Karma Of The World Body

Karma  Of  The  World  Body

from  Dealing With Facts Without Judgment

Martin Cecil   January 13, 1980  a.m.

Whenever I come before those who are assembled in the Chapel here at 100 Mile House, or elsewhere, I am always faced with a question as to what it is that should be offered in the name of the Lord, for the purposes of God, during the hour that is to ensue. The choice, however, is not entirely my own. I always have a question to ask, too: What will those who are present be willing to let be offered? I am faced with a question; you are faced with a question. These questions may be answered as they are allowed to blend together, so that there is a clear facility present for the Lord to give what is right and fitting and necessary in the particular hour.

We are here this morning with these questions as yet unanswered. From my standpoint it is mostly a matter of finding a starting point. Obviously none of us can know ahead of time all that properly should take form in the hour. If we did I suppose it would be unnecessary for us to be here. We are here to find out. What is forthcoming at the hand of the Lord must necessarily be accepted willingly. None of us are here to determine what it is that should take form. We discover what it is as it does so, but it can only do so in an effective manner if we provide what is necessary to let it happen. If we have any restrictions, any particular wants, then immediately what would naturally come forth is frustrated in some measure.

What comes forth has to come forth either through an open door or seek to emerge around the various blockages that are present. When there is an open door everything is very easy, and incidentally very enjoyable, and in fact we are not bored; but if there is too much necessity for circumnavigating the icebergs and the shoals, then it may become a little bit tedious. But even that tedium must necessarily be accepted, because we are concerned to let come forth what may; no arbitrary imposition is going to be made. So collectively we establish the limits of what may occur. We are all responsible in this regard, so it behooves us to be present with one accord in one place, letting the door be opened wide.

All this pertains to our particular responsibility here in the Chapel, but at the same time we need to recognize that there is more going on on earth than what is occurring here in the Chapel. What is forthcoming, if we act as we should, will also be conditioned by the necessities on the wider scene. Consequently we must not only bear with the particular quality of the outpouring of the spirit that is coming forth through the open door which we provide, but have a keen awareness that it is coming forth for a particular purpose relative to what is present, in the relevant aspects of the world experience as a whole.

I mention these things because we may see how important it is that we should have no strings attached to what it is that is forthcoming in the name of the Lord. Even if it should happen that all of us here allow the door to be fully opened, this is not the only factor within the range of our field of responsibility. Certainly we are not gathered here to benefit ourselves, to have a nice and satisfying experience for an hour. We are here to allow something to find release in expression during this hour which is going to be of value in the hands of the Lord relative to His world as a whole—and who of us is to say what that would be? We don’t really need to know, and we are unlikely to find out during the hour what it is. Even though there may be some awareness of the nature of what takes form, we may not know its ultimate purpose in the specific sense. We are quite willing to trust the Lord in this regard—it’s His business, after all. We play our respective parts; we play our part as a whole, unified group, but what moves beyond is not necessarily seen or known by us. It doesn’t need to be. We are here to do our job and we may trust the Lord to do His.

So, always, at the beginning of a service there is a need to find some sort of starting point, as in some measure we have already done this morning. I may ahead of time have given consideration to some possible starting points, but what will ensue once the starting point is presented and the spirit starts to move remains to be seen. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man.” The human mind likes to have things cut and dried. It feels safer that way; more secure, it thinks. But that’s a sure way to produce boredom. How much more delightful it is to experience freedom, so that whatever may emerge is allowed to do so. It becomes exciting then, an adventure, not a repetition of platitudes.

I would like to consider with you a wider vision, so that we may see more clearly what it is that we need to do in a personal sense. Mankind has inhabited the face of the earth for many millennia. There is of course speculation as to origins, but beyond the period of human history as it is known, human beings, much as they are today, were evidently in existence. We say that civilizations have come and gone. However mankind has remained. Mankind is still alive. There are those who talk about what they call karma, trying to make it fit relative to individual human beings. However, we may see a karma which does fit, relative to mankind as a whole. What has been sown has been reaped during the lifetime of mankind. We don’t need any reincarnation to explain it. There is just one lifetime so far, with respect to mankind, and what is sown collectively is reaped collectively. There have been ups and downs, we might say. Some of the downs have been so deep that they formed a chasm over which human vision, at this present time, doesn’t really reach. There is consequently speculation.

Individually speaking, human beings are a part of this overall body of mankind, which thus far remains living. Individual human beings come and go. There is a tendency to see themselves as isolated entities. In order to make the experience seem somehow meaningful various theories have been introduced in which many people fervently believe. One of them is of course this matter of reincarnation. We might well recall an occasion when sight was restored to a man who was born blind, and there was a certain amount of speculation on the part of the disciples as to why he was born blind in the first place. The human mind has always been interested to try to find out why apparently unjust experiences are known. There is basically a recognition in human consciousness that there must be justice somehow. The recorded words of the Master, in reply to this speculation, were these: “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.” That certainly, if believed, would shoot down the concept of reincarnation, working out some sort of long-term karma.

This idea of course is convenient because it apparently means that one need not accept immediate responsibility for one’s own experiences. You can blame it on the past, even on one’s own misbehavior in the past. So that looks pretty good to many people. It doesn’t involve blaming anyone else. I don’t think that any of us should anymore be looking for excuses for failing to do what we are perfectly capable of doing now. If we want to consider karma then we can look at the whole human race and see that what is in effect in the world now is not unrelated to what human beings have been doing all down through the ages. But in the personal sense, let us not try to slip out from the acceptance of the reality of our own manhood or womanhood. Let us not whine or complain about what we experience. Much of what we experience we bring upon ourselves. After all, we have been busy sowing seeds of various sorts ever since we have been born, and consequently we reap harvests which are not unrelated to our sowing. It is true that individually we are all part of the body of mankind, and we can’t escape the results of prior action on the part of that body. One of the most futile things to undertake is to complain about it. It won’t make any difference. What we can do is to acknowledge responsibility for ourselves now, and let us do it without judgment.

Judgment probably rises up most quickly when matters of injustice present themselves to us, or what seems to us to be unjust. Then we begin to judge. For instance, there may be those who experience troubles of various sorts that from our viewpoint look to be unfair to those people: it’s not fair to them; at least this could be our human viewpoint; whereas with somebody else who is doing a bit of suffering, we might say, “Well he has it coming to him.” That obviously is judgment, isn’t it? On the one hand we’re saying, “No, that’s unfair over there; that shouldn’t happen. But this here now, this person who is suffering, it’s really justified.” That's judgment! And that is the basis upon which human beings tend to function. Of course these attitudes are taken because of what is known in one’s own personal experience with respect to oneself. Most people do not like to admit that they sowed the seeds which they are now reaping, so it is much more satisfying to claim that one is being treated unfairly.

The point is not as to whether one is being treated fairly or unfairly from the standpoint of the human viewpoint. The point is as to whether one is going to judge in the matter, and whether one is therefore going to be in position or not to handle whatever the situation is correctly. No circumstance can be handled correctly unless there is a correct person on hand to handle it. That’s reasonable, isn’t it? It requires a person who is not judging for one thing, not eating of the forbidden fruit, to handle whatever it is that arises in the circumstances—which includes those within oneself in the human sense—rightly and wisely. This cannot be done if one is judging, if one is saying, “I am being treated unfairly.” That’s not the point at all. It doesn’t matter whether it’s fair or unfair—that’s completely irrelevant! Now that’s a horrible thought, isn’t it? But it is completely irrelevant! The question is, how are you going to handle that circumstance, the factual circumstance, without speculating as to its fairness or unfairness; there is the fact; what are you going to do with that? How are you going to handle it?

In relationship to other people—and the way one handles these things with respect to other people is rather revealing of what’s going on inside oneself of course—if you are saying with respect to someone, probably because you are fond of that person, that he is being unfairly treated and suffering in consequence of that unfair treatment, all you are doing is supporting a state of judgment in yourself. This is the basis on which sympathy is offered, isn’t it? “Oh it is terrible how you are suffering. Isn’t it awful the way other people make you suffer?” Oh the individual is hurting so! Well I trust they hurt some more, so that they wake up finally to the fact that they are responsible for handling that hurt. They are not responsible for judging as to why it is there, and no one else is responsible for judging why it is there. “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents.” We’re not going to place blame anywhere, because that is completely beside the point. Mind you, this attitude occupies human beings everywhere on the face of the earth: “Oh how unfair everything is.” So what? Of course it is. Human beings have been unfair to the Lord, incidentally, for a long, long time. Because of that they suffer, and the suffering emerges through this one and that one in different ways. Is there anyone on hand who is capable of functioning correctly in such a situation? And this is an individual matter. We are beginning to come back from that large picture of immense happenings in the world to our responsibility as individuals relative to those immense happenings, because what we do is important.

The immense happenings in the world come because human beings react to the creative tides of the spirit of God. We are not interested so much in human reaction to the creative tides as we are in the creative tides, to associate ourselves with those tides, so that we are in agreement with them and we are not looking around in the world and saying, “Well it’s unfair the way these tides are working.” It isn't unfair; it’s exactly the way they should be. Surely we’re not going to buck the Law. It’s not going to make any difference to the Law anyway; it’s going to work. Let it work! We may be able to provide a blessing to those who are willing to accept a blessing. We won’t find out whether they are willing to accept a blessing until we provide it. Sometimes there is a little prejudgment in this regard, isn’t there? “Oh I know that person is not going to accept the blessing anyway, so I won’t provide it.” Well it’s up to that person whether he accepts it or not, but it’s up to you whether you provide it or not.

So we are very much concerned with handling factual situations and coming out of the ridiculous imaginations that human beings have, coming out of their imaginary worlds of suffering; and as I have said before, vast numbers of human beings love to suffer. They wouldn’t admit it consciously but the proof of the pudding is in the eating—and they suffer. We all have things to handle in that sense. We’re all part of the body of mankind, which is reaping what it has sown; therefore there are those impacts which come up against us in various ways but which we need not try to explain in personal terms.

There is a great deal of suffering to be done; that’s a foregone conclusion. Do any of you imagine, in this moment, that your suffering is worse than the suffering of anyone else on the face of the earth? That’s obviously ridiculous. It isn’t that human beings are not going to suffer—and, the last word I had, we’re all human beings. So there is a certain amount of suffering to be done, the way things are, in the reaping of what has been sown. Why try to explain it any more than that? Whatever the situation is, is factual. Let us handle the situation from the standpoint of the spiritual tides which are moving in the affairs of men, including our own affairs.

We may have compassion upon others, insofar as their suffering is concerned, and we offer blessing; but the blessing is never to commiserate with people on their suffering, never! “Poor you, you’re being badly done by.” That’s agreeing with the devil. No one is being badly done by. Why are we here on earth? “That the works of God should be made manifest.” Simple. Very simple. The works of God are not made manifest when we agree with the attitude of judgment, the judgment that this suffering should not occur, for instance, as one aspect of it. How do you know? I am sure that many of you have had this awful burden of suffering to carry during the course of your lives, and you didn’t like it when it happened probably, but you have been able to look back on it and maybe you saw that it was the best thing that ever happened to you. So let’s leave it all alone, not try to explain it beyond the fact that the Law works. It works individually, it works collectively, and so there are many facts that are here which need to be handled. Who is going to handle them? Not the one who is judging and accusing and condemning and deciding what the sentence should be upon somebody else, but the one who is concerned simply that the spiritual tides of Being should be made manifest in his own attitude and his own way of handling things, even to the extent of handling his own suffering.

So many people just give up when there is a little suffering on hand. We may think of this even in terms of physical suffering. Mind you, you can’t separate physical suffering from mental suffering and emotional suffering. A lot of physical suffering occurs by reason of the wrong function mentally and emotionally. Then the individual has something to show to the world: “Look what’s wrong with me; I can show you; therefore I’m suffering,” as though that was the origination of suffering. It isn’t—it’s just a peripheral effect of something else, something that’s not so apt to be brought to the surface and displayed before other people.

The question always arises as to what you do when you get sick, physically speaking. Here is a very simple situation. We say everybody gets sick, after all. Why? Is there any such necessity? Virtually all sickness is self-induced. We originate our own sicknesses—it’s not unfair—and we need to handle them, because if we don’t we'll keep on originating our sicknesses. What do you do when you get sick? Do you surrender your position of spiritual responsibility, saying to yourself, “Well I can’t be expected to handle that, because I’m so sick. When the sickness goes away I’ll pick up my responsibilities again”? Do you think we would have had any ministry now if I had taken that attitude? We can’t break the tide that is moving through us and is our responsibility to allow to take form in expression, and then pick it up again as though nothing had happened. Something has happened; something has been dissipated, it’s lost. You can’t get it back.

Did you ever hear of the first flush of feeling, the importance of that? That subject was introduced maybe forty years ago, but who has taken responsibility for that first flush of feeling? “Well it will be better next time; I’m making progress; it will be right one day.” Do you think so? Never, never on that basis. It’s now or never! There’s a saying that human beings utter from time to time, “Now or never.” Well it is, in this field, now or never. And if we get sick we still have our spiritual responsibility and the physical symptoms are entirely to one side. I see so many people sinking down supinely under their physical symptoms: “Oh, I can’t help it, I’m sick." That’s like saying, “I can’t help it, I’m human.” Just carrying that a little further you can say, “I can’t help it, I’m dead.”

Regardless of what’s happening in ourselves or anyone else, we stay where we belong. Then we are in position to let whatever happens be to the glory of God, because there is someone there to handle it as it should be handled. One of the first places where anyone needs to handle it is in relationship to his own experience, and that relates very particularly to this business of being sick. We can all be sick, but regardless of all that, we can still be in position and do what we are supposed to be doing. Does that mean that you could never rightly retire to bed? Well it might mean that you never rightly retire to bed as often as you do, but one can handle what needs to be handled even if one is in bed.

Let us assume our responsibilities spiritually, so that we move with the tides that are moving and we are not supporting other people who are complaining about the tides and the effect that they are having in their own experience. Rejoice! That's what should be happening. Thank God that it is so, so that we may keep moving with the tides of the spirit and not keep moving with the reactions of human beings. Let this be clear in our experience, and the creative power of God can work. Let us live, handling our factual experiences without indulging in vain and evil imagination which is based in judgment, usually of what is supposed to be fair or unfair. We need to reach a point where we can say, “Who cares?” The question is whether you are a man or woman enough to handle what is happening, and if we see this happening with respect to somebody else, well what’s our attitude toward them? “You need to handle this in the right way,” not “It’s too bad. If so-and-so had behaved in some other way you wouldn’t be suffering so.” How do you know? We claim our own suffering. We sometimes think of ourselves as being important because we have suffered so much. That’s not where the importance lies. The importance lies in how we handled such suffering as we may have had, and usually it wasn’t near as much as we make it out to be. 

So, let us praise the Lord for the privilege of accepting responsibility, individually speaking, in our worlds with respect to ourselves and with respect to others. We don’t support the nonsensical human attitudes that are taken. We need to see the truth, and because we lay it on the line with respect to ourselves we begin to lay it on the line with respect to others. A lot of nonsense could clear up in short order on that basis. Praise the Lord!

© emissaries of divine light