The  Sea  of  Glass  Mingled  With  Fire

Martin Exeter   November 18, 1984

“After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter.” Those words were apparently written a long time ago. We ourselves, in this present time, are not rightly so much concerned with looking and seeing and beholding as with being. The rest of the Book of Revelation, following this particular beginning verse in the 4th chapter, was concerned with what shall be hereafter. We are in the midst of the hereafter. Some people are still looking forward to the hereafter.

As I say, our concern is not so much with what shall be but with what now is in our own immediate experience. This relates to what we are doing, what we are thinking, what we are feeling, what the nature of our expression is in life. It seems rather easy to become all wrapped up in what may be observed round about, particularly through the eye of television. Many rumors may be heard, many ideas may be brought to us, many influences as to the way we think and feel and speak and act. However our attitude is increasingly, I trust, one which might be summarized by the words, “None of these things move me.” Is that the fact? I rather doubt that it entirely is.

From the 4th chapter of Revelation on there is a description of what should be hereafter. We actually have experience of this. Obviously we are living in the days after this particular vision was proclaimed. Here is a little bit more of what John evidently saw as being included in the hereafter: “And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.” All this portrayal in the Book of Revelation is couched in rather archaic language, but if we have experience it is easy to see beyond the words themselves to what it is we know. It speaks here of “them that had gotten the victory" over a number of things.

I suppose this might correlate in our own consciousness with personal experience. We are no longer so easily moved by the external impacts that come upon us as we may have once been. Some people are very quick to react; others are more phlegmatic. Usually, with respect to the phlegmatic ones the reaction may not occur immediately, but it stews inside and probably comes out later. I am sure we are very concerned not to indulge ourselves in these reactions; but it is not only a matter of not doing something, is it? The not doing something becomes easy, or no longer of any consequence, if we are busy doing something.

The lives of most seem to be taken up simply with reacting—very little acting—and we ourselves have participated in this state of affairs. There have been those things over which we have experienced some sort of victory. We behave somewhat differently now to what we did in the past. I am not merely speaking of improvement but a new state. There is a new foundation, a new stance, a new perspective. We all have something of this. Possibly we are sometimes surprised when we associate with other people who have no such perspective: How could so many be so blind? Yet we ourselves were blind before; and it seems to be quite possible that there are degrees of blindness, so that we may be somewhat blind yet. We should not be too quick to question the vision of others. We certainly do need to see more ourselves. But we realize that that seeing comes because we do; we act rather than react, because our expression springs out of a realm which is not external to us. We may say, to describe it, that it springs out of heaven. Heaven isn’t a place in the ordinary sense. It doesn’t have dimensional location, except for the fact that it is everywhere. It means little to us unless we know it where we are. We only know that it is where we are when we express from the heavenly stance, when our vision is from that heavenly state, when our perspective is heavenly.

The heavenly perspective sees the world in quite a different way to what the earthly perspective does. We are quite familiar with so much that seems to be wrong, just as everybody else is. That is all the earthly perspective. We may admit that there is a lot that is wrong, but we also know why it is wrong, and we know how it can be transformed into rightness. Rightness comes because there is new vision, new understanding, a new expression of what emerges out of heaven. This emergence has been blocked heretofore on earth but is now beginning to filter through a little in a more conscious way to the extent that we ourselves, and others, have offered our equipment to this process. It is something in a way that is quite beyond the human experience, embedded in the worldly state. All its attitudes are generated out of that worldly state. Some of those attitudes seem to be better than others, and so people are inclined to commend each other for such better attitudes, or pat themselves on the back. But it is all part of the worldly state.

We have a mental awareness that there is indeed a transcendent condition to which we have offered our bodies, our minds and our hearts. At least they have been sufficiently willing to encompass a little bit of the awareness of the fact of the heavenly state. It hasn’t been totally excluded in our experience, as it is with most people. That is why they are hopeful of heaven later on, because they do not have the experience now. We could question ourselves as to the extent of our experience of heaven now, or are we looking for that in the hereafter? But the hereafter is now. It is always now. And now, this now, is after what went before; so it is the hereafter.

We find ourselves together, beginning to understand what it means to stand on the sea of glass mingled with fire. These are words used to describe something that has little meaning until it is the experience. The sea of glass relates to the truth. We have been considering the need for stillness—“Peace, be still”—to abide on the sea of glass, to abide in the expression of the truth. We are well aware, in theory at least and with some experience, that love cannot be separated from truth, so we have the fire as well. They go together. Only those who have known the victory, as it is put here, who have overcome—and let us not get involved with that slogan, “We shall overcome.” What?—come up over and stand in the position which is up hither. Come up hither! That has always been the invitation to mind, heart and body. There has been some response to that invitation in our own experience, so that the heaven may begin to emerge into our living, so that we know it is there. It only happens if we have come up hither in our thinking and feeling and acting—in our expression, in other words. It isn’t a matter of changing position physically speaking, of clambering up the ladder, even if it is Jacob’s. We simply relinquish what has been a barrier standing in the way of the experience of what is already present. We know that heaven is already present; it doesn’t have to come from anywhere. We don't have to go anywhere to find it, because it is already here. All that needs to happen is to come up hither.

So we have done that in some measure, and there has been the victory over various old habits, shall we say, described in these terms: the beast, and his image, and his mark, and the number of his name—all sorts of things which have kept us trapped, as they have everybody else, in the human state. We can give other sorts of names to those things. What are the strings still attached which yank us this way and that?—the strings from out of the world, from the human condition. There are still a few strings around, I am sure. We can see them in the broader terms of cultural strings, political strings, social strings, various kinds of strings personally peculiar to each one but very similar in many ways to everybody else. We can think of certain people who may raise our hackles, or we have no use for them. Well I don’t think we have any use for human nature, that’s all.

But we know that human nature is not going to go away because we object to it, because we want to get into a battle with specific focus points of this human nature. And we all have promoted various individuals to represent the devils in ourselves which we despise. It is good, we think, to get them out there somewhere where we can really get hot under the collar and feel justified in doing so because they are behaving so badly—here is the devil incarnate! There are all kinds of strings, of course. So it goes, and it is imagined on the part of very ignorant and blind people that if you just kill someone, that solves the problem. Well human beings have been killing each other for millennia and no problems have yet been solved, because it never happens that way.

So we have these strings. Of course likes and dislikes are one (more personally obvious) of the strings attached. We like so-and-so, we don’t like somebody else; and so they can stir us in various ways, and we are moved. We are moved. Well as long as we are moved in that way we have not known the victory, and we are not, obviously, standing on the sea of glass mingled with fire. The sea of glass indicates that there is a certain quietness in the emotional sense. Considering this matter of strings, I am sure you are aware of remaining such strings in your own experience. There are those who have said, “Well”—whoever it is—“I don’t like that person. I think they are wrong, or doing the wrong thing,” and so on, “but I will try to love them.” That is an impossibility. Anyone who tries to love is attempting the impossible. Love is. All that needs to be done is to associate ourselves with it. It already exists. We don’t have to try to do anything. In fact it is all our endeavors that have prevented us from experiencing the reality of that fire, the fire which is mingled with the sea of glass upon which we stand. That describes the experience of the character that we then know. There is a quietness; it isn’t disturbed by all the things that are going on.

It may be, I suppose, that there is a certain sadness when we observe the state of mankind, and this includes the states of individuals in that body. We are sad that it should have come to this pass, but we know why it has come to this pass and we do not object to the fact that it has come to this pass, because here is what we might call the Law at work. And we are not in conflict with the Law, are we? We are not interested in breaking the Law. I am not speaking of the human law so much, although I suppose we are careful about that too, but the One Law, the way things are and the way things work. If they work in a certain way to produce certain things, and apparently to bring on the scene certain people, well that is the way it works. We don’t object. That is the way it is.

Every time we do object—we have little objections with the people around us constantly, at least we did in the old state, and probably larger objections, as I have suggested, people on the world scene—as long as we are objecting, we are certainly not standing on the sea of glass mingled with fire, and we can’t be counted upon, because anything of that nature coming up is going to drag us off. We are going to react to it, we are going to be involved with it, we will find it emotionally stressful: “Oh, I can't stand that person.” Do you have anyone in your world of whom you are capable of saying that still? If so, well not much victory has been experienced yet. As I say, we may be sad that the world has come to its present state and we may be compassionate insofar as people are concerned, but we are not sympathetic, because we know that human beings have brought all this on their own heads. We have indulged in that process ourselves, perhaps more in times past than we do now—I trust so anyway.

So there is a state which results from the determined—obstinate perhaps is a better word—rejection of the truth in individual human experience, and consequently in collective human experience. And the Law works and the results come. Okay. That is the way it should be, isn’t it? And there may be people in positions of leadership sometimes who are characterized by particularly unpleasant aspects of human nature. That is their cross to bear. Let them bear it. They are going to have to anyway. We have thought of this in our own terms. Some people are very much disturbed because they have such a heavy cross to bear. We determine how heavy it is, how much emotion is poured into it, how much we blow it up in our own consciousness.

Human beings are self-active, aren’t they? They produce everything for themselves and, having produced it, usually object to it and blame somebody else, get the rotten state in themselves pinned on somebody else. Stop it! Well we stop it when we behave in a different way, when we are in the business of standing on the sea of glass mingled with fire and letting that be the nature, the character, of our own expression in living. Why should we be so concerned to object to the working of the Law, so that it excludes from our awareness the responsibility of giving expression to what is available out of heaven? Wouldn't it be much more intelligent to pay attention to what is available out of heaven, so that we have no time or inclination to become involved with what is around us in the earth? That, after all, is taken care of by the Law. Now we are bringing something else into the picture, which is not apart from the Law, because it brings its own results, and the results are filled with blessing—in other words, the appearance in form of the heaven which we bring in our living.

We come out of all that stuff, all that realm of strings attached, so that, “None of these things move me.” We know about this. “Come out of her, my people.” Well, do it. Don’t just wonder about it, think about it, imagine what it would be, and continue to assume the stance that that is impossible, we are going to remain stuck with all our likes and dislikes, with all our judgments, big and small. If we think of some of them as being big because they are on the larger scene of things, they are only there because they are in us first. Therefore if we think of it as big out there, it is really big in here. But we are inclined to say, “Oh it is little in here; it is big out there.” No. The fact of the matter is that it is little out there but it is big in here. We just have it reversed because it is more convenient to us; we don’t have to deal with some things.

So we stop being so cowardly—that is what it is, isn’t it?—cowardly and dishonest. But we are not busy judging the things that are wrong in here. We know there is a certain amount of human nature still around but we are very much concerned with what it is that should find expression. We come to know what this is because we give it expression, not before. We can’t sit around trying to figure out what it is to which we should give expression, and then do it. That is self-active again, isn’t it? The mind has got it all figured out; “Now I know what I should do; I am going to do it.” That is not the way it works. What needs to find expression is already present when our likes and dislikes and our judgments get out of the way. And we stand, actually do it, stand on the sea of glass in the awareness that it is mingled with fire. It is active. There is something to be released—“coming down from God out of heaven.” That may accurately describe what it is, but it doesn’t tell us what it is until it actually happens in our own experience.

So the transformation may occur increasingly in mind and heart, in particular; we let the physical body follow along. Most people are primarily concerned with the physical body. They want to get that straightened out, “then I will be all right in mind and heart” No. That is just backwards. Be all right in mind and heart, and the physical body will come along. It doesn’t have any choice. The physical body simply reflects what goes on in mind and heart. We may see this in personal terms but we also are aware that we are not alone, we are not isolated from everybody else. So there are things certainly going on in the minds and hearts of those who compose humanity that are not all that commendable. There is a clearing to occur throughout, but obviously it must start somewhere; and if it starts with us, that is wonderful. Why us? Well we needn’t question. Children are always questioning: Why? Why us? If it is us, let us be thankful that it is us, that we know these things. I don’t think it is because we are somehow superior to other people. I think it is simply because of the working of the spirit in its creative way. And it happened to include us. So we shouldn’t get swelled heads about it. If we do, then it stops working of course. Just let it work, and be very thankful that it is working this way and that we do have the opportunity of sharing a new perspective, a new understanding. We are not so blind anymore, as we once were, and we are not being pushed around or pulled around by the strings attached anymore.

We may observe something: “Oh yes, there is a string attached there. Isn’t that interesting. I will just let it be relinquished.” But we have to be able to stand on the sea of glass first, to be able to take that attitude; otherwise the string will yank us, and away we go. Then we are in no position to stand back and say, “Oh yes, there is a string attached.” There are all kinds of strings of course, woven over the ages by human beings. Virtually all young people feel these strings attached, dragging them into various directions which are present in this human world which is in the process of passing away, so that if one remains attached to those strings, well one will pass away for sure. There are the commendable ideas about careers, which are simply evidences of strings attached. One of the strong strings apparently—with many, that is—is that one should get married and establish a home and raise children and all the various things that supposedly compose the human state. Well that is right, they compose the human state.

We are not interested in the human state; we are interested in the divine state, which is not that way at all. This is not to say that there is no reason for male and female and there is no reason to act and do things on earth. Of course there is. But the reason is not the human brand; it is something else. And shouldn’t all attention be given to discovering what that is, instead of going around and around in the old treadmill which ends in nothing? The old treadmill may look kind of bright to some, to start with, but it gets seedy after a while, because that is what it is. And human beings are constantly awakening to the way things are; they get discouraged, and it is all futile and so on. Well that is what it is. The attitude should be, “Oh, at last I am waking up. Isn’t this wonderful. I am beginning to see things the way they are.”

When a person is young, well there are great expectations about the future. That is hallucination. On the basis of the human state, it is all hallucination. But as a person gets older, he is trudging along, not springing quite so agilely as before—aha, not so hot! Well that is the way it was to start with, only he didn’t see it. Now he is beginning to realize the fact of the matter, and there is the beginning point for anyone. But it is much more useful to recognize the fact of the matter right away, instead of going through all the routine of discovering what the fact of the matter is when you have got one foot in the grave. How many lives have simply been wasted? Billions, on this basis. But now we are not quite so blind anymore. We see the truth of the matter and begin to realize that there is really something to be done.

Many of those who are associated with this ministry have realized, “Well there must be something to be done, but what is it?” They look around hopefully, "Well if they went there, maybe they could do it there”—always somewhere else than where one is. But, as we well know, it is where one is that the thing is to be done. It can’t be done anywhere else, can it? One isn’t anywhere else. Then the hopes are pinned to the future, when one will be somewhere else. But if you don’t do it now, what- ever happens in the future you are unlikely to be doing it then. There must be a starting point. The starting point is always now, here, with everyone, allowing the sea of glass mingled with fire to become the foundation, that upon which one stands. The fire is cool there. And one is not subject to the fire, one is not subject to the emotional buildup.

There is a control because one stands on the sea of glass. Then there may be an emotional buildup, but it is an outward flow. It is not consequent upon what is happening round about; it is consequent upon what needs to happen round about. And that is emerging through oneself, through one’s own mind and heart and body on earth, out of heaven. It is not a reaction to the earth. We share this to the extent that there are no more strings out of the earth yanking us hither and yon, so that we become subject to our own emotions: “I don’t like that person.” Or, “I resent that.” These are sort of extremes, aren’t they? But they are sometimes covered up with layers of mush so that we don’t notice them so much.

But there can be great intensity. There needs to be an intensity of fire, of power, that what should happen may happen—a window finished above through which there is the outpouring of this into the consciousness of mankind. The consciousness of mankind finds that that is an irresistible force, when it is there, irresistible in the sense that one can't succeed in any way at all in conflict with it, irresistible also in the sense that one can’t help but be attracted to it. But the fire must be there, the outpouring must be there, for this to occur. And it requires specifically us. It may have other people as well; that is their business. But what is our business? We need to know that. Then there is some purpose, and we begin to find that this outflow enlightens and brings an awareness of what we are here to do. We have no awareness of what that is until this happens. If we sit around waiting to understand, expecting something, somebody to tell us what it is, we will wait in vain. We can only wait so long. But if we do it, then we know. Then we discover what it is that is opening up. And we participate in that, and we find that our own reason for being on earth becomes quite apparent to us. If it isn’t apparent now, you know why it isn’t. It is not because somebody didn’t tell you what it is. Nobody can tell you what it is. You are the only one who knows. And to know it you must let it come out. It comes out exactly where you are now. It is not going to come out someplace else, some other time. Relinquish that foolish fancy.

So we know the sea of glass mingled with fire, because we are those who have gotten the victory, and consequently stand on the sea of glass mingled with fire. And all else follows. But we have to do it. There is only one time, one place, and that is always here and now.

© Emissaries of Divine Light