The Sanctuary

The  Sanctuary

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Martin Cecil   July 12, 1987

We are here for a purpose. That purpose is served because we come into the sanctuary. This room is not the sanctuary—it may provide a setting for the sanctuary. There is a sanctuary if we ourselves bring it. This could be seen as one of the initial purposes: that there might be a sanctuary in this place because of us. It either is so or it isn't so—because of us.

Here is a very convenient setting for a specific focus of the sanctuary, but it is entirely our own responsibility as to whether the sanctuary is here or not. We may have some assistance in the matter. One of the factors is that this has been the setting for a sanctuary, lo these many years, and therefore is somewhat imbued with the atmosphere of the sanctuary. When we come together we cannot rest upon what has happened here in the past. We may take advantage of it, so that the radiance of the sanctuary may be present and intensified. This may happen only because we are willing that it should. This certainly indicates that we are not here for our own benefit, to get anything for ourselves. This is unlike most human activities. There certainly needs to be a difference from what is the common human experience.

So we have a purpose, not to add to human woes or to increase the destructiveness already present in the world but to provide what is necessary to introduce what can only come by reason of the sanctuary—the sanctuary which in this instance we ourselves provide here. Surely we understand these things. The sanctuary is a radiant place, to the extent that our experience is that of radiant people. There is really no magic in this. It isn't a mystery. It isn't really even a mystical matter. It is a very practical state of affairs, within which we are either capable of operating or we are not. Most of us have had ample opportunity to discover the truth of all this, not only as it relates to those occasions when we are together in this setting but to the continuing experience of the sanctuary in every moment of our daily living. It isn't something to be turned on and off.

We enter the sanctuary through the door of stillness. Coming through that door we discover the radiance of the sanctuary, the beauty of it, the living, moving, changing creative process which is found there. All doing should be done in the sanctuary. Most human doing is done in the environment, because forms—external things, events—loom so large in the minds and hearts of human beings.

It seems that mankind has become lost in this external world of things, people and events, projecting all this into the primary position, insofar as individual attitude is concerned. This seems to be necessary in order to survive, but, as we have often noted, human beings don't survive anyway. So that could hardly be the way to go. And yet I'm sure we all still find ourselves somewhat pushed and pulled by what is occurring in the environment around us. This pushing and pulling happens because of what is happening in our own hearts and minds, in our own reactions. Obviously if one reacts to external things, the external thing is in control. There is no order or design then in human experience, so there is the frantic endeavor to try to order it all somehow, to get it to conform to some human view of the way it should be. Of course all these human views tend to conflict with one another, so there is conflict. Here is the way to non-survival. It has become such an ingrained habit in human experience that it is anticipated, generation after generation, that no one will survive. But there is a sanctuary—blotted out of course by all this involvement with external things, forms and events, which are deemed to be so very important, when all they are is a reflection of what is present in the human hearts and minds of those who are temporarily present.

There is a passage in the Book of Revelation that could be pertinent to our present experience as we play our part in giving place to the sanctuary. This is the last chapter of Revelation—the 14th and 15th verses say this: "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie."

Most people reading that last verse would say, "Ha ha, that's not me!" But the fact of the matter is that it is. It is the human state being described here— perhaps in symbolic language, but nevertheless it is not very difficult to recognize human characteristics if we examine the description a little bit: dogs, for instance. Perhaps the thought may spring to mind, "man's faithful friend." Dogs in this context would relate, surely, to scavengers. In that setting of old particularly, and presently in many places, the dogs survive by scavenging. And a lot of human beings survive by scavenging. I'm not talking about those particular people who pick over the garbage in a literal sense, but most everyone picks over the garbage in a symbolic sense. We tend to survive on one another's garbage—that is, temporarily. It's not a very healthy diet. So one of the human characteristics could be said to be that of scavenging.

Sorcerers! Are there any sorcerers around? One doesn't have to have a conical hat to be a sorcerer. A sorcerer is a good description of anyone who manipulates. Manipulators. The world is full of them, but one might just as well look in the mirror. Here is a very straightforward description of what one might call human nature.

Then come the whoremongers. A lot of people are very self-righteous in this field. But who would these be? I suppose one could use a word which would be apt: enticers. The economic system of the Western world—of everywhere, as far as that is concerned—is based in this matter of enticing, isn't it? The magazines of this day have very few articles in them but are virtually all advertisements, enticements. And individually speaking we endeavor to get our way through methods of enticement, as long as we remain trapped in this human-nature condition.

Murderers! Any murderers here this morning? Of course. I suppose one could recognize very easily that if you drain someone of their lifeblood the physical form will be dead. And the drainers of lifeblood could be referred to as parasites. In one way or another most everyone is a parasite, sucking the blood from somebody else—very obvious in many cases, perhaps not so obvious from the standpoint of one's own experience, until one takes a good honest look at it. Those are slain from whom the lifeblood is drained. We all tend to be vampires in this sense, living on others one way or another, sometimes obviously so, sometimes it's hidden.

Idolaters! Of course, we know all about that. I suppose you could describe idolaters in this context as slaves to heredity. As we easily can see, virtually everyone is a slave to the past. In fact it's deemed to be quite commendable to be a slave to the past if it's the right kind of past. But we cannot be in the sanctuary while being slaves to the right kind of past or the wrong kind of past, slaves to heredity. This is the usual human state, experienced quite unconsciously. It's in our genes, after all. But this is describing those who are without—outside of the sanctuary.

In accordance with our participation together this morning, how much of each of us as individuals is outside of the sanctuary and how much is inside? It always looks a bit fruitless when facts are faced, because virtually everyone would have to admit that they were probably about ninety percent outside. Perhaps we have had opportunity to edge a little closer in, if we were willing, and to find the door of stillness, so that heart and mind are no longer jerked around by all these factors which are without.

I haven't gone into these things in any depth, you know. I don't think it's profitable to do so, but it is necessary that one admits to oneself that there is a depth to it. There is far more than can be touched on in a few words. It is not so much a matter of words anyway. It is a matter of one's own willingness to come out of that state into the sanctuary through the door of stillness.

There is a final classification here: "Whosoever loveth and maketh a lie." It expands a little bit on the classification of liars. I suppose this could be summarized by saying, the self-willed. Self-willed human beings cannot possibly express the truth; therefore they must be liars.

We have this rather complete description of those who are outside of the sanctuary, outside of the city, the city where man, male and female, belongs. Virtually the whole human population is outside. By and large it has exhibited very little willingness to be anywhere else. There are those who have earnestly and sincerely sought to come in by their own efforts, trying to be good according to some formula; but they never succeeded that way. They stayed out. They stayed identified with these various characteristics.

We present ourselves now at the door of the sanctuary. A consideration of the things we have been looking at may be a little disturbing. If we are honest, that is probably so. In this case then the door of stillness remains closed. I'm sure all of us in one way or another, being part of the human population on earth, have had our troubles—we've known a troubled state. Sometimes particular emphasis is placed, in various ways, so that we may be inclined to take the attitude that life is hard. As we have noted before, if we think it's hard we haven't known what life is. All we have known is what the processes of dying are. The yoke of life is easy and the burden of it is light. It doesn't weigh much. It is also radiant—it's radiant in the sanctuary.

Most of us have our troubles, and we endeavor to get them to straighten out one way or another. Sometimes they are environmental troubles, sometimes they are more internal troubles, health troubles perhaps. And there usually is a rather frantic looking around for someone to fix us up. You can't come into the sanctuary with your troubles. You have to check them at the door. The door is the door of stillness. How much of our time is occupied by trying to dispel our troubles? To that extent we are excluding ourselves from the sanctuary. There is no trouble in the sanctuary, so obviously you can't bring your troubles in, because that would introduce trouble into the sanctuary. That is quite impossible. It can't be done. There is a cherubim at the gate with a flaming sword. He won't let you by. Leave your troubles behind. You can't leave your troubles behind if you are so wrapped up in them that you think you can't survive at all without getting someone to straighten them out. But you find in the end that no one can straighten them out. And, as it was put, you die in your sins—in your troubles.

Troubles don't need to be corrected. Problems don't need to be solved. All that needs to happen is that these things should be transcended, one should be where they are not. As long as one insists on existing where they are, one will be troubled by them. And it is absolutely futile to try to find a solution. Of course this is being done on the grand scale in the world all the time. People are trying to find solutions. Anything that human beings do to try to solve their problems makes them worse, always. Oh it may look good for the moment, but take a look at the world, which is the result of generation after generation for millennia past trying to solve their problems. Why continue in that downward slide? Well presumably because most people don't know any other way to go. Do we? If we do, will we go in that way, or will we still trust the downward slide? While we still have some little connection with life, surely there is the place to discover a transcendent experience, to discover what life really is. We are all so thoroughly familiar with these processes of dying, which are very troublesome.

"Rise up, my love, my fair one." Lift up your eyes, to start with. Well we've lifted our eyes a little and seen something other than the usual human condition. There is a true state—there is the reality of life. Life characterizes the whole universe. The only part of that universe which is not characterized by life is right here—the human experience. Why? Well we have described it before: "Because I want to get my own way. After all, it's a good way; I'm a good person; I'm going to get my own way." The ways of human beings relate to all these external things, so he immediately becomes a manipulator. In order to manipulate he has to suck somebody's blood. All these things come into the picture and we have the continuing condition of being outside of the sanctuary. And yet human beings are clamoring to come in. "We don't like this. It's very uncomfortable out here." Well one would hope it would be. No one should be encouraged to stay out.

Let go. Rise up. Don't imagine that you will ever find an answer in the realm of form. It isn't there. One seeming answer leads to a dozen further problems, until the problems are so immense that everybody is sunk. Let there be the evidence of the sanctuary, and no one can come into the sanctuary except through the door of stillness—being still within oneself. Most people seem to spend their lives seething inside. It's not surprising that we have all these physical ailments. Rise up. Come to the door of stillness, where it is recognized that as long as you are trying to work out your problems, that is self-will, that is the state of the liar and it ends in disaster, always.

We have considered these things together so that we might not be identified with the problem state. We can see it—"only with thine eyes"—we can see it without being involved in it. Come clear, so that there may be evidence of the way, the truth and the life. The only evidence of the way, the truth and the life available within the scope of human awareness is through one's own experience. One may be encouraged by the experience of another, but one never knows the truth except for oneself.

So, as we have been willing and sufficiently still to come into the sanctuary, we have been able to see much without being involved with what we see. And we carry this transcendent level of experience into our living, so that we never allow the form of things to become the dominant factor. There is always something else happening. We call it the creative process. "Well the creative process doesn't relate to this little thing that is going on over here. I can handle this and disregard the creative process"—disregard what is natural in the sanctuary. Well if you are without, of course you will do that. You will disregard it. It won't enter into consciousness even. But there is always something more going on, no matter what it is one is doing, what it is that is present in one's environmental situation. There is something back of it going on. There is a creative process. Look at that.

Don't get mesmerized, hypnotized by the form—"We've got to get the form exactly right." You never get it right on that basis. It will be right when it is allowed to be a part of the creative process. It's the only way it will be right, and that transcends what anyone wants. We let it emerge the way it will emerge. Let's do it in our momentary experience. That's the only place we have to let it happen—not some great thing that's going to occur way over there somewhere. It's going to happen within the scope of what we are doing. 

We rejoice to come into the sanctuary, so that the form of things no longer dominates, and we begin to perceive back of the form. Whatever the form may be, whatever the circumstance, the situation may be, there is something working out. Let's see that, instead of being blinded by the form. All things work together to perfection for those who are identified with that state which abides in the sanctuary.

Let us lift up our eyes. Let us let our hearts and minds, and indeed our bodies, be lifted up to that level of things where there is no need to solve any problems; there aren't any to be solved. Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.

© emissaries of divine light