The Voice Of The Valley
from The Kingdoms Of This World
Uranda June 7, 1953 Class
With the coming of our Master to the earth through the body of a babe, the angels, the heavenly beings, sang a song: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” This heavenly song was a heavenly witness to the relatedness of God and man, to the joyous eagerness with which heaven was seeking to release the things of heaven into the world. That heavenly song carries a poignant quality that expresses more than love alone. In it we see the suggestion of the Divine Design of truth, the quality of control by which peace might be established, and the assurance, the promise of life.
But there was more, for in this simple song, as we meditate upon the spirit of it, there was an acknowledgment, a recognition, that the most precious thing in all the heavenly realm had been sent into the earth to be with the children of men. The greatest treasure of heaven, the greatest joy of heaven, the most precious of all heavenly beings and things, had been sent into the world as a gift to man. And as heaven gave this most precious gift, heavenly beings felt a closeness to the earth and to the people of the earth, longing with the intensity of heavenly love to establish a pattern for man, that the children of earth might feel the closeness of heaven, a sense of relatedness—a relatedness to the love which is the atmosphere of heaven; a relatedness to the truth, which is the beauty and the control of the heavenly design; and a relatedness to life, which is the active expression of all things heavenly.
Life is the expression of all things heavenly, and whenever human beings find joy in living they are somehow sharing in the expression of heavenly things. Man, the physical form, was designed and created in the image of God and after His likeness to the end that man might give expression to heavenly things and live. “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” Man was created in the image and likeness of God to bring forth on earth the things that are conceived in heaven, that in divine activity they may be given birth into the realm of form.
Man, weaving his robe of self-righteousness, seeking to assuage his sense of shame, seeks to be good by fighting against evil. He who would live must choose to give himself to the expression of heavenly things and he must acknowledge in his own heart that, if there be joy, it must come as a part of the expression of heavenly things, and he will no longer seek the pain of joy in the mixture of the pleasure of sorrow. He who is aware of his relatedness to life counts his first joy to be his awareness of relatedness to the Source of life, and having acknowledged the Source of life by the expression of heavenly things, he begins to be aware of his relationship to all things living. He has a communion in spirit with the flower, with the tree, with the insects, with the birds of the air and the beasts of the field.
Sometimes man seeks to find his relatedness with created things, seeking to derive peace from them and to enter into their joy, without having first established relatedness to the Creator of these things, and then it is that man's efforts to establish relatedness with living things are motivated by selfishness: seeking to find peace from Mother Nature, seeking to get life from contact with the realms of vegetation and the animal kingdom, seeking to replenish his own meager supply by taking it from the realm of created things.
Yet man was made in the image and likeness of God, to have dominion over the earth and all the things that are therein, and in his true sense of relatedness to all living things, a sense of relatedness that springs from a consciousness of relatedness to the Source of life, man beholds the things of the created realm and is aware of his relatedness to the flower, to the tree, to the bird of the air, to the beast of the field. He is aware of them as a god is aware of his creatures—not seeking something from them but giving his own peace to increase the peace that is found in nature, giving of his own love to increase the love that is found in nature, giving of his own truth to increase the beauty and the control in the realms of nature. He beholds these things and, as a god, he gives to them—not seeking to take from them, not acknowledging his weakness by saying to the tree, “Give unto me of your strength,” not acknowledging his turmoil by saying to the lovely Valley, “Give unto me of your peace,” but rather, in his giving, he hears the Voice of the Valley saying, “By reason of your presence my peace is increased.” And there is a whispering in the treetop, for those who have ears to hear, “By reason of your coming my strength is increased.”
And the kingdoms of the earth are filled with rejoicing, for man no longer comes to nature seeking to take for himself that which he has acknowledged he does not have, but he comes to nature as a god, increasing the beauty, the loveliness and the peace wherever he goes. And the kingdoms of this world—the animal kingdom, the vegetable kingdom, the mineral kingdom, the fowls of the air, the fish of the sea—become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.
Man, as God, moves in the kingdoms of this world, giving and causing the increase, until the sense of shame and the sense of fear is cast out of the kingdoms of this world and the sense of relatedness is established between Creator and creation because man has been restored to his heavenly place, wherein he expresses heavenly things into the kingdoms of this world. And in that expression he lives, and the kingdoms of this world share in the living, because they express heavenly things to man, that man in turn may express the heavenly things of earth into the heavenly realms of heaven; for heaven and earth are one. All who will, have come to know that he who expresses heavenly things is living, and he has no relatedness to the realm of dying.
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men. Those who arise to share with God the qualities of Godhood extend the Glory of God, the peace and the goodwill, to all the kingdoms of this world—the precious treasures of heaven extended to man, that man, being in heaven, may extend the precious treasures of heaven into the kingdoms of this world.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
