Shekinah — Focalization
from Shekinah Fire
Uranda June 15, 1953 Class
“We begin to see the Secret of the Shekinah as the Secret of Focalization from heaven into the earth,
and differentiation in relationship to the practical aspects of living.”
Our attention has been introduced to the reality of the Shekinah Fire. The original Hebrew word from which this word Shekinah was derived used the a sound instead of the i sound, something after the order of Shekanah; and bringing this out in relationship to the particular pattern that I suggested from the standpoint of the vibrational factors of the Motherland, the short pronunciation, as I have used it, is really a bit on the inadequate side. There is more of the vowel emphasis if we utilize all of the vibrational factors possible. You will notice that you can prolong vowel factors, if you have the breath to do it, and the e sounds here in the three-syllable word [Shekenah] concluding with the ah sound, provide us with an opportunity to begin to feel the vibratory factors in sound. You need to begin to realize that the vowels, particularly, have the peculiar quality of conveying the current of feeling. Now what is conveyed will depend upon what you are feeling. Assuming that the heart has become attuned to the Divine source, we have the current of that Divine source moving through the vowel sounds.
You should bear this in mind from the standpoint of speech, in the development of your capacity in breathing, the control of the air which you use in breathing, the proper pattern of inhalation and the proper controlled patterns of exhalation. If you try to get all of your air, while you are speaking, inhaled through your nose, you will not have a good speaking voice. The air must be received, partially at least—some of it will come in through the nose—but received through the mouth, along the roof of the mouth, in the manner which you learn to utilize without interfering with the expression through speech. You can come to a certain definite limitation when you are speaking audibly in ordinary vocal expression, but certain possibilities are present from the standpoint of expression, somewhat audible of course, in what we might call whispering. The use of the voice conveying sounds vibrationally in what might be conceived to be a whisper is something that is important to our attunement with the powers of reality, and it is important to our ability to convey. I used these patterns when I introduced to you the mystical significance and expression of the two words commonly spoken as Jesus and Jehovah—speaking on the breath. Whispering suggests the idea—speaking on the breath on a basis which modifies the more harsh aspects of the word and allows the peculiar qualities of the vowels to come into play. You will find this to be of great importance.
One of the things that we need to begin to realize from the standpoint of the Shekinah Fire, or the Shekinah Light, is that this must be understood if we are going to begin to comprehend the significance of this text which we have been studying together: “And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man.” Notice that this is in the midst of the seven candlesticks. The candlesticks give Light, but in the midst of the Cloud there is one like unto the Son of man. Here we have a Biblical description of the Shekinah Fire surrounded by the Light, and in turn surrounded by the Cloud. You will have no doubt thought of the Biblical passages speaking about the Son of man coming in the Clouds of Heaven. It is something which you are now reaching a point where you can begin to understand; for wherever the Clouds of Heaven are mentioned in the Bible we have a reference to the Shekinah Fire, around which there is the Light, and around which there is the Cloud. The Shekinah Fire always manifests in the midst of a Cloud and in the midst of the glowing of the Light. So these are the Clouds of Heaven, or the heavenly clouds, which the Master used. It was in such a heavenly Cloud that He disappeared from the view of man, and it is in relationship to such a Cloud that all things heavenly must appear to men—the Clouds of Heaven. Until you begin to see this, realize the reality of the Shekinah Fire and the Cloud of Glory, or the Cloud of the Presence, you cannot understand what the Bible means. And you can see how it is that so many millions of people, failing to recognize the mystical significance of the Bible terminology, have turned their attention to fanciful concepts, imagining that some cloud goes floating around in the sky.
Now, if you begin to see the One in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks as the centering of the Fire, we can begin to comprehend the nature of the Fire, for it is differentiated. Notice the manner of its differentiation—“one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot.” What is the garment? The garment is the Cloud—“and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow.” In other words, we begin to recognize that the upper vibratory factor, the pattern of that which is seen in the Shekinah Fire, is pure white, and the white like snow—“His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire.” Now here we begin to enter into the Fire Pattern of the Shekinah Fire.
“And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword.” We have recognized that the sword is a symbol of Truth; that means the Voice which has the sound of many waters conveys the expression of Truth, the sharp two-edged sword. You have begun to realize yourselves that the two-edged sword of Truth is in fact very sharp. It is something which cuts away that which ought not to be and allows that which should be to remain. So, “out of his mouth,” clearly indicates the expression of truth by reason of the Voice—“out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.”
Now there we have the most remarkable description of the Shekinah Fire, the manifest evidence of the presence of the One Who Dwells, that can be found anywhere. We begin to appreciate how it is that we have, in the consideration of this short text, gone into so many different fields so that you could begin to truly appreciate the beauty and the wonder that are contained here. Now with respect to the interpretation: “The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand [the positive hand], and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.”
We have also noted in this connection the Seven Spirits before the Throne of God, and we recognize that that expression means the same thing—there are these seven different vibratory levels. Just as we have the octave in relationship to music, and the eighth being the repetition of the first in a higher or lower scale, so we have the seven vibrational factors in this realm of being of which we are aware. The seven colors of the rainbow gives another illustration. According to the level to which we relate words, currents of feeling, etc., they will have different forms. Sometimes the word itself will seem to have a very definite change, and other times not. In any case there will be differences of pronunciation, differences of the feeling current released through the words. Now it would hardly be practical to undertake at this time to introduce the vibratory factors of the Motherland Tongue. Perhaps sometime we can consider a little of that, but you have much growing to do spiritually, vibrationally, before that could mean so very much to you. However, we can use intermediate steps, which begin to convey the idea, begin to let you have an opportunity to experience that which is possible to you.
So we have the seven stars, the seven candlesticks, and the Seven Spirits that are before the Throne of God, the seven angels of the seven churches, and the seven churches themselves. The churches signify the body of Being, the body as it relates physically to the endocrine glands: the pattern of the islets of Langerhans, for instance—all of the little bodies put together provide one church in your body; the thyroid and parathyroid glands combine to provide another church in your body; the substance of the seven distinct glandular patterns, whether you think of it as one gland or several. You have noted in your studies that the pituitary gland has different parts; you say it is one gland, but it is not one gland; it is a combination; it has different levels of expression. So we either have divisions within the gland itself or divisions in the formation of the body of the gland. But you have in your body, in relationship to these things, the seven churches, the endocrine system. Somebody spoke about the many systems within the endocrine system, and they form, insofar as you are physically concerned, the seven churches. But you also have a mind, and so there are the seven churches insofar as your mind is concerned. There are the seven churches from the standpoint of the spiritual nature of your Being.
There are the seven churches, the body of Being, in relationship to the focalized function of the heart. But here we find that the seven churches of the heart combine all of the particular patterns of the churches at the other three levels; in other words the seven churches of the heart are simply the three levels of churches, with respect to a specific point, brought to point. Now perhaps that is not clear. With respect to the physical body, the mind and the spirit—a particular pattern at each of three levels—you combine all of those three levels in relationship to the heart and you have, by reason of that combination, the church of the heart in the first vibrational factor, and so on all the way through. Well now, we are not going to be able to go far enough in our consideration of the wonderful workings of the mind and its potentialities to allow us to study extensively the factors of the mind as such, that is, the seven churches; but we will give particularized consideration to this matter from the standpoint of the heart, which will begin to introduce something of these factors as they relate to mind and spirit. But you, individually, have the four patterns of the seven churches in relationship to yourself as an external being. Do you see that? You have the four patterns of the seven churches as they relate to yourself in manifest, external being. Then of course we have the inner reality of the Seven Spirits before the Throne of God, the same principle carried over into the invisible realm of Deity. But we begin to recognize that the Seven Spirits before the Throne of God manifest by reason of specific formations, the formations of the stars (that is, of the angels) and of the candlesticks (that is, the churches). So you have—what shall we say?—we cannot say that you have seven candlesticks. You are seven candlesticks, and the seven stars function inside of you. But this is merely the differentiated individual pattern. We see that the whole pattern carries over to the Body of many members, and it is in relationship to the Body of many members that we can more clearly see many of these aspects in function.
We should at this point be able to clearly see, comprehend, accept within ourselves, the fact that the Body of many members, which may be spoken of as the Christ Body, must necessarily have these particularized factors in it, even as they are present in your individual physical body. We cannot disregard the principles of life and function as they appear in the individual physical body when we begin to consider the physical formation of the One Christ Body made up of many members. And anyone who attempts to develop a body of power—as in a church or a philosophy or a pattern of teaching, or anything else, ideology of any sort—any individual or individuals who undertake to produce a unit pattern of function, while disregarding these principles, must surely fail. We have seen it happen in the past; we have recognized it in relationship to the outworkings of history.
It is only as we allow these same laws and principles to work in relationship to ourselves as many members of One Unit, One Body, that we can begin to be the means by which the power manifests. This is to say, then, from the standpoint of the Unit pattern, that there is a particularized manifestation of the Shekinah Fire and Light and Cloud in relationship to each of these seven levels of Being. This trinity of the Shekinah Fire, or the Shekinah which signifies the manifest Presence of the One Who Dwells, is something that needs to be clearly comprehended, and how to convey it to you so that you can feel it and know it from deep within yourselves is something of a problem.
The spirit of God as such has virtually no meaning to human beings. The meaning begins to appear as the differentiated aspects of spirit appear. The meaning of God begins to appear to the children of men as the differentiated aspects of God appear through men, because God can have no true meaning to us except as He is revealed through the human form. And as long as you try to comprehend God without regard to the human form, as something above and beyond this realm in which we live and dwell, you will fail. You may develop some fixed concepts about an old man with a long beard sitting on a throne somewhere, but that is not a true comprehension of God; it is merely child's play. So you begin to see that you cannot in any true sense, no matter how you may delude yourself, you cannot comprehend God in reality except as He is made manifest through human beings. To try to comprehend the wholeness, or the allness, of God with the human mind is attempting the impossible. We must recognize that it is the differentiated aspects of God made manifest through human beings which permit us to begin to comprehend God in reality. And as the spirit of God can have no real meaning except as it manifests in its differentiated aspects, we begin to see the Secret of the Shekinah as the Secret of Focalization from heaven into the earth, and differentiation in relationship to the practical aspects of living.
The Shekinah is the point of Focus between heaven and earth, that which is of heaven brought to point for its manifestation on earth, and from that point expanding outward again into the patterns of life. At the point of its manifestation of its essence the variations, or the distinctions, the different qualities, cannot be readily recognized. We see it as a Fire. But here, in this portrayal that we are considering in the text, there is the beginning of the manifestation of the differentiations: that which is at the top, the head and the hairs white as snow, and then the eyes like a flame of fire, and the feet like unto fine brass, the garment down to the foot round about, the Cloud, and so on. So you begin to see the differentiations.
Now one of the interesting things that you should always remember, as you either meditate yourself upon the principles of reality or as you work with those who respond to you and receive of your ministry, is that those who begin to approach the throne of God always see, if they really do see anything, they always see some aspect of differentiation first, of the many aspects of differentiation in manifestation. Each person will tend to see one little aspect here or one little aspect there, and because he or she feels it to be something that is true and real in the divine expression, he or she will say, “Well now, I know God to be this. I know God to be that. To me God is something else,” and they are all dealing with limited perception of differentiated aspects humanly translated into human concepts. There you have the basis for all the many varied concepts and beliefs on the face of the earth. And they become distorted or remain true depending upon the capacity of the individuals involved to see clearly and translate correctly, and upon their honesty—because some there are who, being dishonest, think to translate on a basis which will let them have extra power over their fellows. So when you are working with others you will run up against the fact that they have some little concept humanly translated on the basis of an imperfectly perceived aspect of the differentiations of the central evidence of the presence of the One Who Dwells, and if you undertake to clarify the point for the individual, generally he or she will take the attitude that you are trying to deny God. No matter how you point it out, how you seek to lead, the moment you turn their attention away from that pet point, they will take the attitude that you are trying to make them deny what they think they know. So they have a basis of resentment and rebellion and every sort of thing.
If you remember this, you will understand all the foolishness that manifests with respect to human beings; and if they will remain honest and steady in the pattern, you can lead them finally, step by step, to a point where they can begin to see other differentiated aspects. They do not have the perceptive ability to see the Shekinah Fire yet. Do not try to get them to. How long did I talk to you before I ever mentioned it? It is not something that I just suddenly thought up or discovered or heard about, or something. I have known about this Fire all the way through. I use it all the time, every day; and in actual fact, every time I come before you, in a class or a service, I begin to work on the basis of developing that Cloud and letting you be in it to whatever degree your response will permit—you will be in the Cloud, the Cloud of Glory of the Shekinah. You may not see it, but you can reach a point where you can see it and it is wonderful. Sometimes it may become so dense, so thick or full, that it simply blocks out all vision of the people around you; you cannot see the far corner of the room. I have many times known it to be so thick that I could not even see my own hand that far from my eyes—the Cloud. And the Cloud you feel, you sense through feeling, to start with. Finally you begin to have the ability to see it, and to hear it; for there is a sound in it. But don't go trying now, because if you try to see it you will not; if you try to hear it you will not. You have to let it appear.
