This is the day of resurrection. In the Christian world it is Easter Day, a time when the resurrection of Jesus is celebrated. But this is the day of resurrection. Most people find it a little difficult to relate to the idea of resurrection. As we have noted before, it is easy to relate to the event of the crucifixion. We all, I’m sure, feel that we have been treated unjustly, at times at least, and we all can relate to suffering. But resurrection is a different matter. There is seemingly no experience in this regard, so imagination has been used. This is understandable by reason of the fact that there has been no experience of resurrection for human beings in general. For something to be known it must be experienced; otherwise it only exists in imagination.
Nevertheless this is the day of resurrection for all people; not just for special candidates, but for the whole human race. Does this mean that it will happen during this twenty-four hours? It is happening during this twenty-four hours, but a day in this sense relates to a period of time. There are certain days of creation recorded in the Book of Genesis. Some have assumed this meant that the world was created in a week. But the word day used in this way is a period of time. This is the day of resurrection; this is the period of time in which resurrection is taking place. In some ways this period of time might be looked upon as having been quite lengthy thus far, because it was particularly initiated almost two thousand years ago. The process of resurrection has been in operation ever since, working at levels where the conscious mind had virtually no awareness at all.
This day of resurrection for mankind was set in motion, as I say, almost two thousand years ago. This was done on an individual basis by one man. As we were noting, we could easily relate to some of His experiences leading up to the crucifixion. It is easily seen that He didn’t resist what was occurring. He let it work out the way it was going. He didn’t make any plea for His human rights, something which is very strongly in the minds of human beings these days. He didn’t resist; He didn’t even object. He simply let it happen. It seems to me that one of the comments He is supposed to have made was, “Resist not evil.” So He was true to His own instruction. There came a moment when He was on the cross when He accepted the actual state of mankind into Himself. This was at the point when it was said He gave up the ghost, when in fact He relinquished the awareness of His conscious mind.
This is the actual state of mankind. There is no true awareness, in the conscious sense, in the body of mankind, or there has been no awareness. The only awareness there has been has been of the nature of a dream state. One may think of oneself as being present in one’s dream, moving around, doing whatever it is, but it is something that is simply occurring subconsciously, and yet there is a conscious awareness of it. That is pretty well descriptive of the state of mankind, functioning at a subconscious level, with some conscious awareness of the fact. That could hardly be described better than a dream.
It was indicated that should human beings eat of the forbidden fruit, become subject through their own feeling reactions to the world around them, judging it this way and that, they would die. It would be a fatal mistake. That has certainly proved out to be the case. A sure thing is death, they say. But the body of mankind as a whole is still in existence. The death sentence hasn’t been carried out yet—individually speaking, yes, generation after generation. At that point on the cross this Man assumed into Himself the state of mankind. His body shortly thereafter was removed from the cross and placed in a sepulcher. Clearly He was unconscious, in the mental sense, during that time. It is assumed that He was dead, although it didn’t prove out to be the case. According to the record some words were imputed to Him which were supposed to mean something, which in fact they didn’t: “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?”—supposedly “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” a quotation from the Psalms. I doubt if He was too interested in quoting from the Psalms under those circumstances! Would you be? No, the indication here was, as it might be translated: “Darkness, darkness, covers my face.” In other words He was relinquishing the awareness of His conscious mind; He was losing consciousness. It is indicated that He “gave up the ghost.” This has been used subsequently to indicate that a person is dead at that point when he has given up the ghost.
But fundamentally, while the conscious mind was relinquished, the subconscious mind was still in operation, the realm of the ghost; the control was being given into that realm. There was no more conscious mind on hand to do anything. But something was happening in the subconscious levels; here was present a pure heart—one point within the total consciousness of mankind at that time, of a pure heart. We recognize that all people participate in the consciousness of mankind. This was true of this one man, the same as everybody else; the distinction was that His heart was pure. In other words there was free access for the spirit of God through this open window of heaven. It was by reason of this fact that what has been called the resurrection took place.
We have an awareness that the subconscious levels of the mind constitute the realm of power: “But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.” The Holy Ghost relates immediately to these levels of the mind of man, at least rightly so. It has been a pretty unholy ghost of course heretofore. But at that point of initiation of the creative cycle of resurrection for the body of mankind there was one point of purity of heart. Through that one point something could work. It proved out that it did work by reason of the resurrection of the body of Jesus. Here was the power of not only transformation but transmutation at work. This was the action of the spirit of God through the pure heart and subconscious levels of mind in that particular form.
One can speculate about these things but it is of little consequence because such speculation is all in the realm of imagination. It only has meaning when there is the actual experience. This is the day of resurrection. It has been this day for the last almost two thousand years. It has now reached this point. During this whole period the creative action of the spirit of God has been working—initially through that one point but subsequently there has been an expansion in that regard—within the scope of the subconscious levels of the mind of mankind. Changes have been in the process of being wrought. This is the case whether human beings like it or not, whether they know it or not. Something has been happening. Perhaps we begin to be in position, with others, to realize these things, because what has been happening has finally begun to emerge and break through to the level of consciousness, to the level of the conscious mind, the waking conscious mind. This waking conscious mind is aware of a world that is not at all the same as the world of which the sleeping mind is aware, not the same as the dream world in other words. I’m sure all of you would acknowledge that in whatever measure you have had the opportunity to see things in a different way, to understand things in a different way from that which is common in the world as human beings know it, your understanding, your approach, is different—or has the opportunity of being different. There is somewhat of a distinction here. Some have taken advantage of the opportunity; others haven’t. All these things prove themselves out.
In any case here is the day of resurrection. The One who came on earth, and was called Jesus, offered a different way, to start with; but clearly that was rejected. Christians subsequently have tried to convince themselves that somehow it wasn’t rejected, because they were picking up the scraps, so to speak, afterwards. But what He brought was absolutely rejected. And there is nothing that anybody could do about it subsequently to try to gather it together again. What He brought was gone. But He did establish, by assuming the responsibility which He did while hanging on the cross, the day of resurrection, resurrection which would come inevitably. Who would be included in the experience might be a question. But the day comes. The day is here. The fulfilment comes. We have called the resurrection the restoration of mankind to the true state of man, revealing the likeness of God on earth. Simple. This is not something that human beings by their own efforts could possibly do. They do not know God, after all.
But the working of this creative spirit, through the mass consciousness of mankind since this working was initiated, has wrought many changes. Human beings are inclined to take credit for these changes when they seem to be indicative of real evolution in the human race: technology for instance. This is claimed as though the human mind thought it up, and people feel proud of themselves in this and compliment each other about it—the great men of the earth. In every field this is the way it works from the human standpoint; but it isn’t the way it is really working, because anything that has happened has happened because of this creative working through the subconscious minds of the human race as such, emerging specifically in this individual and that and invariably being mistranslated, translated according to the structures that were already present in the impure hearts of human beings. So all kinds of marvelous things have happened. There is a great civilization, were told. It doesn’t seem to be quite so great and stable as it might be.
So in this day of resurrection the creative spirit of God has been at work, transforming things in the mass consciousness. Many people have the notion these days that we’re moving into some sort of a new age. If we see it in the terms which I have been describing I suppose that could be one way of describing what is happening. As this creative spirit has been at work changes have been wrought, and according to the quality that was present in individual human beings they have either been caused to move upward in the process of resurrection—that is, letting something clarify in their own subconscious minds—or they have been resisting the process. If the resistance is over fifty percent, I suppose, then the individual tends to go down; it tends to be a destructive and painful experience. While the choice may not for the most part—to start with at least—be a conscious one, a choice is constantly being made by people as to how they shall relate to the creative movement of this spirit through their own subconscious minds.
Of course the already existing structures that are present in the subconscious minds of human beings the world around tend to influence what happens in the individual experience. Tradition dies hard, for instance. All that tradition is is a more or less rigid structure which has been built in the consciousness of human beings over the centuries, over the millennia indeed. And so they have these things still in their subconscious minds and the creative spirit of God comes up against them. They either are allowed to yield, because the character of the individual is such as to permit this to happen, or if there is no yielding there is resistance. And there is nothing that can stand in the way of the movement of that creative spirit, so people find themselves being thrown down. That is an uncomfortable experience; it’s much more comfortable to be resilient, to be willing to let go and not to feel that one is betraying anything by doing so. The reason why people feel that they are betraying something is because they have worshipped these images, these traditions, these rigid structures in their subconscious minds. And they occasionally come out into the conscious mind; human beings describe them this way and that; but it has been more important to most people, seemingly, to be loyal and true to these rigid structures than to be true to the creative spirit of God. Of course the choice hasn’t been clear-cut in their own consciousness, but it has become clear-cut in our consciousness, hasn’t it? It started out by being a subconscious thing, and finally it broke surface somewhere along the way and we became conscious of the truth, conscious of the way things really are—at least to the extent that we could see it at that point, which certainly was not a complete view, and isn’t a complete view yet. But we can understand something of what is happening on the grand scale—we could put it that way—at least grand in the eyes of human beings; small potatoes from the universal standpoint.
Seeing this larger view of things we can emerge out of our self-centeredness a little more, if we will, and recognize what our individual responsibility is in the matter, because if we do have a conscious awareness of these things, such as it is at the moment, then we have a responsibility to handle what arises in our own subconscious minds on the basis of what we see, what we know, and not on the basis of the usual traditional eruptions out of the subconscious state. We have noted recently that all human thinking, all of it, has been based in the fact that human beings in their present state have impure hearts, so that what rises up to be thought about rises up out of an impure heart, so that what is called thinking is always rationalization, rationalizing something that is already present in the impure heart. Human beings have become expert at this. There are some brilliant rationalizers in the world—they are sometimes called brilliant minds—very capable of making things seem to be something that they aren’t, making it all seem so logical and reasonable when it isn’t, when all it is is explaining away the impurities that are present in human hearts. This is a futile undertaking, leading nowhere. The nowhere is called the grave.
The body of Jesus was placed in the sepulcher, in the tomb, but obviously there was something happening with respect to that body or it surely couldn’t have stood upon its feet and walked out into the garden. Of course there was the little problem of rolling away the stone from the mouth of the sepulcher to start with. The illustration is absolutely accurate. He had taken upon Himself, accepted the state of, the body of mankind, which is lying in a tomb. Who can dispute that fact? Is not the consciousness of mankind oriented in death? It is a general attitude that death is the most important thing in life! Rather contradictory, one would suppose, but death occupies center stage. And, as Job put it one time, “The thing which I greatly feared is come upon me.” We worship death through fear. It’s interesting to observe that death is the central theme of human experience, the absolutely sure thing in their view. They put taxes alongside; but they’re not really quite the same as death, are they? Here is the one thing that is supposed to be absolutely sure; here is god, eternal god: death. Of course people don’t look at it that way, but that’s the attitude that is being taken. And they revolve around this god.
But there is something at work in the mass consciousness, as there was something at work in the subconscious mind of Jesus in the tomb. He was in a coma there. Human beings, the body of mankind, has been in a coma for a long time: no conscious awareness of the truth, no conscious awareness of what the being of man is, just a sick figment of fancy, an un- pleasant dream in the tomb. This is the human state. Whether anyone believes it or not, likes it or not, that’s the way it is. Human beings have long lost consciousness of the truth as it relates to themselves. Because there has been such a big blank there they have invented all kinds of things to try to fill the blank, but not too successfully. There has always been that emptiness, that sense of insecurity, which they try to fix one way or an- other. We’ve all indulged in this stuff. And all that leads to nothing.
But now, the human race having been given opportunity repeatedly to rise up of its own choice consciously, and having refused to do that, the only way left by which it can be done is subconsciously. This is what is happening. There is the creative action of the spirit of God, initiated at that starting point long ago and working in the subconscious mind of man ever since to sort things out there; so that there will be those who rise up and there will be those who go down. And this is what is happening. We have the experience, in some measure at least, of rising up, or of being given the opportunity to rise up; and again I make that distinction. There are others of course in the world; certainly we’re not the only ones! Everyone in fact is participating in this process: up or down. For a while there are those who are in between—the lukewarm they were called, weren’t they? Neither one thing nor the other. But eventually the issue is presented and each individual either rises up or goes down.
In the rising-up process of course something begins to be seen of a larger vision. To start with, that larger vision is always translated on the basis of previous traditions, but obviously what is to be known in the resurrection is not something that has ever occurred before. It can’t be translated on the basis of forms out of the past. You’ll note that the writers of the Gospels had a little difficulty in describing what happened after the resurrection. Of course! They didn’t know what happened. So they wrote some stories, which may have within them a kernel of truth but they are rather deceptive, because the resurrected state is not the same state as the unresurrected state. The state and condition of the experience of Jesus was not the same after the resurrection as it was before the crucifixion—something different, about which human beings know nothing. They have no experience of it, so all they can do is invent imaginative stories. How about finding out what it is?
Well we have the opportunity, not just for ourselves as individuals but because we are a part of the whole body of mankind. What is happening is happening to the whole body of mankind, no exceptions. Those who compose that body of mankind participate in the resurrection or in the disintegration of what has existed in the experience of human beings heretofore. This nightmare state is passing away. We either identify ourselves with the nightmare state and pass away with it or we allow ourselves to move in the resurrecting process. This is happening, as I say, with human beings everywhere. Some have come to a level of breakthrough into a conscious awareness of the true identity of mankind: Man, made in the image and likeness of God, a facility for God’s action on earth. The identity of man is God, but it hasn’t been in his own consciousness. He has tried to have something separate, all his own, so he could do as he pleased.
Now we come again, in this cycle of resurrection, to the opportunity of participating ever more fully in a true conscious awareness of the mind that was in Christ Jesus. Here is the Son state of consciousness. But the Son state of consciousness is not separate from the subconscious levels, the Holy Ghost state of consciousness. It is all one and is all being clarified. The process of resurrection is in operation. Awakening to this, then consciously we are in position to be deliberate in our attitudes, deliberate with respect to whatever it is of the impurity, the filthiness, of the subconscious mind which may present itself to us. Human beings are inclined to kowtow to these things and say they can’t help it. They are going to be unpleasant if they feel like it. They are going to judge things, they are going to judge people, they’re going to condemn, they’re going to criticize, if they feel like it. Well that’s a dead giveaway! Very dead. If they feel like it: the filthiness of the heart coming out and establishing the control as to how the individual is going to operate, what he’s going to do, what he’s going to say, how he’s going to act, how he’s going to behave. In the resurrection one acts and behaves in the consciousness of the Son of God, or the Daughter of God, and not on the basis of the way one feels. So many people say, “Well I would be dishonest: I feel this way, therefore I have to act this way.” That is dishonesty! It is denying the truth, denying the reality that is present to be expressed. The individual says, “I can’t express that reality; that would be dishonest because I feel some other way.” Who cares how human beings feel? What is it that should be expressed that is honorable and true and right and which does not judge and condemn and criticize and throw down? When we begin to associate ourselves with that truth, which is the only truth, then we find ourselves participating in the resurrection of life. The other aspect of the resurrection is the resurrection of damnation, as it was called—in other words going down, refusing to accept honestly the truth of one’s own divine character. That acceptance is the only honest thing to do; everything else is dishonesty.
So here we are to share in the resurrection, not because we set it up or are so much better than somebody else; but we have the opportunity of seeing, of knowing, and woe unto those who have this opportunity and do not accept the responsibility that goes with it. So we share in allowing the conscious mind of the body of humanity to be reconstituted. By reason of the Son, this conscious mind, the direction is given, the control is extended, with respect to anything that is not fitting that rises up out of the sub- conscious mind. “Get thee hence, satan!” Quite simple. But it takes deliberate action to do it.
This is the day of resurrection. Behold, I come quickly. It may have seemed to be rather slow heretofore, having taken almost two thousand years to get to this point, but I think you and many others are quite aware that something is coming quite quickly now. There has been a clearing, the creative action of the spirit of God is present, and human beings either yield to it, forget all their human nonsense, or they go down. We have the opportunity to the extent that we see, understand and know these things, to offer a point of orientation to all those who, although they do not see clearly, nevertheless sense what is happening and are moving in that resurrecting way. We rejoice to provide for them an enfoldment, a love with no judgment. But we will not be in position to offer no judgment if we have been judging the person sitting right next to us, or if we’ve been judging ourselves, and condemning and criticizing, tearing down, and refusing to face honestly one’s own impure heart, trying to justify and excuse oneself. Ugh! Horrible, isn’t it, if you really look at it. I had the misfortune to see quite a little of it, and one sees it in oneself too.
Let the resurrection occur under the hand of the Lord, by the spirit of God, the Holy Ghost at work in the subconscious mind raising up what needs to come to the conscious mind, so that it may be dealt with. Behold I make all things new. And as that consciousness clarifies, the dream state, the old world of the dream state, passes away and the true world, which is in fact already present, becomes known. That movement is easy when it is our movement; it’s tough when we resist it. So there is a little hint: Do you find anything tough? You know why. Move easily in the creative spirit of God and participate thereby in these final cycles of the day of resurrection, final hours I suppose, of the day of resurrection. Praise the Lord for this opportunity. As we well know, the true character of God in expression through man reveals itself in thanksgiving and thankfulness, amongst other ways. Let us be thankful for this glorious way which is consciously open before our awareness. Let us give thanks for it and walk in that way.
