There is a simple line in the familiar hymn All Things Bright and Beautiful which goes like this: “How great is God Almighty, who has made all things well.” How great is God Almighty. If that is a question it could hardly be answered. If it is just an emphasis on the fact of God's greatness then we may have some consciousness of the truth of this statement. We cannot really know God Almighty. We can know about Him, I suppose. But this term has reference to undimensional God, supreme God. It would be impossible to describe that in dimensional terms. Also, because we are properly present here in a dimensional world we may find no necessity to try to get out of it into some undimensional state in order that we might comprehend what is there present. There is undimensional God and there is also dimensional God. Dimensional God was described by using the word Jehovah.
We have before considered that highest spiritual substance of the most intense vibrational nature which merges into the undimensional state. This substance fills the whole of what we would refer to as the universe. There isn't any place, dimensionally speaking, where it isn't; this is the reason for the idea of the omnipresence of God. This substance is of such a vibrational nature that it is capable of accommodating the spirit of love. The spirit of love is not, obviously, separate from God; it has been said that God is love. So the essences of God in the dimensional world are the essences of love, the union between this highest vibrational substance and the spirit of love. Here is the substance that fills the whole of creation, the whole of the space where creation is. It is undifferentiated. In this sense we may say all is love. Here is the union between the spirit of love and this substance which is capable of being one with love, so that love may emerge into the dimensional universe. At that level there is only love substance filling and composing all that creation is to be.
In order for creation to take place this undifferentiated substance must be differentiated The essence of truth is present initially in the process of differentiation of the original love substance At all the vibratory levels of substance below this highest substance the essence of truth is present. It is by reason of the spirit of truth in union with the essential substance that the differentiation of the original substance of love may transpire. So there are the essences of love and the essences of truth. At every level below the essences of truth, are present the essences of life. Here is the holy trinity: love, truth and life in the dimensional world by reason of the substance with which these spirits may find union. These essences rightly pour forth through the substance which is present at lower levels, initially what might be referred to as heart substance. When the heart is pure there is an open door of connection between this holy trinity and the earth, what we think of as the manifest world, the world of form as we understand it. This pouring forth is spiritual expression in this world of form — mental form, physical form.
As we noted this morning, the largeness is at the highest levels. Here is the creative process by which something is coming into the world. It is being differentiated and consequently narrowed down, brought to focus, in that process of differentiation; and we ourselves have a responsibility for allowing this differentiation to take place at the level where we are. In order to gain perspective in this regard we may well return to those simple words: “How great is God Almighty,” who in this process of creation has made all things well. But there is a very specific way in which it happens, and properly we are a part of the happening. Otherwise within the range of human experience the true happening is absent, it is lacking, and there are voids consequently on every hand.
I am sure that most if not all of you have given some consideration to The Song Celestial—The Bhagavad-Gita, in the recognition that here is a portrayal in symbolic form of the truth as it relates to human experience. The principal characters were Arjuna and Krishna: Krishna, the God in human form; and Arjuna, who was aware of the God in human form. After a great deal of consideration of earthly things there came a point when Arjuna felt that it was most necessary that he should begin to see things as they really were. So he spoke to Krishna along these lines, and here is part of what he said:
O Thou Divinest One!
If this can be, if I may bear the sight,
Make Thyself visible, Lord of all prayer!
Show me Thy very Self, the Eternal God!
Krishna can be seen as providing a focus point in the dimensional world for these highest essences. I suppose from a different approach we might say here was the Christ, the Word made flesh, the essences brought to a particular point of focus. But these essences are not something all on their own. As we have already noted, this substance, this highest substance, is present throughout the whole universal creation, everywhere. If it is brought to focus at some point, that fact doesn't extract the essence from itself; it is still the essence but merely brought to focus; it is still the universal essence. Here is the Word that was with God in the beginning, the Word that is God — God dimensional. There could be no God dimensional if there wasn't first God undimensional, but you cannot separate the two; there's no line of demarcation. This universal substance at the highest vibratory level merges into the undimensional.
It is useless for us to try to examine the undimensional. Insofar as we are concerned it would be nothing. It isn't nothing; we discover that it isn't nothing by reason of dimensional God. So dimensional God relates to these essences at the highest vibrational level, the love essences, which in the creative process must be brought to focus, must be differentiated into the various levels dimensionally speaking. We have noted how this is achieved—not by reason of our experience particularly, but just looking at the picture—the emergence through the connecting substance of the pure heart into the world of creative action when we have a sense of the reality of dimensional God, the essences of love.
These essences of love are not only brought to focus on this little earth, rightly, but everywhere else in the universe in various ways. Arjuna was asking for an awareness within the scope of his own vision of what this would be, the essences brought to focus throughout the whole universe. I think one should be a little cautious about asking for any such thing. However, according to the story here, whether brash or simply trusting, Arjuna requested this, and I have read the words. And here is Krishna's reply:
Gaze, then, thou Son of Pritha!
I manifest for thee
Those hundred thousand thousand shapes
that clothe my Mystery:
I show thee all my semblances,
infinite, rich, divine,
My changeful hues, my countless forms.
See! in this face of mine,
Wonders unnumbered, Indian Prince!
revealed to none save thee.
Behold! this is the Universe! —
Look! what is live and dead
I gather all in one-in Me!
Gaze, as thy lips have said,
On God Eternal, Very God!
See Me! see what thou prayest!
Thou canst not! — nor, with human eyes,
Arjuna! ever mayest!
Therefore I give thee sense divine.
Have other eyes, new light!
And, look! This is My glory,
unveiled to mortal sight!
Then follows a description by the servant of what was seen. I do not propose to read this now; we may have opportunity sometime. But here was something so vast, so tremendous, so majestic, that Arjuna went into shock, as might be supposed. So here are some more words of Arjuna, not all of what he said:
Be merciful, and show
The visage that I know;
Let me regard Thee, as of yore, arrayed
With disc and forehead-gem
With mace and anadem,
Thou that sustainest all things! Undismayed
Let me once more behold
The form I loved of old,
Thou of the thousand arms and countless eyes!
This frightened heart is fain
To see restored again
My Charioteer, in Krishna's kind disguise.
I read this this evening, without going into all that was said with respect to the vision, so as nevertheless to emphasize the majesty, the greatness, the vastness, of dimensional God; and dimensional God is only an aspect of God. It has sometimes been felt by those who were associated with this ministry that it was a little thing; human beings tend to be impressed by numbers. But to the extent that the heart opens and yields and the creative processes of purification take place, there comes some sensing of the smallness of this external world in which we dwell; I suppose in one sense it could be said, the insignificance of it when seen in the light of the reality of dimensional God, dimensional God revealed by reason of this highest vibrational substance filling the whole universe. God is omnipresent in this sense, in the dimensional sense. The substance is here where we are.If it is anywhere and everywhere in the universe, it is here where we are.
As the windows of heaven are opened, or as a door is opened in heaven, as it was put somewhere, we don't go through into heaven; we become aware simply of what is already present with us. The wholeness of God is already present with us, brought to specific focus in the reality of the truth of our own being, so that this differentiated aspect may find expression in a fitting way according to the part which we are here to play. But what it is that enables us to play this part dwarfs into insignificance the circumstances, the environment, in which we play the part.The circumstance, even the earth itself, becomes scarcely discernible from the standpoint of true perspective, because whatever comes to focus of dimensional God in our own expression is not in any way separate or apart from the whole of dimensional God. It's not as though God had chopped off little segments from Himself and planted them here and there in human beings. This is the view perhaps that human beings have tended to have in their own experience of themselves, as being little chopped-off chunks, isolated from each other and from God. It's not the fact; it's a fancy. It's a fancy that immediately dissolves as the veil dissolves and what is true begins to emerge into experience.
If we see relative values here—I suppose you could also say relative size—then where's the problem about handling the affairs which are brought to us to be handled? And we may recognize again that these matters which do come to us do not come to us by chance; they are brought to us. It may be said that the true essences call to the material of this world to come home. As we give focus to these true essences, that's the call. We have a new outlook then with respect to what it is that comes to us, what it is that is present in our environment. It is brought to us, It is coming by reason of the call, the call of the essences to which we give focus. Here is the material answering the call.
You may say that some of the things that come to you are not particularly heavenly, they don't particularly appeal to you perhaps; but let us see these things in the true light. Here in fact is the material of this world coming again to associate itself with the true essences. The material of the world cannot actually help itself once the true essences are there. When we are giving focus to these true essences we see things in this way. We're not cringing as puny little human beings overwhelmed by their circumstances, trying to fend off the giants. We don't really see too many giants around anyway. I recall that when the spies came back from investigating the promised land, ten of them were very insistent that there were giants in the land. But two didn't give much emphasis to that.They didn't notice any giants around particularly, because those who have a right perspective couldn't possibly see any giants in this very small world for which we are responsible. In this sense nothing very much has been committed to our charge, certainly not when we begin to understand that of which we are simply a focus, a focus point of this vibrational substance in combination with the spirit of God, to which we have referred as essences, the true essences.
When the true essences are here, when we are providing the focus for them and giving expression to what pours out because of those essences, then something is going to happen in our world and there will be what comes to us in consequence. We don't have to question what it is that comes to us. We certainly know why it's coming to us. It is coming to us in response to the essences to which we give focus. And it is going to sort itself out: the material that belongs will come closer and stay; the material that doesn't belong will be set on one side. Maybe some of it has to wait awhile before it is capable of coming any closer; maybe some of it belongs somewhere else, at some other level where the changes are occurring; but we don't have to judge in the matter. We let it come to us. We're going to find out, on the basis of maintaining the focus of these essences in our living, what it is that belongs with us, what it is that is on hold, so to speak, and what it is that needs to move out. It will do it automatically. It comes to us all mixed up together. It's not as though we're going to swallow the whole mass, but we let it come to us, that coming closer into the fire of these essences to which we give focus it may have the opportunity of being sorted out-and this is what will happen. We will discover that we have things to do, we have things to say, we have things to think, and there are times when it is altogether the right thing to keep quiet! But we are responsible for this sorting-out process and we can only handle it when we have a true perspective; otherwise we'll be afraid of everything that's coming to us. But if we have the true perspective and we have a sensing of the immensity of the essences which we represent, where's the problem? The whole perspective changes, and it doesn't matter what comes to us, it's a little thing. It can be handled with ease provided that we maintain the true focus. If we let that slip then there could be problems, couldn't there?
Where we see problems there is the urge to manipulate, and wherever you manipulate you create more problems. Someone had a computer in which they programmed the required information concerning a large city—all large cities have problems, you know, immense problems—and it was discovered by reason of what came out of this computer that no matter what anyone did, with the best of intentions, it would make the situation worse. That's the fact of the matter. No matter how you manipulate, with the very best of intentions, it makes matters worse. It may not seem to make matters worse in the immediate little bailiwick where you're manipulating; you may get things, temporarily at least, into shape; but how do you know what the repercussions are beyond and beyond and beyond? Difficulties will multiply, and of course eventually the chickens come home to roost. If by reason of your action something goes out, it's going to come back somewhere along the line and, depending upon what it is of course, you may find that it clobbers you. Then you say, probably, “Poor me!I'm being so badly treated; it's so unfair.” Not at all. The Law works. We may not be able to connect the particular clobber that hits us with the cause of it back along the way somewhere, and it's always easy to find someone who is handy to blame for it when the clobber occurs. But that is foolishness.
So we hold the focus of these essences in the space that we have provided where it is kept holy, and we need to be willing, indeed anxious, we might say, to let that space expand so that more can be accepted into it, both from the standpoint of essences and from the standpoint of what is coming to us by reason of the action of those essences; for when the essences are present they are calling to the lower vibratory levels of substance to take form according to the design that is provided, and the material starts to wake up and come home. As I say, coming home it comes home in a mixture. Consequently as it approaches closer the sorting-out process will transpire. It may be that a person sees something approaching and, if he has lost his perspective a bit, it looks pretty big. It's coming closer; he wants to hold it off. No, don't hold it off. Let it come closer, because as it comes closer the things that don't belong will begin to drop off, and by the time it gets to you it probably will be quite small. Well in the true perspective it was quite small at the beginning. It becomes almost infinitesimal by the time it gets to you!
But here we begin to see the association that we have at the crossover point, with the true essences on the one hand and the material of the world for which we are responsible on the other. We are responsible for letting the essences cross over into expression in our living and we are responsible for letting what is coming back be drawn to us. It's being drawn by these essences, that what is drawn to us may give form to these essences. The essences will be taking their true form in this fashion. Well in order to take their true form there's a lot of stuff that needs to drop off that doesn't belong, and it will do so if we hold it steady. I suppose one of the most obvious evidences of what happens when something is held steady was what occurred in the experience of Jesus long ago. He held absolutely steady, no matter what it was that was coming to Him. And it came right up to Him. But there was no wavering. There was no denial of the essences for which He was responsible at any point along the way, and what didn't belong fell away. And what did belong was there when He came forth from the tomb. Here is the evidence of the opening of a door on this earth through which anyone might come and let these principles in action be experienced in living. We share this understanding in whatever measure our hearts are pure, so that we may participate in the process, very keenly aware always of the quality, the nature, the character, of dimensional God, Lov —the vastness of that, the infinite power of that—so that we may be in position smoothly to handle whatever presents itself before us.
Obviously there is still some tendency to manipulate. We've been accustomed to this, to imposing something externally on things to try to make them work better. So we find ourselves in a transition experience, but increasingly, as the veil dissolves, we may be aware of the reality which comes to focus in our own expression, these essences which are primarily of love, then of truth and of life. And being aware of this, there are no giants in the land. What needs to be handled in our worlds may be handled from inside, not from outside. It becomes an organic process. We do not have to beat people over the head to try to make them behave. We do not need to carry placards around protesting against this and that. We just share in the process that works. None of those other things work. They're all attempts to manipulate and they make the situation worse than it was before.
So we participate in the easy way because we have accepted the easy yoke, the yoke of the true essences in our living. As we allow these essences to be the essential quality of our living we become quite familiar with them and we find ourselves in position to work easily with essences in an awareness of those essences and of what is happening by reason of those essences.What was it that the spirit of truth would do? Amongst other things, He would show you things to come. You know exactly what is to come when you are working with the essences that cause it to come. Your eyes are no longer fastened on the forms, fussing about the forms, worrying about the forms, trying to manipulate the forms, change the forms to make the world a better place for forms. You let the world alone in that sense; you leave the forms alone. You just let the material come to you, the material that composes these forms—you're not interested in the forms; the material is coming to you that composes these forms—and that material will be released from the forms which it had previously occupied, in order to give form to what is emerging by reason of the essences to which you give focus.
Here is the creative process. Obviously there needs to be, what shall we say, a little practice; it needs to be done. But one needs to be able to see what it is that's happening and how it is done, so that we may work intelligently in this field. Intelligence, we find, is part of the outpouring of those essences; we don't stay stupid!We begin to understand and to play our part in allowing the glory of God to be revealed on earth by reason of the forms which appear because of the essences that are present. How great is God Almighty, who does make all things well!
