Rebirth and Resurrection
Martin Cecil April 22, 1973
The truth takes form in expression according to the working of the Law. The extent of response determines what shall find expression in this regard. If it seems that something has to be imposed it will not be the truth. There is a way by which these things may be experienced, a way which is based in response. There must be an asking, a seeking, a knocking—but this must be directed toward the source of truth. Human beings habitually ask of each other. They seek in the environment around them. They knock at doors behind which there is only darkness. Asking and seeking and knocking in self-centeredness can only bring an increased darkness of ignorance. It is useless to look in the wrong direction to find the truth.
The truth comes from God. The truth puts in an appearance when the Law is fulfilled. It is a very exact process, not understood at all in the self-centered state which human beings know. The darkness of self-centeredness is spoken of symbolically in the Bible as Egyptian darkness. Those who are self-centered find themselves in this darkened state of ignorance. The darkness does not comprehend the light, so it is imagined that ignorance is enlightenment. In self-centeredness the Lord remains unknown. He may be imagined, some may believe in their imagination, but the Lord must remain unknown, because the darkness comprehends not the light. In ignorance there is the imagination that what is seen is based in an enlightened state, but is in fact all darkness, and as long as a person doesn't know it's darkness he is deluded indeed. The world has remained in this deluded state for countless centuries, and insofar as the vast majority of human beings are concerned in the world today it is the same as ever—darkness.
But in the creative process darkness is found to be the starting point. It may be used to advantage. Today, Easter Day, the Christian world remembers the resurrection of the body of Jesus from out of the tomb into the garden—resurrection, an experience which occurred right here on earth in spite of all that was done to that particular individual body. In spite of physical suffering, in spite of physical damage, in spite of all the injustice that was experienced, it was apparent that there was nothing that human beings could do to prevent the resurrection of the body of Jesus—in other words, to kill it. It is assumed that when the body was put in the tomb it was dead. From all outward appearances this seemed to be so, but regardless of the seeming, it is quite evident that life was still present, or else how would the body have come forth from the tomb? So here was a portrayal, with respect to one individual, of what could be, should be and would be the experience of the true body of the Son of God composed of many individuals—to occur in the days to come.
The whole world is in darkness; mankind is in a profound state of ignorance. This would surely be denied by most people on earth, I suppose particularly by those who are involved in the scientific field and others who are involved in the religious field. The scientist imagines that he knows so much; the religionist imagines that he knows and understands so much; but all is darkness, because of the self-centered state of those who assume that they are not ignorant. Self-centeredness and ignorance are synonymous. All human beings are self-centered and therefore ignorant. They are, in that self-centered state, in a tomb which is dark. What occurs in the tomb, according to the self-centered viewpoint and the self-centered experience, is disintegration. But the same tomb of darkness, once self-centeredness is dispelled, becomes a womb out of which may be born the truth of man. It is the same darkness in either case. If it is left merely as the darkness of ignorance, the darkness of self-centeredness, so that those who are self-centered do not see it as darkness, then there can be but one result and that is disintegration. Disintegration is a right experience in the tomb; integration is the right experience in the womb. Darkness is in the womb, but it is not the darkness of ignorance—it is the darkness which is present at the initiation of a creative cycle. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.”
Here is what might be called divine darkness. It wasn't the darkness of ignorance insofar as God was concerned but merely a fitting starting point for a particular creative cycle. And this is always so when God creates. What is Egyptian darkness to man in self-centeredness provides the darkness of the womb for the initiation of a creative process by God—the spirit of God may move upon the face of the waters. All this relates to the processes of resurrection. They are analogous in principle to the processes of conception, gestation, birth, and development to maturity, within the range of human experience. By the same token, if we are considering the resurrection of an already existing body on earth, a body that is seemingly in the tomb but really in the womb, the same principles apply. There is a creative process. This initial starting point is followed naturally by the successive creative days in proper sequence. Now this same thing occurs in the resurrection with which we are concerned now, today—the resurrection of the body of the Son of God on earth, that man may be present on earth once more.
Words which were spoken through the lips of Jesus have come down to us now in the English language. I would like to read some of these words now, that we might consider them, not as words spoken in the dim and distant past by some unknown man but spoken now, in this moment, as the truth taking form to be shared and understood by us. These words come from the record contained in the 6th chapter of the Gospel according to John, starting with the 37th verse: “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”
There is an implication here that those who do not “come to me” are cast out. Only those who do come to Him are in no wise cast out. “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me.” Here mention is made of the Father, by whom? By the Son—the Son of God referring to God as His Father. This of course relates to the fact that God is Universal, whereas what comes to focus insofar as this particular world is concerned just relates to this particular world—and in a special sense to mankind. The Son of God is then, naturally, the Focus Point of Deity emerging out of the Universal God with respect to this particular world. Here is a recognition of the oneness of what comes to focus with respect to this world and the totality of God—there is no separation. So the One whom we speak of as Lord is the Son of God in relationship to Universal God, but at the same time He is Lord insofar as this world is concerned, because through Him Universal God comes to focus for this world. “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me.” All that comes to focus from Universal God, extending through the Son of God into this world, shall in the working of the Law bring all that belongs to God back to the Son of God, and through the Son of God to God. “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” Of course! He will not violate the Law. But those who do not come are automatically cast out.
“For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.
“And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.
“And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.”
This statement has taken on some peculiar meanings in what is called Christianity, but we may see what it is that is really being said. When He came on earth in the body of Jesus, that body was a substitute pattern for the true body of the Son of God. It was not the body of the Son of God; it was a substitute pattern for the body of the Son of God—it represented the body of the Son of God. The body of the Son of God is contained within the body of humanity; it is composed of many human beings. It is not the body of just one person, not even the body of our Lord and King when He was on earth. His individual body was a representative body for the body of the Son of God.
The body of the Son of God has been present on earth, although apparently lifeless. Human beings can easily look around and see that it has been seemingly absent. Of course there has been an endeavor from the standpoint of Christianity, and the ideas which have been developed in that doctrine, that somehow or other, by instituting and organizing churches, the body of the Son of God could be produced by human beings. It is no wonder that on this basis there should be so much conflict, because everybody has a different idea about it. But the truth of the matter is that the body of the Son of God has remained apparently lifeless in the tomb. Look as one might, it couldn't be found; it was in the dark. But the tomb in which man's self-centeredness disintegrates is also the womb in which the body of the Son of God may be resurrected. It requires that those who compose the body be born again—born of water and of the spirit.
The spirit of God moves upon the face of the waters. This is the initiating point for the creative cycle of resurrection, leading toward the manifestation on earth of the Son of God. This is the second coming, in the sense that the Son of God was once manifest on earth. It is not speaking of the substitute body called Jesus, the representative body of the Son of God. The second coming relates to what was once before a reality; namely, the true body of the Son of God. This was present on earth before man fell. It has apparently been in the tomb ever since.
Now is the time of resurrection. There have been other opportunities for resurrection along the way, surely, but those are now meaningless except insofar as they brought us to this point. If we do not take advantage of having been brought to this point, well our lives are wasted; we make ourselves meaningless and disintegrate in self-centeredness. The body of the Son of God is in what appears to be a tomb of disintegration but is in reality, insofar as the body of the Son of God is concerned, a womb of resurrection. Now this seemed to be so in relationship to the body of Jesus. Everybody thought that they had put His dead body in the tomb. But it turned out that it wasn't a tomb insofar as that body was concerned. It proved to be a womb through which the creative processes of the resurrection worked out.
The creative processes of the resurrection of the body of the Son of God today work out in what is apparently a tomb. All things disintegrate in this darkened state of self-centeredness. A tomb is dark and the place of disintegration, from the standpoint of self-centeredness. Human bodies disintegrate; the things that human beings build disintegrate; everything that is done in the human sense, from the word go, is disintegrating. Here is the self-centered state, the tomb state, the state of darkened ignorance in which human beings have insisted upon remaining, partly because they didn't see anything else and partly because they thought they were going to enjoy what was happening in the tomb. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die! Rather it should be put: Eat, drink and be merry, for today we are dying! And if you can get much merriment out of that process you have succeeded where every human being thus far has failed. No. As there is a willingness to relinquish self-centeredness there may be a recognition of the darkness of the tomb.
We see it as darkness, but by the same token we recognize that here is the means by which the creative process of resurrection may occur, so we do not object to the fact that the tomb is dark. This is a very different attitude from that held, as a rule, by those who begin to awaken to the fact of darkness, because most people, becoming aware of the appalling state of disintegration in the world and the appalling state of self-centered human beings in the world, become very distraught about it and want to try to convert everyone to something so that they can stop the disintegration. But the fact of the matter is that there's nothing wrong with disintegration in the tomb; that's what should happen in the tomb. However there is also the state of darkness in the womb, where integration occurs. Integration occurs with respect to the body of the Son of God which is in the process of experiencing the resurrection—disintegration occurs with respect to all the rest. This clears things up.
We may then rejoice on Easter Day because of the resurrection, not merely the resurrection of Jesus two thousand years ago. What meaning does that have to us now unless we share the experience now? We can't share it back there. This is the futile endeavor that human beings have undertaken every Easter, isn't it?—to try to share something that happened two thousand years ago. Well it happened to Jesus; He knew what it was; but nobody else did and nobody else has since. Let's begin to share it now so that the door He opened in this regard through the body that represented the body of the Son of God may be the experience of the actual body of the Son of God. That He provided this example, an evidence of the way it works, is a marvelous thing and we would not in any sense detract from that, because if that hadn't been done we would be in a sorry mess now—if anything still existed at all. But that was done. The door was opened—the veil was rent. There is nothing to stop the resurrection of the body of the Son of God in the creative cycles as they move—now!
We may share these creative cycles now in the experience which allows the true resurrection to occur. And who knows what that is? Nobody, because it hasn't been experienced. That's the only way it can be known. Just to believe some fanciful idea, or even just to believe the principle of resurrection, doesn't inform us at all as to what the resurrection is. We are only informed by experiencing it. The resurrection relates to the individual and collective restoration to the experience of Man—to the mature experience of Man. And we remember that Man was created on the sixth creative day. He wasn't created on the first creative day. But if what was created on the first day had not been created, certainly Man could not have been created come the sixth day. So it is necessary to move through the cycle of six. “Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work.” Here is the completed cycle, for Man was created on the sixth day and what Man is remains unknown until this cycle of resurrection has worked itself through to the sixth day. This is something that occurs individually and collectively. Unfortunately the creative cycle hitherto, both individually and collectively, has always been aborted.
When our Lord and King was on earth in the body of Jesus He initiated the cycle then. The spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” through the lips of Jesus. And there was light. Scarcely anyone knew it, because the darkness comprehends not the light. Only those who recognize their own darkened state of ignorance and are disgusted by it will begin to wake up to the light; but as long as one can wallow in the filth of the darkness of Egypt and enjoy it there's not much hope for a person. There must be a recognition of what one is doing and of the horrible condition which results from that doing. Awakened to that, then there will be horror with respect to it and a desire to let the cycles of maturing, the cycles of resurrection, work out. Human beings have simply refused to let this happen heretofore. They insist upon their self-centered ways. They want it to work out in the way they want it to work out, according to the idea and concept of what would be pleasing to themselves. And it does not work out that way. If anyone tries to make it work out that way they stay in the tomb and they disintegrate in the tomb. They may try to take pleasure in that.
The word is: “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth,” before the evil days come too much, before the disintegrative processes have gone too far. Let it work out in the way of God. And how could anyone possibly let it work out in that way without turning in the direction of God, without asking in that direction, without seeking in that direction, without knocking in that direction? First of all a person must see the stupidity and the futility of asking some self-centered source. No, there must be a turning in the right direction, toward the truth, toward the source, toward where what is true may be experienced. Asking, seeking and knocking are ways of describing response to God, response to the Lord, response to the truth, to the way by which it takes form. If we do not participate in the exact way by which the truth takes form we can't know the truth. We remain consequently in the darkness of ignorance, in the Egyptian darkness of the tomb, where disintegration occurs.
This which is finding expression now relates to the truth of these things. Where does the truth come from if not from God? And it comes according to the asking, the seeking and the knocking. For where there is true asking there is receiving; where there is true seeking there is finding; and where there is knocking at the right door the door is opened and the truth is known. But you won't find the truth in the realm of self-centeredness. Yet human beings everywhere are inclined to feel that they're going to find the truth of love in the realm of self-centeredness. All they find is lies in self-centeredness; all they find is the experience of disintegration. Just look around. There it is on every hand. Therefore how foolish to look in any of those directions, many and varied as they may be in the realm of self-centeredness. Nothing that has the slightest meaning can be found there. The truth is not there.
The truth is in God, and we have to begin to conform with our true nature to comprehend and experience the truth. Our true nature emerges in the cycles of resurrection. The initial starting point is always the spirit of God moving upon the face of the waters, the truth of oneself. Asking “What is the truth of myself?” because in self-centeredness nobody knows, and seeking the experience of the truth of oneself, and knocking at the door, which has hitherto been closed, so that that truth can come out in experience, in expression—it's the only way it can be known. But as long as we are wrapped up with self-centeredness, in ourselves and in other people, the door is shut and locked.
So here is the resurrection now, something that relates to this day, so this day might have some meaning instead of being a constant repetition of meaninglessness. Mind you, the opportunity to see the meaning is always there—for over nineteen centuries it's been there. Now we begin to see. Why? Because the spirit of God moves upon the face of the waters. “And God said, Let there be light.” And when we let this happen, we see; we begin to share an understanding of the truth.
Here we are together to let this occur in our own experience, that we might come out of that selfish self-centeredness, which is the darkness of Egypt in the world, to experience the truth of ourselves, step by step, in the unfolding cycles of resurrection. And as we are willing to let it happen individually it happens also collectively, and the body of the Son of God is restored to stand once again in the garden on earth.
If we don't ask, or seek, or knock, in the right direction we don't receive or find and nothing is opened. And what is the basic spirit of true asking? It could be summarized in these words: “I love you, Lord. I love you, Lord. Apart from you I am nothing; with you I know myself. I love you, Lord.” This is usually not the first attitude of human beings. There is always a cry in the world that one human being should say to another, “I love you.” And people claim to feel empty because someone doesn't say to them, “I love you.” Here is the self-centeredness.
Until a person can say and experience in living constantly what is implied and conveyed by the words, “I love you, Lord,” that person is not capable of loving anyone else or of knowing what love might be from someone else. There is just one thing required from which all else follows, yes, but until that one step is really taken, “I love you, Lord,” there is no other step. When this is seen as being true, one takes the step, and when one sees this to be true and takes the step there comes a certain sadness to observe how human beings reject this first step. Consequently they go no place, because there's no place to go. Oh, there is frantic endeavor to make a place and sometimes people think they're going to succeed, but it never happened on earth since the fall of man.
No, just one right attitude, “I love you, Lord”—just that. That's sufficient. That brings all things. It allows the cycles of resurrection to unfold and the beauty of being to be known and the glorious pattern of the divine design of right relationship with others to be experienced in the body of the Son of God, because nothing enters into the body of the Son of God that is self-centered, that is desirous of self-fulfilment. No, not for “me,” not for “my” delight, but just “I love you, Lord.” Just that.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
