Where Are You? Where Have You Been?

Where  Are  You?

Where  Have  You  Been?

Martin Exeter  February 17, 1985

“And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?” [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/2021/02/come-out-of-hiding.html] This is a very familiar passage from the book of Genesis, which has a continuing and meaningful application in human experience today, in this moment. The question is asked, “Where art thou?”, of each of us. On that occasion it is indicated that the ones who were so questioned were hiding behind the trees in the Garden. Human beings everywhere on the face of the earth have been hiding behind the veil of their own desires for self-produced satisfaction, physical, mental and emotional. “Where art thou?” There is another passage which may also be of interest: “Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.”

Where are you, and where have you been? The veil of the desire for self-satisfaction characterizes human nature and therefore human beings everywhere, so that if any attention is paid to God, for instance, He tends to be looked upon as the great self-satisfier; and demands are made upon this character for the required self-satisfaction. This has been a general attitude toward deity on the part of human beings who have been concerned with deity: deliver the goods of self-satisfaction—even the deity of government: “Provide us with what we want.” There is general demand in this regard, and I have noticed that this attitude creeps into the most sacred of considerations, when the demand is being made upon God through prayer or however, “Give us what we think we want.” That is an abomination which has reversed the real character of life itself. We know very well that we are not here to make demands.

So this is the attitude that has been taken, which has removed people from where they should be. We can understand, then, the question, “Where art thou, and where have you been?”  All may say, “We’ve been following out our own desires for self-satisfaction,” even when it comes to a consideration of spiritual things. At times I think EDL is supposed to be the great satisfier. But such attitudes are a complete reversal of what would be natural in the real experience of living, because the question is being put to human beings, ourselves included presumably, “Provide an answer; reveal what the truth is.” If one is simply making demands upon God, the government, EDL, somebody or other, for answers, for the fulfilment of one’s desires, then one is attuned with death rather than life. If one has a reverse attitude from that which is required by life, then that aligns one with death. It is strange how reluctant even those who begin to understand, like us, are to allow a reversal to take place in their attitude. One would think that if life is being offered, rather than death, there would be quick response; but it doesn’t usually seem to be so.

Our concern has been to allow this reversal of attitude to take place, so that we may not only prove something out for ourselves but open a door for everybody else. Looking around in the world, we do not see many people assuming this attitude of alignment with life. This reversed state of expecting someone to deliver what we want has been found in the Holy Place—that is the abomination. I’ve read some material from time to time which gives very high-sounding ideas to those who might read it, but somewhere in the body of the information there will be the idea put forward that by this means we can all get what we want: the abomination in the midst of the Holy Place. Do we, any of us, still have the expectation that God or some heavenly character is going to deliver to us what we have thought we wanted? Let us let this abomination be cleared out of the Holy Place, that we may be together in agreement that we are certainly not present on earth to get what we want. We are not here to be self-satisfied. We are here to answer a few questions, questions that have been put to mankind for many thousands of years, which apparently they have not yet gotten around to answering because they themselves were so busy making demands that they didn’t notice the questions.

What are you doing in this insane state on earth? All right, speak up! Am I here to give the answer, or are you here to give the answer? Perhaps the answer would be, “We have no business in this insane state; we are here to deliver something which reveals a little sanity. We are here to give the answer.” I don’t know how else the answer is going to appear on earth.

There are those who have more faith than I do that somehow or other the thunderous voice of God is going to speak out of the heavens and tell us what the answer is. Well what about our answer? What are we going to say? What is it that we are going to deliver? Obviously human beings everywhere, ourselves included, have been out of position, incapable and incompetent to give the answer. People are inclined to pride themselves on their expertise in various fields, but this is one field which has been neglected. Our concern is to reactivate this field so that we may find ourselves on hand, not only imagining that we know something about the answer but actually giving it. I think too many have felt self-satisfied to imagine that one knows something about the answer, that because one knows something about the answer one can tell somebody else about it. Then they will know something about the answer—but nobody gives the answer.

There is only one person who can give the answer, and that is oneself. Nobody else can give it for one. The answer must come out of one’s own living, one’s own life; otherwise it isn’t an answer insofar as one is concerned oneself. One may hear the answer being given by somebody else, if somebody else is giving it—I haven’t noticed too many—and that may be fine for somebody else; but it doesn’t do very much for oneself if one’s attitude is still the reverse one which is expecting to be self-satisfied in this fashion by getting an answer. If there is an answer which would be revealing of life rather than the processes of dying, to know it one must give it oneself. After all, it is oneself who is either living or dying. What do I do?

Where art thou? Where have you been? The answer must be given by the individual him- or herself; otherwise it’s not known. There is only one person who can give an answer, and that is the individual who would refer to himself as “me”: “I can give the answer.” If I stand up here now, speaking, I’m not giving any answer to you. I suppose I could say it’s entirely self-centered. I’m giving the answer for myself! In giving the answer for myself I seek to encourage all of you to do likewise, not necessarily by standing up here behind the lectern and speaking. I’m really talking about living. For the moment this is part of my living, but a very small part, after all. The same would be true of any of us. We have plenty of hours, plenty of moments day by day to give the answer. Seeing that this is so we should have plenty of practice; we should really know how to do it if we took advantage of those moments. But if we’re stuck in the usual human nature self-satisfying grind we don’t get much satisfaction out of doing it, because fulfilment, being filled full of life, couldn’t happen that way. It’s excluding life.

So we may hear the question and decide to give the answer. It’s really quite simple but seems very complex or very difficult to understand, very mysterious, to those who are intent on the continuing experience of self-satisfaction. One can look into one’s own heart a little bit on that score. We look around and we see that there is what we call a rising tide of change, something happening in the experience of human beings everywhere. Here is a life-process at work. If we are to be aligned with life we must be aligned with that process, which requires some change—we’ve seen it as being quite drastic if there is to be an alignment with life; because virtually everything that human beings do, every aspect of their behavior, aligns them—us—with death, not life. There is an unwillingness to let changes come. There have been many thousands of years during which people, generation after generation, had the opportunity to let change come so that there might be alignment with life.

Life seems to have done pretty well on the surface of this planet. We have much evidence of life. It’s getting along fine; it reveals itself in a multitude of different ways. I don’t think there is any less life now than there was last year, or a hundred years ago, or a thousand years ago. The life’s fine; the forms change. We may speak about life treeing, or humaning, or whatever; it appears in a variety of forms. Life has no difficulty in appearing in these forms, even though the forms of human beings have resisted life by trying to get what they want rather than allowing life to reveal itself in whatever life’s way would be. Even though that has happened, there is still life around—it didn’t get rid of life. It got rid of a lot of forms over the centuries, but life is still on hand. Wouldn’t it be more intelligent, slightly more sensible and sane, to align oneself with the processes of life rather than with the processes of death?

The birds and the flowers reveal this rather beautifully. They toil not, neither do they spin. They don’t have to struggle. How would that be for human beings, I wonder. Obviously if we have all the habits that we now have it wouldn’t work very well. We’ve got to stop imagining what it is we want and give life a chance to bring forth something which would be infinitely greater and more beautiful than the birds and the flowers. But that darned attitude stands in the way: “I want to get what I want.” You shouldn’t be wanting anything. If you don’t want anything then you won’t try to get what you want, because there wouldn’t be anything to get. But we may align ourselves with the processes of life. Life isn’t static, it’s constantly moving; there is a constant process—and how profitable, how delightful, to be aligned with that process! Where have we been? Obviously in the wrong place. The invitation is to be a means by which the answer which life would give “humaning” can be given. It’s a matter of alignment with life, and is something which is very positive. It’s something with which one may move. One’s whole experience is filled with the movement of life, with that process. What happens inside? It’s not manipulating outer forms that is going to do any good. If there is an alignment with life, then what is natural to life will be the experience, and I don’t think life is at all niggardly.

Where art thou? We may stand where we belong; we speak of it as heaven, for the sake of a word, something other than what is implied by the use of the word “earth,” where human beings are thoroughly embedded in the human nature state. “Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?” We can see people all around involved in human nature, not paying much attention to anything else. We have an opportunity to offer something ourselves which is not characteristic of human nature, the only thing that would be of value. This might even be quite shocking to other people: “Are you crazy?” Crazy people always think sane people are crazy. And in the world the way it is, who is which? But we have the opportunity of providing some sanity because we’ve set aside the things that we think we want in favor of discovering what the processes of life are, and aligning ourselves with those. It requires quite a different expression in living. There is virtually nothing the same, because it is completely reversed. And while we do it delicately, so as not to make it seem too crazy to other people, nevertheless unless we do it there is no door open for anyone else to do it, and the only answer is refused by human beings on earth.

If the answer is refused, life runs out. It runs out individually—we know that all too well—but it can also run out collectively speaking. And it must, sometime along the way, as long as the answer is not given. The answer is life. Obviously human beings are not aligned with that; they’re dying all over the place. We’re doing it ourselves, we know all about it! Yet how stubborn the human nature attitude is. Accept life and give the answer in one’s own living here and now, taking responsibility oneself—never mind what anybody else does; never mind what I do. What do you do, what answer do you give? I have to say that for myself: what answer do I give? That’s my responsibility, but your responsibility is to give the answer yourself, wherever you are, whoever you are, in whatever circumstance.

Give the answer of life! As we do, there is life revealed, humaning. If life is revealed humaning that’s a great comfort to life revealed animaling, vegetabling, mineraling, because we have a particular responsibility in this—all these kingdoms are present in ourselves. And if we let it be right, it’s going to be right everyplace else. If we never let it be right in us, it’s wrong everywhere. People sometimes think of nature as being perfect. It gets along because life is there coming through, but it’s all messed up because life has not been humaning as it should be. It’s been blocked, turned aside, so that human beings can try to get what they want and kill themselves in the process. We all have experience in that regard. Let’s quit it, and share the responsibility of letting life determine our experience so that we stop trying to make life conform to what we think we want. It won’t do it. How futile.

So I am thankful for the opportunity we have had this morning to place ourselves on the line, if we will—the lifeline—that life may be increased because we live on earth, not because that is something that we think we want but because that is what we are here to allow to happen, and because it opens the way of life for people everywhere to take advantage of the rising tide that is certainly on the move in these days. Aligned with that, we can play our part in the fulfilment that is available to human beings everywhere. We hear the invitation, and we begin to find that it is very demanding. One might say, eventually it comes to the point of give the answer or else! And that has been the experience of every human being who has ever been born into this world. It doesn’t become so plain until one has passed through a certain number of years on earth. It becomes more and more plain: Give the answer or else! Most people have preferred “or else.

© emissaries of divine light