The  Truth  of  Life  is  Clear  As  Crystal

from  The Tree of Life

Uranda   March 21, 1953  Class

One of the things we might note for a moment is that we should always remember that that which divides also connects—that which divides also connects. In the sense of the things of God, or of reality, we can see that very easily. In relationship to the things of the unreal world, the disturbed patterns of being, instead of letting our vision be obscured by that which seems to divide, let us always be ready to examine the divisions, that through them or in relationship to them we may by some means find the connecting links or the means of establishing in manifest form that which unifies. And with respect to this point, we should remember that as we let the power of God work through us, that which is on the other side of the dividing line is seeking to get through to us as surely as the spirit of God working through us is seeking to reach through the dividing line to that which is of God upon the other side. And that which is not of the divine pattern is either repelled or changed, rearranged, so that there may be a pattern of relationship established.

Tonight, in our pattern of meditation, I would like to draw your attention to the first part of the 22nd chapter of Revelation, the last chapter in the Bible:

“And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.

“In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”

If ever in recorded history there was a time when the nations needed healing it was no more so than now. There is a need for the healing of the nations. You will note that there is specific reference made to the throne of God and of the Lamb. This signifies the focalization of authority, of release of power on the invisible side and on the visible side, the inner and the outer planes of being, functioning on the basis of the unification in the spirit of the living Christ. I mention that so that you may see that the principles involved here apply to us here on earth. Human beings generally imagine that the river of life or the tree of life is not available until after one is dead or until some far-distant, future outworking shall have taken place. But our function here is dedicated to the purpose of letting this which is so portrayed have meaning in daily life here on earth in this present time.

“And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal.”

We have mentioned that that which is of the pneumaplasmic substance, under the control of the divine design, or the spirit of God, is the sea of glass, clear as crystal. Here again we have the same term, “clear as crystal.” And this pure river of water of life proceeds out of the throne of God, in the sense of the invisible realm, and out of the throne of the Lamb, the focalization of manifestation on earth in relationship to all who will receive. We recognize that water is the symbol of truth, the pure river—it particularly emphasizes movement, flowing. There is a difference between a pond or a lake and a river. The water may be moving in a lake, but if there is a river, the water is most definitely moving; there is a current, there is flow. So there is a pure flowing of the water, or truth, of life, a pure flow of the truth of life, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.

“In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life.”

Now we have the water of life, and then the tree of life, and the tree of life brings forth twelve manner of fruits and yields her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. That which heals or has the power to heal the nations likewise has power to heal the individual. And in fact, the individual is a counterpart of the whole world, and the nations of your own body are the organs, the various parts. Your body as such has different nations. The liver is very different in nature from the stomach, for instance. Each part is very definitely and easily distinguished from every other part. The heart cannot be easily confused with, what shall we say, the ear, the eye, the nose, so many parts. Each part is distinct in itself. All of these things apply to the individual and they likewise apply to the world of humanity, the same laws, the same principles, all the way through. And so there is a river of life for the individual, a flowing of the water of truth. There is likewise the flowing of the water of truth for the world as a whole. There is the divine provision. And this truth of life is clear as crystal.

In this connection we are reminded of the Master's instruction and admonition with respect to giving a cup of cold, clear water to the thirsty ones. What is that water? It is the truth, the refreshing truth, the truth that makes you free. You remember His statement at the well of Samaria, where He said that “he who drinks of the water that I give, shall never thirst.” The water of truth. And once we have found the river, the flowing of the truth of life, the thirst, in the sense of suffering, is past. To say that one would nevermore drink of that water because of normal or natural thirst would be wrong. But thirst in the sense of extreme discomfort, thirst in the sense of perishing, no. And so a pure flowing of the truth of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb.

“In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life.” This tree of life is available to us now, today, as surely as it was available to any Adam and Eve in the past. But we must let the garden which God has planted eastward in Eden be restored in manifestation in us and through us and around us if we would have the fulness of the privileges of the tree of life.

One of the things which we should meditate upon for a moment is the fact that there are twelve manner of fruit, one for each month, from the tree of life. This signifies that there is a need for the specific factors or food elements or nourishing qualities which appear in these variations. When we speak of the leaves of the tree for the healing of the nations, for instance, we are reminded of the chemistry of the body. As you study the body and its wonderful workings, you begin to realize that all of these functions are made possible by reason of chemistry. The chemical process by which the food is digested, the chemical processes in the assimilation of the food—the chemistry of the body is a wonderful thing. And it is by reason of the fact of the chemistry of the body that we recognize the need for specific food elements. For instance, there are twelve primary minerals necessary to the body, and in relationship to these minerals there are vitamins. There are twelve specific primary minerals necessary to physical health. If we have an extreme deficiency in any one of them—and with some of them it does not take very much of a deficiency—the body chemistry will be thrown out. One of the things that we must recognize is that through an attunement, for instance, through response to God as it is sometimes thought of, nothing is put into the body. The body chemistry can operate only in relationship to that which is actually present in the body.

Actually, when I speak of response to God, we begin to realize that when there is true response to God the individual will, in one way or another, partake of those food substances or provision whereby the necessary elements may be brought into the body. We have to recognize the necessity of right diet for the provision of the basic elements necessary to the chemistry of the body. If we ignore chemistry, if we ignore diet, and at the same moment say that we are responding to God, we lie, because response to God makes possible the fulfilment of the laws of God, and those laws require that certain elements be present in the body. Those are the elements which God used in the creation of the physical form, the elements He put in the body. He made this physical body on the basis of certain specific chemical processes, and only as those chemical processes continue, and have the elements necessary to continuing, can we have health. We should recognize that from a physiological standpoint there are certain things which must be provided for the body which at times, with the world as it is now, we may not be in position to provide for the body.

“The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” This suggests the part that is played by herbs. And every herb of the field yielding fruit, every herb of the field has its part to play, as we find when we study the processes of creation. God created those herbs. He made them available to us, not just from the standpoint of food as such, in the ordinary sense, but from the standpoint of providing those elements necessary to reestablishing a balanced pattern of life should the chemistry of the body get out of balance. We consider attunements, for instance. We are not in any sense limiting the reality of God's power when we acknowledge the fact that if we come into true attunement with God, into true attunement with God's wisdom and healing power, we will be directed or led somehow to that process of function by which we may receive into our bodies that which should be present.

We might take a moment here to recognize the fact that we all owe a great deal to the medical profession. I would not want to be under the necessity of living in any country in the world where there were no medical doctors, the world being as it is today. We can go back in history and trace the development of what is spoken of as medicine—medical science. And I think we can properly call it medical science, because it incorporates many sciences: the science of chemistry, the science of body reactions, specific factors which are provided in the body either through the herbs or through concentrates or even what are sometimes called drugs. I would not want to be shut off from all supplies of drugs. The point I wish to make is that we have no reason to feel that the use of drugs under certain circumstances is in any sense or in any way in conflict with that which is our program here. Our purpose is to cooperate with the medical profession, not in any sense to be in conflict with it, not in any sense to even appear to belittle it or to detract from it. I think that anyone who makes any kind of a study at all with respect to what the medical profession has accomplished must certainly have something of pride and admiration in that achievement that has been made. And we thank God for it.

I mentioned a moment ago something about the history of medicine. We go back to the time of the Greeks and consider the development of medicine on through the period of the Roman Empire, and we see how the failure of those who thought of themselves as Christians, the failure of those who should have been following our Lord and King, brought on the Dark Ages. And if you examine into the history, you find that that failure affected the development of medical science, as well as all other fields of human endeavor. You consider how human beings have worked forward down through the centuries to gain knowledge of the physical body, knowledge of anatomy, etc., in order to be helpful to those who were sick, those who were suffering, and in spite of all limitations which now appear, how much humanity has been blessed by the gift of God made manifest through the medical profession. Let us never forget it in all of our fields of endeavor in our ministry, because the blessings of God are given to humanity through the medical profession just as surely as through any other group on the face of the earth, including ourselves. We should remember that there are those things for which, at the present time, God's provision is made manifest through medical doctors, and there is absolutely nothing in conflict with that which we are teaching here, nothing in that which we are sharing in the development of the program which conflicts with that basic truth.

“In the midst of the street of it.” In the midst of the street of what? “The throne of God and of the Lamb.” Not in the midst of the Holy City, new Jerusalem, although the new spiritual consciousness has something to do with it. But the specific statement is, “the throne of God and of the Lamb,” and “In the midst of the street of it”—that is, the throne—“and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life.” A throne signifies a specific form by reason of which authority and control are expressed in the pattern of living. If your body, your mind and heart are a means by which the authority of God's truth, the control of God's truth and God's law, are expressed into the world, then your body, you as an individual, are a part of the throne of God and the Lamb. As you, the human being, become the means by which divine control, divine authority, divine power are released into the earth, you, the human being, become a part of the throne of God and of the Lamb. “And in the midst of the street of the throne, and on either side of the river, which issues forth from the throne, there is the tree of life.” This tree of life is something which has seemed to be so far away from human beings, and something with respect to which we need to develop a deep realization. Specific reference is made to the “twelve manner of fruits” borne by this tree—the tree of life. We will not tonight undertake to consider the particular significance of the twelve fruits but point rather to the principle here revealed, that each fruit matured in its season: “...and yielded her fruit every month.”

If the fruit is yielded it is matured in its season, and it does not mature in some other season. This signifies, since there are twelve months in the year, that there is a specific fruit maturing through the tree of life every month, the year around. And if the fruit is yielded in its appointed season, in its appointed month or period of harvest, then that fruit has been in a process of gestation and growing and maturing. With respect to every manifestation there must be gestation, growing and maturing; there must be the coming to harvest. But the point of harvest does not appear without the cycle back of it, the cycle of gestation, growing and maturing. It is with respect to this that human beings constantly defeat themselves. There are very few plants which develop and mature within a few days. We are interested in oak tree development. It may seem sometimes to be a little slow, but if we are right, there will be strength, the strength that is inherent in flexibility. Is there any real strength in that which is rigid, inflexible? No. There must be flexibility. And wherever there is true strength there is flexibility. Some people imagine that rigidity is a sign of strength. Remember, the rigid things crack. Let us be flexible. If you are strong you can afford to be flexible. If you are afraid of being flexible you reveal yourself as being rigid, and most certainly, sooner or later, under pressure, you will crack. There must be a true growing, then, and it is the cycle of movement in development and growth to which I would draw your attention tonight.

Even in the divine state, in what we might call paradise restored, from the standpoint of the record it is anticipated that that which manifests, that which comes to harvest, will have to go through a time of growing and maturing. That process is not in any sense contrary to the divine pattern or the divine plan. But let us note what human beings do to themselves. Instead of functioning in relationship to the tree of life, they function in relationship to the tree of death. The human being thinks that he establishes a starting point for something beautiful, something divine, he thinks he plants the right seed, and then he neglects it or he plants evil seed right on top of it, or he becomes discouraged, saying, “I have tried to be good. I have done thus and so according to what I understand is right, and therefore the fruit should be appearing today.” Have you ever allowed the planting of some spiritual seed, the seed of truth, and expected the fruit to appear overnight? How about the process of functioning correctly through gestation, growing and maturing, to come to the point of harvest.

Man's impatience is that which constantly defeats man's desire for better things. Man acts as if he thought that God should have all the trees planted, all the vines planted, everything done, so that all man needs to do is go out and pick some fruit and eat it at his own discretion and pleasure, to toss the peelings here and the seeds there—let God clean it up—go out and gather the ripened fruit at his own whim, fancy and desire, and God should always have plenty of ripe fruit ready for you to take the moment you think you want it. Look at the pattern of life in which most people are involved—you might even look in the mirror tonight and see yourself—the human being actually expecting the full-flavored fruit to be on hand the moment the human being thinks he wants it, as if he could give out an order and have peaches or plums or apples, or what have you, delivered in the moment without regard to seasons of gestation, growth and maturing. This again touches back into the principles to which I drew your attention before, how man defeats himself by reason of his consideration of end results, his judgment on the basis of end results.

In the divine state these cycles must work out, and when man was first put in the midst of the garden of God on earth what was the instruction? The instruction to man was to tend it and to keep it, to take care of it, and to keep it coming into manifestation. He was to keep it clean, he was to keep it growing, to keep the cycles moving, to keep the conditions which will allow the maturing, so that there may be a time of harvest. But as there is a harvest every month, as it is pictured here, we see the revelation of the principle that every day is a day of planting, every day a day of gestation, every day a day of growing, every day a day of maturing, and every day a day of harvesting something. Now what is the fruit you harvest day by day? Is it the fruit that comes from the tree of life? If it is, it increases the expression of life in you. That is what is required if we are going to serve God and man. We must let the expression of life be increased in and through us. Not just the flowing of the truth of life, but the actual doing, the manifestation, the revelation in form—which is the living of life, the tree of life—the manifestation in form by which the fruit of life appears; for the tree of life is in you, and you are a part of the tree of life, you have relationship to the tree of life.

As the kingdom of heaven is at hand, so also is the tree of life at hand. But the fruit that appears through you moment by moment, day by day, month by month, is constantly revealing the source from whence it comes and the nature of the care which has been given to it. We are preparing to plant a garden. If that garden is not given care, weeds will grow; the things that we plant will be dried up or smothered or useless in some fashion. We are going to have to tend that garden and keep it and take care of it, if it is going to produce. Let us remember, then, to be practical in relationship to our lives. For that which is formed by reason of your directions of response in the pneumaplasmic pattern must be held long enough for it to take form. That is the period of gestation. It must grow in form, it must mature in form, and then shall come the harvest. But if the nature of the spirit working in you is such that every time some certain thing begins to take form in the pneumaplasmic substance you begin to ignore it, there will be no harvest. You stop tending it and keeping it, and you start producing something else, start planting something else. The pneumaplasmic substance is shaped into something else; you begin to get that pattern halfway established so that it can begin to take form, and your response goes in some other direction. The pneumaplasm which started to take form in these other things loses its pattern and you start forming it into something else, some other pattern. Back and forth, fluctuating, never allowing anything to get out of the pneumaplasmic state. You form it here, you form it there, but never let it really take form. And then there are empty places in life, places where the things of God do not appear, where the fruits do not appear in their season.

The fruit of life should be yielded in its season, in you and through you. But if you do not “let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing,” you will find, by your impatience, that even though you start to shape and mold and establish a pattern in the pneumaplasmic substance, you cannot be depended upon to hold it steady long enough for the physical substance to take form in relationship to it, long enough for it to grow and mature and be harvested. And if your mind is flitting from one thing to another, if your patterns are constantly changing, you have something erratic, something not dependable, and there will be no true fruit. Oh you may bring forth an evil situation, some unpleasant, some unhappy situation, but it will not amount to much. But it takes more than an intellectual idea. You can have an intellectual concept and say, “I am seeking to hold this concept steady so that it will take form in the pneumaplasm and then I will have something solid, I will have something practical.” Will you?

The impression you make in the pneumaplasmic pattern depends upon the reality of the current of feeling. You have an intellectual idea, a concept, and even if it is true it will not produce anything. It may keep something from being produced, so that you have a void and it is distorted and you say, “Well, that didn't work.” What didn't work? The things about which you felt deeply took form, the things about which you felt deeply enough to hold steady in relationship to them, to do your part toward tending and keeping the garden; they took form, even if they were evil things. If you have an ill feeling toward someone and you hold that ill feeling, something will take form, but it will not be of God. All of these things that are shaped in the pneumaplasmic realm must be shaped in relationship to the current of feeling. You cannot kill feeling out, or relinquish it or something, and function merely on an intellectual level and have anything take form in reality. It is that about which you feel keenly that will take form.

Now what is it from God that is supposed to carry the key to the feeling pattern? It is love, God's love. If you are centered in God's love, then the patterns of divine truth are getting through into the realm of your consciousness and there is no fluctuation. It is something holding steady; you are letting the process of gestation, growth and maturing take place; and finally there will be harvest, finally it will appear in form in a manner in which you can use it. But if you try to eat green apples the chances are you will have a bellyache. Leave it alone. Let the fruit from the tree of life actually mature, and when it is mature, when its seasons of harvest are come, then you can eat of it. Blessed ones, we could study on this particular point for the next six months and not exhaust all of its phases and factors. So I am seeking to give you a fundamental key in relationship to it, so that you may meditate upon it yourselves. But it will have meaning according to the zeal with which you receive it, the enthusiasm, the joy and the stability. If you just let it pass through your mind as an idea it will do you no good, it will be of no value to you.

But remember that all things manifest by this process of gestation, growth and maturing, and you are not going to have any blessing from God by any other process. God is not going to form anything complete in some invisible realm and come along and hand it to you on a silver platter and say, “Here you are.” Any blessing—I don't care what it is—if there is to be a blessing appear in your life you must let it come by this means; you must let it be conceived in God's love and truth; you must let it gestate; and you must let it be born. Born? How? First it is established in the pneumaplasmic pattern, and you have to hold steady enough, with a depth of feeling, to let the pattern clearly shape in detail, and then physical substance begins to take shape with respect to it. In our daily lives we cannot say just what will appear where, first.

Let me illustrate. I am here for a specific purpose: to work out the conception, gestation, growth and maturing of the One Christ Body on earth, by which the power of God may so manifest that all the ill conditions in the world may be effectively dealt with. But we cannot function now as if that body were already completely mature. It isn't. If we tried to function as if it were mature, we would certainly bring failure upon ourselves. When I see you coming into the pattern according to your response, I do not immediately say to myself, “Well now, such and such a person will be such and such a part in that body. I will just put a tag on him right now, because he or she is going to be a fingernail or a toenail or an ear or an eye or a hair of the head, or something else.” No. We here are a little handful of people, but the basic formation of this body with which I am concerned will require one hundred and forty-four thousand people, men and women. But that is the key centering, the core, with respect to which all the rest of the people of the world must function if they are to have a part in the divine plan.

It is not limited to one hundred and forty-four thousand, by any manner of means. The pattern opened includes every man, woman and child on the face of the earth, if he or she will have a part in it. But now, suppose I had by some means a consciousness that John Jones, who is down in Iowa, we will say, should be this part here. All right, you folks just wait now until we can get John Jones here to assume this position before we do anything; I insist that John Jones must get here first and the formation of this body must work out according to some fixed idea. I am not concerned about whether it is John Jones or you. You are the ones who are here, and I thank God for you. But I did not say in what order you should come or anything else. I have not undertaken to tell you where you shall be in that body of being. You are not ready to know. You have not been fully formed yet, in any case, yourselves. So the arbitrary, fixed ideas of what should appear first, how it should appear, in what order it should appear or we will reject it, is one of the things which keep human beings in a state of void and nothingness. Your mind is going to judge what should come first, and if it does not start to appear just the way you think it ought to, you are going to reject it, you are going to judge it and condemn it.

How often I have seen things of God start to take form like a babe in the womb, right here, and someone began to perceive it, sense it somehow, and he or she said, “That is not the way it ought to be. This ought to be done first. That ought to be done over there. What is the idea? This should not come thus and so; it should be like that.” And so they reject this and they never have that. Perhaps that is a part of the divine manifestation, but you are going to have to let it appear on the basis of the vibratory factors as they are, not as you may want them to be. And until you learn to stop rejecting the things of God that do start to get through, because you think it ought to be some other way, your life is not going to be revealing the twelve manner of fruits, the days of harvest as they should be, the harvest every month of the fruit of the tree of life, the true living of life, the expression of life by which the things of God are revealed in and through you. Blessed ones, this pattern of rejection, because your mind has an idea of how it ought to be, is that which defeats you—plus impatience.

Let patience have her perfect works, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing, lacking nothing. For if you function on the basis of true centering, true trust, you can let the things of God appear as they will appear and the whole shall be balanced out in its season to the glory of God, and your life will be a revelation of the twelve fruits of the tree of life, the days of harvest every day, revealing the beauty of the things of God on earth here and now.

© Emissaries of Divine Light