Evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells
Shekinah
Uranda October 18, 1953 100 Mile House, B.C.
We have been introduced to the vital significance and importance of the Shekinah Pattern of Being—and the vibrational factors originating in relationship to this term, with respect to its meaning from the Motherland Tongue. The Shekinah Fire is that which appeared above the ark, between the cherubim, in the tabernacle during the time of the children of Israel, and this Shekinah was the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells. The word Shekinah, was considered to be a secret or sacred Word, which was not commonly uttered, and there were many ways of signifying this particular word or meaning without saying it. For instance, in the first part of the 91st Psalm we have reference to "the shadow of the Almighty." The shadow is the evidence of the presence of something. Your shadow is the evidence of your presence. If someone can see your shadow, that shadow is the evidence of your presence, the evidence of the fact that you are nearby or at hand. So we begin to realize what it means when we read or repeat the words of the 91st Psalm, "He that dwelleth." A dwelling place is a living place, a place where you habitually live; not merely a place where you visit occasionally, but a dwelling place, a place where you habitually, consistently, live. "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High," he that dwelleth in Shekinah, "shall abide," remain, "under the shadow," under the evidence of the Presence, "of the Almighty." Not one who is partly mighty, mighty one day and not the next. The Shekinah is the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells, the Almighty, or the Most High.
We find in the Master's words in the New Testament period a constant reference to Shekinah. It has generally speaking been overlooked from the standpoint of Biblical students. But once we examine the Master's words in this realization, we begin to recognize that He was talking about Shekinah. When He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," He also said, almost in the same breath—the passage recorded in the same chapter—"The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." Therefore we must not attribute His words to the man Jesus, but to the Father. The words He spoke were the words of the Father. When He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," He was not talking about Himself as a man. We accept His word; He was giving expression to the words of the Father. He used the word "Father" to signify the One Who Dwells. "I am the way, the truth, and the life."
We go back into the Old Testament period and find that the Shekinah is composed of three distinct aspects: the Fire that burns, which correlates with God's Love; the Light that glows, which correlates with Truth; and the Cloud of Glory, which correlates with Life. So the statement, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," is simply another way of signifying Shekinah, the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells. And that evidence is in its manifestation three things, all of which blend into One. First there is the reality of God's Love. "I am the way." The way of what? The way of God's Love. "I am"—that is, the One Who Dwells—"the way," God's Love; "the truth," the elements of Design and Control that are always present with respect to every aspect of being, all created things; "and the life," life, that which is signified by Glory.
When we repeat the Lord's Prayer, as it is called, we say, "For thine, O Father," the One Who Dwells, "is the kingdom"—the arrangement here is a little different—the kingdom, the dominion factors of Design and Control, "and the power," the power of Love, "and the glory," the Glory which always relates to Life. The Glory of God is the Life of God; and if you have life in you, that life is of God; and if you let that life manifest according to the Design of God it is the Glory of God being made manifest in and through you.
So we have the Shekinah Pattern of Being, and the more we study and meditate upon this tremendously significant point the more we begin to realize that the Master actually knew what He was talking about when He said, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand." He did not just say, "Heaven is at hand." He said, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand." A kingdom has a king, yes, but in a kingdom there are the elements of control or dominion, the elements of design, which determine the pattern of life in that kingdom. So the kingdom of heaven is at hand, the opportunity to share in the dominion of God right here on earth. "Thy kingdom come," He taught men to pray. "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven."
We gathered here to learn how to let the will of God be done in earth as it is in heaven; for we recognize that the will of God brings forth that which is beautiful and divine, wonderful, in heaven. The will of God brings forth exactly the same things on earth. Many people are afraid of God's will. They have been told that every tragedy that appeared was an expression of God's will. But that is a blasphemous attitude, because we begin to realize that everything that is wrong on the face of the earth is contrary to God's will. It is not God's will that anyone should suffer or be ill or have tragedy, or any other ill thing. When we let God's will be done in earth, in the earth of our own bodies, our affairs, our circumstances, we find that God's will brings forth on earth exactly the same things that God's will brings forth in the invisible realm of heaven. The Master knew what He was talking about. That was His "good news," His gospel: "The kingdom of heaven is at hand." If we would enjoy the full blessing of the good news He brought we need to learn how to enter into the kingdom.
So much of what the Master had to say was dealing with the means by which one might enter the kingdom of heaven. He used parables, and said, "The kingdom of heaven is like unto..."—many different illustrations. And yet human beings have continued down through the centuries to imagine that they had to die to get into the kingdom of heaven. They have not seen the great possibilities, the wonderful opportunities, of letting themselves begin to be citizens of that kingdom in reality; not merely in a spiritual, ethereal sense, but in the sense of the practical living of everyday life, right here and now. For we find that the Divine Design for Life avoids all tangents, avoids all fanaticism, and gives us an opportunity to live a balanced, sensible, scientifically designed life right here on earth. And we know why we are here, the purpose of our living; and in the accomplishment of that purpose we can begin to enjoy the beauty and the wonder and the Glory which God would share with us. Beauty is always related to Truth, Wonder is always related to Love, and Glory is always related to Life.
In Revelation we read these words: "And there appeared a great wonder in heaven." Where is heaven? It is at hand, the vibrational realm of being. "A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet." Here we have a recognition of the fact that the body of mankind, including all men and women, is supposed to be a part of that body which is spoken of, at another place, as the Bride of the Lamb. The Bride-to-be is taking form on earth. Every man, woman and child is invited to share in the forming of that body which allows the true union of heaven and earth. We do not need to go from here to find heaven. Heaven is at hand, and we can let heaven and earth be one. "The moon under her feet"—again emphasis upon the point of dominion, control over those things which are supposed to be responsive to man. And yet man is at the present time a slave to these things, subject to them, pushed about by his circumstances, trying to fight and gain control of some little part of the earth, or some little part of circumstance and condition, in order to be what he thinks to be a success. But in the Divine Design there is the privilege of dominion, control, and in that control we begin to know the real joys of living.
The Master said that He came that our joy might be full. The way of life, the way of the spiritual life, is not one that takes away the joys of life. It does not cause us to be somber and constantly long-faced and grim. Rather it opens to us the way in which we can have a truly joyful or happy life, with the good things of life to be shared, known and experienced; because God created man in the beginning to have his home right here on earth. In the beginning God created man to have dominion on earth. He did not create man to go to heaven. He did not create man to be somewhere else. According to the record: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the earth and all the things that are therein." Man was created to be on earth, to have his eternal home on earth, to live on earth and have dominion on earth, to be the means by which the dominion of the kingdom of heaven should be extended to all creation on earth. And there is no reason to suppose that God changed His mind after He created man. Even though man fell from his Divine Estate and distorted the pattern, God has not changed his purpose. He did not change His mind. God's purpose for you rests in the same realm today as God's purpose for man when man was first created; that is, to have dominion on earth, to live on earth, to have the fulness of joy and satisfaction and life on earth. So we are not trying to get out of the earth into heaven; we are not following after some escape mechanism. We are not worried about the hereafter. We are concerned about right living here and now, letting the Laws of God begin to take effect in our lives so that we may accomplish that to which we are called here and now.
Here, then, in this symbolical portrayal we see another revelation of Shekinah. "And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun." How could a person be clothed with the sun? The sun is the positive center of the solar system; the earth is negative to that sun; and in turn, the moon is negative to the earth. The woman signifies the negative aspect of Being, or mankind on earth, male and female. And clothed with the sun. On a sunny day we are enfolded in the sun's rays, the sun's light, the sun's warmth. Without that which emanates from the sun we could not have life on earth as a physical fact. We depend upon that which emanates from the sun. And the earth is enfolded in that which is of the sun. The sunlight is of the sun, and yet it is not all of the sun. The sun as a physical fact is a star in the sky, actually a star—as all the stars in the sky are suns. And we begin to realize that we are clothed with the sun. Without the sun there would be nothing growing; without the sun there would be no warmth; without the sun there would be no life. In actual fact we, today, right here on earth, are clothed with the sun.
If we begin to realize that as a physical, scientific fact, we can begin to see the spiritual application, because that which emanates from God is here; it is working through us. And the life that is in you is a part of Shekinah, the life that is in you now. You do not have to get into Shekinah, we do not have to get into heaven, we do not have to go through some mysterious and strange process; because whether we say Shekinah, or the Christ Spirit, or God's Spirit, or the Holy Spirit, or any other term we wish to use along that line, we mean "that which emanates from God." It comes forth from God. And the Spirit of God has three aspects: the aspect of Love, the aspect of Truth and the aspect of Life. If any person on the face of the earth is alive the Spirit of God is in that person. If anyone on earth has known anything about love the Spirit of God is in that person. If anyone on earth has been able to think with his mind, understand with his intellect, comprehend anything that is true or beautiful in life or design around about us, then the Spirit of God is in that man or that woman.
We do not have to get into the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is in us now. The difficulty is that we have been using the Spirit of God contrary to the will of God, and we begin to find out, as it is put in the 1st chapter of the Book of John, "All things were made by Shekinah, and without Shekinah was not any thing made that was made." Without Shekinah you cannot move a finger. Without Shekinah you cannot speak a word. Without Shekinah you cannot think. Without Shekinah you can do absolutely nothing; for if Shekinah is not in you, that which remains is nothing but a corpse, which returns to the dust of the ground. So we do not have to go through a mysterious process, some sort of mystical and strange thing. We begin to realize that Shekinah, or God's Spirit, however we wish to put it, is in us now; else we would not be alive, moving; we would not be here tonight.
Therefore once we begin to let our minds come under the dominion of God's will, the Shekinah that is in us will be used according to God's will and dominion will be established in our lives. And the moon will begin to be under our feet; for the moon is negative to the earth, that is, responsive to the earth, and that means that, just as God created man to be the connecting link between Creator and creation, all of the creation that is made manifest on earth is supposed to be subject to man, under the dominion of man. It is not at the present time, but it is supposed to be. Therefore when the moon is under our feet, that which is supposed to be negative to us will be under subjection to us—another portrayal of that beautiful design that God has established for us.
From one cover of the Book to the other we find the same basic truths repeated over and over again; and once we begin to see them we find that a study, a consideration, of these things is the most fascinating and interesting endeavor in which we can be engaged, for we begin to learn how to live. Human beings have for so long tried to live, but in actual fact have experienced fundamentally nothing more than an existence. They have not known how to live; they have not known the laws of life; they have not learned the art of living. People imagine that they can just grow up and go out and live for themselves according to their own ideas, and we have a world full of people who are in misery, in institutions—hospitals full of physically, mentally and emotionally sick. We have a world threatened with war of a horrible pattern of devastation—all the ill things, the sufferings and the miseries and the unhappiness, simply because human beings have not learned how to live. And it is not because God withholds it from us, but because we have not yet learned how to receive that which God has already provided.
"A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." Twelve stars. The twelve is something which reoccurs with such interesting regularity. Why do we have twelve months in the year? Why is mention made of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel? Why did the Master have twelve disciples? Why did He not have six or some other number of disciples? He had followers. He had the seventy that were spoken of at one place. But there were twelve disciples, the twelve apostles if you want to put it that way. Over and over again this point of twelve returns to us, and we are reminded that twelve is three times four. In this connection we have noted that, counting the One Who Dwells, there are four aspects of Shekinah: the center, the reality, God, the One Who Dwells, the Almighty; and the three aspects of His expression of being are the Fire that burns (or Love), the Light that glows (or Truth), and the Cloud of Glory (or Life). But God made man with three aspects of being: a physical body through which the Spirit of Life could operate; a mind, an intellect, through which the Spirit of Truth could operate; and a heart or emotional realm, a feeling nature, through which the Spirit of Love could operate.
We begin to realize that man, with his triune nature—a body, mind and emotional or feeling nature—was so created for one reason only: so that that which was of God could be made manifest through man. For God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness," and He did so. And God breathed the breath of life into man, "and man became a living soul." For your body is a part of your soul, the soul that you are, and your mind, your emotional nature. It does not say, "God put a soul in man"; because man himself is a soul. Once we begin to actually see and realize some of these fundamental principles of life, we can begin to be in position where we can harmonize with the laws of life.
You are a soul, either a living soul or a dying soul. We might say there are three classifications in the world. Some might be dead souls, at least dead to reality, dead to the spiritual things of God. But human beings, broadly speaking, come under two classifications: living souls or dying souls. If man is a dying soul he is being repelled from the Presence of the One Who Dwells and is in a diminishing sense revealing the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells. But if, through body and mind and heart, you are revealing the evidence of the One Who Dwells you are a living soul, and the life pattern in your body is increasing. We have seen some wonderful things work out in the current of God's healing power, many lives blessed, but we must realize that only as we let the Shekinah have manifestation through us can we permit these things to be; for your body was made on earth for the manifestation on earth of the Life or Glory aspect of Shekinah, or the Holy Spirit, whichever you wish to use: the Christ. Christ means Shekinah, or Shekinah means Christ. Old and New Testaments both teach exactly the same thing—Shekinah.
The body, your body, was made so that the Life aspect of Shekinah could manifest. The evidence of the Presence of God or the One Who Dwells is Life, to manifest through your body. And you were given a mind, an intellect, the ability to think; you are not merely as a dumb animal. For what purpose? So that the Truth aspect, or the Light that glows, could work through your mind and another step could be taken in revealing the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells. And you have a heart, your emotional nature. As it is put in the Psalms: "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully." So here again we see the same thing: a pure heart, a heart and emotional realm that is a means by which God's love is revealed on earth; which is to say, the evidence of the Presence of God is revealed through the emotional nature by the manifestation of Love, through the mind by the manifestation of Truth, and through the body by the manifestation of Life. And all mankind together, not just one man here or one woman there, but all two billion of us put together, are supposed to be able to allow enough of the revelation of the evidence of the Presence of Almighty God so that God Himself could be made manifest right here on earth; for every man and woman and child is supposed to be a part of the Body of God, without respect to race or color or creed, regardless of church background or national background or anything else. Every man, woman and child on the face of the earth, every member of the body of mankind, is supposed to have a share in revealing the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells.
When we look out into the world, what do we see? The evidence of the presence of chaos, turmoil, suffering, misery, sickness, every evil sort of thing. These are not the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells. They are the evidence of the absence of the One Who Dwells, insofar as these lives are concerned. They are not letting the evidence of that Presence be made manifest in themselves. They are moving away from God instead of moving closer to God. But while life remains in the body, while the mind can yet think, while the heart can yet feel, there is hope that the individual will begin to realize the purpose for which he is on earth and stop stealing the Power of God, the Life of God, the Love of God, the Truth of God, to use it to his own ends, for his own purposes, without regard to the Divine Design, without regard to the beauty and the wonder and the glory of life made possible to us right here on earth.
As we meditate upon these things our minds recall that first text in the Bible, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." But He created heaven first. And man is supposed to be a means by which God's creative power continues to manifest on earth. Until we begin to realize that we need heaven first we cannot begin to let anything that is important to our lives manifest. Whatever is important to our fulfilment, we must let the heaven aspect of it be created first, and then give it form in physical substance, then let the earth aspect of it be created. And we will find that all things work together to perfection in and through and for us, because we love and serve our Lord and King. But let that be neglected—as most of the people in the world are doing, so that they try to build the earth, the physical form aspect of their desires, first—and they will labor all through their lives, struggle and suffer, and finally die, without ever having achieved that toward which the heart was yearning.
Man has forgotten that, being made in the image and likeness of the Creator, he is supposed to let the Creator's creative work be carried forward right here on earth. God created heaven first, and then the earth. He did not create the earth first and then the heaven. We must learn how to create heaven for ourselves right here, the heaven of a home, for instance. If a couple, a married couple, sets out to create on earth a home, they may buy a house, they may have it filled with furniture, but unless they started out to create the heaven of that home, without too much concern about the form of the house to start with, they will find out that it turns out to be a place of hell, not heaven, not home—a place of discord, of fighting, of difficulty, of misunderstanding, of sickness, of suffering and sorrow. There are millions of couples who have tried it. We do not have to go out and try it ourselves to see. We simply have to open our eyes and look around us. But let that couple, in mutual dedication to God, begin to create the heaven of that home first, and then begin to give it form with a house and furniture and the other things, and they will have a home, not just a place to live, not a place of hell. They can give form to heaven right here.
Anything we undertake to do without regard to Shekinah will fail. For you cannot speak a word, you cannot move a hand, except by Shekinah. And if that which you do is contrary to God's purpose for Shekinah, you repel yourself from God and defeat yourself, just as surely as the sun rises and sets. There has never been anything done on the face of the earth, good or evil, in all the thousands of years of history, that was not done by Shekinah, by the reality of Shekinah. But if the Shekinah in man was being controlled by man without regard to the will of God, he brought forth evil, not because God willed to bring forth evil but because man stole that which comes from God and used it for his own purpose. He made himself to be a thief, and he established false gods and spoiled the Pattern of Being. We realize that in the Divine Design for man we can be creative, we can be creators, we can begin to let that heaven take form, and then give it physical form and have something beautiful, of the divine design. But if we disregard that, we will fail, as generations before us have done; for if we would experience that which is divinely ordained we must do it God's way, according to God's will, for God's purpose. And God's purpose for man is that man shall be on earth and be the means by which God's dominion shall be established and maintained on earth now and always; for the earth is as much a part of God's creation as heaven is. Heaven is not complete without the earth, and the earth is not complete without heaven. We can prove, right here and now in our everyday lives, the reality of these things.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
