Weighty Words
Martin Cecil July 6, 1975
I have a letter of response here written by Hugh Malafry on Sunrise Ranch recently. There are two or three paragraphs that I would like to read from it pertaining particularly to our considerations of this morning.
“Transcending human material memories and approaches to time, the Word you and Uranda have spoken on earth partakes of the quality of that which our Lord spoke, indicating: ‘Heaven and earth shall pass away but my Word shall not pass away.’ Cycle built upon cycle, year upon precious year, and nothing lost of the Fire-filled Word. But what of us? The Word is spoken that it be incarnate in the flesh of our living behavior. We have often confessed greatly our sins and become familiar with them through their reiteration. But there is a vast difference between confession and repentance …
“Something is known, but there is also so much arrogant lip service. Any failure to experience while we mouth words is arrogance before God. How often do we hear what we wish to hear, blasphemously using the word to sustain or promote preestablished, prestructured ideas, spilling this precious lifeblood into the dusty old earth. Any preestablished pattern is anathema. If we are not gathering with you we are scattering abroad. But if we are in truth moving with you in the current of the Spirit the forms are made and unmade as necessary. The Holy Place remains uncluttered, unstructured. The forms come fresh with the dew of the morning upon them, alive in the seasons of the Lord … Heaven and earth may pass away but His Word does not. Knowing this, our willingness should always be to allow heaven and earth to be made new.”
“Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away.” Perhaps reference is being made here rather specifically to the changed state which must come on earth in the overall sense, but the fact of the matter is that heaven and earth continually pass away. There is the necessity of the passing away of the heaven and the earth which have been produced by self-centered human beings, but even when the heaven and the earth are as they should be there is a continuous process of passing away—there is always a new heaven and a new earth.
I think when some have read that passage about the first heaven and the first earth passing away because there was a new heaven and a new earth, the idea was that that's it: when that happens, new heaven and new earth, there's really nothing else. There is one thing that is sure, and that is change. When there is the new heaven and the new earth, in the sense of what ought to be, then there is no need for the old heaven and the old earth of what oughtn't to be to pass away. But how long would the new heaven and the new earth be new if it just stayed put? Something is new only in the moment; in the next moment it's beginning to grow old. So there is a continual movement in the creative process, rightly so. And we do not, certainly, look to any moment in the future when the new heaven and the new earth would be permanent.
Newness is known by reason of what comes forth in the moment. What comes forth in the moment rightly comes forth by reason of the creative Word—the Word of God. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,” the Word which doesn't pass away. Life doesn't pass away. If we are the means by which that Word is spoken then we are one with the Word which does not pass away. The passing-away process occurs all around us, but being identified with the Word, the Word being made flesh because of us, there is no experience of passing away. This is what has been referred to as eternal life—but there isn't any other kind. Life is characterized by the fact of being alive. If it weren't alive it would cease to be life. So life is life; life is alive; life is consequently eternal.
“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” The Word must be made flesh if it is to proceed out of the mouth of God on earth. The Word has never ceased to proceed out of the mouth of God. The fact that heaven and earth are present, the fact that change occurs continuously, being the evidence of the passing of heaven and earth, is an indication that the Word of God is present. We recognize that nothing would exist if it were not for the Word, the Word which was in the beginning with God. The expression of that Word creates. If there is to be a new heaven and a new earth, in the sense of what should be here in the world, then the creative process must be in operation. That creative process requires that the Word be spoken.
Now, when mention is made of the Word in the first chapter of the Gospel according to John, it is looked upon as being a translation from another word—Logos. Being seen in this light, people are inclined to think they know what is being talked about. Well they might just as well have left it as the Word; they know no more! The Word relates to the spoken word; it isn't merely an inaudible word. We have recognized something with respect to the sounding of the Tone and the fact that the Tone only has meaning in human experience to the extent that there is substance which allows the Tone to be heard. There must be the substance present, which is set in vibratory motion by the sounding of the Tone, if it is to be heard by anyone. So it's important that the Word should be heard. The mere fact that the Word has been spoken continuously, without any break, from the beginning, whenever that was, has had precious little meaning in human experience because of the lack of substance so that it might be heard. If it wasn't heard it had no particular effect or influence upon those who were present but could not hear it. Our concern has been to allow the generation of the essential substance by which the Word which is spoken may be heard.
It isn't just a matter of formulating words with the lips and the tongue and the teeth and the throat and the lungs and indeed the whole body, because, as you well know, you may hear something said but it may, as the saying goes, go over your head. You may hear the words, you may understand the words in some measure at least, but they don't mean anything to you. Now you well know that this happens if you have tried to explain the truth to somebody who had inadequate substance to hear what was being said. You may have said what you said most excellently, a clear dissertation on the principles of reality, but the individual to whom you were speaking had just as blank a face after you had spoken as he did before. We have the opportunity of sharing something this evening for instance, because there is a certain amount of substance around which allows the Word to be heard.
The sound of the trumpet! This is heard to the extent that the substance is present sufficiently for it to be heard; however, it is heard at the level where the substance is. If there are levels in your experience where the substance is not yet, you don't hear the Tone at those levels; therefore, one should always be rather cautious about assuming that one has heard all that needs to be heard. One may hear something, one may be enlightened, awakened, and there may be delight in the experience, thankfulness to God that it is so, but let us remember that no matter how wonderful what we heard may have been, it was not everything that could be heard, so that we never shut off our hearing because we take the attitude that we've heard it before.
You may hear something at a certain level, and you may hear it again at that same level, and it may sound repetitious in consequence; but if in the meantime you had been diligent in allowing further substance to be generated, then you would hear what was being spoken at a different level to what you heard it before. If you think about it, you may hear it at the same level that you heard it before but you also hear it at another level. All of you have had the experience of hearing a service such as this, and then hearing the same service later, either being read or on tape or video, and you scarcely knew that you ever heard it before, because it tells you something quite different, something that you didn't hear before. You heard something before, you were perhaps moved by what you heard before, but when you heard it again, because there had been a certain experience of the Word being made flesh in you there was more substance to be activated by the sounding of the Word, and so you heard something more. We find that this is continuously so. There is always more to be heard once the substance is available for the hearing.
It is very important, then, that we should be concerned with the generation of that substance, and the generation of that substance relates to this matter of letting the Word be made flesh. There are many levels of flesh. We tend to think of this stuff of which we're physically composed, but there are other levels of flesh, other levels of substance, living substance, substance which is a part of what we are in the external sense. There is, we might say, mental flesh, mental substance; and there is spiritual flesh, spiritual substance. The finer levels of substance must be generated if we are to hear the finer levels of the Word, the finer levels of the sounding of the Tone. If there's no substance there we don't hear it. There have been those who have been associated with our ministry who heard everything they thought there was to hear, and so, having heard that, they went on to what they supposed would be more fertile fields. But they never heard what was available to be heard, for the simple reason that they never allowed what they did hear to be made flesh; in other words to be incorporated into their experience. If it had been incorporated into their experience then some more substance would have been generated and that further generation of substance would have allowed the hearing of something more.
I've had people come and listen to what I have to say, or read literature or whatever, and say, “Oh, this is very elementary.” Well it may be to them because they only have very elementary substance to hear what it is that is being offered. In taking such an attitude they may imagine that they are as wise or wiser than what is being offered to them; they don't need it because they know more, they think. But they never really heard what was there, or they only heard something very elementary—and that in itself is quite revealing of the person—if there's only very elementary substance in that person. And as is usual in the attitudes of human beings, the blame is put out there, the blame is put on the material, rather than recognizing the responsibility that the individual has to provide the substance whereby the Word may be heard.
A lot of people have listened to the spoken Word or read literature and never really heard anything. They remained completely oblivious, as though nothing whatsoever had been said or written. This of course is really a giveaway, because obviously the person hadn't experienced very much insofar as true living was concerned, because it is in the true living of whatever measure of truth the individual may think he knows that the substance is generated so that more can be heard. We need to see this in relationship to ourselves, in relationship to the progress we make; but we also need to see it in our dealings with others, because nothing can really be offered to anyone beyond the extent of the available substance in that person which would make possible the hearing. There are many, many occasions when virtually nothing can be said because there is no means by which the person might hear what was being said. In such case it's better, then, to keep quiet and to offer something at a different level, at a level where there may be some substance in that person; but, generally speaking, with most there is not very much substance, necessary substance, to hear the Word at the mental level. The individual has some substance there but it's pretty coarse and he only hears what is coarse. Human beings tend to live rather coarsely, so that about all the substance they generate is coarse substance.
What is coming down from God out of heaven is fine and delicate. This doesn't mean that it isn't strong—it is very solid substance. It is the real substance. What we call love is substance. That is the densest substance there is, and yet it's very fine. Physical substance is the least dense substance. Almost everything can pass through physical substance. There are radio waves passing through you right now, not blocked at all by your physical flesh. So there must be lots of space in your physical flesh through which all the other levels of substance can pass. Here, then, we have the least solid substance, and yet we have the quaint idea that it's really hard. Well physical substance is hard to itself but it doesn't stop the movement of mental substance. Mentally speaking you can move through your flesh quite easily; you can move out wherever. And spiritually speaking here is substance which interpenetrates the substance of the mind and the substance of the body. The physical body knows very little about mental substance; we can't grab it. But mental substance knows a bit about physical substance. However, mental substance doesn't know anything about spiritual substance; we can't reach out and grab it with our minds. But spiritual substance knows about mental substance and physical substance. As we allow the generation of the finer substance, there begins to be the medium by which spiritual things may be discerned. There begins to be the required substance for hearing the more delicate levels of the Tone.
There is a certain awareness of the Tone in physical substance in the sense that physical substance is moved by it. And the heart beats, the digestion works, all the various processes of the body occur, not because of physical substance but because of the sounding of the Tone in the substance which is capable of making that Tone heard by the physical body, so that things happen in the physical body. Now all that happens unconsciously; nevertheless it happens. The physical body doesn't know anything about it; just lets it happen. The mind doesn't know anything about it either, but it's not particularly willing to let it happen insofar as the mental function is concerned. It wants to grab hold of its own function. We call that self-activity, and it stands as a barrier to the proper development of mental substance and spiritual substance.
As the spiritual substance begins to be generated because such perception as we have of the truth is allowed to find expression in our living, then our perception, our awareness, our experience of movement in the truth, increases. We can, talk about things and understand what is being talked about, even though we can't figure it out with our minds. That seems ridiculous to a lot of people: If you can't figure it out with your mind it can't mean anything. Well the things that the mind can figure out don't mean very much, because there is far more than the mind is capable of comprehending. But we have a spiritual facility which allows us to discern things which are incomprehensible to the mind. We don't condemn the mind because it can't comprehend; we're quite patient with it; but we refuse to deny what is being sensed because the mind tells us it doesn't exist. The mind tells us it doesn't exist because it can't comprehend it. Well it doesn't exist insofar as the mind is concerned, that's true. The mind doesn't know very much. But we can know the truth because we have a spiritual capacity which permits the Tone to be heard when the substance is available in that spiritual capacity.
The substance is generated, first of all, out of physical substance to provide the various levels of substance essential to the hearing of the Tone. As this substance is generated we begin to have a sense of weight, not in the sense of being crushed down by a burden but in the sense of the fact that the words that are spoken are weighty words. Most words that human beings speak have no substance—a little puff of wind, they evaporate. There's nothing to them; there's nothing back of them; there's no substance. But where we allow the generation of this substance we begin to find that life becomes a weighty matter, in the sense that there is real substance to it. It is a fact that there is so little substance in the experience of most people that they have the sensation that they can be overwhelmed very quickly, that they can be blown away just by a puff of wind. And here again is the reason why attitudes are so defensive, because a person can be knocked off his feet by almost anything. Now I'm not saying we may not physically fall down on occasion, trip or something; but when we do so, it isn't the end of the world, is it? We have a sense still of the weightiness of life, the substance of life; there's something to us even though we may have fallen down.
Gradually, as there is the generation of this substance and the Tone is heard more vividly, our capacities for expressing life expand. And of course that expansion, amongst other things, generates more substance, so that as a person in the external sense we begin to fill out. Sometimes a young person growing up physically gets to be like a string bean, you know, and then a little later he begins to fill out, as they say. Well that is about as far as it goes. But we properly fill out at all levels. Most people stay pretty skinny spiritually; some people develop a few mental muscles. But the true design of a person is very different from what is known in human experience the way it is now; and we begin to find a new heaven and a new earth putting in an appearance, for the first heaven and the first earth are passed away. Now, as I say, this is not a one-shot deal. There is a transition. One heaven and earth are replaced by another heaven and earth, and so it goes. But only when this replacement takes place by reason of the Word which does not pass away is there movement into what we may rightly call a new heaven and a new earth. The usual movement is to a heaven and an earth that are getting older and older.
The new heaven and the new earth appear by reason of the sounding of the Tone, but the Tone must have substance in which to sound if it is to have an effect with respect to the new heaven and the new earth. Actually there is an effect in the new heaven because there is substance there, but to have effect insofar as the earth is concerned, insofar as our bodies, our minds and our capacity of spiritual expression are concerned, there must be the available substance and the sounding of the Tone in that substance. This is Gabriel's trump. It awakens the dead. Actually it awakens those who are asleep, not those who are dead, because those who are dead have no substance, no substance available to accommodate the Tone. So only those in whom there is sufficient substance will awake.
That substance is there, has been generated, according to the quality of the individual's living. There have been many people who have not been concerned, really, with the quality of their living. All they wanted to do was make a buck, or whatever was the incentive of the moment, and how it was done was of little moment. The end was supposed to justify the means in any case. As the end was a false end the means was a false means. But how few people have any real consideration for the quality of life! They may have consideration for what they call the standard of living, but that's something else again. They want a higher standard of living; they want to be pandered to in various ways more than they have been in the past. But the quality of life—we are more concerned with quality than with quantity.
The quality of life relates to the generation of this essential substance; and when there is some real quality to a person the sounding of the Tone comes within the range of that person's hearing. Sometimes we meet a person and are amazed at the understanding that he has. We find many people in these days, who do have quality in their lives, are quick to be aware of what's going on. But if there isn't that quality in a person, to all intents and purposes he's dead. He has no faintest notion as to what's going on. Mind you, people usually think they know. They get all wrapped up in politics and in striving with their fellows in one way or another, trying to get ahead, and they learn devious means of achieving what they think they want to achieve. But as to what's actually going on they haven't a clue. Only when there begins to be quality in living is the Tone discernible. As we discern the Tone, that immediately puts us on the spot, because we're either going to acknowledge what we hear, and live accordingly, or we're going to deny it.
There is always a choice in this regard. Unfortunately, with all too many, although there may be some substance generated, particularly in earlier life, and they hear the Tone, in order to survive in this world they think they have to deny it. They keep denying it and denying it, and doing the things that they think they must do, and pretty soon the substance is dissipated, the Tone becomes fainter, they can't hear it anymore. It's gone, and the quality of life that had been there deteriorates and deteriorates. That is the sin against the Holy Ghost, the sin that can't be forgiven. You can't forgive a person who has no substance in his experience by which the Tone of forgiveness might be heard. If the substance simply isn't there the Tone can't be heard—that person has committed the unforgivable sin. That's the way it happens. Generally speaking there remains just a little something somewhere in a person—it's not all gone—and I suspect that there are very very few people who actually have committed the unforgivable sin. There must be some substance there which allows a little of the Tone to be heard at least.
The Tone is sounding, the Word is spoken. This Word is spoken on earth as there is flesh through which it sounds. Obviously, if what I am saying now is capable of being heard in the physical sense—you have ears and you can hear something being said—you can hear it because of my flesh. If there wasn't any flesh sitting here you wouldn't hear anything, would you? It is because of the substance that the hearing comes, not only what we call flesh substance but the spiritual substance which is generated out of the flesh substance, the substance which gives quality and weight to the character of a human being. It is this substance with which we are principally concerned, but we need to recognize that you cannot properly separate what we call physical flesh from spiritual substance; they are interrelated. The spiritual substance is generated out of the physical flesh. If you had no physical flesh you'd have no means of generating the spiritual substance. Because we still have physical flesh we are capable of generating spiritual substance, and to the extent that we let it happen we hear the Tone. The Tone, as it is translated into living expression, generates more spiritual substance, so that it becomes easier and easier to know what the Tone is. The Word becomes flesh increasingly then. The flesh is then valuable because it permits the sounding of the Tone at a level where human beings can directly discern it.
The Tone has been sounding at some other level without ceasing, but human beings have had very little awareness of it. They may have sensed something, but the thing that they sensed they translated with their minds and turned it into something that it really wasn't. And we have a multiplication of these forms on earth which are not a revelation of the sounding of the Tone, which are not the Word made flesh. So we need to recognize the necessity for the Word to be spoken on earth. It simply doesn't happen on the basis of the fact that the Word is being spoken at some other level, because human beings are always mistranslating it. So there must be some means by which the Word comes to focus and is spoken on earth.
We recognize that this means was made evident in the One called Jesus. Here was a focus of the Word spoken on earth—the Word was made flesh. The Word cannot be spoken accurately in a true expression unless the Word is made flesh, in other words unless it involves the whole person. It isn't something that just comes spouting out of the mouth from somewhere. The truth only comes out in the expression of a spoken word to the extent that the true Word has been made flesh, and the whole person is then resounding to the sounding of the Tone. One aspect of that sounding may come out in the spoken word. It comes out in other ways too. It comes out in all the processes of living, but it only does so when the Word has been made flesh. We can't speak the creative word on a part-time basis.
The Word must be made flesh, and to be made flesh there must be substance in which it can sound. The substance in which it sounds we may call spiritual substance, but it is not separate from physical substance. So physical substance begins to vibrate with the spiritual substance when there is spiritual substance to allow the Tone to vibrate in it. Then everything begins to vibrate according to the nature of the sounding of the Tone. And part of that sounding requires the spoken word. We see the value of the spoken word not for the surface evidence of it but for what is in it. The spiritual substance that is in it, being released in the form of mailings and tapes and this sort of thing, which are more or less current, is an indication of what it is that is moving now. Of course, we have a particular opportunity when we're together like this because here is the point of origination, and if we're with it we're right with it. This doesn't mean that nobody else can be with it, but generally speaking there is something of a lag in the matter, which is all right as long as it doesn't get too long. There is something of a lag in the flowing of the bloodstream. It emerges out of the heart fresh to move through the body, but it takes a little while to get to the toes.
So here we have the creative process which requires the Word to be spoken on earth, to be given focus; and there is far more to the Word that is spoken than what can be heard with the ears. Something can be heard with the ears, and that's fine; that may acquaint the mental apparatus with something. But there are other things to be heard that are not heard through the ears as such. They are heard through the facility of the heart, which makes possible spiritual perception and which then allows the flesh to be lifted up into a blended experience with the Tone that is sounding in the spiritual substance. And the Tone sounds all over; there's no little part of it that's held out to the side somewhere where the Tone isn't sounding.
When it's sounding all the way through, that was spoken of as the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and you receive power on that basis. But let us recognize that the power is the power which operates through the larger body, not merely through the individual body. We need to see that what occurs in us relates to what is occurring in the larger body. We can't make some sort of rapid strides as individuals and ignore everything else that is happening. Whatever is unfolding in the flesh body of the High Priest relates to what is unfolding in the individuals who compose that flesh body. We can't separate ourselves from it. We are interdependent in this sense.
The body of the High Priest is a flesh body which allows the Word to be made flesh and the creative Word to be spoken on earth, so that there is that provision available at the level where human beings are and where they are capable of finding orientation. To try to orient to something that is invisible, unknown—where is it?—is rather an impossible undertaking, as human beings have found out. They don't orient very well that way. They scatter all over the place. And even when they're trying to orient to God they scatter all over the place, as witness the endless denominations in Christianity for instance. It doesn't bring them together. The only way by which the body of mankind can be brought together is as there is present on earth the Word made flesh. Then there is the point of orientation and nobody can actually dispute it. They may try to; they may object; they may rebel against it; they may try to destroy it. But it doesn't change anything. The truth is there, and as the body takes form in this larger sense there begins to be the means by which choices may be made by human beings the world around.
“And this gospel … shall be preached in all the world … and then shall the end come.” The end comes because choices are made. Some acknowledge the truth, participate in the expanded expression of that truth on earth; but what refuses to acknowledge that truth destroys itself. The end comes. The old heaven and the old earth pass away, and the new heaven and the new earth take form. We have the privilege of playing a part in this as we are diligent in allowing the spiritual substance to be generated; then we can hear the Tone without any trouble at all. But we are keenly aware of the fact that there are levels of spiritual substance to be generated yet by which we may hear the creative Word which we have not heard yet. Our Master said to His disciples, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.” Ye cannot hear them yet!—just one letter changed in that word. Those things cannot be borne either, because what is said is not heard the way it is said. Something else is heard, and what is heard becomes destructive insofar as the person is concerned. So we concern ourselves with the quality of our living, in the assurance that as we are true to our consciousness of the truth at this point there will be the increased generation of the required substance, and we'll hear and discern ever more clearly and be in position to live ever more effectively in the expression of that on earth.
The body is a reality taking form. The Word is being made flesh. It matters not whether any particular person is here or there, as the body appears; all are contained in it. It's not a geographical matter. Even if we are alone in the external sense we still have a consciousness of being a part of the body of the High Priest, a part of the means by which there may be a new heaven and a new earth.
The only real value that our program here at 100 Mile House, specifically, has in relationship to the community is based in the quality of character made evident in those who dwell here. This is the thing that has the effect. There may be an inclination to impute more value to the beautiful buildings we’re getting around here, or the business operations which are being undertaken, and these may seem to be impressive from the usual standpoint of human approach; but these, insofar as we’re concerned, are not the impressive things at all. These are the sorts of things that generate jealousy and greed, and one thing and another, in people. The one thing that is of real value is the quality of character revealed in those who are here to reveal it. That is the weighty matter, and that is something that human beings in the vicinity can’t avoid being affected by. They can stay away from our businesses, they needn’t come here to a service and all this, they can stay out on the periphery somewhere; but if the quality of character is there, that’s going to have an effect on everyone. And that quality of character comes by reason of the substance of our living.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
