The Love That Purifies

The  Love  That  Purifies

Martin Cecil   April 12, 1981

The morning stars sing together and all the sons of God shout for joy. It is a joy unspeakable and full of glory to welcome Thy presence, O Lord, into our unified holy place in this hour. Thy love purifies and unifies. According to our love for Thee, so is Thy love known to us, and we are one.  Thy kingdom is our kingdom. Thy power is our power. Thy glory is our glory, forever.  Aum-en.

“Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” I offer these words to you this morning, not apart from the context in which they appear, for that context may be summarized by the words, “Feed my sheep.” We have the responsibility now in this hour of fulfilling this instruction—nay, commandment: “Feed my sheep.” We can offer the necessary substance only to the extent that we have indeed accepted the responsibility of inheriting the kingdom.  The substance by which the sheep are fed is the substance of love.  Inherent in this substance is truth and life.

Truth, as we well know, is not a mental image. Instruction was given long ago with respect to such images: Do not worship them. It is easily seen that in the world as a whole this commandment has been thoroughly and consistently violated. The truth is not a mental image or a whole slew of them. The truth is the natural design and control of being. It cannot be isolated by the human mind and filed away neatly in concept form. The truth is the natural design and control of being. Fundamentally the truth is known subconsciously. It may emerge in specific expression into the conscious mind in the handling of responsibility, but it rises up out of the subconscious mind when the heart is pure. If the heart is not pure the truth is not known. So a substitute seems necessary and this has been provided by mental images. But mental images are never the truth; they become idols if they are worshipped as though they were the truth. The substance of love, which includes truth and life, which is the evidence of the truth of love, is the food by which the sheep are fed. All this is the nature of heaven, the nature of heaven which is to be offered into the earth.

We are aware of these things mentally, but not always spiritually. The spiritual awareness comes when spirit is allowed expression, when the nature of heaven, which is the spirit of God, finds release and expression through human living. This requires that the conscious mind and the subconscious mind be on hand to let it happen. It is not going to emerge merely through the conscious mind; it is not going to emerge merely through the subconscious mind. These two are, in reality, one in any case; you cannot separate them. We may refer to them separately but that does not separate them. Conscious and subconscious are one. Because the heart has been impure there has been considerable conflict present, both subconsciously and consciously. Obviously when this is so, the kingdom has certainly not been inherited, and what is offered in expression of human existence does not reveal the quality and nature of that heaven.

We are very much aware that the motivation of human minds and hearts springs out of a reaction to the world. There are many levels to the world around us within our consciousness. Different people react in different ways to different levels. But of course as long as the heart is reacting to the world it is impure. The mind, the conscious mind, has the very deeply ingrained habit of following the heart. Mind you, most people would be inclined to contradict this; they are rational thinkers, they say. Not by a long shot! The design of human beings is such that the heart has a part to play relative to the process of thinking—because of this, and because the heart is impure, the thinking of the mind following the heart is not rational. Most have assumed that their brilliant intellects proceed from a premise of logic and reason, following out the process on this basis. But all thinking, while it may happen very quickly, is nevertheless consequent, as we have noted many times, upon what occurs in the heart. When the heart is impure, rational thinking is impossible—I don't care how brilliant the human intellect may be—because what is thought follows the heart; it does not precede the heart. All the world has been deceived in this regard apparently, particularly those who are proud of their intellects. It is assumed, by all too many of those, that their thinking is really logical and reasonable; but it isn't ever, as long as the heart is impure.

This happens because there is a design in which the heart properly plays a part relative to thinking. When the heart is pure it is transparent, it is clear, so that what is in the heaven may emerge through the heart into the experience of the mind, both conscious and subconscious. This happens without distortion when the heart is pure. It is as though there was a sea of glass, clear as crystal, unifying the heaven with the earth through human minds and hearts. The mind in such case follows the spirit. It follows the spirit because the way has been opened by which the spirit of God may be present in the mind of man, both conscious and subconscious. The heart makes that possible when it is pure. There is no interference, there is nothing of a reactionary nature present. The spirit flows freely. As it flows through the heart it picks up an emotional content, but the emotions are not the cause of the operation of the mind. The spirit is the cause of the operation of the mind, and the operation of the mind includes an emotional content generated by spirit. So there is a smooth operation here, no jagged pieces against which the spirit breaks. It is a whole operation, a holy one. The spirit emerging out of heaven through the clear space of the heart provides what is necessary for the mind to follow. The mind follows not the heart in such case but the spirit.

Presently in human experience the mind follows the heart. The heart is impure—there is no sea of glass clear as crystal certainly—and the impurity of the heart is consequent upon the government which has been accepted out of the world. That government comes on the basis of the lusts of the heart toward the world. There are those lusts which might be classified as acceptable, supposed to be satisfying to human experience; but there are also those lusts which are not so acceptable, against which human beings are inclined to fight. But whether the attitude is pro or con, the result is the same: The world governs, and human beings through their heart connection with the world are mentally governed. They think along the lines suggested by the heart; the mind follows the heart. It follows it both consciously and subconsciously. The result of this of course is the production of an even more thoroughly confused world.

It is interesting to observe this as though we were a third party somehow, standing in space and seeing all these things going on. But this is not the fact of the matter, and if we take such an attitude, obviously we are being deceived. It is impossible for human beings to extract themselves from the world, from the universe, and stand apart somewhere to observe the world and the universe. It can't be done. There isn't any place to stand, and if it is imagined that this is the case then there is obviously thorough deception. We deceive ourselves. We are all mentally and emotionally present in the world of mind and heart. We can't extract ourselves from this. If we succeeded in extracting ourselves, and I suppose it could be said that most people eventually do, what would be found? Nothing. Nothing at all. There is no such place where we may stand. The mind and the heart are here and are a part of the total mental and emotional state which is present in humanity. We find ourselves connected up with that, and out of that has heretofore come the government of our living, which would then better be described as dying. It is the process of dying. Human beings spend the days of their years dying.  We have vast experience in this field. The more enormous our experience in that direction the less we know about living, the less we have experience of living, because the experience of living is impossible without the pure heart. The impure heart is the veil of separation from the spirit of God, which is characterized primarily by love, truth and life. Unless the spirit of God has a pure heart through which to move, love, truth and life cannot be known. Little dribs and drabs are known, and human beings eulogize these sometimes; a great deal of poetry has been written about love, this marvelous sensation. But the truth of love has never been known in human experience since what has been called the fall took place.

We come again to a place of experience, in the unfolding creative cycles of spirit, when it becomes possible once more in a collective sense, and consequently in an individual sense also, to allow the heart to be purified. We have noted that the heart is certainly not purified by any efforts of the mind; we can't think ourselves into purity. There is only one way by which purification comes, and that is through love. Well how can it come if we don't know what love is? This is why human beings have remained with impure hearts. But love is present nevertheless. We might easily recognize that the design and control which is natural to being is in operation everywhere in the universe, with that little exception of human consciousness. Even though human beings do not know it, it is in operation obviously in some measure, even with respect to human beings, because if it wasn't they couldn't exist. However insofar as the conscious and subconscious minds of human beings are concerned they have virtually no awareness of this universal operation springing from the one true source. They have decided hopefully, they think, that there perhaps isn't one true source, so that they themselves can take things over. Or if there is one true source then one might perhaps, by a little cajoling of some sort, obtain support and cooperation from that one true source for one's own intentions. Of course this is childish. It certainly doesn't work that way and never could.

I think we have here a demonstration of mercy. Do you ever get impatient, sometimes impatient with the foolishness of other people? If you do you might wonder how possibly the One responsible for this little comer of the universe could have kept His patience for all these millennia with the ridiculous antics of silly human beings. I suppose the only way that could be done would be to look upon them as children. This is the approach that has been made in scripture: human beings are children, naughty children, self-willed children, not knowing what they were doing, not having a clue as to what they were doing but nevertheless doing it. And this has wrecked a beautiful world. We see the wreckage on every hand. Many people these days are becoming somewhat discouraged because of all the piles of wreckage. But as the heart is purified a different understanding begins to emerge in the conscious and subconscious minds of human beings. That purifying of the heart is what makes it possible, and the heart is only purified by love.

Love must be received if the purification is to take place. It must be received into the heart. It must be received into the subconscious mind. It must be received indeed into the conscious mind too. It must be received at every level if the purifying process is to occur. It cannot be received except as the source from which love springs is loved. We've all known this in theory; a lot of people have known this in theory: We should keep the first great commandment. This is vitally important. Oh yes, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all.” As a general statement that is quite popular, and acceptable to many. But it is not quite so popular and acceptable actually to let it happen now in this immediate circumstance, whatever it may be; not in a world of theoretical imagination but now, so that in one's own experience there is nothing loved more than the reality of the true expression of the spirit of God in the fulfilment of the purposes of God. Ah, but here is the sticker, isn't it, because there is an inclination to fool oneself into imagining that this is the case in one's own experience when impurities of heart are still the motivation.

Love requires that the truth be faced, and there is a certain reluctance in most people to let this happen with respect to themselves as individuals. In a general sense, yes, again it is quite easy to see that the truth must be faced. Human beings are all deceived, aren't they? Which ones? Or which particular one? Unless one sees it in terms of one's own experience it doesn't mean much, and one can only see it in terms of one's own experience relative to what is immediately present now. How easily human beings slip out of the present moment. It is only as one assumes responsibility in the present that something happens.

So when there is love for the Lord one is immediately concerned with what is needful in this present moment: the opening of the heart to the love which I'm sure most of you do sense. There is a love which we share. We can excuse ourselves from sharing it quite readily; at least this has been the case in the past. But in this present moment I'm sure that no one is looking for justifications to sustain an attitude of indifference or dislike or any of the attitudes of this nature in which human beings indulge themselves  There is no one, there is nothing, to whom we would not offer love. “Feed my sheep”—give the substance of love, which does not conform to the human concept of love but is characterized by truth, the natural design and control of being. As the heart is purified this natural control becomes our nature—our subconscious nature. If you have to think with your conscious mind of some principle or other that would seem to apply to this situation, you certainly do not know the truth, because the truth is not a mental image. The truth is the natural design and control of being which rightly informs the subconscious mind. It does so to the extent that the heart is pure, and the heart is pure to the extent of our love for the love which purifies it. And there is nothing else for us. There may be an awareness of what is present in human consciousness in a general sense. That is the world that human beings know; it's there because human beings have it in their consciousness. The very moment there is no consciousness in which to have that world the world vanishes. If someone hits you on the head the world vanishes.

The world is sustained in the consciousness of human beings, and it is of the nature it is because of the impurity of human hearts. It seems that there has been a problem to, I don't know whether persuade is the right word quite, to awaken human beings to the truth. No, they don't want that truth; they want to keep on going the way they have always gone since the fathers fell asleep. But that's fatal. It is obviously fatal. It has been fatal in every generation so far, as long as human memory goes back. What would be the sense then to sustain something that inevitably brings nothing, when there is the opportunity to receive into expression, into manifestation, into experience, a beautiful and wonderful world? It is just waiting at the doors; as it is stated over and over, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It is there to be received when there is a willingness to receive it, because there is a willingness to face facts, for one thing, to face the situation as it really is and not as one would like to justify it and explain it to oneself by the wrong use of the conscious mind—rationalizing, that is called. We deceive ourselves constantly by this process of rationalizing what is brought to our attention out of the heart, out of the subconscious mind. It comes up, but we become so adept at explaining it that we think our justification of this is original thinking. There isn't any such thing as original thinking insofar as human beings are concerned, because it always springs out of an impure heart. Original thinking is the thinking of spirit: God's thinking, the thinking of the Creator, making use of human minds and hearts. Such use cannot be made in any creative sense until the heart is pure.

Here is a verse from the Book of Job which is relevant: “Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?” The ordinances of heaven are the truth, the design and the control in heaven, the natural design and control of being. Human beings of course have denied that, so in their world the ordinances of heaven have not been set. The attempt has been made to set the ordinances deriving from the impure heart; the mind cooperates in this. So there has been a world created on this basis, a world with which we are quite familiar and which has, to us and to most people, seemed the most real world there could possibly be. It even is so real and so extensive that it includes the rest of the universe; but whatever is present has been created and sustained by the minds of human beings subject to impure hearts. The ordinances of heaven are the truth, and this is the foundation of the world, the kingdom which was prepared from the foundation of the world. That's where it comes from; heaven is the foundation of the world rightly. The kingdom has been prepared, it is there, waiting for someone to acknowledge the foundation. As the foundation is acknowledged the kingdom is inherited. That foundation can only be acknowledged to the extent that the heart is pure, and the heart is pure when love is absolute for the source from whence love comes. The purposes of that source, as they relate to the area of human responsibility, must be supreme in one's own awareness and attitude, nothing held out on the side. But it is the impure heart that makes people hold things out on the side, and then the mind comes along and rationalizes what the impure heart has made them do, justifies it, makes it seem so plausible and reasonable that obviously one has to act that way. But it was something that was brought forth by the impure heart—you could say by the devil—and human beings are trapped in that state, just automatons.

In these days it would seem that there is a dawning awareness—misinterpreted, mind you—that the field of human responsibility, while it primarily relates to what is happening on the surface of this planet, goes beyond that too. There is certainly a field of responsibility which goes beyond the immediate confines of this planet, but that field of responsibility beyond cannot be handled with wisdom until what is immediately present in one's own personal field of responsibility now is handled correctly. We well know we can never jump over anything and get out there and handle something out there correctly. This is one of the reasons why there is so much confusion from the standpoint of the world leadership, because world leaders—no matter how sincere they may be—have virtually never revealed the capability of handling correctly what is immediately next to them. In fact very often world leadership arises because the individual is so ineffective in what is close to him; he feels frustrated and therefore he jumps out there in order to produce a sense of meaning, which is actually quite invalid. It is accepted as being meaning because this is the way human beings have operated. But it has very little true meaning, because what is immediately present has never been accepted as the focus for what is to be achieved further out. No one can achieve anything further out without accepting what is immediately here; it is impossible; you cannot jump over it. Only as we can handle what is immediately next to us may we have meaning with respect to what is beyond.

Our concern is to let this happen because we experience the ordinances of heaven in our momentary living now, and consequently, doing that, set the dominion thereof in the earth because we are in the earth. It is an automatic movement: the flow of spirit through the pure heart initiates the right operation of the mind; there is understanding as to what it is that needs to happen now here. Most people are not looking at what needs to happen now here; they are gazing out there and wondering about what should happen over there or how someone else should be behaving. How would it be if we really did come to point? Well let's do it, for heaven's sake! That's right—for heaven’s sake, that there may be something which can reach the earth out of heaven, that the ordinances of heaven may be set in the earth.

We have that natural responsibility, which may be easily assumed and which we have assumed during this hour to the extent that there has been a willingness, an openness, to move with the truth of love, wherever that may take us. We don't know at this moment. If you have it all set up in your mind as to where you are going, well what chance has the truth of love to take you anywhere? No, we discover what it is in the moment, when there is the acknowledgment of the real way it works, and we have a love above all for that working. Let it work that way, not the way we have designed everything and thought we were going to succeed in life, and all the rest. I'm sure that most of you have set those things to one side but I wonder if there isn't a little still in there somewhere. It only begins to work when it is absolute, and we have the opportunity of letting it be absolute now in this moment.

© Emissaries of Divine Light