from

Immortality

Uranda   March 28, 1954  11 a.m.

“What is man that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that thou considerest him?” What is man—mankind—men and women? If we know what we are we will begin to be in position to function according to that which we are. But to whatever degree we maintain an illusion as to what we are we will try to function, to live, to act, on the basis of something which we are not. The ill results which appear in human lives, the ill conditions which persist, are not the result of action based on what man is. They are the results of action in delusion by which the human being tries to be that which he is not, and tries to accomplish that which is not according to his capacity.

Man, down through thousands of years, has been seeking a means by which he could be what he thought he wanted to be, or what he thought he ought to be. This tendency has colored all of man’s approach to Truth, to knowledge, to understanding. Man has seen something which he thought to be desirable in idea or concept, some belief that he thought to be high and noble, pleasing in some fashion; and he has sought to find a means of achieving the end which he conceived to be desirable. He has sought to find Truth which would substantiate his belief—justify his own desires, concepts. Man has felt that if he did not have a self-established goal he would drift and become nothing.

If we look at the goal which we find outlined in the story of creation, a recognition that man was created in the image and likeness of God, we can see two possible courses of action: one, to attempt to be God-like, which is to fail; or, the other, which human beings have ignored to so great a degree, to let themselves become like God. If we are to let ourselves become like God, and if we love God and trust God, we can afford to let go and relinquish our human patterns of evaluation and see what God will do. On the other hand, if we aspire to become God-like it means that we ourselves are going to direct and control ourselves, to try to make ourselves be what we think it is like to be God-like, and in such action we shall surely fail.

This is the reason why the pattern of religion in the world so greatly lacks Power, why there is so much futility among the earnest and sincere millions of all the different religious beliefs—we have not been functioning according to God's Will, but we have tried to use our wills to accomplish what we deem to be God's Purposes. Human purposes and desires have then become so involved in our efforts that the mind of man has not been able to distinguish between God's desire and the human desire which has been lifted up and considered as if it were the desire of God.

The action of the Spirit of God is through man if the Spirit of God is permitted to act. The Spirit without the form can have no meaning on earth, and the form without the Spirit can have no meaning on earth. It is the two together, in the right pattern of action, that permit fulfilment. We are reminded that we have a physical body, a mind and an emotional nature, or heart—three phases particularly designed to allow the three primary aspects of the Spirit of God to manifest. There is the Spirit of Love through the feeling nature, the Spirit of truth through the mind, and the Spirit of Life through the physical body.

It is here on earth, in this present life, where the Power of God is needed. It is not some Heaven somewhere which needs to be changed and made over. This is the realm that needs to be changed, and we are living in it—we have the privilege of being in the place where the changes need to be made. Now, some people devote themselves primarily to the idea of escaping to a realm where they think no changes will need to be made, and they hope, having gotten there, that no changes will need to be made in themselves. But our concern is in the fact that God put us here on earth—we are here—and here is the place where the changes need to be made, where suffering and sorrow and misery challenge the best that is in us.

It is not that the physical body should perish but that it should live. But something must perish if there is to be a resurrection—not what we are, but what we think we are without regard to God's Design. Here we have a point where human vision has brought about wrong patterns of belief and of action. We trace it back to the popular concept of salvation.

Man, after he reaches a certain point at least, accepts the idea that he needs salvation. Man's desire for salvation causes man to want what he thinks he is to be saved, but it is what he thinks he is that needs to pass away. Actually, the idea of salvation as it has been developed is entirely misleading. What you really are needs to be saved from the limitation of what you are not.

What is it that you want saved, and what is it that God wants saved? Actually, that which is of God cannot and will not be lost; and, actually, that which is not of God cannot and will not be saved. So, if we wait until the end of life to separate that which is not to be saved from that which will be saved, our uses here on earth will have been very small indeed. But if, now, while we still live on earth, we can distinguish between that which is supposed to be saved and that which is not, we will begin to be in position to step out of the limitations.

We must relinquish something. What? The thing we think we are, and even the thing we think we ought to be, for we must come to the conviction that we, as human beings, do not know what we ought to be. As long as we cling to the idea that we know how we should be we will be trying to save what we think we are or what we think we ought to be, and that will not coincide with God's action. God's action is based on what is actually the Truth of the matter, regardless of belief, idea, concept, desire—not what you think you are, but what you really are, not what you think you ought to be, but what you really should be. This is the crucial point in man's progress along the Way.

The human being thinks he must somehow govern it, he must somehow control, and it is here that human beings fight against the death of that which is mortal, for the man, the woman, the human being, has come to believe that he, the human being, is mortal, and he is trying to make something mortal become immortal. That is conceived to be Resurrection, and it is not at all.

When we begin to realize that that which is immortal cannot pass away, and will not, in the sense of dying, or disintegration; and when we realize that that which is mortal is going to pass away no matter what we do about it, we can stop fighting, stop struggling, stop trying to make God save what we think we want to have saved, and actually reach a point where we do trust God. The patterns which human beings establish for themselves on the basis of their human concepts are those things which must pass away because they do not fit the Divine Design. They have no place in Eternity.

God created the All—the Heaven above and the earth beneath, and he established a place for all the things that He created—all things. But that which man makes without regard to God’s creative work has no place in God's scheme of things. God has been seeking for thousands of years, to put it mildly, to persuade man to accept His creation, God's creation, but man has tended to reject God's creation and say, “But I wish to create something for myself. I will make my own creation.” And then, failing to sustain it, hold it in pattern, he develops an idea that somehow that will happen after he is dead—a false hope. Human beings delude themselves because they try to make the Truth support their concepts, rather than learning to know the Truth as it is without regard to human concepts.

Resurrection is not a process of making mortal things become immortal. Resurrection is a process by which immortal things are allowed to appear where before they were covered from view and made of no effect by reason of mortal things. God said, "When you do to yourself that which is not according to the Divine Design, then you will die. " And that is true. But God also said, "When you let yourself be what I created you to be, then you will not die."

That which God created and that which man created must be separated, and they can be separated at any point during life just as surely as at the end of life manifestation on earth. Separated they will be. Man cannot stop or prevent that. The things which God made and the things which man has made will be separated. It is not a question, "Will they be?" They will be. The only question is, "At what point will the separation take place?" While the individual is living here on earth, or at the end of the life span here on earth? It is going to be somewhere. Would it not be much better to have at least a portion of the life span to live here on earth after that separation, rather than to say, "I will live my whole life span and then come to the separation?" There is the question.

That which man makes is going to pass away. Some people jump to the conclusion that that means everything that is made through man, which is not the case at all, because to some degree that which is made through man is God's action and is not something man made but something God made, and it has its part and place in the Divine Design. But that which man has made has no place. Once we begin to realize that what man makes is going to die, if we are wise we will stop trying to keep it from dying. We can maintain it by sacrificing what God has given us in order to maintain what we have produced. But the time will come when these two things will be separated. If we learn to identify ourselves with that which God has made, we can let that which we have made pass away without any qualms, and we can let it die before the death of the body, and then we can begin to be on earth that which God caused us to be.

Something is going to die in relationship to yourself. You say, "Well, my body." What is your body? Your body was created by God to be a means by which His Spirit of Life could manifest on earth—and that is what it is. If you try to make it into something else you will fail. God gave us certain capacities, certain perceptions. Man is continually trying to function in some realm where he does not have the true capacities, the capabilities. He is trying to be his concept of what it is to be God-like, and that was the temptation of the serpent in the tree in the beginning, "For the Lord doth know that this forbidden fruit is good to make one wise, and if you will eat of it you will be as God, God-like, knowing good and evil." And man has been falling for that whispering of the serpent ever since, for that tree of the knowledge of good and evil is here today with us, as surely as it was with any Adam or Eve. And human beings have looked back and said, "Oh, if Adam and Eve had only not eaten of the forbidden fruit, I would not have to suffer so. I have to suffer because they sinned. Poor me!" No. If you suffer it is because you ate of the forbidden fruit, not because Adam and Eve, or your grandparents, or your great-grandparents, or even your own parents or somebody else, ate of it. Because you did! You ate of the forbidden fruit and tried to be God-like.

That which tries to be God-like is going to pass away, for only God endures. On the other hand, we were created in the image and likeness of God so that we may let God Himself express through us, and then we are, as the Master was, revealing the Father on earth. Here is the great distinction: either the revelation of that which is God, or man trying to be God-like, trying to be good. One will pass away, the other will endure. With which are we identified?

We can be identified with God only through the Spirit of God. That Spirit will not pass away. That which God created will not pass away—God intended that something of His creation should be maintained and endure here on earth where we are. He intended that that which He created should be in each place and endure in each place so that it might function in each place.

Trying to make the mortal become immortal is not something which the Bible teaches. It is not something which Jesus Christ taught while He was on earth. The Word of God does not suggest any such thing. The Word of God suggests that we can "put off the mortal and put on immortality,"—and that is Resurrection—not something to happen after we are dead, because then it is too late. It is something that happens during life, and that which God creates will endure. That which God does not create will not endure. Therefore, that which is created by reason of your sharing God's action will endure, but what you create without regard to God's action will not endure. Whether we like it or not, that is the way it is. It would be best if we learned to like that which God is, for that which is is God, and that which God is is that which is made manifest through God, and we will stop trying to save something which cannot be saved.

All the struggling, trying to bring about some sort of salvation, is really man's effort to save something which cannot be saved. Only that which God made will endure. If God made that which you are, you will endure. If God did not make that which you are, you will not endure. The only way by which you may come to a point where you see clearly, and stop trying to save that which cannot be saved, is to let the Christ Spirit so fill your mind and heart that you will stop crucifying that which is of God, and stop trying to save that which is not of God. You will let that which is not of God be crucified, so that that which is of God may appear. Here is the difference. Human beings try to crucify God, as at the time our Master was on earth. They tried to destroy the manifestation of that which God had made, and they failed. Human beings today are trying to destroy the manifestation of what God has made and they are trying to save the manifestation of what they have made.

We come to this point of conviction: "That which God has made will not pass away. It will not end. It is not mortal. That which God made is immortal, and it is futile to try to make anything else remain." So, we finally reach the point of trusting God, knowing that whatever passes away is going to pass away, and we will stop identifying ourselves with that which must pass away, and we begin to be identified in and with that which endures. Then whatever passes away, we let it go, we let it die. Day by day we may find this aspect which must pass away, and instead of struggling to hold on to it, to keep it—if it can die, we let it die. If that which you have thought yourself to be can die, let it die, because die it will, sooner or later.

You can put off mortality and put on immortality by the working of the Spirit of God, or the Christ Spirit—not in human strength. As soon as you yield and accept what He has made, the change begins to appear. And what you thought yourself to be passes away, and what you are, what God made you to be, begins to appear through your body, through your mind, and you bring forth the fruits of the Spirit.

That which God made is never mortal. It never has been and it never will be. If man makes of himself something that God did not make, then that which man has made of himself must pass away, for there is no place in the Cosmos or in Eternity for that. When man comes to the point of trusting God, of loving God and yielding to the Spirit of God, he will find that that which ought not to be passes away and that which ought to be begins to appear. If you are contending with God you will lose. Only when we work with God can we win. That which is of God does not pass away, but that which is not of God must pass away sooner or later.

The Father, speaking through the lips of Jesus, said, "I am the Resurrection and the Life." And that is just as available to you at this moment as it was with the Master when He walked among men.

© Emissaries of Divine Light