Dwell in the Holy Place

from

Dwell  in  the  Holy  Place

Martin Cecil   December 23, 1979  p.m.

When the abomination of desolation is in the holy place it isn’t a holy place, and yet there is the potential of this holy place in all people. It is what is present there that determines whether it is holy or unholy. “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” It is the secret place of the most High when it is a holy place — so rare in the experience of human beings that it is termed secret. The holy place obviously is a sacred place. How sacred is that place in us, individually speaking? Is there such a place in which we may dwell, live continuously? Or is it just a point of call, particularly available to our experience when we are together in a service such as this? The holy place is not a geographical position, although certain geographical positions may reveal the fact of the holy place more than others. That revelation always depends upon people. If you go into places where there are many people, usually you do not find it to be a very sacred experience. 

“He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” How much experience is there of abiding under the shadow of the Almighty continuously? Most people have very little consciousness of any sacred place within themselves. If there is a sacred place, a holy place, in one’s own experience, then those with whom one is associated have the opportunity of sharing the experience. It has always been my concern — this is not my only concern — but it has been my concern, in offering a service, to provide a holy place so that all who will might share it with me. If there is that sharing in actual fact, it awakens those concerned to a consciousness of the reality of that holy place in themselves. One only knows it within oneself; one has the experience of it for oneself, even though the holy place may be being provided by somebody else. Many people, though the holy place may be provided by someone else, do not experience it; they’re not aware that it’s there; they have no sense of sacredness. This is because within themselves they have no experience of sacredness in their own living. So one needs to have a little something to start with, in order to participate.

It may surely be said that all of you had within yourselves some sort of a sacred place. If you did, then you would sense the reality of that sacred place, on a rather expanded basis, during a service. And there was opportunity then to become more familiar with this reality so that you might be concerned to let it expand in your own personal experience, no matter where you were. This is important to children in the home. If there is no sacred place in the parents, or perhaps very little, then there is no sacred place provided for the children. If there is sometimes a sacred place there, maybe it’s liable to be eliminated because of some external happening or other which causes disturbance in the parents. Then the child comes looking for the sacred place and it isn’t there. Insofar as the whole of our ministry is concerned I’ve always sought to provide a holy place for all the children, of whatever age, so that there might be a sensing that it was really there, even if at times in other settings, in school, or in the home, or whatever, it seemed to be lost.

We all have very serious responsibility in this regard. The holy place is not established on the basis of much talk — certainly not on the basis of much talk about the supposed principles of reality. It is established for children — and who wasn’t a child spiritually speaking, to start with? — on the basis of an enfoldment of something that was subconsciously sensed. Where that was provided, the child had a resting place, whether the child was five years old, fifty years old, whatever. This resting place was not intended to be a permanent state of affairs, so that the child, of whatever age, had no reason to grow up. It was offered, to start with, as an enfoldment as long as the childish state remained, with the expectation that the child would begin to grow up and emerge out of that necessity of requiring someone else to provide a resting place. We all had to move through this experience. Some have moved speedily, others have lagged. Individually speaking, we all have the responsibility of letting the holy place be kept holy. We can’t count on someone else doing it for us forever. We can’t count on that for very long, actually, because we can’t be permanently attached to whoever it is who is providing the holy place in which we have been participating. We have our own lives to live. We have to be about the business for which we are on earth, and individually speaking we can only be about the business which is our personal responsibility.

Mind you, there are occasions when we may have found ourselves in a position where we had to take the load of somebody else because somebody else left their holy place. We do that in order to preserve the holy place, in order to maintain an invitation for that person to come back in. Sometimes the person comes back in. Sometimes they don’t, in which case there is the necessity for maintaining a holy place for someone else, you know not whom. Eventually someone puts in an appearance, and you rejoice to allow that holy place to be accepted as their responsibility. From my own standpoint, I have maintained a multiple condition in this regard, anticipating that there would be those who put in an appearance to occupy the various aspects of the holy place. And some have; I rejoice in that. By the way, there are still some vacancies!

There is always room at the top. Most people are convinced that where the most room is, is at the bottom. Consequently most people are at the bottom; but they get squeezed there, don’t they? You have had that experience: there’s a jostling crowd, going nowhere. The greatest space is at the top — we have noticed this before. There are many levels of experience. Each higher level of experience is larger than the one below. The highest level of experience possible in expression on earth is vast. Something of that vastness was revealed on earth through the life of the One called Jesus. There was nothing little about His outlook. He had time to take care of details as they were presented to Him. If there was genuine response He never turned anyone down. But the place from which He worked was a place unknown to most; consequently the works were considered to be miracles. Our achievements are based in the level from which we work. If it’s a pretty low level, we find ourselves with the common herd; and we’re all on a rather restricted footing.

We find the highest level when we learn to dwell in the secret place. Then we experience an expansive view, an awareness that transcends the usual petty human viewpoint. There begins to be an awareness of how everything is one and of how all people are part of this oneness but don’t know it. We see these surging tides and currents in the affairs of men. People are swept this way and then they’re swept back that way, sometimes reluctantly, sometimes enthusiastically, but all at this low level. There is precious little consciousness of what is occurring. Human beings take stands for and against this or that, as though they were the originators of these stands, as though the individual was such an originator. He never is! He is always being governed by the mass movement. He has no freedom in this regard. You can see many human organizations in the world where people are manipulated this way and that. Human beings seem to give themselves freely to this sort of thing and then wonder why they are being manipulated.

We are well aware that all this occurs because the abomination of desolation is in the holy place. Human beings remain in bondage because of this. We ourselves have been in bondage, and in some respects certainly still are, because of this. What is it that can manipulate you? What reactionary feelings can take charge of you and cause you to act in a particular way, to speak out in a particular way? What reactionary feelings can still take charge of your existence? I use the word existence because as long as there are such things it certainly isn’t life. And of course there is a tendency to feel put upon. But if we have the sense of being put upon, who is doing the put-upon? We ourselves. It’s our own choice, even though there may be many seeming justifications, justifications which center in disturbed feelings of various sorts. Fear and hate are not the least of these. There are degrees of hatred, some of it apparently quite innocent: a slight dislike perhaps. But it’s all the same thing. So there are these manipulative controls to which we have in the past willingly subjected ourselves, and which I observe on occasion is still done.

Every time we do that we desecrate the holy place, and in effect reestablish this body hanging on a cross in what should be a holy place, the crucifixion reoccurs. I don’t think that has seemed particularly real to most people. Looking at the event of the crucifixion of Jesus, that may be envisioned as being something pretty horrible; but we don’t see what we do when we willingly let ourselves be subjected to manipulation. It is exactly the same thing, something that we have maintained in relationship to ourselves. And we can’t have anything isolated to us individually. We cannot isolate ourselves from others. We cannot isolate ourselves from the consciousness of mankind. So as long as life remains we’re not isolated; and if we are busy indulging in crucifixion within ourselves it’s having an impact upon other people. We know that this is not at all what we’re here to do. We are here present on earth to carry the blessing of life, to make possible orientation in life rather than orientation in death. The human nature state is oriented in death. Put enough pressure on a person and he wants to kill somebody; sometimes it’s himself. The orientation is in death. In the usual human experience the increasing pressure does not produce increased life. How much pressure can we stand? That’s a question that each person has to consider for himself. Of course we don’t really know until we’re put under the pressure. We may have some grandiose ideas of how much we can stand, but then when we come down to cases we probably find that stubbing our toe is enough to allow the reactionary feelings to take control. If that is the sort of experience which we know, how much value are we in providing a stable point of orientation in life?

To rise up as the Sun of righteousness rises up necessitates that we dwell in the holy place — which is kept holy. Then we live from that holy place and we provide an enfoldment to everything for which we are responsible. When it comes right down to it there is nothing of which we are directly aware for which we are not responsible. The fact of that direct awareness establishes responsibility. Usually people think of responsibility as relating to the things which they can do something about in the manipulative sense, but we’re not interested in doing anything about anything in a manipulative sense. We are here to take responsibility in the spiritual sense, and this is something else.

How much awareness do you have of the nature and the quality of the substance which makes possible spiritual expression? If one’s spiritual expression is a hit-or-miss proposition there is obviously very little substance around and therefore very little awareness of substance. One cannot gain awareness of that substance if one doesn’t have any. We may see that someone reveals a certain amount of stability and strength and understanding, and provides a sense of enfoldment, and so on. We may be aware of that but it has no immediate application in one’s own experience. If there is that quality of living in someone then that person is aware of his own substance, but we only become aware of our own substance when it’s there. If it isn’t there, then we’re liable to feel pretty empty at times; we’re liable to feel vulnerable to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. But it isn’t really outrageous fortune; it’s what we ourselves have contributed to producing by reason of our lack of substance.

Once there begins to be an awareness of the reality of essences in this substantial sense, then what we observe externally becomes smaller. It is smaller — that's the fact of the matter. It doesn’t occupy nearly so much space as those levels of substance which rightly are found in the holy place. We discover that there is an availability of substance which is far greater than the extent of physical substance of which we are aware. Most people see nothing but the physical substance and so they feel it necessary to manipulate to try to get control of it. And it’s always slipping out from under control. This is all the manipulative human nature world; we’ve all had experience in that regard. But there is the reality of spiritual essence which occupies a field tremendously larger than what is known physically speaking. It’s even tremendously larger than what is known mentally speaking. Because human beings have worshiped their minds they imagine that their minds are infinite, but they’re not. Some people have supposedly more brilliant minds than others; but no matter how much brilliance there may be, it is discovered in the end to be a very limited and restricted state. There is something much larger than that.

We become aware of this larger state, this larger world, when we dwell in the holy place. We may dwell there only if we keep it holy; otherwise it isn’t a holy place. We must rightly have a sense of sacredness. Most people, looking at the world in the external sense, take the attitude that there’s nothing very holy there. How can we have a sense of sacredness in all this unholy mess? Well we needn’t be in the unholy mess. Those who are in the unholy mess have little or no sense of sacredness. Of course, because it’s an unholy mess! Well, why be there? Why not accept the opportunity of dwelling in the holy place? And when we are there we see things differently. We are well aware of what may be called an unholy mess. That is the consciousness of mankind; there is where the unholy mess is. It is reflected in events and in external form in various ways but it is only reflected there because it first is an unholy mess in human consciousness. It is the unholy mess in human consciousness that must be transformed. And the only way by which it can be transformed is on the basis of the action of spirit where the unholy mess of human consciousness is.

We see the necessity of letting the holy place be present within the range of human consciousness. Well how can it do that? Only because there is a human being here or there who will let it happen. It’s the only way it can occur. I wonder how seriously we have accepted the fact that it is always one’s own consciousness that is in question, not someone else’s. There has always been the availability of the holy place for all who will receive it, so that an awareness might emerge, in the consciousness of those who would receive it, of the reality of the holy place within themselves. It is impossible to hand the holy place from one person to another. Someone may come close and share in it, and that’s wonderful for the moment, but they’re going to wherever they should be; and unless they have the holy place with them there will be no holy place there. We are, all of us, very much aware of the lack of that holy place in our contacts and connections with people in general. They haven’t a clue! We have a clue at least. We have the opportunity of providing what is necessary within the scope of the consciousness of mankind. This is what we’re here to do. “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” How can anyone have life? Obviously only by living! “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” These were the words of the One who gave focus to what it is we are here to do. He’s not here to do it. And we wouldn’t wish Him to be here, I trust. He was here and He did what He did, and that’s enough — never again! So the second coming of Christ is not that. It is something else, of which we ourselves may have an increasing awareness to the extent that we offer the Christ expression of living into the world. Then there it is! It’s come! If we don’t do it, who else is going to do it? We know these things. We have a special blessing in this regard.

Because we have a certain understanding we have a commensurate responsibility. We share these things in an awareness of that responsibility, which may be brought forth with greater intensity in the evidence of our own experience in living at this particular time of year. As has often been said in times past, people are, in some respects at least, less rigidly structured than they are the rest of the year. It could be put that they are rigidly structured in a different way, but even that can be helpful. They may be caught a little off balance, provided that there is something present to which it is possible to orient. I’m not necessarily suggesting conscious orientation. There are those who are ready to awaken consciously but the vast majority aren’t, and we don’t expect them to. But, as we are well aware also, people orient to things subconsciously. They explain it to themselves consciously, mind you, but the orientation is subconscious. They can just as well orient to life as to death, provided that there is the provision of the point of orientation. If there isn’t that, then they have nothing to orient to and things continue, as long as they can last, as they always have since the fathers fell asleep.

But we have this opportunity of letting the substance of spirit be paramount in our experience. We fill and enfold all the levels of coarser substance, right down to the physical level, with this substance of spirit, which is far vaster; there’s far more of it. We can flood it — maybe this has something to do with the flood — and those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, even though it be but subconsciously, will discover this point of orientation. Then there begins to be a new spiritual control exerted in the consciousness of mankind, so that a new direction begins to emerge through many, without those many realizing what the direction is for the most part. They will undoubtedly interpret it in various ways according to their mental concepts, and we are not particularly concerned about that as long as they are emerging. Let them emerge and translate it at the level where they are, and let them keep on emerging, and then they will have to translate it some other way a little further along as they emerge. Our concern is to provide that point of orientation as we reveal something genuine on earth, something real, something that conveys the reality of true knowing because the experience springs from the holy place. Then the whole world is sacred. Oh yes, there is this little pocket of an unholy mess, but there’s no problem to clearing that up once the substance is provided to fill and enfold the whole of it. Then the job is easily done because it’s done by the spirit of God in action, by those who are willing to let that action occur.

There are those who have felt that letting was a rather passive attitude to take. Letting passively I would define as laziness; nothing happens. The true letting to the spirit of God is obviously not a passive thing. It couldn’t be, because it’s letting the spirit of God act. If the spirit of God acts, you act! You can't help it. So it’s a very positive expression, in that sense. Let us be willing to participate in the creative process of letting — letting it be so. Obviously if I, for instance, come up here to give a service I don’t stand here letting passively. We’d all be here in silence, as long as we could stand it. But there is action, because the spirit of God requires that action. Woe unto those who stand rigidly in position and refuse to let the spirit of God act. They get clobbered in one way or another, and I don’t propose to stand here and be clobbered. So the spirit of God in action is a creative letting, all to the glory of God, and we have a responsibility in this regard of which we are all well aware. Let us not pussyfoot around. Let us be willing to let the spirit act, so that there may be this point of orientation.

We can only let this happen when we are willing to dwell in the secret place of the most High in an awareness of the sacredness of all our living, all of it. We can’t step out at any point and say, “Well I’ve got to do this, and this really isn’t a very sacred thing,” or “I’m dealing with some unholy mess here; therefore it’s not very sacred.” If it’s not sacred to you that you should be in position to deal with it, then you’re not going to be able to deal with it. So we have a consciousness of sacredness, which comes naturally if one dwells in the holy place. It is sacred there, so we see everything from the standpoint of that sacredness; and we’re never afraid of being polluted somehow, even though we’re aware of a lot of pollution around.

So here we are in this Christmas season with a consciousness of the holy place where we may dwell, not only now while we’re together here but always. If you can dwell in the holy place for one moment you can dwell in it for the next moment, and the next, and the next; and it’s open-ended then. Never envision things in terms of the future. Just let it be so now, and we have it made!

© Emissaries of Divine Light