The Pioneering Spirit
Martin Cecil June 27 1965
It is interesting how there is an inclination always to seek more, rather than to make use of what there is. I doubt very much if at any time we have extracted all the potential from any given state of affairs. There is a saying that the more human beings have the more they want, which seems to be very true—a constant reaching for something just over the horizon while ignoring the wonderful potential that is immediately at hand. This relates to the gospel, doesn't it? “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” We see how frantically human beings everywhere nowadays are trying to grasp more, either in the material sense or the intellectual sense; however, completely oblivious to the fact that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and what is present already is not being rightly or fully used.
This afternoon Lillian and I had the privilege of attending a garden party given for the old-timers of the area. I wasn't considered an old-timer, but there were a number there who certainly were. The one who put in an appearance first amongst all of those present was a man who was born in this country in 1902. Most came into the country later, after they were adult. A number came in the year 1913. Some of these men are over eighty years old, but still quite chipper, as they say. There were some ladies there too, who also were in the pioneering classification. They were reminiscing a little about the old days, indicating something of what the country was like when they first arrived. Back in 1913, for instance, there were very few people except along the road; quite a bit of freighting; but going back into the country a little way, it was all more or less virgin country with grass growing high. It has probably grown a little higher over the years, but at that time there was certainly more than there is now, because there was no livestock in the country—domestic livestock, at least—although there were apparently a lot of rabbits at one point.
In any case, it was certainly a pioneering spirit required in those days. This pioneering spirit was still quite evident in these people. They are strong and independent. One of them was speaking of walking a number of times back and forth between Ashcroft and Bridge Lake, almost a hundred miles. This was about the best means of going, presumably, at the time. Another man, whom I didn't know before—of course I knew most of these people, because they were here when I first came out to this country in 1930—another man, who came from the prairies quite recently, indicated that he used to drive his team from the farm, wherever it was, to the logging area in the early days—sixty-five miles I think he said it was—and he would walk all the way. The pioneering spirit which makes use of what is available is a most essential thing from the standpoint of those whom one might call spiritual pioneers. It may not be quite the same physically these days, although the physical exertion involved in pioneering in that sense certainly didn't do these people any harm—strong and virile at over eighty years of age.
I think we could perhaps consider the value of exercise in this sense. One of the men there said he had a cow which he kept so that he would have to go out and get it in and milk it every day, twice a day, in order to keep moving. As he put it, if he ever sat down that would be the end. So he deliberately has set this task to himself so as to make sure that life continues to move. Most of us do a good deal of sitting. If we don't sit in the office we sit in the car. We might be reminded again of the prayer thanking the Lord for legs “to carry us to the car.” That's about it, isn't it? We seem almost incapable of walking anyplace: it takes too much time. Does it? I wonder. I wonder, if we don't walk, whether we are going to have less time in the end.
What a wonderful thing that vibrant, independent spirit is. Now, we have spoken of independence, indicating that we can't really be independent of each other. It is not properly a question of trying to become self-sufficient. None of us is everything all rolled into one—we depend on each other. If I speak of independence with respect to the pioneering spirit, I am speaking of the ability to handle oneself effectively, to stand upon one's own feet, and to cease to be tied to momma's apron strings.
Certainly we need, and have needed, to learn to function together in a coordinated pattern, dedicated to the same purpose, allowing the same spirit to move through us. Of course, when this one spirit moves through us, it is revealed in an individual expression—we are certainly not all the same. The individual is supposed to be himself. However there obviously has been the necessity of utilizing our circumstance to enable us to develop a group pattern where there is an awareness of interdependence—interdependence in the sense that we all have something to contribute to the whole, not interdependence in the sense that we all imagine that we have something to take out of the whole. Now this is a very usual viewpoint on the part of many, perhaps defined by the words, “The world owes me a living.” It doesn't. The world owes us nothing. Nobody owes us anything. We have the opportunity of offering something in order that there may be a world. If everybody is extracting something from the world there isn't much left.
When we begin to function on a basis that offers something into the world, something that may flow through us from the Divine source, then the world becomes a better and fuller place—fuller of the right things. This is multiplying and replenishing the earth with what we have to contribute from the Divine source. We all have something to contribute to allow the whole to live. We're not trying to get anything out of the whole. We're seeking to give something so that there may be a whole in manifestation. And this requires people who are capable of standing on their own. They stand on their own, taking responsibility for themselves, but they find when doing this, and when offering something that is right into the whole, that the whole becomes a reality and there is relatedness in the whole, so that there is something available for the manifest function of the whole. In this sense there is coordination.
We have been developing this pattern of coordination over the years. The question now is as to whether we can assume responsibility for ourselves independently, and allow a continued manifestation of what is right in the whole. Human beings, when they begin to feel what they call independence—capable of handling themselves, and perhaps they have a little money in the bank—then are inclined to ignore the whole. They want what they want, and they're going to go about getting it in their own way. The world is full of these sort of independent people, and we have unutterable confusion in consequence, and because of this sort of independence human beings are very easily manipulated and controlled, because all you have to do is dangle the carrot in front of their noses and they will go chomping after it. There is the offer of the reward, and in the background the big stick which says, “If you don't, look out!” So these supposedly independent human beings are caused to be manipulated and controlled by those who have ulterior motives.
We very often find the people who imagine that they are being independent, that they are breaking out of some particular pattern or other—incidentally we find this in the student world very often: they're going to break out of something and they have a cause of some kind—submitting themselves thereby to the manipulations of others who have some understanding of how to use the situation to their own advantage. This is supposed to be independence! “We're going to throw off the chains, you know!” and immediately the chains are assumed, wrapped around tight. Not the same ones. The individual doesn't recognize that the chains are there just the same. It isn't a matter of breaking out of anything. It is a matter of recognizing that freedom comes from within oneself. It has absolutely nothing to do with the environment. The environment, once freedom comes from within oneself, begins to be shaped by that fact; but if the individual imagines that he is going to become free by manipulating his environment he will be sadly disappointed. We find this idea very prevalent in the world, that all you have to do is to change the environment, make laws, legislate, so as to make sure that everybody has their rights. What rights? What rights do we have? I think the only right—we might note the word—is to be right, and to be right we must express what is right from within ourselves, and it has nothing to do with anything imposed from the outside. There are so many human beings chasing will-o'-the-wisps offered to them on the outside, and this is the way by which people can be controlled and manipulated, and caused to do all sorts of things which they don't really mean to do. Some glowing picture is painted so that there may be a following after that, and it seems so wonderful, they're really going to accomplish something, but back of it is always the human manipulating hand, and it never works out the way that it is expected. Of course not.
Freedom must come from inside. “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”; not trying to get more knowledge with respect to things outside—that doesn't allow a person to come to know the truth—but to express that truth which is the reality of the individual himself. When that begins to express, then that is known and that is what brings freedom. Each one must do it for himself. Each one must become man or woman enough to do it, and it is this sort of independence that I am talking about. However when there is such expression it is found that we all fit together and we are not separate from each other. There is a whole of which we are all parts, but the reality of that whole is only known to the extent that we use our circumstances not to get something but to provide a means for expressing our own truth. Then there is a standing in one's own reality of being, and this is not dependent upon anyone else. We have an interdependence after that point is reached, but on a very different basis. We are all required to play our part together, but as individuals. The apron strings must be cut in the sense of our depending upon someone else to hold us up. We stand of ourselves, or sooner or later we fall, because the prop vanishes. I am sure you have all had much experience of vanishing props. Only when we reach a point where we stand because we are what we are, are we free; and this has nothing at all to do with the environment. So many have excused themselves: “Well this circumstance makes it impossible for me. Poor me, you understand. I am so ill-treated, I am so unfairly treated. I am in this miserable state because of all the things that have happened to me. Nobody knows the trouble I've seen! Nobody knows the childhood I had. Nobody can expect me to stand on my own feet.”
How important is that pioneering spirit, where a man can start walking from Ashcroft—he doesn't know where he's going—into a wild, unpopulated country, and has the assurance within himself that he can make it. There isn't a very great deal of this sort of pioneering left for most people, but there is an unlimited field in this spiritual sense of which I am now speaking. It requires exactly the same sort of spirit. It is the pioneering experience in a nation that makes the nation strong. Once that is gone, if a new field of pioneering doesn't open up, the beginning of the end is at hand for that nation. Everyone becomes soft, and they try to live on the fruits of the pioneers, without contributing anything very much themselves. This is pretty much what has happened on this continent. There has been a sort of pioneering idea developed with respect to space now, but the real area which is at hand for everyone relates to what might be called spiritual pioneering. Scarcely any of it has been done. If you consider religion as being spiritual, which it seldom is, then what do we find? We find everybody accepting such pioneering as was done in this realm maybe two thousand years ago. No more pioneering after that point. We reap the fruits of those original pioneers, and of course the fruit is getting pretty stale by now. There is a wide-open field here, but it takes this spirit of independence, which at the same time does not reject the realization of interdependence.
In the pioneering days of this country, or any country, there was a good deal of what is called neighborliness, a lot more than there is in the more supposedly civilized condition. There was a great deal of help offered amongst the pioneers, and people would do a tremendous amount in this regard. It was all taken as being natural in those days. People won't do much now as a rule unless it is organized in some fashion. But there can be independence, and yet a recognition of interdependence. We have had experience of interdependence. We need more experience of independence in this interdependence, not so that we become independent and say, “To hell with everybody else,” which is the tendency for human beings; but having the independence, being capable, being able to handle things, still recognizing the need for the manifestation of the whole and recognizing responsibility in the whole, recognizing what one has to offer to allow the whole to be a living whole, and knowing for sure that if you don't offer that there is going to be something lacking, there is going to be a blank space, you are going to let other people down, and if you let others down you are a failure yourself, because our meaning relates to each other.
The pioneer is not always looking for a soft life, is he? He wouldn't start out into the wilds if he were looking for a soft life; and he knows that he can't carry on his back all the things that would make life comfortable in the wilds. If he tried to do that he wouldn't get very far. No, there is a willingness to make use of what is present; not bewailing the fact that something isn't present, but looking around to find what is present that could be used effectively to fill the need. There was a certain amount of pioneering still going on in the outer sense when I first came to the country. There were no stores at hand. You couldn't just get everything that you wanted by going over and buying it. We had a store here at 100 Mile House, and it certainly was quite remarkable what was carried in it. Most amazing items appeared from under the counter sometimes. But there wasn't all this plethora of goods that are all around us nowadays. If you wanted to build something, or achieve something, you had to use a good deal of ingenuity. You had to think, and see what could be done with what was at hand; and some remarkable things were done on that basis. We speak of things “going haywire,” nowadays, but scarcely anyone knows what haywire is. But haywire is one of the most useful things—in the pioneering days at least. I recall an occasion when I was driving along and suddenly the clutch ceased to function. It just flopped back and forth on the car floor. I crawled under the car to look and see what had happened. In those days cars were more simple than they are now; you could fix them with haywire! A cotter key had fallen out. I immediately looked around; there was a piece of haywire lying on the road, just the right size. I pushed it through the hole, bent it, and the clutch was ready to go again. Nowadays it seems that there isn't so very much of this. If you don't have any nails, go down to the store and buy some. You wouldn't think of pulling them out of a board, straightening them and using them again.
One of the reasons why good use had to be made of everything was because there wasn't much money around either. Money wasn't so important. For years I never had any money in my pocket, ever, around the country here. If I drove to Kamloops I'd have to get it out of the drawer and put my wallet in my pocket. But we never used money. We used what was available, and I think we could do more in this line, even today. Now if something breaks, you get a new one!
We have had to make use of things that some have thought should have been discarded long ago. Perhaps Norman may remember a remark he made about Oliver's attitude: he wasn't willing that anything should perish, but that all should have eternal life! Well this was a necessity. We seem to have an idea that we must have everything new and shiny, and that if it isn't new and shiny it isn't any good. I don't think that's true at all. I've always been impressed with the old bathtubs. When I first arrived here there was one of these, on legs, in a crate in the warehouse. There wasn't any running water of course, or anything. How it got there I don't know, or what it was meant for, but the ranch foreman at that time was about to use it as a sheep dip. However, I was at the time building the Lodge, so I had a use for it, and it was the bath that was used in the Lodge for many years. I think it has changed now—I don't know; it has gone somewhere else. But it was a very much better bath than these miserable things that they have nowadays. You could sit in it comfortably, and yet no one would have a bath like that in their bathroom nowadays, for heaven's sake! People get ideas, don't they? and they all want to conform. You're not with it unless you have the same as everyone else has, or what is considered to be a little better. Sometimes I think it is a little worse.
All this relates to the pioneering spirit. A pioneer is not a conformist, is he? And he is capable of making use of what is available at hand. I have always felt that this was a good school in my own case, that I had to do this, because later I found I had to make use of the human material that came to my hand. It wasn't always shiny and new! It helps to give a certain spirit of tolerance, so that you are willing to accept what the Lord offers. You don't condemn it; you don't immediately say, “Well that's no good. Throw it away.” You look at it and you say, “Now what use can be made of this?” In the case of living human beings, of course, there is tremendous potential. There may be potential in a bent nail—you can straighten it and use it again—but how much more potential there is in a human being who is slightly bent. As there is the straightening-out process some of this potential begins to be made available for use. We need to see this in relationship to each other, so that we are not impatient with one another, and certainly we do not condemn one another. If you find a bent nail when nails are scarce, you don't condemn the nail for being bent—you go to work to straighten it out so that it may be used. And if we see things that are wrong in each other, we don't condemn those things, properly, as we should already recognize, but we seek out those things which make for right use, and these are always present in people. Usually we overlook them to a large extent until the person isn't there anymore; then suddenly we find there is a blank and we're so sorry that we didn't really take full advantage of the situation. Here was something wonderful and we didn't really appreciate it. Only when it isn't there do we realize how wonderful it was. And so let us appreciate what is present, and seek to make the fullest possible use of what is present before we want any more.
I think that this applies to our Ministry as such. There is an idea, or has been, on the part of many, that we need to go out and really drum up business; we need more people. Do we? Have we made the fullest possible use of what we have? Oh undoubtedly there must be more—in fact it should include everyone—but how is it going to be that it does so? Because we go off half-cocked? Or because we ourselves learn what it means to pioneer in the true sense, so that the fullest possible advantage is taken of everything that is now present? And when we've done that, I don't think there will be any difficulty, any problem, about getting more recruits. If the recruits we now have are not adequately trained, what would we want more for? Let us let our own potential be experienced fully, and then when that is so, I am sure there will be others clamoring at the door. We can look with a supercilious attitude at people out there somewhere and say, “Well why don't they see what we see?” But that isn't really the point. Would we want them to behave the way we behave? When we are right, when that which finds expression through us is right, then we would be happy to see others express likewise.
Many people talk about the Golden Rule—it was mentioned several times in our party this afternoon—but most people don't know too much about it. “Do unto others as you would they should do unto you.” Express the truth! This is what we would do unto others, because we would be delighted if they would do that unto us. Allow the full potential that is now present to be used in every respect, and we will find that the reality of freedom is experienced. We become capable people, effective. We have been introduced to the idea that the word can’t is spelled won’t. If something can't be done, seemingly, there is an opportunity to investigate a little—if there is a need, and it seems as though it can't be done, we should look again. The approach should be, “How can it be done?”
So the pioneering spirit, what a tremendous thing that is!—the pioneering spirit which causes a person to know his own worth and to recognize that the facilities are at hand by which the fulfilment of purpose may be achieved. Our vision should be a little higher than if we're merely going out into the wilds to pioneer in the ordinary sense. We have another purpose, but we equally must be assured that this purpose is capable of achievement, and that we can do it individually speaking. It is not just a matter of saying, “Oh I know that the whole can do it.” Well the whole certainly must do it, but there must be a whole then, and this requires all of us individually, knowing within ourselves that we can do it; not just in a pattern where we're propped up by other people standing around us, but also in some situation where we are required to be entirely on our own, without any apparent external help whatsoever. There must be that sort of independence in the spiritual sense before a coordinated pattern really works; otherwise the coordinated pattern will tend to be an apron-string pattern, everybody propping everybody else up. When you take away one of the props the whole shooting match falls down.
Let us concern ourselves with this sort of a spirit, an independent spirit in this sense: not to take us out of the whole, but to enable the whole to take form on the right basis of coordinated interrelationship. And it is through this sort of a whole that something can really be achieved in a greater sense. We can do so much as individuals, but the whole is what gets the whole job done. Without the independent individual there can't be a whole. But remember, independence is not an ignoring of others. It is not an ignoring of the design, of the pattern. It is not trying to do things on one's own without regard to anyone else. The really strong person is capable of working with others. It is only weakness that tends to take a person away from others. So let us participate in this venture, in the attitude of pioneers, with the same sort of a spirit, that thereby we may be in position to use everything to advantage and to get the job done.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
