itself. Just be concerned that the essences are right and what they should be in the particular pattern that is unfolding.

And never be afraid of dissonance. Don’t jump immediately to the conclusion that if there seems to be some dissonance in the essences it is somehow wrong, that it has to be manipulated around somehow so as to make it all nice again, comfortable. Human beings like to be comfortable. It is sometimes good to be a little uncomfortable, isn’t it? We do things that are uncomfortable, we do them deliberately. We don’t object. If there are some uncomfortable things from the standpoint of essences, that’s all right. We learn how to recognize what it is that is happening, what it is that is moving. And we are not going to interfere with it. We’re going to let it move, we’re going to enhance that movement in one way or another. This is not to say we’re enhancing dissonance. We are simply enhancing the movement that is occurring, the movement which in fact is passing through the period of resolution, that it may come to the harmonious conclusion of that period. When you get to the harmonious conclusion, that may be a time when you can breathe a sigh, and say “Isn’t that wonderful?” But you wouldn’t want to stay there forever. It gets very uncomfortable. There is something else to do.

And so we keep moving through these cycles of good and evil. We understand what is happening. We’re not in a battle with anything. We begin to find ourselves in the position of authority because we are handling essences. That is the authority. The authority is not trying to impose something on forms but simply to handle the essence. According to the way the essence is handled, so will the form will come along, and you didn’t have to beat it into submission with a hammer.

So it’s good to be aware of the true purpose of man, which is not based in the sweat of his face. A little sweat of the face sometimes is all right, keeps the physical form healthy. But in the achievement of our purpose it is not by the sweat of the face. It is by the right use of essences. That’s the way.

© Emissaries of Divine Light

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