Angels Passionately Love The Word
from Increasing Spiritual Usefulness
Martin Cecil May 20, 1979
We all find ourselves in a human nature world, and right from the start we are in a graveyard spin. It may take up to a hundred years to hit the ground, but still the crash seems to be inevitable. The first step, as I was careful to point out this morning, is to let go; but that is only the first step. In fact most of the service this morning was given to a consideration of what was necessary to extend direction and control into our worlds. There must be the generation of the required substance so that it is available to fill our worlds. We ourselves, in the external sense, are in the world also. We certainly cannot fill our worlds unless there is plenty of substance present in our own experience. In fact our worlds are contained within our experience, aren't they? We may have the habit of thinking of our worlds as being out there somewhere, but at the same time we know very well, if we pause to consider the matter, that they are inside here; they are within the range of our consciousness, in other words.
If we had no consciousness we would have no world, even though it might be said to exist quite apart from our consciousness; but insofar as we are concerned we are only aware of that world by reason of our consciousness and the fact that we have consciousness. Our world is contained within that consciousness; and from our standpoint as individuals it is not out there, it is right where we are. What happens within our own consciousness obviously affects what is happening in the world which is contained in our consciousness. We cannot handle any world out there—if it is out there—we can only handle it because it is in here, contained in our own consciousness. If our own consciousness is filled with spiritual substance then our world begins to be immersed in that substance, and we are not imagining that we have somehow to pump it out there into some mythical world which we suppose exists out there. The only one we know exists is the one right where we are, in our own consciousness. Let's be concerned with this, letting our world be filled with spiritual substance, because this is what we generate within the scope of our own consciousness. If it fills our consciousness sufficiently it will at the same time fill and enfold our worlds which are contained in our consciousness, and the world is transformed in this way.
We have a habit established which makes us imagine a state of separation, where one may consider oneself to be here and everything else is there. Isn't that the way your consciousness has worked? How do you know it is there? It is in your consciousness and that is the only place where we can handle it even if it is there. So our concern is with the generation of substance by reason of our living, that direction and control may be given to the worlds in our consciousness. On this basis the worlds in our consciousness begin to change, as you have already discovered. Something has changed in our own consciousness and it is this that is the important thing. We stop being so all-fired concerned about what is happening with everybody else, because if we have everybody else out there, there is nothing we can do about it; but if everybody else is contained in our own consciousness then there is something we can do about it. We speak of spiritual expression in our living. We are aware of our living not as something external to ourselves but as something that is contained in our own consciousness.
We recognize the necessity of letting there be spiritual expression in this world
for which we are responsible in our own consciousness.
It becomes a tremendous task if we think of that great world out there. Regardless of whether it is out there or not, it certainly is present in your own consciousness; and we can handle what is present in our own consciousness. We need to be above it to handle it. If we are below it, we are pushed around by it; we jump by reason of what is happening in our own consciousness. We have some experience of spiritual expression already, a little anyway—that if this is your actual expression in living, it does have an effect. This is a radiant action occurring and it has effect upon what is contained in the world of your own consciousness. There are some who are delighted to begin to experience this spiritual expression as it comes to bear upon themselves—they respond, they are willing to move in closer. They are beginning to discover the newness of the world which is being made new by your spiritual expression. There are others who don't do that. They object perhaps; they begin to fight and struggle. We just continue to offer steadfast spiritual expression, allowing those who are present in our consciousness to make their own decisions. There are those, the vast majority as it has been heretofore, who halt between two opinions. Our concern is to become so expert in spiritual expression that there is an intensification of the substance in our consciousness and therefore in our world—to the point where it becomes so hot that everybody begins to feel it, even if they are halting between two opinions.
We are concerned with this matter of spiritual expression. We recognize that the real value is here. Our value individually is the extent of the substance that is present with us through which spiritual expression is in action, and it is that spiritual expression in action which is our value. Most are inclined to imagine that their value is a physical or material value. If one has particular expertise in any field in the external sense the person is inclined to pin his value on that. That may be a treasure on earth but it is not the treasure in heaven. The treasure in heaven is the spiritual expression which is the fact: the ability to handle what is present of one's world in one's own consciousness from a spiritual standpoint, developing spiritual expertise, or letting it come forth from where it already is. We don't have to develop it in the sense of the way that external expertise is developed. The expertise, spiritually speaking, is already present in the truth of oneself. All it needs to do is to emerge into expression. That emergence into expression brings with it the sense of value. One becomes aware of one's own value and one is not looking for value anymore. One is not trying to extract value from the circumstances or from one's expertise in the circumstances.
This may be seen also with respect to the matter of youth and age in the external sense. Young people are very often, and naturally should be, energetic physically speaking and capable of doing many things physically speaking that their elders may not be able to do anymore. If one's value is placed in what one can do externally one will lose value as one grows older, and this fundamentally is what has happened in society in general. There is a mandatory retirement age of sixty-five in some countries, and I think amongst our own emissary population this very firmly established outlook is maintained, both from the standpoint of those who have reached age sixty-five or over and from the standpoint of those who observe the ones who have reached this mandatory retirement age where they have no more value seemingly. Value is in spiritual expression, not in what you can do physically. What you can do physically may determine somewhat the nature of your spiritual expression, but young people in a general sense have less spiritual substance available for spiritual expression than older people. This is why it was indicated in the story about the changing of the water to wine, that the good wine was left to the end of the feast, because there is rightly far more substance after age sixty-five than before that age. But as everyone has the habit of placing value upon what one may do in a physical sense, it seems as though most of the value is in youth and it is all lost when you get older, which is absolute nonsense.
Most people tend to be spiritually lazy. Sometimes the endeavor to cover up spiritual laziness causes frenetic physical activity and the person does so much—but his physical activity is just a cover-up for his spiritual laziness. There has been a tendency amongst many who have been associated with this ministry, getting older, to take the attitude that they gave their good years to this ministry and they provided a lot and offered a lot over the years, and now is the time to … what? Retire? That is a cop-out. That is a cop-out! That is a revelation of spiritual laziness. Spiritual activity, where the real value is, can emerge much more fully as there is less capacity perhaps for physical activity. The physical activity has to some extent been covering up the fact that there was or was not spiritual activity, and when the physical activity gets out of the way we find out what the fact is.
We all start out young, you know. “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth,” so that you do not fool yourself into imagining that by physical activity you are somehow proving spiritual worth. I am not saying that spiritual worth may not be present when physical activity is present—it needs to be. But let us just stop fooling ourselves. If there is spiritual activity the nature of the physical activity will reveal the fact, in some measure at least; but let us be very sure that we do not persist with spiritual laziness, so that when we grow older we suddenly find out how worthless we are, and we excuse ourselves at that point by saying, “Well I did so much in the past.” That was fine, wonderful, if you did something, but what are you doing now? The only time we have is now. There is this necessity, regardless of age, of generating spiritual substance and of participating in spiritual expression, and in the handling of our worlds from the standpoint of spiritual expression, of knowing how to do it. What we are here to do requires spiritual expression.
Of course there is always a starting point with respect to these things, which should have occurred for us long ago: that of letting go. Then we found the basic level where we could trust. There is a level of substance back of the whole universe that connects the dimensional creation with the undimensional Creator. It is always there. We become acquainted with that but we don't stay there. If you stay there you become absolutely worthless—no reason for a human being to be there. The universe will get along very well without human beings at that level; they are not necessary at all. But there is something to be done in the intensification of the substance so that there may be a rising up in the experienced expression of spirit to the levels where human beings should be, and that experience does not come on the basis of laziness spiritually speaking, obviously. It is a very sad thing when people getting older feel that they must have some external activity to convince them of their continuing usefulness. We should all be sure that there has been sufficient development and generation of substance so that we may be useful spiritually speaking. That usefulness should be far more as a person gets older—it should constantly increase. It should increase because the angel comes forth in more intense expression and something is happening in consciousness—the world is being filled with the substance of life—transformation occurs.
Let us never write ourselves off, and let us never write other people off simply on the basis of the fact that they have spent a few more years on earth than we have. From my own personal standpoint, there are many things that I cannot do now that I used to do when I was younger, but I certainly do not take the attitude that because of that I am becoming more and more useless. This unfoldment of years has provided space for the increasing generation of substance through which the greater intensity of spiritual expression may emerge. Are you going to leave that in my hands alone? I rejoice in the substance that is being generated regardless of age, particularly by various ones, but how much there really could be if there had been less spiritual laziness on the part of those who are now growing older. I emphasize the point, because it is never too late! And I do see some evidences here and there of a resurgence of an awareness of real meaning. We all need to be on hand as long as we are needed to be on hand, and really on hand, spiritually speaking, with the substance and the ability to handle the creative action that is necessary. From my standpoint the older people have far more responsibility in this than the younger people. I am delighted if there are young people who are going to grow up fast spiritually speaking, so that they are increasingly capable of handling what needs to be handled; but rightly the wine of life gets better as the years go by. There is the greater expression of it, but not in the same way as it was in youth. It is not physical activity that makes anything valuable; it is spiritual activity, and age has no actual ability to suppress spiritual activity. Here are some things that a lot of people need to think about, all of us in fact, whatever our physical age may be.
Blame, criticism, all these sorts of human nature attitudes, cease to have any meaning whatsoever once there is a recognition that one is dealing with the world within one's own state of consciousness and one is dealing with it on the basis of the working of the Law. Radiation, response: it will all sort itself out on this basis. We don't need to blame anyone in our worlds for taking some particular attitude which we think is wrong. Just continue to allow the expression of spirit to move freely in the substance which is present in your consciousness. Of course you have to keep generating the substance so that the substance of enfoldment, the substance of protection, the substance of this creative action, is available there. Then there may be action as needed, and there will be reaction to that action. The more substance there is present, and the more intense that substance is in one's consciousness, the more reaction there will be. That reaction may be what we call response or it may be what we call opposition, and as we see the temperature being raised there is less and less room for anything to hold out. It is going to go one way or the other.
Here is the creative process, the restoration, the cleansing of human consciousness, our own in particular, that that capacity may be filled with a new state of consciousness—angelic consciousness, the true consciousness of man. As the creative process is allowed to work and sort everything out this occurs quite easily. The yoke is easy and the burden is light when we are standing where we belong, where we have assumed responsibility for the worlds that are present in our consciousness. We are going to handle these worlds from the standpoint of spiritual expression and our spiritual consciousness. We know, we understand, what is needful in the enfoldment of our worlds. We say primarily that is love, and we have some of that to offer if in the acceptance of the responsibility of angels we behave like angels.
Angels passionately love the Word of the Lord. They passionately fulfil the first great commandment. This is angelic function. This is the attitude of angels. The angel already loves the Lord passionately, and if we agree with that then we find ourselves associated with that angelic attitude and that angelic expression.
We find ourselves at a new level of experience. We have emerged out of the level where the transformation is occurring, namely in the world in our consciousness; and we stand above that world in the consciousness of the angel, enfolding that world, intensifying the substance that is present, so that the transformation may occur. And we know very well that in that transformation there will be a certain amount of suffering. Seeing that it is in our own consciousness, that relates to something that we experience, doesn't it? But we know what it is that is happening and we stand at a level where what is happening is actually below us, even though it is within the range of our experience. We wouldn't be much use in accomplishing anything if what we were to accomplish was outside the range of our experience. It is inside the range of our experience; therefore we can be useful there and can accomplish what needs to be accomplished.
This process is a process of transformation by which what is responding is raised up and what is opposing is cast down, until all that can be raised up has been raised out of the level of the old world, the world where human beings suffer. There is a new heaven and a new earth, the angelic world, the world of angelic heavenly substance which now has so permeated the old world that there isn't any old world left. The first heaven and the first earth are passed away. Then there is the experience of the reality of the new heaven and the new earth, for the former things have passed away and man is restored to the level where he belongs, which is not at the level of the transformation. The transforming process causes suffering if there is self-consciousness at that level. There is not supposed to be self-consciousness at that level. Human beings have insisted upon it. Now we are providing the facility by which the transformation may occur and whatever responds may be lifted up to the level in human form where it belongs. The former things are passed away. There was no more pain. There was no more death. There was no more sorrow or crying. Certainly quite impossible in this human nature world! But we are interested in letting that world pass away, that the world where man belongs may be present again and man in it, extending the creative blessing of whatever is necessary for the transformation which occurs in the world where he no longer is. What is at the level of transformation should not have self-consciousness—then there is no trouble. So we rise up and provide what is necessary for the worlds contained in our consciousness to rise up with us, and what will not rise up with us is left behind. Simple.
Once again we have had the opportunity of considering some things within the substance that is available to us here this evening, handling what has emerged of our worlds in the way that this needed to be handled. As we have willingly allowed it to occur in our own consciousness we have participated in the process by which transformation of the world occurs. We need to become very familiar with this so that we do not duck out but let it be a reality consistently in all our living, because our world is not going to go away from our consciousness. You may say it slips out when you go to sleep at night. I don't think it really does. It is still there. You have a hint that it is there sometimes, don't you? You get to dreaming. No, we have a constant responsibility here, and because we know something in this connection we have that responsibility. Woe unto those who try to shuck it off! So let us continue in the way, letting all things work together to perfection as the transformation occurs and all things are thereby made new.
© emissaries of divine light
