excerpts from
Delicate Mission
A Journey Home
Conrad O'Brien-ffrench
It was early summer [1939]. The country grew wilder and yet more beautiful. I drove through a thickly wooded and rolling land which was, nevertheless, well provided with open grassy tracts called, locally, “parkland”. The road climbed to about 4000 feet and as it dropped toward 100 Mile House a panorama of distant hills covered with snow opened up towards the north. On reaching the floor of the valley where the road crossed a stream I found a lodge, a barn and some corrals. Tired and hungry, I wondered what sort of a welcome I would receive. Close to where I stopped I could see a muskrat swimming in the stream and not far from him a cinnamon duck rested on the bank. For a while there was no other sign of life. I watched a kingbird making sallies from a fence post.
Then an opening screen door arrested my attention and I saw Lord Martin Cecil coming out to meet me. What seemed to be an unimportant encounter was to prove the crucial step into a period of my life which brought to light new and greater purpose in living. Martin stood before me; in his regard was depth of sincerity, perhaps a little shy, for he was neither cold nor effusive, neither was he talkative nor taciturn, gushing nor indifferent, but there was a quality which touched me immediately, something mysterious. At first I was a little on my guard, but instinctively I knew that he had stimulated a responsive chord in me. Had I evaluated him socially as a Cecil, of noble parentage, I would have lost him wholly. As a rancher, too, he was well thought of throughout the West, yet ranching pure and simple gave me no focus on this man. An Englishman, a gentleman, a rancher? These were useless measures which did not scan nor fit his true proportions, although he answered to those descriptions. But none of these did him justice.
He gave me a sincere handshake and the friendliest of smiles which evaporated any doubts I might have had about my welcome, and introduced me to his wife. Thus, in a few moments, was a new beginning made. Some Austrians, who were old friends of my family, now turned up, having travelled north from Vancouver by car to investigate the purchase of some property in the Cariboo-Chillicotin country. Their estates in Austria were on territory occupied by the Nazis so they had abandoned them to seek a new life in Canada. We met in the Lodge which had been built by Martin with some local help. It consisted of an entrance and lounge with kitchen and dining room behind it and a number of bedrooms upstairs for guests. On either side of the lounge were other apartments used privately by the Cecils. When later Martin reappeared it was to invite me to join them for dinner. This, our second meeting, confirmed my first impression of a quality in him which was greater than his inherited state, a positive authority emanating from some intense inner source. I was at a loss to encompass something for the first time in my life. It was not what he said or did, for outwardly he was quiet and unassuming. I judged Martin and his wife Edith to be in their late twenties.
After breakfast the next morning, as I sat with the Austrians, we were joined by our host who suggested a drive to show us the surrounding country. It proved to be as beautiful as could be hoped for; flatter than that of Douglas Lake and yet varied with surprising physical features—creeks, lakes, hills, ravines, open grassland, dense forest, all mingled in harmony. From the top of a rise we saw Lac la Hache in the distance, lying in a beautiful vale of mixed scenery. Some ponies, having been brought in from grass for our benefit, were offered to us as mounts and I was asked to act as guide. On the whole the ride went off pretty well, my horse making only one attempt to buck which I frustrated by tying his halter shank to the horn of the saddle. Clouds gathered and thunder rolled and we decided to return and, as is usually the case when heading towards home, the horses became more amenable. Next morning the Austrians continued on their journey to the north while I decided to stay on and, asking for sandwiches, took a trip to Lord Egerton’s ranch at 105 Mile where a deserted house stood two miles back from the read. I passed groves of poplars, their silvery stems contrasting with the deep blue of the lakes. On the lakes were wild duck of many varieties. Plover flew around me menacingly as I walked along the fringe of the lake. I sat on the verandah rail and gazed across the lake. A snipe was drumming, a fleeting speck amid the clouds. Somewhere below him, among the reeds, his mate sat on her nest completing her small creative cycle.
The next day I was invited by Martin, Romayne his sister and her friend Dianne, to accompany them on a ride through magnificent country to Buffalo Lake. It was wild land, inhabited by bear, moose and deer. Being overtaken by a sudden violent thunderstorm we rode under a large Douglas fir to keep dry, but the lightning played around too closely and it seemed increasingly dangerous. Soon the sun shone again, casting a rainbow broad and low across the murky sky and illuminating the bright green foliage and silver stems of the poplars. We were all very wet but had enjoyed it immensely, especially the thrill of emerging from a forest to find ourselves in a beautifully open space fringed by aspen, a lake or a creek. Such surprises await one at every turn in that district, still permeated deeply with the pioneering spirit and an exquisite living vitality. I took my leave of Martin reluctantly and, a few days later back at the coast, sat in the home of my friends at Maple Bay. On the radio King George VI and Queen Elizabeth were making their parting speeches before leaving Canadian shores.
Martin came to visit me and as we sat one morning among the daffodils on the bank watching the ebb and flow of the sea, together we discussed such matters which we called the “things of reality”. He had brought with him some papers written by one called Uranda. Uranda, he told me, represented the spirit of truth. My immediate reaction was “And so do thousands of other self-appointed prophets, especially in the western United States.” They all claim to expound the truth. “But,” added Martin, “this man is different. He manifests it in his living.” Martin then changed the subject, “Are you going to get involved in this war?”
“Yes, they don’t need me here. Besides I like the idea of helping in the war effort. I suppose it is just an idea of mine, probably wishful thinking. But Britain is really up against it this time.” I sincerely believed in the right of the British cause, mostly because it was British and when I had served England as a soldier or later in British Intelligence I had done so in all good faith. But now, having resigned, things were not quite the same and I could see Britain’s cause objectively and how it had frequently followed policies of self-aggrandisement rather than self-defence, and all too often moral issues had been secondary; and here my Irish heritage asserted itself. Insofar as justice is concerned, if indeed it existed at all in the world of man, I, as a soldier or as a secret agent, merely acted upon an idea that the Allied cause was just and I was therefore prepared to risk my life and the lives of others in that belief. I enjoyed excitement and, above all, the idea that in this romanticized game I was frustrating the international policies of a maniac.
Martin listened to me gravely. He threw a pebble into the amethyst depth of the bay. It landed with a plonk in a pool just below us. Finally he said: “Right and wrong, according to Uranda, are degrees of judgement on a human scale. In the state of order or perfection there is neither good nor evil.”
“Who then does he say is responsible for the state of order?” Martin was silent. He threw another pebble into the water. It caused a bigger splash this time from which concentric rings spread outwards. “There is always a cause to all effects, you know.”
“As for causes, what is good and what is bad?” I questioned. “In the First World War each side was asking God to bless their arms for them against the other. The only thing that is real is that which is part of the state of order and the state of order is the nature of that which functions in and controls the universe, including man. Beyond that I can see no truth in anything.” “I understand.” I said. Martin fixed his eyes on me steadily as if to say, “That’s right, but do you really know that?”
“I feel it, I feel that it is right,” and as I said it I felt we were sharing something so basic that it would be a bond between us forever. Then I thought to myself regarding Uranda: Why should there not be on earth such a clear expression of truth? It would not be the first time nor, I felt, the last. Martin had apparently been awaiting such a revelation for a long while. He hungered and thirsted for the truth unlike anyone I had ever seen before and although he had not yet seen the whole of it, he felt he had here touched the central evidence of it in the writings of a living human being. Suddenly I caught a glimpse of a new dimension which put nationalisms and human family quite out of focus. And from then in my heart I became a citizen of the world more than a citizen of a single country or federation of states. And even as I did so I got a vague idea that this was but a step towards becoming a harmonious part of a universal order.
The best piece of news, as far as I was concerned, was that Uranda was coming to Vancouver and would speak there, Martin and I attending. It was our first meeting with him. Uranda’s talk took place in Vancouver on 15 April 1940, and my first impression of him was as a truly remarkable and compelling man. Exercising a genius for analogy, he approached the subject of the human condition from many angles, seeking to engender in our understanding a sense of his vision of human being. He told us that man’s mind had become like a window pane through which the sunlight of the spirit was scarcely able to penetrate, so thick was the coating of self-centeredness that clouded it. “Man,” he said, “is accordingly in darkness, with his vision so obscured that it has left him with a desolate sense of abandonment and insecurity.” Continuing with his theme he indicated that it was not a hopeless condition, but that if man were to cease using his mind as a means of polarizing himself in the outer form of things, lusting after his material environment, the state could clear, his consciousness could again become translucent and allow the sunlight of love, the most potent of all creative forces, to radiate into the world.
Man, he taught, has the power of free choice allowing him to transfer his response from his outer involvements toward a true polarization in the Sun-source within him, the light of his Being. To me this was plain speaking. I saw in it the true meaning of the first great commandment that one should love the Lord with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind. From the solar system and the universe through the infinitesimal entities of the worlds beyond the atom, the same principle of radiation and response prevails. It could be observed between planets and sun, between the moon and the earth, between electrons and their proton and between male and female.
He spoke of fear and hate and their influence upon the human organism, creating chemical changes in the blood stream. “Hate,” said Uranda, “is a slow form of suicide.” The human mind is a good instrument but a bad master—like a car which starts off before you have touched the controls. The threat of planetary spasm is by no means new and is in common coin with the soapbox reformers as a means of proselytizing; the idea being that when there is a threat of danger from outside, the herd bunches together for security. Hitler used the threat of Jewish and Communist domination to rally the Germans to the Nazi standard. Russia uses capitalism, and others have used imperialism to stir up their people’s animosity, the idea being that there is something about to destroy you unless you hearken to my philosophy. Clearly that approach had been overdone. And yet here was I compelled to listen to this simple prophet’s offering. I told myself not to be a skeptic but to allow the matter to prove itself. If the pattern of order was within me, as he indicated, then the truth of the matter would be made clear once I allowed it to be experienced.
I sat next to Martin during these talks, and wondered a little at the contrast in backgrounds these two men represented; yet they were united by this magnetic power. Later on I brought this point up. “Backgrounds, social levels, or race, have nothing to do at all with the One Law,” he said. “If at this time the spirit of truth finds a clearer passage in Uranda than it does through me, I accept him as my leader.” This was stupendous and if followed out might carry one to the point of no return wherein one might be obliged to move on into a state wherein the values, conventions and ethics with which one had been saturated throughout one’s life became no longer valid. The image of a Daddy God up in the sky was gone and replaced by a principle, a primary cause, an aspect of which was in all creation—that was far more like it. It was within me too, not far away but very close. So close indeed that I, we all, could become one with it. Now we could work together, now I could live God all day long and all night too for that matter, and step in line with Him in every detail and be part of the universal order.
Martin and I parted as I boarded the boat for Vancouver Island. The passengers were all lining up outside the dining saloon and I treated myself to a hearty meal. I thought a great deal on these things as I watched the deep blue waves sweep past us, in brilliant sunshine, while we shortened the distance to Victoria. After my meal I went on deck gazing, as I walked, at the snow peaks of the Olympics across the straits. It seemed incredible to me that we had been created with the capacity to reject our creator in this fashion, and yet it is written that we were created in His own image and likeness with a capacity for free choice which we can exercise to our own destruction. My meeting with Uranda was the turning point in my life.
I received word that Lord Martin had been called down to California by Uranda on some important business, and that he wished me to accompany him. We drove down in his Studebaker taking turns at the wheel. We reached our destination amid the California hills south-east of Los Angeles in the early spring and Uranda came out of the small ranch house to greet us. We were, of course, a bit travel-worn after a journey of two thousand miles. There were others there as well as those we had brought with us: Uranda’s wife, Kathy, and her baby Nancy, his secretary Grace and her little son, and one or two of Uranda’s faithful followers. We entered the house. A meal was on the table ready for us, consisting of fruit salad, cottage cheese, rye bread and good fresh butter. Uranda blessed the food and afterwards, in the tiny living room, invited us all to sit and hear him speak of the spirit of truth. As we listened, material barriers seemed to recede and we found ourselves joined together as if separation had never been and we were united as a whole. When Uranda finally finished what he had to say it was almost two in the morning. There were six women in all, with two children, and accommodation being limited, Martin and I took blankets and retired to an open shed where we lay down to sleep among the farm machinery. But a wind got up and the thorny branches of the pepper trees surrounding the shed scraped the metal of the corrugated iron walls and emitted the weirdest noises. In the early dawn I distinctly felt hot breath on my forehead and, looking up, found myself gazing into the liquid brown eyes of a stray cow.
I could not compare the following few days with any others for they seemed to be unique. I felt buoyed up by a strange and holy atmosphere so formidable as to be almost frightening. The tension upon me while in the presence of Uranda was sometimes so unbearable as to cause me to seek release in trivialities. Perhaps, too, I was afraid of coming under a hypnotic influence and kept a tight hold on my thinking. But I soon came to see that I was resisting a totally benign power, foreign to me, but into which the others could relax and allow themselves to be enfolded and become part of, so that it flowed strongly through them, unifying on all levels. They clearly felt at one with themselves and each other. This touched me as the perfect state. It had to be on a voluntary basis, of course, and the voluntary part was all-important.
The ranch house stood in the midst of a field surrounded by eucalyptus trees. Odd pieces of disused farm machinery, an out-door privy and a wood pile had been woven together into a rustic pattern by the overgrowth of tall grass and sage brush. After breakfast Uranda seemed to wish to be alone with Martin, so I went for a walk on a neighboring steep hill. The wind was strong and from the north. It blew up a sand storm and from the valley a brownish cloud rose towards the sky. Beyond this, and contrasting with the sub-tropical foreground, I could see distant snow peaks beckoning. I sheltered for a while from the wind behind some rocks and sat on a sand patch where I could enjoy the solitude and think. There was a quiet murmer of nearby water. A small lizard came out to watch me and a swallow-tailed butterfly settled on a rock opening out his wings. As I gradually became conscious of an inner state, I thought, “The desert shall blossom as the rose.” In that little white ranch house down in the valley was a man imbued with the spirit of truth, and I knew that I had come to the crucial turning point of my life. I laughed so loud that the lizard almost jumped out of his skin.
Uranda was first, last and always interested in establishing the One Christ Body on earth, a temple of human form expressing the spirit of the living God, a body of many members all united by an irresistibly cohesive force inherent in each. Of course, of course, that was the meaning of the second coming. How ridiculous, I had been in thinking of a Christ descending on a cloud from above. This was a moment of birth, a sort of Christmas Day, not the return of the old, but the birth of the new in this day and age. The idea was, perhaps, by no means new for it suggests the basis of true Christianity and, for that matter, the basis of true Hebraic worship. But the fact of the matter was that no one so far had proclaimed it in such a manner and I was beginning to awaken to the dormant giant who was now emerging in awareness—showing the true stature of the dwarf-like human personality for what it was.
The meals at the ranch were a happy experience, the food simple and organically harmonious, blessed lovingly by Uranda before being served by the ladies. The rest of the day was spent listening to Uranda until the evening sun, streaming into the little sitting room of the ranch house, would remind him that it was time again for a break and, perhaps, another meal and some exercise. Once again, after we had eaten, we would gather together for Uranda’s evening session. Strenuous as it might have seemed it achieved its purpose in releasing our minds and hearts from a domination by the material world consciousness into an indescribable freedom of swift beauty. Nevertheless, after the prolonged intensity of his presence I found that, though my mind was seething with new vistas, it had reached saturation and now recoiled. The next day when he asked me if I wanted to hear more, I admitted for the present I had had enough.
That evening he read us a paper—his lesson material seemed endless—and as soon as he had finished we discussed or elaborated and expanded the subject presented and, as we had no tape-recorder, our remarks were all taken down in shorthand by two of the ladies. Of course it was mostly Uranda who spoke. He sat in a wicker rocking chair rocking himself gently with half-closed eyes, a hand passing over his forehead from time to time as he deliberated in slow measured terms. My powers of concentration were never good and often during his talks I would find my mind wandering and I would hark back to my conventional Christian upbringing with a shock and be amazed to find myself sitting there among that strange assortment of people—so racially and socially mixed, yet now united. Uranda, for instance, of German and Welsh descent, was ten years my junior, born in Ferguson, Marshall County, Iowa, but brought up among the Grand Mesa Mountains of Colorado. Lord Martin Cecil, an Englishman of noble birth on both sides of his family, was unquestionably accepting Uranda’s leadership.
At times I was swept on by the utter logic of the words which poured forth from Uranda’s lips, while at other times I found myself rationalizing and being subject to doubts. I had always expected a prophet to look like the pictures I had seen of them—men with upturned eyes and meekness in their faces suggesting weakness rather than strength. In my imagination they led conventional, blameless, almost inhuman lives; they had, in fact, no existence except as artists of the Renaissance visualized them. But the people with whom I now found myself led normal human lives. They had strong but gentle faces and determined mouths. They loved, ate and did all the things that others do, except sleep! Compared to my habits they seemed never to go to bed. Otherwise their lives were dedicated to one ultimate purpose only, and for this they were ready to give up everything. Indeed, they would gladly yield home, comforts, riches, all in fact that stood in the way of expressing the perfect state of order which was already within them. Nothing could be more natural since order exists everywhere except in the lives of men and women. The state of order, being cohesive by nature, draws together its responsive elements and thus produces an organic whole—which Uranda called the One Christ Body.
From the Zadokite papers of Egypt, and now from the Dead Sea Scrolls, history was coming to light which gave us some inkling of the life led by the Essenes, and I was inclined to draw the parallel and see Uranda as the “Teacher of Righteousness”, in a sect that was to Christianity as the Essenes had been to the Jewish religion of those times. But it was a hasty comparison and rapidly forgotten. I was in the habit of comparing previous events as if I could relate them to the present in some fashion, oblivious to the fact that the time and place, as well as all the vibratory factors (both infinitely minute as well as immensely vast) throughout the universe combined to make each instant absolutely unique. And I saw how the character of life in form was that of perpetual animation and change in perfect balance. More and more I could see it clearly and become part of it, part indeed of the order which is eternally at hand. This was the truth. Those who spent their time delving into chronicles of the past for evidence of the truth in bygone days, had, I thought, failed to realize that it is available today in a practical form.
I was beginning to see that if I were to come, with all my failings and impurities, into the burning light of truth, I would find the difference unbearable. I would have to choose between letting the process of purification take its course or relapse into the world of compromise from which I had come. The others at the ranch, though slightly eclipsed by Uranda and Martin, also had fascinating backgrounds. Some had salvaged their lives from marital discord, others from sickness or, like myself, had come “out of a hunch” that every atom of my body was the evidence of order and that I did not belong to myself and never had, but was the living expression of God—that is the truth of the matter.
I did not doubt that Uranda’s interpretation of certain phrases in the Bible was correct. I am not gullible by nature, but I saw danger in a drastic acceptance of his statements on their face value. By the process of putting an unorthodox interpretation on basic beliefs whether in regard to religion, history or physics, a state of such confusion could be produced in my mind that I would, no longer, know or understand anything. And my mind, being in this state of confusion, would become extremely vulnerable and easily controlled by an outside source. Likewise the process of dividing, setting one idea against another, or one person against another, or an individual against the rest, renders them prone to suggestion. I was suspicious of the techniques I had met within Europe which debunk concepts, break up petrified beliefs, or disperse groups, reforming them into patterns and formulae more easily manipulated. This, though it involves hypnosis, makes ordinary hypnotic methods look like child’s play. When previously accepted standards are removed or discredited and we are left without a yardstick by which to gauge our reasoning, we are thrown into a state of perplexity and become dependent upon a leader.
I was familiar with this process in advertising, and in political propaganda, and the fact that it is becoming more prevalent does not make it right. In my view, iconoclasm is justified only where the indoctrination is for the benefit of the whole—and who is to know this? The state of order, or perfection, the heavenly state which is the full expression of Being in the universe, has to appear through man; what other possible medium is there? And this is man’s service to God which he must perform to justify his existence, to fulfil his purpose as a cosmic entity. No amount of struggling or trying to accomplish it will help, it must be allowed to occur. It cannot be done in our own or another’s strength, because it is already there, this ultimate state which only man can reveal. What disturbed me most was the belief that I was being indoctrinated. Yet as I looked at it more closely I saw that the fixed beliefs which I clung to, were fixed only because I had been imbued with them during a defenseless childhood and the fact that I had already been so indoctrinated struck me as wrong. The findings of a council (which become dogma) can only apply in the moment of their emergence and are anathema to unfolding life.
Day after day, from his rocking chair, Uranda spoke to us. A bridge table before him was covered with his papers. Sometimes he read to us, sometimes he would speak without notes or else discuss the points that had been brought out. Sometimes he would kick off his shoes and smoke a cigarette. During one of these sessions I did a drawing of his head.
Uranda’s car was like an elongated shooting-brake. In fact, it had been an airport limousine. It was his means of getting about and it suited him well, for he always travelled with an entourage of many others including children. It was parked under the thorn trees beside the little white ranch house and served as a sort of Counsel office in which those of us who felt like discussing problems with him could speak freely on personal matters without fear of interruption. Uranda’s eagerness to heal wherever he found an opening came from a passionate desire to re-establish wholesomeness on earth. Having himself come to know that divine point of integration within himself, his purpose was to express it on all levels. His personal approach was always one of openness and of evident eagerness to heal, to bless and to comfort by exercising that universal and formidable cosmic power—“God’s love”, as he called it, with which he was overflowing.
It was Sunday and we were approaching the end of our visit to Riverside. Uranda suggested a drive to Los Angeles and its surroundings which included Hollywood and other places with familiar names. The world seemed strangely unreal after the depth of communion we had experienced. I was a stranger in a strange land but with the beginnings of home flowering in my heart. I had anticipated my early return to Canada so had brought with me my travelling bag. I managed to get a seat on a night plane and, bidding farewell to the others, settled down to wait in a Los Angeles cafe for it was yet early afternoon. The cafe had been given the appearance of a grotto with vaulted ceilings from which stalactites glittered. Bird cages, containing canaries, hung among the stalactites. The birds sung to the accompaniment of an orchestra. I thought of them as perpetual captives sentenced, like man’s imagination of angels on pink clouds eternally twanging harps, to a grotesque, humanly conceived heaven, longing for the fresh air and freedom of the wind, the spirit that blows withersoever it listeth according to its natural laws of life.
I had been a secret agent working for a cause I believed in, a human cause, now I would serve a universal cause, neither human nor limited in scope, the cause of all causes. My intention would be not to discover details of a political or ideological formation, but to be an agent relaying cosmic power, revealing the state of order in every aspect of life. I would reveal the cause of all causes in the form of a perpetual harmony of effects. And I would love the author of all in secret with every aspect of my being. I thought of all the things in my life that had passed away and was grateful for their contribution to the present. I was aware of the worth of these events in terms of thankfulness and in the absence of resentfulness.
It was 1954 and Rosie and I were at Fairholme. We were keenly interested in the activities of our friends in what we called the Third Sacred School, which we closely followed. There were regular mailings too which kept us in touch with what was current in the ministry’s spiritual development. A derelict ranch in the Colorado foothills had been bought and renamed Sunrise Ranch and it was hoped that before long it would flourish as the headquarters of the movement. It was little more than a dustbowl when it fell under the control of Uranda. But he predicted that there were seven springs beneath the property and followed up with this statement, “I carry the spirit of truth and when sufficient awareness of the truth is evident among you [his followers] water, which is the symbol of truth, will appear.” Perhaps some of them found this hard to accept, but in fact water in such abundance did become available that the valley, with proper management, could only flourish. Classes on the teachings of Uranda now took place regularly at Sunrise Ranch and the right instructors seemed to appear. Accommodation was scarce but with the frequent arrival of new members to the community housing increased. At first it was a bit primitive but, with the acquisition of a machine for making cement blocks, things began to improve.
At the conclusion of the 1954 Class period, which was six months in those days, the young ministry received its first great blow. Rosie and I and the children were at our home in the Canadian Rockies, and I recall we were halfway through lunch when the telephone rang. It was a long-distance call and I recognized the voice of Uranda’s secretary Grace Van Duzen speaking from Colorado. There had been a plane crash in which Uranda, his wife Kathy, Alan Ackerley (a personal friend), and two small children, had all been killed. The children had been of Grace Van Duzen and Lillian Call, Uranda’s two secretaries. The impact of the crash on the system of the Third Sacred School was no less than that upon the Cessna plane as it hit the shallow waters of the bay at Oakland, California.
Shattering as it was there were those who continued to accept their responsibilities in upholding Uranda’s teachings and it was at the head of this band of faithful ones that Martin now placed himself and he invited Rosie and I to attend the next Class starting in Spring 1955. Finding a caretaker for Fairholme for six months was miraculously achieved, and we with the children and baggage piled into our Ford and drove down through Montana and Wyoming to Colorado. I shall never forget it. The snow still hung in the hollows of those endless plains. The antelope and the distant hills were reminiscent of my early days in the Mounties on the Canadian prairies. And then on arrival at Sunrise, the pang of disillusionment as we gazed upon our new environment. The Ranch was still scattered with debris of broken farm machinery. Goats inhabited a pen next to the one-room cabin allotted to us. There was no indoor plumbing or sanitation yet a powerful feeling of victory dominated the scene which buoyed up our spirits and kept at bay any sense of depression.
A ranch house under a cluster of large cottonwood trees served as the kitchen and dining room, a barn was being converted into an apartment block, while to the west the foothills rose sharply to a summit called Green Ridge. Ever since the days when I first met Uranda I remember vividly the salient points of his message, “All wisdom, direction and power for living your life comes from within.” It needed no human explanation nor analysis, it only needed to be lived moment by moment, for this ground of our Being is the wellspring of life. I miss that man who first brought me to see that truth, albeit as old as time itself, I miss his friendly spirit, his Western mode of speech and the way he sat and handled his horse. His sunny personality was most infectious, one couldn’t help loving him. He lived what he preached and nothing on earth could persuade him to violate his integrity; above all he had a keen sense of humour. Our curriculum was plain enough: the theory of his teachings in the forenoon and the practice of same in the afternoon. In August when Class ended I returned to Fairholme alone, my marriage to Rosie, seen in the stark light of reality, disintegrated.
I set to work finding lodgings or an apartment in Vancouver where the boys and I could have a home. I finally made up my mind to buy a house of my own and went to a reputable house agency in West Vancouver. It being lunch time the office was deserted except for an elderly lady who said she had the very thing I was looking for, a two-bedroom house with a southern aspect overlooking the sea in its own grounds. She locked up the office and drove me to see it. It turned out to be her own home. The house had charm and possibilities and I bought it on the spot. I had been travelling around ever since the sale of Fairholme and now wanted to settle down. Now with a place of my own my children could come and visit me. I added a studio by building on top of the garage and extended the bedroom area and the result was very pleasing. I lived for fifteen years at my West Vancouver house during which time I wrote and painted a great deal.
Meantime the seeds of reality which Uranda had planted were sprouting. In my street alone four or five persons had got the message and opened their eyes to the fact that the truth of Being was not to be found in books, not in any institution, church or philosophy, nor in nature, nor in the abstract distances of space, nor in another human being, but was already within each person from the beginning and from which point its rule of harmony, balance and creativity was fully capable of functioning and controlling that person’s life. It is a simple matter of cause and effect, or radiation and response. No use manipulating the billions of effects in the hope of achieving harmony, for the harmonious and creative Tone emanates only from primary cause and cause is at the centre of all being. Therefore there was obvious truth in the saying, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou worship.” In most cases it seems that people worship anything and everything other than God, which is, of course, an invocation of effect and a denial of cause. People are beginning to see this and marvel at their blindness in not having seen it before. We are told that human beings are only using a minute part of the actual capacity of their brains. Those parts which are capable of spiritual perception have for the most part fallen into disuse, probably since man expanded his capacities for rationalization on physical or animal levels—even here he has lost much of his intuitiveness. Uranda tells us to call to remembrance these latent capacities.
During this period I did some of my finest work in painting, including an oil called St John; and another, The Twenty-Third Psalm, which now hangs in the Lodge at 100 Mile House. It became my deep desire to stimulate the art expression of our ministry which was spreading all over the United States and Canada, South Africa and Europe, Israel and many other points including Australia and New Zealand, for it seemed to me that words alone were no longer able to reveal the subtle wholeness of spiritual awareness. I was invited to take up permanent residence on Sunrise Ranch which is the international headquarters of our movement, and I accordingly sold my house in West Vancouver and moved down to Colorado in the United States. I was still agile and full of life but in spite of all that I was in my eighties. I picked a site on Green Ridge about 300 feet above the Ranch, near enough to be able to participate in the general activities of the unit yet far enough off on my own with exquisite views from a broad balcony.
With Uranda no longer at the helm no one could have been better fitted to lead us than Lord Martin. He is deeply spiritual and accordingly wise and, in his wisdom, single-minded without being narrow in his vision. He is able to accommodate and enfold all circumstances knowing that everything in existence can be used to the glory of God. There is no fear, hatred, or judgement in him—which makes him a true leader. Like an accurate compass, he points only to a total response to his Maker. When I say that I have grown to love him I mean that I can respond to him in absolute reliability, for he is one with the universal order. How do I express this love? By following his example? No, not by imitation nor by following instruction but by doing as he has done, namely, obeying the first great commandment, which means total response on all levels to the cause of all causes. That is the golden rule.
There were, of course, others whom I admired and who were true brothers and sisters, as you might say, along the way. One of these was Richard Thompson, born in 1902 in the Isle of Man, a Cambridge M.A. who had adopted the teaching profession. Richard had been a disillusioned idealist who had thrown in his lot with Social Credit but who was quick to awaken from his pipedream when he met Uranda in 1937. He was a jewel and his wife Dorothy the setting. They founded a centre for what he then called “Ontology” in Vancouver, but the name fell short of doing justice to our programme and was discarded. When Richard died in 1965 I took over the co-ordination of the Vancouver group but soon found that most of my time was spent on the road plying between my home and the “Ontological” centre, a distance of ten miles each way. My relief came in the form of William Bahan who with his family came from the New England states where he was well known as a successful doctor of chiropractic. Bill Bahan who was then about forty years of age was of American-Irish stock and possessed a keen sense of humour and a clarity of vision which never failed to amaze me, and this, added to his extraordinary charm, quickly brought the Vancouver centre to a new level of vibrancy. But it became evident in due course that he was of too great a calibre to waste on a city of only 365,000 inhabitants and he was given the co-ordination of the whole of the Eastern United States and Canada.
It is now nearly forty years since together we went to hear Uranda speak in Vancouver and our understanding of the realm of cause, each in our different ways, has deepened and matured and clarified accordingly. There is a resonance or tonal chord which binds those who turn their faces in absolute response to God, and that has always been my relationship with Martin, a mutual understanding and respect one for the other so that words are hardly necessary. Martin enjoys a good story and has a hearty laugh but small talk is not in his line.
The reference point of beauty is within each one of us and it is our awareness of the presence of this order, harmony, balance and wholeness which is revealed through agreement. It is as simple as connecting the lamp to the main source of power and light. Beauty, in other words, comes from within. Our consciousness begins to clarify as to the true purposes of all our activities during our lifetime just as cells in our brain awaken from their deep sleep, and awakening discover that there is nothing new in existence. All is there in reality from the beginning, harmonious in detail and in true balance. We are not talking science or logic according to human ideas of logic, or of anything the human mind has concocted, but we are looking at something real and stable and everlasting, which was, is and ever will be but which can only be experienced, and can never be explained in human terms.
© Conrad O’Brien-ffrench 1979
from
Coming Home
Uranda August 5, 1953 Class
Our basic theme at this time is the Magic of Creation. As we work together there is, step by step, a gathering of the waters unto one place; and what does that mean? The Master talked about it a good deal when He was here on earth, and the word He used is translated as agreement—“To agree on earth as touching these things.” What things? The things of truth, the things of God. Most people seek agreement by trying to get other people to agree with themselves, and, failing to do so completely, they begin to compromise—“You give up this of your idea, I'll give up this of my idea, and see if we cannot get together,” and that is the earthly pattern of agreement. But it does not work in relationship to spiritual things. Trying to agree with each other is of small avail. The human vision in any case is inadequate. Our program is designed to permit the individual know the truth, and then to let truth make us free. If we are agreeing on the basis of human concepts, they will amount to nothing.
You have been given an opportunity to examine what I have presented, day after day, week after week, month after month, to test it to see if it carried the characteristics of the opinions or beliefs of a man, or if it carries the evidences of truth. There are those who are, at first at least, much inclined to assume that it is the mere concept of a man; and as long as that is assumed, there is a tendency to argue about it, to try to contend with it, to question it, and I am used to that. It is all right. It is to be expected at first. And, going out into the field you will find the same thing happening to you, so you remember not to talk too much. But, step by step, for those who are honest, there comes a conviction that we are not dealing with opinions or mere beliefs. On a scientific basis we test each point as we go along and discover the truth, without regard to opinion or belief or prejudice, disregarding superstition. No matter what pet beliefs in the world may have to go, we want to know the truth.
At first our consideration of truth is in a general sense, revealing law and principle, beginning to gain a vision of the pattern of truth as it has worked out over the period of history. But gradually we begin to comprehend these principles in relationship to ourselves individually in our present pattern of life. But there are blind spots in each human being—the individual does not understand himself, nor does he understand others, even though he may think he does. You will find many people in the world who think they understand themselves and who think they understand others, but if they ever reach the point of rebirth, they find that the vision has been faulty, the concepts erroneous; and if there is honesty and integrity that which is erroneous is allowed to go into the limbo of the past. So, step by step, we have to help people see where they as yet do not see—not compelling, except by the very compelling logic of truth, the beauty of it. Human beings are in the habit of fighting with God. They are in the habit of contesting every step, and at first that is to be expected. People have been through so much and have been told so many things that it is natural and right that they should be skeptical. Never find fault with honest skepticism. There is dishonest skepticism that is grounded in superstition, and superstition grounded in ignorance, and ignorance grounded in a determination not to know, afraid to know the truth. With that you can do nothing. But honest skepticism, welcome it. Never try to belittle it.
Be suspicious yourself. Be a little skeptical yourself when response opens up too fast, when it tries to portray itself as something very great and marvelous and really to be depended upon, because that method will not lead to agreement. That individual is slippery. He will seem to be in agreement in one moment and be a thousand miles away in another. There is nothing to take hold of. It is like trying to catch a greased pig. There is honest analysis, honest skepticism. Now, when I say, “You be skeptical of response,” I am not talking about true response. I am talking about the big splash pattern. It does not last. It is there for five minutes and gone. It will not stand the test of time. But we are working toward agreement. “To agree on earth as touching these things.” What things? The things of the kingdom of God, the things of truth. And trying to agree on something not based in truth is a futile business. But because once we begin to see the truth, we know it. It produces an answering chord from within and we begin to agree on earth; and that agreement is the gathering together of the waters, a gathering together of the views, the understanding, until we are of one mind. We have our individual characteristics which are not ignored in this process, but we are of one mind, one unit, one body, one heart, dedicated to God, one spirit of devotion shared by all—the oneness, the gathering together of the waters that the dry land may appear, that the form essential to the manifestation of the spirit of God may begin to be made manifest.
In our meditation we considered together the parentage of Life. We saw how your parents, your heavenly parents, do not die. We saw how your heavenly parents do not pass away or leave you, unless you drive them out of the house of your own body. “To honor thy father and thy mother: that the days of thy life may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” If we are honoring love, if we are honoring truth, we hold them sacred. They are sacred to us, and we will not violate that sacredness. What is it that we hold sacred in life? What is it that we are willing to violate in order to get something considered to be more valuable? We recognize that there are many people who have something that they deem to be sacred up to a point—they make a show of it, at least—but the moment they see an opportunity to gain position or wealth or something of that nature, they are willing to betray what they held sacred. There is no foundation where nothing is held sacred. The thing that gives you stability, the thing that is your starting point, is that which you hold sacred. Now perhaps your understanding of what is sacred and how it should be held sacred may have to undergo some growing, but that which any individual holds sacred is the starting point. And what is integrity? Integrity is the refusal to violate that which is sacred. That is what honesty is.
We have the responsibility of helping people move into the truth, into a realization of God's Love, that they may hold their heavenly parents sacred, that they may not lose their integrity, that they may honor Father and Mother. And the more you think about that in relationship to yourself, your Father and your Mother, think about it and meditate upon it—and when you say, “Father, my Father,” you do not mean the Lord within, really; you do not mean your God Being. You should not anyway. Your Father: God's Love. Do not be in too much of a hurry to learn to understand and see and know the One who dwells. We have to recognize that the One who dwells is there, but do not be in a hurry or you will never find Him or Her—for they are male and female, remember. The God Beings are male and female. Human beings, male and female, were created in the image and likeness of God, of God Beings, male and female. So we know that there are male and female God Beings wherever we go. And some picture heaven as some sort of a sexless place—it would not be heaven. But we begin to realize that Father and Mother, God's Love and God's Truth, your parents, your true parents—the Life that flows through you is born of those parents. Your body is of value only as your life is in it. Your body in the physical sense is born of your earthly parents, but the life in your body, the life that gives you meaning as an individual, the life which you must have every moment of every day is born of your heavenly parents. Think about them, meditate upon them. And what is your sacred point? What is it you hold sacred more than anything else? Your heavenly parents.
In the world there is a saying that every man has his price. Now, that is not always true, thank God! But your price is the point where you will violate sacred things. Sometimes it takes a great deal of wisdom, of patience and understanding to help a person relinquish his old sacred things without giving up all sacred things. Blessed Ones, we are not interested in taking sacred things away from others, really. We are interested in offering them sacred things, which will become so important that the old things, which really are not of any value, will be left behind. The point is, then, that as we grow, the things that we hold sacred at one point are left behind—not the principle, but we are growing out of the realm of toys into the realm of reality, and our integrity is at stake.
What are the sacred things that you have to offer? How sacred are they to you? What is your selling price? How much pressure will the devil have to bring upon you to make you trample on your sacred things? What is your quitting point—your point where sacred things are not worth it any more? Let them go smash! That is the point where you cease to be a man or a woman and become a member of the body of the beast—the quitting point, the point where sacred things are not held sacred. We are not trying to take sacred things away from people, but we are helping them to grow up, to mature; and as soon as they begin to see the beauty and sacredness of that which is being offered there will be no trouble in getting them to leave behind the toy. So we are not taking it away; we are inspiring growth, inspiring progress, new vision. And children love to grow up. It takes leadership. We must help them to find something new, something to hold sacred.
What are we doing? We are going to take the wandering child home. We are going to take them home as fast as they will let us. Take them home to Father and Mother. Who is my Father? Who is my Mother? Who are my brethren? The Master answered that question: “He that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.” The will of the Father. What is the will of the Father in this case? The Father, God's Love—and what is the will of God's Love? That there should be Oneness in the Family, that there should be Oneness in relationship to man and God. The will of the Father is togetherness, cohesiveness, centering in that which is of the Divine, so that we can leave behind the swine and the husks and not have to be a swineherd any more, but return to the Father's House, to honor Father and Mother. Every server has this for his life work—to help others find the way Home, to help others to return to the Father's House, and to stop dishonoring Father and Mother. And as we begin to come into agreement on the basis of God's Love and Truth and Life according to its design and purpose, we have a togetherness not depending on mere belief or opinion.
Believing a falsehood does not make it true. You can believe it as long as you will and it will not make it true. Believing a truth to be false does not make it false. Human opinion has no bearing. What is the truth? That is our goal—to find the truth. But it is only as we respond to the Father that we can come to know Mother. If we are separating Father and Mother we will never know either one of them as they really are. Father and Mother must be known together if either is to be known. So if we are to know Mother, it must be in relationship to Father. If we are really going to know Father, it must be in relationship to Mother. There is absolutely no other way.
And who are our parents? God's Love and Truth. The evidence of the presence of the One who dwells. Father, Mother and Child, and the Child is the Life that is in us individually. Your Father is different from my Father. We do not have the same Father. In this sense the Life that is in you is the only begotten Son of your Father—Life—because the Father in you is different from the Father in every other person. If we say, “Our Father,” we are not talking about the God Being within. Your Father and your Mother—you, in the sense of the Life expression, are an only Child. You are the only Child of your parents absolutely. There is a relationship established, of course, from the standpoint of higher focalization, but the reality of God's Love and Truth made manifest as evidence of the Presence of the One who dwells in you is distinct in relationship to all others. It is distinct; it is yours; it is you in reality. You, in the outer manifestation, become One with the Inner Reality to the degree that the Child is a true revelation of the parents, for the parents and the child are the evidence of the Presence of the One who dwells. And when you in body and mind and heart are a true revelation of the Child and of the parents, then you are One with the One who dwells—but you cannot be One with the One who dwells without becoming One with your Father and Mother as a true Child, and this is what it means to be a Child of God.
Now human beings have vague and fanciful concepts—“God created us so we are children of God.” Perhaps in a theoretical sense, but what does it mean to be a Child of God? It means that you in your body and mind and heart—you, the human being—have life by reason of the only begotten Son of your parents—the only begotten Child, the only begotten Daughter. It makes no difference how you put it. You are an only Child of your parents. And you the Child and your Father and Mother provide the evidence of the Presence of the One who dwells, and if that evidence is not made manifest through your body, then there is no indication that the One who dwells is there. And a lot of people say, “Well, I do not believe there is a God Being in human beings. I just do not believe it. Look at them. Look at what critters they are. I cannot believe it.” Well, the God Being is there but He is not evident, and we cannot blame them. They do not see it. They need to begin to see it somewhere and then perhaps they will lose their skepticism; then perhaps they will begin to accept and see, and see that the Child gives evidence of parents, and through the Child come to know the parents—Love and Truth. And you in the human sense—the body, the mind and the heart you are a Child of God actually only to the degree that you are a true Child of your true parents; otherwise you are not a true Child of God.
And we come to agreement. How? If you in your mind and heart come to agreement with the Child, Life, and through Life come into agreement with your true parents, God's Love and Truth, you will automatically be in agreement with your own God Being—and your God Being, your Lord within, is in agreement with every other God Being on a pattern of focalization. Your God Being is never at any time at variance with my God Being. With respect to these God Beings, they are all always in agreement. They are always in accord. There is never, on the basis of the God Beings, the slightest bit of discord, and all accept the same focalization in the patterns where they are. They work in harmony. They are in agreement. If they were not, there would be war in heaven. There was war in heaven on earth at one time. But the mind of man was cast out of heaven. The devil was cast out. Of course, people have imagined that some creature was cast out of some place in the sky down into the earth, but the kingdom of heaven is at hand, it is right here; and the devil is the self-active mind of man. And the self-active mind of man was cast out of heaven at hand, so that the mind of man lost the awareness of the heaven at hand, so that man could not contaminate the heaven that is at hand, could not violate it. But the door to it is open for those who can pass by the Flaming Sword that turns every way—the Sword of Truth and Love. He who comes by way of his heavenly parents—your heavenly parents are the gateway to the kingdom of God that is at hand.
Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. Your heavenly parents provide the gateway by which you enter the kingdom of heaven that is at hand, and you can enter by no other way. It is the gate, and there is just one for you. Reject that and try as you may, struggle as you will, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven at hand. So as you come into agreement with the Life that is in you, its purpose, as you come into agreement with your parents, your heavenly parents, Father and Mother, as you come Home to them, you find in them your gateway to the kingdom of heaven that is at hand. And when your mind and heart are in agreement with your parents, your heavenly parents, you are the only Child; when your mind and heart are in agreement with your heavenly parents, then you are in agreement with all others who are in agreement with their heavenly parents. You come to the point of being in agreement with your heavenly parents, and in that moment you will be in agreement with all others who are at Home, truly, with their heavenly parents. That is the process; that is the method; these are the steps by which the waters are gathered together unto one place—one place, One Pattern of Being in the overall sense, and that Pattern of Being provides the setting which lets you shine forth as a gem, something special.
You do not lose your individuality, your value. It is not like a drop of water in an ocean—not at all. This oneness does not reduce your individuality. It allows it to manifest. This provides you the setting essential to the revelation of what you are as an aspect of God, but without that setting you cannot have any true manifestation. And if you try to take the setting away from someone else you cannot have it yourself. You have it when you do your part toward making it possible for others to find their setting. For the setting of the gem is in the Home of the heavenly parents, and these are the many mansions our Lord talked about. “In my Father’s house”—He is the focalization; He is the Lord of Lords and King of Kings—“In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so I would have told you.” Your Mansion, your Father's House, your Home. Now, we have to persuade people to go home. They are ashamed to go home or they do not want to go home, or they think their parents are dead. They think a thousand and one things. They imagine they are satisfied where they are. Human beings do not willingly go home. Even when they are responding nicely, coming along very well, do not ever imagine that that person is going to willingly go home. Do not let them catch you off balance. No human being willingly goes home.
Some of you look puzzled. You think you are doing it. Fine! Keep right on coming, Blessed Ones, and let us go Home. Let us go right on Home. But there will be those things which the human being will project or cling to which will prevent him from going home, and he says, “Yes, I want to go home but I want to take my bag with me, my bag of treasures.” It is easier for a camel to go through the Needle’s Eye than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. People are so wise in their own eyes. They carry such burdens. And you are a keeper of the gate to the Needle’s Eye, helping people reach a point where they are willing for the pack to be taken off their backs, and persuade them to reach a point where they might get down on their knees to come through the gate on the way Home, home to the kingdom, home to the Father's House—home to heaven on earth—and you do not have to die to do it. You have to let the self-active part of your nature pass away, but the physical body does not have to die to do it, and you do not have to be every whit whole, according to the human concept. If you have some crippled part of the body, that will not stop you unless you make it. You can come home to the Father's house and there see what happens.
But people want to be made whole: “I'd be ashamed to go home to my Father's house looking like this. I want to have all of my parts. I want to be good and healthy. I want to show my Father that it has not hurt me any to be a prodigal son or daughter.” You are going to kid Him, are you? As long as you think you can delude your Father, you are not going to get home. You cannot, you know. What difference does it make? Why not come just as you are. Why say, “Well, I want to grow up so much first. I want to learn so much. I want to know so much. I want to be so-and-so in my body.” The limitations of your body do not make an iota of difference; what you think you do not know does not make an iota of difference. You can come just as you are, if you are willing to let the Master's Word be fulfilled in you. “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” The word of the Father to you—“all ye that labor and are heavy laden.” Heavy laden with what? Heavy laden with all these earthly treasures, all the things that are so nice, the burdens that bear human beings down.
Are you willing to trust your treasures to God? Are you willing to trust yourself to God? Are you willing to come Home to the Father's House? That is the question. And you can come just as you are. You do not have to wait and grow up so much, learn so much, be ready to show your brilliance to the Father. All you have to do is just come. Relinquish your burden. Let go. And come just as you are and the Father will meet you from afar off—while you are yet afar off. The Father, God's Love, reaching out to you now. And your Mother, how is she? Do you know her? Do you know your Mother is beautiful? Your Mother is exquisitely beautiful. The Truth is always beautiful. Remember there is no such thing as an ugly truth. There may be ugly facts that are temporary—temporarily in manifestation; but remember there is absolutely no such thing as an ugly truth; never has been, never will be. Your Mother is exquisitely beautiful. And your Father, what of Him? He is worth knowing, well worth knowing. Why not go Home? Why not come Home to the Father's House? There is a mansion there for you, a Mansion in the kingdom of heaven right here at hand on earth, a place for you.
And it is only so, that you can go through the process of rebirth; only so, can you know the resurrection; only so, can there be the gathering of the waters that the dry land may appear and the forms of life may manifest; only so, can there be agreement on earth as touching these things, that the Father's will may be done on earth and in earth as it is in heaven. And when we take this step and truly share it, we have come to know with respect to the Father—the Father for each one, and in turn our Father, the higher point of focalization. Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory forever. Aum-en.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
