Focalizations of Light

Focalizations  of  Light

from  Emissary Concepts or Heavenly Experience

Alan Hammond   September 21, 1989   World Service Class  Sunrise Ranch

There are a couple of services out of which some thoughts have arisen. I will read a paragraph from this one of Martin's (May 3, 1987), entitled In the Beginning Is the Word.

“In the beginning is the Word. In the beginning is the creative process, here, right now. It's moving. It has been moving, apparently, for a long time, here and everywhere else throughout the whole universe. And who knows what that universe is. By accumulating knowledge, digging it up from the bottomless pit, people begin to imagine that they know something about the universe. They then can develop theories about it. We need more knowledge about this, about that, so we can have a better theory about it. One of the theories we know with respect to the universe, was that in the beginning, Big Bang! The universe had to start somewhere, according to the theory. But what if it never started, it just is. The human mind is very limited in its ability to encompass anything that has much meaning. It fills itself up with knowledge, assuming that knowledge will replace the creative process. ‘Now I have the knowledge. I can be as God. I don't need the creative process.’ It should be quite evident to even the meanest intelligence that it doesn't work.”

Well we know from our own experience that human education loves knowledge and loves theoretical knowledge. Our own formal education was the same, and in many ways, Emissary education has been the same. I mean you sit here for hours listening to tapes, and so on. I think there is something to address there about Emissary theoretical education, because after a year or so, most Emissaries, I think, think they know a tremendous amount. But if you examine many Emissaries experience of life it is evident that they don't really know, they are not one with the theories that they've been told.

There is no real substitute for movement in the creative process. This passage I read said, “In the beginning is the Word.” Well in Emissary education, usually it's the words that come first. Lots of them. So one has to be a little realistic and honest I think. Otherwise we shall miss the whole point of life itself if we glaze over and have these theories—wonderful theories coming in and passing out—and yet the experience of life is not heavenly. It is something else. If that is our experience, non-heavenly, then (I'm saying it kindly because it is meant kindly) one is glazed over at certain levels of one's consciousness and is not really letting spirit generate the fine substance through which the true design of being would emerge and thereby bring the true experience of life which is fundamentally ecstatic.

I will mention a couple of very simple examples of Emissary theories which are not really the actual experience of people. Take this matter of light and darkness. In a booklet, Uranda talks about the lunatic who tried to empty darkness out of the room with a bucket. All he had to do was turn on the light! Well now, you see Emissaries struggling around in the dark, thrashing around with their psychological problems, and all they've got to do really is shine the light. To really get serious about it! The answer is this quality of spiritual expression. There are things to look at about the past, but I am talking about people who spend days with their bucket trying to empty out this darkness. The expression of the true spirit of life eliminates this human darkness. There was a theory. But when opportunity comes for misery, lots don't turn on the light. Another example is focalization. Now here's a theory that I'm sure we've all heard. Uranda pointed out that the human state on earth cannot find alignment with the Lord, the focus for this planet, by looking inside. Because inside is so mixed up and messed up that all they get are off-color, distorted impulses which, if acted out, create the hell which is present. What has been required in the recreative process for the body of mankind is the manifestation at the physical, mental, spiritual expression levels of that Tone present. This makes it much easier for human consciousness to relate because it is at those levels, primarily the physical and the mental, that the human consciousness is currently focused. And Uranda and Martin, I think we would all acknowledge, provided that manifestation. And we began to find attunement with the Tone of life, the nature of it, the character of it. We have a challenge in the Body now because those giants aren't present. They were older than everybody else to start with, which is always an advantage to the youngsters coming along. Now I'm serious; there's quite an advantage there. Now you have leadership which is more or less peer. I am going to leave you with this thought though, that without the wise use of the principle of focalization, we may as well pack up. There is a lot to explore in this, actually.

But getting back to the matter of discipline. As individuals, unless we have availed ourselves or are availing ourselves of alignment (either we did or we do align ourselves) with someone who represented the Tone, and we accepted discipline, guidance, even instruction from that person, we will never actually find attunement with the Tone. And therefore we never come into union with it. So, if you look around the Emissary ministry, I think you'll find that the serious application of that principle is quite thin, actually. I don't think you can push many people when it comes to their personal lives. So what state the body of mankind is in might be judged by this. Uranda pointed out that within the body of mankind, it is virtually impossible for people to find union with the invisible point of focus. And I ask the question “How many are willing to find alignment with visible points of focus, even though it's provided to some extent?” Well, I just leave you to look around and cogitate on that. You see, if there isn't this alignment with the Tone made manifest, then that will inevitably limit the experience of the people.

I am saying this to you because not only does this apply to you upward in the design, but it will apply to people who are going to relate more and more to you for leadership. So this is a comprehensive sphere of consideration here. If people do not actually allow themselves to be disciplined, guided at some stage of their development by someone external so that their own capacities of mind and heart become disciplined by spirit right there with them, they won't find alignment with the Tone. Therefore this will limit their quality of life experience. They will keep on being miserable because they haven't actually allowed their hearts and minds to become subject to spirit external to themselves, and then eventually of course from their own identity. And if the quality of life is limited in certain areas of life, it is going to be limited overall, obviously, since one's whole creative field is one. But then if it is limited and the person has not allowed the creative process to clarify in certain fields, attitudes towards certain people, situations, areas of living—if they haven't allowed the creative process, true spirit, to recondition consciousness, heart, mind, relative to these fields and situations, they're going to be limited in their experience, and therefore more theory is not going to do any good. And that's the danger in a way with the Emissary program. Because the theory runs way ahead of what people have actually allowed to be accomplished in the creative process. Theorizing very far beyond experience of people is dangerous. So you can weigh that in your ministry dealing with people. We're dealing with people. I suppose there are a number of examples we could explore a little to see where we are in the process.

The theory is that the spirit, the Tone, should guide our lives. It is love of quality of character, love of the Lord, we say, and it is called the Lord because that is what should govern—the truth of love. And after the truth of love it would be the purposes being accomplished by the truth of love. We love those. We love the larger body, we say, because we know that spirit is creating a collective body and that body is achieving, working at certain things in the world and we wish our lives, theoretically, to be integrated with the spirit of that body and therefore with the purposes of that body. Our lives are given to that. We love that above all. Now, is it above all? Or do we love our husband more? Or our wives? Or our children? (getting a bit tougher!) Our jobs? Our career? Our mother? In this service, Martin raises the question, and I think it's a good question, because whatever we love controls us. Now if our mother, our parents or our child can cause us to express anything other than the true spirit, for example, then that's our God—an external. And of course we're controlled by externals and we will very quickly find ourselves in hell. That's another principle. If we're controlled by externals, loving externals rather than the expression of what we know to be the finest, the highest that we're aware of, then we create our own hell. Theoretically we know this. A lot of emissaries theoretically know it, but what's the good of theoretically knowing it if we if we tramp our way to death having only experienced purgatory! What's the point? So there's a little something to be brought to focus in our consciousness, otherwise we just spend our whole lives spouting theories, sitting getting bored service after service hearing the same thing. “You're divine. Express divinity.” What isn't emphasized is, if you are expressing divinity you are in heaven! That brings a bit more pressure on then, which is what is needed. The reality of you doesn't need any pressure, we realize that, but there are certain aspects of consciousness within human beings that do need some pressure. Otherwise they'll just sit there, thinking they're good, but they're still in hell and not doing much about it except whining.

Another theory that we hear a lot about is generating fine substance. What for? Well, generating fine substance is a very vital part of the recreative process which will allow the human consciousness to ascend. Maybe we'll deal with this a little later. But it is important to generate fine substance. Basically we know that fine substance is generated in any and every moment. We are either generating fine substance or we're dissipating substance. You can't just take a breather when you're not thinking about it—“I'm holding steady”—now, one is either generating fine substance or dissipating it. It is an organic, creative process, you see. It is going on every second. And fundamentally, as you know, it is the expression of the true creative spirit in the moment which generates substance, and it is the expression of anything else which dissipates it. With the generation of fine substance, that allows the level of the design of the human being in the external sense to take greater detailed form in the invisible levels of substance, and therefore have a more complete experience of being in human form. If there's only coarse substance, then you have a very incomplete experience of being, which is darkness. It is incomplete and distorted in various ways. So we know very easily how to generate fine substance and then everything else is automatic.

But there are concepts about this generation of fine substance. The sacred person is gentle, obviously. He’s usually got a benign smile on his face—that is a sure sign of peace. There is a conceptual, a theoretical view of how people would behave in heaven. They'd be smiling, they'd be gentle, they'd be eternally so-called patient. You can see what a twit someone is who is perpetually patient in the traditional way! Of what use is someone if they will never galvanize anything in their environment because they're so patient and sweet! Now, it has a time and place. There is a time and place, I'm sure to be sweet and patient. A lot of the so-called divine qualities of virtue are actually reflections of incomplete consciousness imagining about the divine. And patience is a darn good example. There are a lot of these theoretical divine virtues. Our theoretical training has given us some thoughts about behavior, conceptual ideas about behavior—physical, mental, emotional, physical. There are mental concepts. Concepts are very sacred to human beings because of the level of substance they have. You see, identity resides in the highest level of substance available to the individual. Most people are identified either at the physical level, just coarse substance, or quite a number have enough mental substance and their identity is in the mental level of substance. So the conceptual world is the highest and that is very important to them. Concepts have to be rigid. You get all the cosmology arranged and concepts must never conflict or contradict each other. This would be very inconsistent. That's not what the Third Sacred School is all about.

The Third Sacred School is related to spiritual expression plane approach. That means it is quality of spirit—it is vibrational Tone that should govern. Then, as that current moves, the appropriate thought is produced in the moment for the task at hand in the moment. This is all at sea for most people. They want their concepts where they can find them all aligned and all facing the same way! Different situations require different mind sets to accomplish what spirit wishes to accomplish. Only spirit knows. Spiritual expression will always do it right but the concepts are very ephemeral. Spirit is the more constant. The concept of emotional behavior is that Emissaries, certainly an angel, would always express kindly spirit. Well that is true, but the appearance of spirit through the emotions—what about anger? Would an Emissary ever express anger? Well, we say yes. Would they ever express grief? I think there are occasions when certain currents move through a person and, if it is in the government of spirit, there is no emotion which on occasion it might not be the creative thing to express. But it is governed by spirit! The emotion isn't in control, it is spiritual expression that is in control. There is always a destructive form of every emotion and there is a creative form of every emotion. Only the presence of true Being will express the creative factor, but they have the full range to work with.

I want to emphasize the matter we were touching on earlier of generation of fine substance. As we generate fine substance, you can be sitting in your armchair developing fine substance, because thinking is an action, and the quality of thinking will generate or dissipate substance. So we can sit in our chair and think about anything, and if we think about anything in a creative current, we will generate finer substance. As we do anything in the current of the finest spirit we can express, finer substance is generated. Identity, the sense of self, ascends. I am very sure that all our sense of self is a different sense of self than it was a couple of years ago. There is a greater sense of I Am—beautiful, honorable. That is because finer substance has been generated, identity has ascended in quality of substance. As we continue this recreative process it comes to what is called the crossover point. That point is where fundamentally the undimensional levels of being meet the dimensional levels of being. And we begin increasingly to know that I Am a quality.

The undimensional levels of being, those levels out of time and space (just using concept to describe something here), the human consciousness is aware of those levels through qualities of character, qualities of spirit. And those qualities of character are known to be eternal; they are out of time and space. You can read history books and you can read about dusty forms that lived a thousand years ago and they discuss qualities of character. The same qualities of character that we know now. The qualities of character, the qualities of spirit, the animating force animating those dusty forms back there, the same spirit of nobility, for example was back there. They're here now through these dusty forms here—the recent arrivals! But the qualities of spirit aren't recently arrived. They were there. Ascension in the fine substance. It is only by the generation of fine substance that this process will transpire. Otherwise we stay down in the coarser levels and it will be a muddled experience. Light and dark. Only moving through the true recreative process, generation of fine substance, can we come into a conscious experience of the undimensional levels of being. That qualitative realm pervades the dimensional levels of substance: spiritual expression, emotion, mind, body, our world. That is the stable quality of character, quality of spirit, quality of identity which begins to be the stable presence. All the other is just dust moving around. Even at the mental level it is just thought forms flitting in and out. The generation of fine substance is what I want to emphasize here because then we begin to know what Jesus was talking about when he said, in so many words, “The kingdom of heaven is within. The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” In other words, in true identity you are already in heaven.

The real thing is this, you know. If you can get people to even assume that Jesus knew what he was talking about, or Uranda, just assume that they may have known something, which is that we are already in heaven. If one assumes that, no matter what one's external situation is, “This is heaven.” The problem is that the conscious mind is mistranslating input. There is a mistranslation of what is going on. In the dark, the human consciousness doesn't see what's going on. Jesus said, “You are in heaven.” For oneself, one just has to take a moment and say, “Well, OK, I'm in heaven.” Now there is the situation here which is difficult, but being in heaven you'll find that you just express creative spirit towards that situation. It is nothing, actually. You are in heaven and everything is working out perfectly. If you live as if you are in heaven, believe me you generate fine substance fast! You find you are really there. This is the goose out of the bottle business. How can we get this goose out of the bottle? How can I get into heaven? Oh, my God, there are all these problems. How can I solve all these problems, get the goose out of this bottle?

You are in heaven. Live as if you are in heaven and you will express the creative spirit and generate fine substance so fast that it won't take long before you are, in fact, at the crossover point connected with eternal quality of being and seeing that all this process out here is just so much shadow, actually. It is all stuff moving along the lines of force emerging out of Eternal Being. And it will be delightful. Even if it is incomplete here and there it is still delightful because there is a chance to express something into it. It is all delightful whether you have ecstatic forms, complete, or whether they are incomplete, partial. It doesn't matter to the angel. It doesn't matter to Eternal Being. So the answer to all people's problems is really, it is the exact same thing that Zen tries to do. Suddenly, the person awakens. “Hey, this is tremendous! Life is absolutely perfect!” That is the Zen awakening to heaven and what Jesus endeavored to do. Now the Zen awakening won't last, by the way, unless they've generated fine substance. There are no shortcuts. You can have ecstatic days, but to have an ecstatic rest of your life is really what we need. Not for one's own benefit, but because we are part of the whole.

“I am in heaven” is the true starting point. If someone's got any other premise, whatever they do won't be quite right. It is a false premise. If you begin to start with the true premise, “I am an expression of the creative spirit, and I am in heaven already.” You are in heaven, the highest heaven. You begin to bring that highest heaven, eternal joy, eternal being, down into these levels of substance. That is why we're here, to convey it through this instrument into this level of recreative process. That brings us from a consideration of the Third Sacred School, which really is what Uranda established and what has been in process this last 57 years, to the Fourth Sacred School. There is a recreative process underway, a vibrational process underway, and we don't stop off. Uranda initiated the recreative process consciously on earth within the body of mankind at the level of the Third Sacred School, the spiritual expression plane approach. It doesn't end there. That is just part of the recreative process. It should come on up.

Remember, the spiritual expression plane approach is in the dimensional levels of being. There are three levels of being, just conceptually, three levels in the outer triune world, and three planes of being in the internal, undimensional triune world. And there is the quality of Love, that plane, which pervades all six other planes of being. When we speak about physical, mental and spiritual expression plane, those are the three outer levels of substance and being. But as we generate this fine substance we come to the crossover point and we begin to move into identity in the undimensional levels of being. It is present also now in the outer levels of being. This is my body, this is my mind, this is my spiritual expression. But the sense of identity moves into the undimensional levels of being and into Eternal Being, not involved with time and space as far as identity goes. You act in time and space but that is merely a description of levels of substance in which you are working.

That is the emergence into human consciousness of the Fourth Sacred School, where identity and activity is in the undimensional levels of being—the fourth level. In Genesis, there is some useful reference to this. On the fourth creative day we read this: “And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night.” That's interesting right off the bat! "Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven (in the invisible levels of being) to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: (working down into the dimensional levels of being, time, space, seasons, days, years): and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.” In the course of the Third Sacred School, but certainly in the Fourth, the lights begin to appear in the heaven on earth. They are visible on earth, these lights in heaven—these focalizations of eternal being. They appear in the heaven on earth. And they are to rule over the day, the greater light. Ruling over the day and the night is the recreative cycle and there are focalizations of light which appear. Now, there is something interesting about this because in the Fourth Sacred School the identity, obviously, as it begins to move into quality of spirit, “I Am this eternal spirit just manifesting now through this form, here and now,” there is an awareness of being identified in what we call the light. It is a certain word we use to describe a radiance of a presence of beauty, power, and so on.

We talk about the fact that there is one spirit and one light. This is a fairly common idea or theory in human consciousness. We begin to see the light coming through many people. Basically everybody has got a little bit of light shining through now and then. We begin to know that I Am One—this same power that is animating this dust is animating all the dust everywhere. We begin to know that, not just intellectually, but just know we're one with the one power that is doing everything. That is a Fourth Sacred School awareness because identity is moved to that which is back of all dimensional experience. This begins to take away all effort. There is no effort required. What would you be trying to do? It is already being done. Everything that needs to be done, is being done everywhere! That is quite a relaxation for the mind and heart. It is perfect! It is all absolutely perfect exactly the way it is.

You know, spiritual groups and gurus often are after more power. “If we're holy, if we really do this, then we'll get more powerful.” That's the idea. That is a fat ego at work! Don't be deceived. Anybody that is trying to drum up more power to do God's will (of course) doesn't know who they are. The one power is already doing everything everywhere. What do you need more power localized for? What do you want to do with it? Change the weather? Isn't the weather under control? You may say “No”, but it is actually. Considering the state of human beings, the weather is perfect. The way human beings are, do you think pollution is out of control? No! Human beings will be meticulously reduced in size when the whole doesn't feel it is fitting for there to be as many as there are now. There's no problem anywhere. Whether they're eliminated by an explosion, a shortage of food, there's a thousand ways for the cosmos to solve these little problems. It is no problem at all, actually. It is all in the creative process, and it's fun once one is identified where one needs to be identified. We don't need any more power. All power is already here and we are part of that. I don't have to think about changing the Chinese or the Indians or the climate or the earth's wobble on its axis. Those are all factors which no doubt will change in the course of eternity. It is the same with the details of our lives as well. It is all working completely, utterly perfectly. It doesn't matter to us what the details are, at all. This is the ecstatic state.

When there are present on earth human beings who are experiencing the Fourth Sacred School, and living and acting out of that, regardless of concepts about what to do, what to say, how to say it, how to do it—all that sort of stuff!—simply being present, then the ecstatic, true state of being is returned to this level. That is then an ingredient in the overall creative process. We don't have to decide mentally then what we should do. Our minds will know what to do moment-by-moment, no problem there either! What life should I live for fulfilment? I was walking up the other day from the Pavilion to my house and it came very vividly then. “I've done this a few times,” I thought. "I could be in New York, London. I'd like that. Or I could be in a cottage on the coast. I'd like doing that." And I knew it was just the way it emerged in thinking. I realized that in Being, it doesn't matter where one is, the quality of the ecstatic state is present not only where I am but everywhere. It doesn't matter the form of my little life. A little life walking around Sunrise Ranch, or being in Norway. They're all exciting places. They've all got their unique little beauties, challenges. They're all interesting, wherever they are. You could say, “But I can't be everywhere.” But actually, I Am everywhere! I could be anywhere. When I arrive there, it would be Being, and it would be delightful. But I am here. You can live a little life, in a little tiny circuit, but it is, as Uranda said, as wide as the cosmos itself. There are a million lives we could have lived. There are million lives we could live if needed. But it doesn't matter to us. We are happy where we are, wherever that is. It is ecstatic wherever we are.

What interesting people should we meet? Where should we go to meet some interesting people? Who are these interesting people? I don't meet them very often. Now does that sound awful? “Oh, there are these people shining the light. They're interesting. Let's rush out and find some people who are shining the light. That would be interesting.” Well it would be, if they were. But actually, I don't have any inclination to go anywhere to meet interesting people. I tried that and it didn't work. They are not very interesting. So-called interesting people, I have found, are boring usually. They are so clever with their paintbrush or with their piano. Who are these interesting people that are so wonderful? How long can you listen to someone play a piano? Where are the people involved in great causes, some important people like government officials, perhaps, negotiating with the Arabs or something. Would they be interesting, do you think? Not after you are with them for five minutes usually. We've met a few. What great cause? Bringing peace to the Middle East. Would that be a wonderful accomplishment? Let them try. Totally futile without knowing what we've been talking about. It doesn't matter what they do. It doesn't matter what great area of accomplishment any person is in. It is peanuts compared with what we are consciously about. It's nothing! It's boring! Futile, actually. Where are the interesting people? The answer is, it better be the ones you are with, since that, in the cosmic scheme of things is where you are. And they are interesting for that reason, actually. But to think there is anyone very interesting somewhere else, forget it! And to imagine that there is any greater cause, or challenge, or accomplishment available to anybody other than what we're about, forget it. It is not only child's play, it is unreal, even though everybody is included in the divine design and the divine processes. We're not excluding the angels.

Every angel that is incarnate is part of the process. We're not disparaging any reality coming through anybody who is anywhere doing anything. It is just a question of bringing to focus at the conscious level in the body of mankind where the real focus of creative activity is. And it is, as it says in here, “The light of conscious awareness appearing again upon the surface of the earth. In heaven, on earth.” That's what we're about. There are others elsewhere, good. But the light is not just an undifferentiated light. It is not just that I am a part of the light and the light is appearing everywhere. In the finer substance, the finer the substance, when we ascend to this point we begin to find that the light is very individual-izedly focused. It is not just a general light in the undimensional levels of being. It is not just a blinding light! It is focalizations of light in heaven. The Eastern religions particularly tend to talk about the light as if it was just a blinding light behind the forms. Just a light. But it isn't that. It is individualized identities which are differentiations of the light. They are unique lights. And when we meet people, they're not just a bland bit of the light. With finer substance we begin to discern the Eternal Reality of Focalizations of Light with which we begin to function in the heaven, together. The times and the seasons of the creative process occurring in these lower dimensional levels of time and space. That is why we're here.

We haven't experienced everything yet. It is not adequate to sit in our Emissary groups and hear what we think are the same concepts flowing over our benighted brains week after week. If we will consciously move with the recreative process in the moment, moment by moment, we will generate finer substance and that begins to open up new dimensions of the sense of identity and function which are not spoken about in classes. There are things which are experienced which aren't spoken about in classes. Why? I've said why. Because it gets confusing. But it is present. The system, the process, is foolproof. Only as the creative process itself generates the fine substance, does the appropriate development allow for appropriate function. It's perfect! Even though we all may remain benighted, relatively speaking, which we all will probably, it doesn't matter. Whatever our level of consciousness is fine as long as we're doing our very best. The angels are doing their very best. That is our place of ministry. What I wanted to emphasize is, there are greater adventures in every aspect of living available now. In fact we have responsibility to let the greater light appear.

© Emissaries of Divine Light