Individually, wherever we may be, we are
responsible for the sanctuary which we bring with us, and which may then
permeate the place where we are. We do not, of course, bring it with us unless
we have it with us; and we don't have it with us unless it has been
consistently our experience in our momentary living day by day. There is a
familiar passage, several passages actually, taken from the Book of Genesis,
which I would read, not because they may relate to some state of affairs in the
past but because they obviously portray what is present with us now. “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great
in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only
evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth,
and it grieved him at his heart… But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord… Noah
was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.”
Noah walked with God. There was one bright spot on
the horizon. The state of human beings on earth is, to say the least,
deplorable. Every imagination of the thoughts of men's hearts is only evil
continually. That is an accurate description of the state of human
consciousness. Regardless of all the efforts that have been put forth for what
might be described as self-improvement, absolutely nothing has been achieved
thereby. The state of human consciousness remains as it has always been, as far
as anyone can remember. The inevitable result of this sad and deplorable state
of affairs is the demise of the human race.
There has been, obviously, long opportunity for
what might well be described as repentance. Thus far it has never been taken.
Perhaps we ourselves, and some others on the face of the earth, may have
awakened somewhat to this necessity, that there might be emergence from the
deplorable human state. The human state is intent upon manipulating the various
forms that are present on earth, in order to produce a better condition. But it
isn't the conditions that are at fault. It isn't the conditions that need to be
bettered; it is the fact that human beings remain in their deplorable state.
Nothing of any value whatsoever can be achieved by
manipulating forms, when the manipulators are in the deplorable human state. It
doesn't matter much whether those manipulations are deemed to be good, or
whether they are deemed to be bad. It is the attempt to manipulate that
produces the sad effects. It is assumed that if one's motivation in manipulation
is good, then the effects will be a blessing. But ultimately it never works
that way. All human manipulations end up by being a curse, no matter how good
the intent was. Yet virtually the whole human population is intent upon their
good intents. This is the way to ultimate disaster. There is considerable
evidence that that disaster is not far away. It may seem to many people that
everything is conspiring to bring disaster, but the conspiring is the state and
motivation of human beings. This portrayal which I read to
you is very accurate and applicable right now. Presumably it must have been
applicable in the past too, but we, after all, are simply the children of prior
generations.
But there was Noah, and Noah walked with God. It
was said of Enoch that he “walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.”
I think most people imagine that if one were to walk with God, the best one
could do would either be to follow after God like a faithful dog, or,
conceivably, walk beside Him—that would really be something! But the statement
with respect to Enoch is an accurate portrayal of what happens. Enoch was not: there was no human
identity called Enoch anymore. God
took him. Here is the state of man as he really is. We talk about being one with
God, but there is only need to talk about being one with God if we are not one
with God. In this sense God is a human invention, because human beings are
separate from what they call God—and this is insisted upon.
We have all experienced the state where we feel we
have the right to do as we please. This right is deemed to be essential to
freedom, freedom being equated with doing as one pleases. Virtually all the
human population have been quite blind to the fact that doing as one pleases is
bondage, because it takes the human being out of the state of reality into a
condition humanly invented, because man was not created to do as he pleases. Of
course I suppose one could modify that statement to say that when he was first
created he did do as he pleased,
because he pleased to do according to what he really was. At that point there
was no incentive to do anything else.
But obviously there has been an incentive since
that time to do something else, so that all human beings now deem themselves to
be separate individuals. And they are going to do whatever they can to maintain
that condition of being a separate individual, because it is a terrifying
thought to somehow be obliterated as a separate individual. Of course the fact
of the matter is that, generation after generation, everybody has been obliterated as a separate
individual. Of course there have been all kinds of theories developed, and
enshrined in patterns of belief, that somehow or other individual human beings
were not being obliterated. This gave hope to those who were still present in
form on earth that there really was something worthwhile or meaningful about
all this nonsensical condition. But the fact of the matter is that there is
nothing meaningful or sensible about the human condition. It is an imaginary
state, which is very real to human beings, self-produced. Virtually all people are self-preoccupied in
trying to preserve something that really doesn't exist. It takes a tremendous
amount of sweat of the brow to preserve it for threescore years and ten, but
the flicker of an eye if we are thinking of it in universal terms. What effort
is put into this business of trying to preserve oneself as a separate
individual! But the fact of the matter is that that is a lie. One has no
existence as a separate individual, and each one finds that out eventually. But
when he finds it out it doesn't do him much good: there is no separate
individual anymore!
So there is this matter of walking with God, as it
is put here. Then there is just one identity. If there is just one identity, we
don't need to have separate identities anymore. The separate identity idea has
been preserved in religious circles. But if, as an individual, you walk with
God, you are not—for He takes you. You lose your human identity, in other words.
Noah went on being called Noah, for
the sake of identity, but if he walked with God, God took him; and while it may
have been convenient to refer to him as Noah, that really wasn't his name.
We have become aware of what the name of God
really is. That name is I am. All of
us in this moment could say, “I am present.” But, having said that, I am sure
that there is still a conditioning element in your view of what you have said
which equates it with this human personality. If I were to ask the question,
“Who are you?” I am sure you would be inclined to give your name. And back of
that name there are all kinds of statistics. Everybody had a father and a
mother, and beyond that again, ancestors of all kinds. The interconnections are
all there. And things seem to continue much as they always have since the
fathers fell asleep. The fathers fell asleep and all their progeny have
subsequently been asleep, dreaming about this very peculiar, odd, separate
identity, which is clung to so desperately. Self-preservation is said to be a primary
motivation in human experience, but what is the self that one is endeavoring to
preserve? If there is such a self which must be preserved by human effort it is
unreal, because the reality of self doesn't need to be preserved; it is—I am.
To walk with God is to lose one's life, lose one's
existence in the human sense. This happens anyway sooner or later, but it may
be allowed to happen sooner by being willing to relinquish the human state,
which involves the relinquishment of human motivations. That is the sticker
with most, because most want to do what they want to do. Who wants to do it?
This sad travesty of an identity, or the One I am? If it is the One I am who
does what needs to be done, all right. But that isn't the case from the human
standpoint, and let us not fool ourselves on this score.
From the standpoint of any human being, why should
they remain alive? What's the point? We have felt it was necessary, incumbent
upon us, that that question should be answered, and that there might be some
point to our presence on earth. Being a part of the state of affairs that is in
the world now, and trying to preserve that, is not why we are present on earth.
We have discovered, up to a point at least, that our presence on earth is not
that the human entity should be preserved for itself, as though it had some
importance all on its own, but that it might be present in order to accommodate
the One I am, so that the One I am might have the opportunity to express the
truth in living now.
I think it is becoming more clearly evident to
people everywhere that the human world as we know it can't be preserved much
longer. There is still, of course, the good-intentioned endeavor to manipulate
the forms of the human world so that it supposedly could continue to exist.
But, no matter who does what, it always brings greater confusion and greater
destructiveness, greater disintegration. It matters not how good the intentions
of people are; it makes no difference. "The road to hell is paved with
good intentions." If you pave the road to hell, you slide there much
quicker. It seems that that process is speeding up these days.
So it isn't by manipulation of form that anything
constructive can be achieved. What needs to happen has been described as a
change of heart. But human beings are just as incapable of changing their
hearts and producing anything constructive as they are of changing the forms
and producing anything constructive. If there is to be a change of heart it
comes not because someone manipulated it, not because someone has a technique
by which hearts may be changed.
If I have read these words, which presumably were
transcribed a long time ago, I have read them as my words now, not as words
portraying a flood which took place a long time ago. Here is a way of
discovering what it is that is happening now, so that we may participate in the
process by which what is happening now may be drawn into the way things really
work—the creative process in other words, which has always been present. What
is needful is that I—this applies to each person—accept the responsibility that
is inherent in the One I am, not in this strange, very peculiar character that
I thought myself to be.
We share these moments now, letting a certain
quietness be our experience, stillness perhaps, because this is natural in the
sanctuary. Noah built an ark. We are
not interested in what happened then but in what is happening now, because
there certainly is something to be created. We could call it an ark, if we
don't think of that as a boat, and if we don't think of it in terms of form.
There is something to be created, and we ourselves have found ourselves being
drawn together to participate, as we claim, in a creative process. Something is
to be created. Why? Most people think of it simply as a body of people who get
along together. There may be a body of people who get along better than most,
but that is not the end and aim of things. There is something to be created. We
might call it a vibrational ark—a
sanctuary—something not quite so tangible as this Dome, for instance.
It is necessary that there should be a flesh body
of people drawn together, in order that there might be generated, by reason of
that fact, the vibrational substance of the ark. The ark is not a physical
form, insofar as the present experience is concerned. It may have been in the
past; we don't really know that. I just used the words which I read because
there is the application immediately. We are well aware of the violence and
corruption, the destructiveness, that is present all around. Why? Because of
the evil imaginations of men's hearts, that's all. That's what produced it.
It's not going to go away without the evil imaginations of men's hearts going
away. That seems obvious. Scarcely anyone has looked at it, apparently. We are
going to manipulate forms, and that will fix everything up, without letting any
change come in human experience. We are concerned to let the change come in
ourselves. We can't let it come in somebody else. You can't even make it come in somebody else. Did you
ever try? It's a lost cause. Even if you succeeded, how awful that would be—someone
made in your image and likeness. Ugh!
There is a vibrational form—you can put it that
way—a body, to be generated. In order for it to be, it must have the vibrational substance to be, and that
vibrational substance can only be generated through the flesh bodies of human
beings. Human beings are useful in that regard. They are not useful in all the
things they think they are useful about, but in the generation of this
substance. We call this substance vibrational substance. You can't get your
hands on it, you can't manipulate it, but it will take form according to the
design that is present in that level of Being into which the substance is
generated. It takes spiritual form, you could say—we have to use words out of
our language in order to describe things. It is difficult, because there
haven't been any words to do it because it hasn't been done. Nobody knows what
it is, so there are no words for it. We have to use analogies to begin to be acquainted with what it is that happens.
There is an ark, a vibrational ark, taking form, generated because there are those
who have been drawn together by spirit to participate in the process. The
process involves changes occurring in one's own human nature, and as those
changes occur vibrational substance is generated. And that vibrational
substance accommodates the design in spirit.
There is something recorded in Matthew, in
connection with the gathering of the elect from one end of the heaven to the
other. It doesn't say from one end of the earth to the other, but from one end
of the heaven to the other—that is,
in the field of this vibrational substance. If there has been a generation of
this substance it is because it has been resonant to the radiation of the focus
of the spirit of God on earth. As that has been present, there has been the
radiation. And wherever there was substance in anyone which would resonate with
that, they have been drawn. If you have genuinely been drawn here it is because
of that. It is not because, “Well I decided to come.” Big me! I am capable of
doing this." A little humility would help. No, if there is a genuine
coming together it is not because anyone decided to do it. It is because there
was substance present in one's own makeup which resonated with the radiation
proceeding from the focus of spirit on earth. When there is that, something
begins to be drawn together.
It may seem to be a slow, tedious process; I know
over the years I have thought that from time to time. But it is the only way to
go; nothing else works. So stay with it! Be consistent, not just for a week but
because one couldn't do anything else. One holds that consistency over the
years, for however long is necessary. And, behold, there is substance present
in some human beings which begins to resonate with that radiation. The
substance begins to come home. The substance comes home wherever the person is.
He doesn't really have to move. He may find that, in the process of that
substance coming home, the flesh has to move a bit too. Evidently quite a bit
of flesh was moved to be here today.
If it is a genuine coming, it is because of that
resonance and not because the individual imagines that he decided he would
come. Ultimately we discover that one can't stay away—and, again, I am not
talking necessarily about physical location, but stay away from the focus of
spirit on earth through which that radiation comes. Then we find a relatedness
to that, which is natural to each one. But it only happens because there is
this substance already present to start with, and because there is subsequent
increase of the generation. And that is the building of the ark. That is where
we live and move and have our being, and we are no longer so concerned about
external form. Come back to spirit, and the substance that is resonating, and
we discover that we all fit together. We are not all the same but we all fit
together. There is a design. There is an ark. There is an ark created of this
vibrational substance, which is where we belong.
Do you think anything
is going to be preserved in the realm of form as we know it now? If you're
stuck in the realm of form you are stuck in something that is not going to be
preserved. There is no safe place in the realm of form. This has been true all
along actually. But we are discovering now that the fact is there is no safe
place in the realm of form. That puts everybody on the spot, because if you
imagine the only safety is in the realm of form you're sunk! The safe place is
the ark, and the ark is a vibrational ark. When we are familiar in our living
with this vibrational ark, there we are. There we are, even though we may still
at the moment be in form.
People are beginning to see that this planet is
shot. It is not going to be able to support human beings, in the way they are
accustomed to, anymore. At least that point is in the offing, not very far
away. One could compare that to the Flood, I suppose: no place of safety,
except in the ark. Of course that's an analogy. But this is the reality now. This is the ark now which is being generated, or the substance for it is being
generated, that the design of it may appear. We find ourselves in certain
relationships because of that, because of the vibrational design, not because
of physical form. If we cling to physical form we will find that we pass away.
If we are at home in the vibrational ark, that does not pass away.
There obviously are things occurring in the galaxy,
things occurring in the solar system, things occurring all over; but the place
of convergence only exists when there are those present on earth now, in
physical form but at the same time in vibrational form, so that there is a
place of convergence. We have discovered ourselves being drawn in various ways
into various configurations of people who don't usually get along too well, to
start with at least. But to the extent that they are not so hooked on form they
begin to find that they do have a natural association, they do blend together,
they are part of one thing, one thing which already exists, but which hasn't
been known because there has been no vibrational substance to accommodate it. In
generating that vibrational substance we begin to accommodate it, but if we
keep reverting back into this business of reaction to what's happening in form,
then out we go, we're overboard, we're no longer in the ark.
The ark is a vibrational ark, composed of
vibrational substance, and we find that it has a very specific design, just as
apparently that old wooden ark had back there. So we share this opportunity in
this moment to be together in the sanctuary which we ourselves bring, where
this vibrational substance is present and spirit reigns supreme.
