The True Tone

The  True  Tone

Martin Cecil   March 31, 1974

Out of the nowhere of the dimensionless state comes the differentiation of the sound of the trumpet in the dimensional state, in the now here of the dimensional state. That sound is generated first in the mouthpiece of the trumpet, and the vibration is taken up by the air contained in the whole trumpet and by the trumpet itself. This portrayal indicates a oneness, first of all between the trumpeter and the trumpet; and then the oneness between the air (the substance in the trumpet), the trumpet itself, and the sound that is being propagated — a total oneness initiated by the Lord and reproduced in the world of form. All of you here recognize your responsibilities in these matters, and how what transpires is not just a little thing in a corner of the world but it is something that affects the whole world. Here we have the creative power of God once more in action in a specific, controlled sense, beginning to restore the dominion of God on earth.

We noted this morning the various levels of consciousness, or what have also been described as planes of being, in the dimensional realm. Reference was made to the six planes, the six levels of consciousness, composing what has been called heaven and earth — the triune heaven and the triune earth. The seventh level might be referred to as the Heaven of heavens. It constitutes the connecting point between the dimensional world and the dimensionless world. Insofar as this world is concerned, the One who stands at the apex we speak of as the LORD of Lords and KING of Kings. He provides the point of focus in the Heaven of heavens, both for the dimensional realm of this world and the dimensionless realm of this world. What exactly that means is not likely immediately to be understood, but something can be recognized in principle. It has before been noted that while we speak of the dimensionless world it is only dimensionless from the standpoint of what we understand as dimensional. In this dimensional world we recognize dimensions. Those dimensions are limited to the world of space and time. Here may be seen a rather restricted state. However, from the standpoint of what from the dimensional world view is dimensionless, that dimensionless world to itself has dimension. It isn't at all comparable to a vague gaseous state. Utilizing the words Heaven of heavens, we may see that this also refers to the dimensionless world. The seventh level of consciousness as it may be seen from the dimensional state also spills over, so to speak, into the dimensionless state; and whatever is contained in that world is related to the Heaven of heavens.

There are many schools of thought and philosophical concepts which involve ideas about heavenly hierarchies, invisible masters. Sometimes they are so prolifically multiplied that the One who might be referred to as Jesus is pretty well lost in the shuffle. But the fact of the matter is that there is an apex point for this world. That apex point provides the focalization not only for the dimensional realm of this world but for the dimensionless realm of this world. We are concerned, obviously, with the dimensional realm of this world; so the only One in any possible hierarchy with whom there needs to be any concern is the One we refer to as the LORD of Lords and KING of Kings. What occurs in the dimensionless state will take care of itself, no doubt; we can't do anything about it anyhow. But we are responsible in this dimensional realm of this world. If we are to consider any hierarchy, it would be in the dimensional world; in other words it would be apparent by reason of human beings. If there is involvement with supposed spiritual hierarchies, separate somehow from human beings, a person will become lost in a realm of imagination, because there is no means whatsoever by which there might be penetration into the dimensionless state. Our point of contact with the dimensionless state of this world is through the LORD of Lords, the only One with whom we need to be concerned. By the same token, the contact from the dimensionless state with the dimensional world is through Him also. So we can sweep out the cupboards, disposing of imaginary hierarchies. The Roman Catholic Church tended to become involved with such things, proliferating saints and such — the Virgin Mary and others — constituting a religious realm of imagination.

So we simply acknowledge the apex point by which Almighty God is brought to focus for this world in the LORD of Lords, being unconcerned for anyone else in some supposed invisible hierarchy. There may be an invisible hierarchy in the dimensionless state, but that at the moment is none of our business. Our business is here in the dimensional world, under the dominion of the LORD of Lords at the apex point of the Heaven of heavens. We are indeed very much concerned with Him. Using our analogy of this morning, He is the trumpeter. He sends His angels with a great sound of a trumpet. His angels are essential to the great sound of the trumpet. They're not separate from the great sound of the trumpet, as though in some distant heaven the trumpet was sounded and the angels marched forth. It is the coming of the angels, the differentiated expression of life in this dimensional world, that brings with it the sound of the trumpet. That sound originates in the LORD of Lords, but it becomes sound as we know it, differentiated into expression, by reason of the trumpet which He is quite capable of playing.

It is the sound that is differentiated in this dimensional world that has stirred that space in you which may be called sacred, so that the resonance began to be present in your hearts. To whatever degree this was so, you found yourselves impelled toward participation in the instrument in the hands of the Lord. I'm sure all of you have been made aware that you didn't move in that direction on the basis of your own conscious intention. It happened in spite of any conscious intentions you may have had. Wherever there is room within a person for the vibratory Tone to be initiated there is a compulsion present, which may be overridden, it is true, and is by many people; but when it is sufficiently strong, because there was sufficient room for it to be so, the person is compelled to come to the Lord through the instrument of the Lord on earth. This has of course been happening. You are here to testify to the fact, and there are many more besides. In the sense of your conscious awareness you didn't come of your own volition. We may remember the word of the Lord spoken on earth: "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you." There are of course some who insist upon rejecting that choice, but if a person does come it is an indication that there is a yielding to the choice of the Lord.

The sound was, long ago in the record of the Old Testament, called a still small voice. It's something that occurs in the realm of stillness in the human heart. Because that realm is usually pretty small it seems like a pretty small voice. But as the instrument forms, so that this vibration is increasingly differentiated, coming into phase, the sound obviously increases and consequently is able to penetrate into areas where it was prevented before. There is the increased touching of human hearts therefore, everywhere. An increased experience of this compulsion begins to be known in human beings the world around. Geographical distance has no limiting effects upon the Tone, which is simply intensified as there is more air available and more instrument available to vibrate. Gabriel's trump, it has been called. People have pictured in imagination an angel with a trumpet, blowing somewhere over there, wherever there might be, when of course we begin to see and know and experience that it is here. And if the sound is in one place on earth, it is in every place on earth.

This sound is indeed the Good News which has been called the gospel. "And this gospel ... shall be preached in all the world ... and then shall the end come." Those who have called themselves Christians have thought this meant that there should be those who sprang up on the soapbox and proceeded to tell a story based in human imagination. But the Gospel is real; it is this Tone. This is the Good News which stirs human hearts, stirs them to they know not what. It doesn't generate, rightly, any beliefs or cause a person to join this group or that. It is a still small voice which brings people into the instrument of God on earth, or to find a relationship to that instrument.

All people do not compose the instrument. We may see the trumpet as relating particularly to what we have referred to as the priesthood. It includes more than that, but it is not intended to include all people on earth, although all people on earth must hear the Tone and respond to the Tone or perish. The dimensional state of mankind is of a very specific design, a design which is unknown to the mind of man and which cannot be grasped by the mind of man, but this design is naturally experienced by those who are drawn into phase with the Tone. Then there it is. No one had to make it be so; no one had to invent it; no one had to organize it. But it is found that there is what may well be described as organization. After all, our own physical bodies are organized. It's when they become disorganized that there is trouble. The world of mankind has been very much disorganized. It is because of this Tone that the organization may again be brought to pass. No human being is going to think it up or make it be, according to some human concept. It simply is, on the basis of the Tone.

Now this brings us back to the vital nature of this Tone, the Tone which is not consequent upon intellectual awareness of the principles of reality. The Tone is a reality and may engender an understanding of the principles of reality when the Tone activates the consciousness of the individual concerned. The Tone activates, rightly, the whole consciousness, not just a little limited space. Human beings try to set up a design of their own making, with what was supposed to be spiritual relegated to a restricted space. This has been done very much in the religious pattern of things, particularly in Christianity, so that there was a space for spiritual things but the majority of the space was for material things, as though there was a distinction somehow. But the fact of the matter is that what are called material things are composed of the substance of consciousness just as surely as what are supposed to be spiritual things. The only distinction relates to the level of the substance of consciousness. I have described those levels as extending from the very fine to the very coarse — different vibratory rates. And what appears in consequence of the vibratory rate is translated in consciousness to be thus and so, so that we may say, "Here is a chair." But it actually is a structure in your consciousness, isn't it? You say that the chair is over there. Is it? Insofar as you are concerned it is in your consciousness, and you project it over there on the basis of your translation. There is no need to become all involved in obscure endeavors to understand. The point is that what you know and experience is contained in your consciousness and composes the world of your consciousness. This world is to be re-created, not in the sense that we anticipate turning this chair into something else. It's convenient as a chair; we'll leave it there.

You know, fairy stories often convey truths. In fairy stories people are changed into frogs, or what have you, and back again — a more or less simple undertaking if necessary — on the basis of the changes in consciousness. We are concerned with permitting changes in consciousness. These come because of what has been called Tone, the right Tone. Now the first evidence of that Tone emerges through the mouthpiece of the instrument. It is present already, obviously so, in the trumpeter, in the Lord. He knows what He is going to generate. But what He knows in the dimensionless realm is unknown in the dimensional realm until it is generated there, and it is generated there through the consciousness of those who compose the essential instrument. And it is generated in a particular way.

In the world as we know it a trumpeter who wished to play the trumpet would need to have a trumpet of the required design, with all its parts, including the mouthpiece. He wouldn't, for instance, say, "I don't think I'm going to need a mouthpiece, so I'll just throw that into the wastepaper basket and play this trumpet without a mouthpiece." He wouldn't anticipate that it could ever be played without a mouthpiece. That would be foolishness, wouldn't it? This has something to do with what is called focalization. There have been those who always want to throw away the mouthpiece, the means by which the Tone is set. If there is to be the right Tone in the trumpet, of which the individual may be a part, the mouthpiece must be in place. This is the only way that the Tone can be produced. The mouthpiece must be in place, connected to the rest of the trumpet. The mouthpiece is the link between the trumpeter and the trumpet. The trumpet as a whole is a link between the trumpeter and the audience. One can carry it further actually. If the audience is moved by the Tone of the trumpet then the trumpet and the audience are the connection between the trumpeter and the rest of the world, however far that may extend.

The vibration is set in the mouthpiece. If there is a sour note in the mouthpiece, of course there will be a sour note in the trumpet. However, the responsibility for the note belongs to the trumpeter, not to the trumpet. The particular tone that is to be generated is to be generated by the will of the trumpeter. We speak about God's will. "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." But whatever the Tone actually is in the mouthpiece, in its initial generation, must be picked up as it actually is by the substance of consciousness in the rest of the trumpet. Now we have a little different state of affairs insofar as this living instrument is concerned. A trumpet, in the ordinary way, has no choice but to produce what the trumpeter determines. However here is a living consciousness, a living trumpet, which may have other ideas. The necessity is to find that attunement with the original Tone which will allow that original Tone to be generated and regenerated throughout the whole trumpet, everything coming into phase accurately.

Obviously this requires that those concerned begin to neglect their own notes, their own noises, which have seemed to be so important and to be required to maintain individuality. Human individuality in the world the way it now is, is maintained by playing sour notes, clashing notes of some kind, without regard to any true Tone. And the individual is inclined to imagine that his importance is based in his continued strong maintenance of the particular sour note which composes his individuality, as he thinks of it. But that isn't individuality; that's just simply a sour note. And people trying to do their thing is exactly that — multiplication of sour notes. It seems that some nowadays think there is something new about trying to do one's thing, but everybody has been trying to do their thing for ages past; and the result has been chaotic noise. So there must be a willingness to relinquish one's thing in this sense. That thing, anyway, is the end result of heredity and environmental experience. There's nothing very new about it; there's nothing truly very individual about it. It's just a rehash of sour notes which have been played all down through the ages. And that sort of rackety sound becomes very boring, to say the least, very tiresome indeed. Of course many people just get used to it. I suppose it's not surprising that there is Tone deafness because of all the racket. There is physical deafness multiplying in the world today because of all the racket in the sense of physical noise. But this vibrational noise has certainly engendered deafness with respect to the true Tone. However there must be some space, even though it is very little, present in which the Tone may reverberate, if the individual is still alive. If it's too small, the sound is too small, the voice is too small, the individual never really hears it. Well we can correct that to some degree by intensifying the sound, by making the Tone louder. And then it can be heard even though the space is quite small, and something begins to happen in people who before completely ignored the presence of any Tone at all. So we are very much concerned with intensifying the Tone because of this, but we need to know first what the Tone is. And we can't know what the Tone is if we are busy blowing our own trumpets, so to speak. That human ego, again, gets in the way. It wants to have its own way, and if it does give consideration to the possibility of a trumpet and a true Tone, it wants to be where it wants to be in the trumpet, for one thing, and it wants to adjust the Tone just a little so as to make sure that something of the old sour note is maintained — something of the old individuality, the self-important human ego.

All that can go without mourning as we respond to the true Tone because we are concerned to discover what that true Tone is. And as I say, we do not discover what that true Tone is merely by studying the principles of reality. This is the Tone of life itself, a Tone which, when it begins to sound so that it can be clearly heard, will never allow a person to veer very far from that Tone, because immediately there is deviation the sour note becomes so apparent that the sole concern then is to get back in tune. But if a person doesn't really know what that Tone is he stumbles around producing more noise. So the real concern in those who are to compose the instrument is to become increasingly aware of the nature of that Tone as it may be found in the mouthpiece. That's where it first is, and then it may be extended, through the mouthpiece, further afield so that it is easier for others to connect up with it — because, after all, everybody is not right up against the mouthpiece. The whole of the trumpet is not connected to the mouthpiece, just part of it. And the parts are connected to the parts are connected to the parts. But the Tone totally stems, absolutely stems, from the mouthpiece. There is no other way. This is the way it works. This is the way it works in an ordinary trumpet! This is the way it works in Gabriel's trumpet.

So we need to be alert to the nature of that Tone, so that we will become so familiar with it that anything that is off-key is immediately discerned. That Tone has to be clear in consciousness if this is to be so. If it's a blurred tone, well we can wander around quite a bit and never know the difference. But those who are aware of the true Tone always know the difference. Sometimes a person will want to have an explanation as to what's wrong in his own particular function. He's so sure that what he's doing is right. How could it be explained? The only way the individual could find out would be to allow the true Tone to be generated in his own experience. Then he knows. I'm sure that you, having made some progress toward the experience of the true Tone, can look back and see how gauche you were in times past. You may be even a little embarrassed by some of the things you did or said. Well that may deflate the ego a little, and that's all right, but remember that the same thing is true now at the level where you are. Don't imagine that you have yet found an entirely accurate attunement with the true Tone. That's yet to come, and it will come to the extent that you are interested that it should. If you're not interested that it should, because you are so concerned to continue in your own ways, without regard to the true Tone, then you'll never know it. And no explanation will bring it to you. It isn't a matter of explanation, ever. It's a matter of experience, to find again attunement with the true Tone.

Those who are concerned that this should be so will be those who find it. The seekers find, but they need to know what it is they should be seeking — the true Tone, the Tone which is made evident initially in the mouthpiece. And as it expands through the trumpet it becomes more and more apparent, more and more evident, more and more easily discerned, more and more understood, more and more experienced, and the opportunity is extended to others likewise. Then the blast finally becomes so great that it awakens those who may be awakened and disposes of those who cannot be awakened. All things are thereby made new.

In this our experience this evening there has been something of the essential Tone made evident. Now the Tone is not merely made evident through words. It is made evident, if it is made evident, through what is totally present. Words may be a part of it, but those words can mean very little unless the Tone is present by reason of living. If a Tone has been touched in this service this evening, it could not have been so if I'd only come up here and spoken words. If it is so, it is because what comes to focus in the words is gathered from the experience of living. This is what permits the Tone to be generated. We can bandy words, but it's another thing to live and to experience the true nature of the Tone consequently. That's the only way it can be found. So in some measure the Tone has been present this evening and been touched, or has touched you, to the extent that there was space in you for the touching. And to that extent the sound has been intensified, and to that extent what we have sometimes called radiation has gone forth, gone forth into the consciousness wherever there was space in mankind. So to this extent we play a part in letting the gospel be preached in all the world. Let us continue to move together in harmony with the true Tone.

© Emissaries of Divine Light