From Catterpillar To Butterfly

From  Caterpillar  To  Butterfly

Martin Exeter  January 13, 1985  pm

I am sure we are all aware that a caterpillar is a transition stage in a cycle which is completed in a butterfly. A caterpillar presumably came out of an egg. It spends a little period of time as a caterpillar and then, through the urging of the creative process, it attaches itself to a twig and is willing to pass away as a caterpillar, becoming what is present with a chrysalis. It has to move through the chrysalis stage to have the experience of the butterfly. Now, obviously, the caterpillar isn’t the butterfly. I would suggest that a caterpillar state is a good analogy for the human state. I like to use analogies such as this because it gives me words which might otherwise be difficult to come by. We may observe this creative process of the caterpillar through the chrysalis to the butterfly. This is revealing of a creative process that has been available to human beings. As I say, the human state is rather well exemplified by the caterpillar. Human beings, after all, creep around on the earth nibbling at this and nibbling at that.

According to the story in the Book of Genesis, after Adam had eaten of the forbidden fruit in company with Eve at the behest of the serpent, the Lord had something to say to Adam because he had done this: “Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.” There is a little more than that, but it makes a point here, indicative of the fact that man had now become an earth creature. He could no longer have the same heavenly experience that had been known before; his identity was now centered in the earth, of which he ate until he died. This is a very sad picture of the beautiful crowning creation which had been man.

However, the ground was cursed for the sake of this fallen creature. That, of course, might be interpreted to mean it was because he had behaved the way he had that things were now the way they were, which was true enough; but it is also indicative of the fact that a recreative process was available to be experienced. Things were the way they were now so as to open the door by which changes might come and eventually the heavenly state be re-experienced. It was for the sake of this now caterpillar creature that the creative process had actually been slowed down. If it had continued at the same intensity as before, the caterpillar who insisted upon being a caterpillar would have very quickly perished. In earthly identity not very much creative intensity can be accommodated without rather speedy fatal results.

We can see the caterpillar as representing the whole, the collective body of mankind, and we can see it as also representing the individual. The caterpillar is the earthly creature—as I say, it creeps around—but obviously here is an illustration, available to anyone’s observation, of how the creative process works and of how the restoration to the heavenly state might come. First of all, the caterpillar is rather a sluggish creature; it humps along, like human beings do. They no longer know what it means to leap upon the mountains and skip upon the hills, just drag around close to the earth in the valleys—certainly a sorrowful experience when seen in the light of the original heavenly state.

Human beings, of course, have directed their talents to trying to improve their lot in this rather miserable state. Some succeeded a little, some didn’t, and in any case the state of affairs didn’t last very long individually, but it has lasted quite a while collectively. The caterpillar is still around, still endeavoring by its own efforts to become the butterfly, of which there is a very faint memory. In other words, human beings wouldn’t be striving for better things if there wasn't something present in themselves to remind them of the fact that better things are possible. And so the caterpillar, over the ages, has been applying itself to the endeavor to become some sort of a butterfly while still being a caterpillar. If seen in that way it should be more or less obvious that it's an impossible task, because the butterfly, after all, is not a caterpillar.

But the human approach has been this, and I think it is well that we look at it in these terms, partly for a reminder to ourselves but also to extend an influence of understanding to those who are in the process, the creative process, by which the caterpillar may become a butterfly. And I am thinking of this on a collective basis. Individually speaking, we may see the application of these things to ourselves, but the individual transformation that is needed, passing through this chrysalis stage toward the butterfly, is describable as an internal one. We have all become aware of the fact that the re-creation of our worlds is an internal matter; it relates to what rises up within ourselves. We are no longer looking to bring pressure to bear on other people to change, but to undertake to deal with what arises in ourselves and let that change. And, to our amazement perhaps, we find that other people change also!

So, individually speaking, we can see the caterpillar stage as requiring movement into the chrysalis, and it is all an internal matter. It only becomes an external matter collectively speaking. It can’t become an external matter collectively speaking until it first becomes an internal matter individually speaking for, I suppose one might say, a sufficient number of people. Then that has this miraculous influence upon others who amazingly change. So we are not looking for anything particularly on the usual self-centered basis. We are not thinking of salvation particularly for ourselves or the experience of becoming a butterfly just for me: “After all, I have been very good for so many years; it’s about time that the butterfly put in an appearance.” No, the butterfly cannot be known except as the chrysalis stage is passed through.

That chrysalis stage is interesting. Presumably there is something in a caterpillar which causes the little creature to do what is required to be in position to become a chrysalis, and insofar as caterpillars are concerned, as far as I know, they don’t resist the process. They don’t insist upon staying caterpillars; if they did I am sure it would be quite fatal. And this is the way it works for human beings. There is a means by which this creative process may work in individual experience. As I say, it is an internal matter. It is of little immediate concern to anybody else. It becomes a delightful concern somewhere along the way when there may be an awareness that the collective caterpillar is almost ready to go into the chrysalis.

What is this chrysalis stage? We have all had some experience in this regard; we should know. We have been willing, up to a point at least, to stop being caterpillars, to stop staying in that human state. There is another state to be experienced. We have recognized this, so that we have withdrawn our attitude of support to caterpillar affairs, at least to some extent. We know that insofar as we individually are concerned there is an urge to move out of the caterpillar state into what comes next. I am sure the caterpillar has no awareness of what coming events are in the chrysalis, but there is evidently a willingness to let it happen. And this has been our approach, has it not?—a willingness to let happen what needs to happen. But we can’t let what needs to happen happen if we are still trying desperately to hang onto the caterpillar state.

The caterpillar has manifold interests, which we have described in terms of nibbling leaves. But in the human state there is a vast array of interests so that people, represented by this caterpillar, are intent upon following out the caterpillar designs apparently to their ultimate end, which proves to be something comparable to the chrysalis. The chrysalis can be seen as a womb for the butterfly or it can be seen as a tomb for the caterpillar. In either case the caterpillar ceases to be. So, ultimately, whether one likes it or not as a caterpillar, one is forced to relinquish one’s hold upon the caterpillar world.

This creative process is available, has been available all down through the ages, individually speaking, but because there have been so few who have taken advantage of it, collectively very little effect has occurred. It simply remained an internal matter for this individual and that individual, and that’s as far as it went. The caterpillar of mankind continued to creep around, following out its own nibbling affairs as usual. Of course these became increasingly important as history unfolded, at least important to the particular generation of caterpillar parts that were present. But I suspect it looked very much the same in every generation insofar as the character of what was happening was concerned: human beings trying to stay a caterpillar and yet to improve the caterpillar state, external and internal presumably, to such an extent that at last it would be a butterfly. What nonsense!

The chrysalis state has been seen in terms of a tomb: individually everybody dies. This has been interpreted as a transition stage: you go into the tomb and, according to the particular variety of belief, you come out sooner or later, presumably, into a butterfly state—but not on earth, somewhere else. Well that’s trying to make the tomb into a womb, I think, but the butterfly state belongs on earth. It isn’t supposed to be somewhere else, as is clearly demonstrated in the cycle which may be observed. The only difference is that the butterfly is not earthbound anymore. It can creep around a little on the earth if it wishes, but for the most part it enjoys flying in the open air of heaven while still being a very beautiful earth creature, far more beautiful presumably than the caterpillar.

So we ourselves have tentatively exhibited a willingness to enter into the chrysalis state, to become nothing as a caterpillar. Some have been a little reluctant in this regard, still placing their personal meaning in the caterpillar affairs; and in order to fulfil that meaning, of course, they had to stay a caterpillar. So there was resistance insofar as moving into the chrysalis stage was concerned, where one finally begins to realize that one is nothing. As the Master put it, “I of myself can do nothing.” In the caterpillar state, of course, there is this expectation of great things, attaining the kingdoms of this world and the glory of them. The temptations were revealing of the willingness of this One to relinquish all such caterpillar ambitions. Most people say, “Well I couldn’t do that. Surely there is something worthwhile to attain in this caterpillar world.” Well as a caterpillar for a while I suppose it’s all right, that’s the way one starts out, but the intent is not that one’s total experience should be of that nature.

The urge comes to move toward the butterfly stage, and this requires—and we have become aware of the requirement—that we relinquish our caterpillar ambitions. We no longer put weight in the kingdoms of this world and the glory of them. They begin to become meaningless to us. They become totally meaningless to us if we enter into the chrysalis stage, because we are no longer a caterpillar and we are not yet a butterfly. This is a limbo state, I suppose you could say, which is looked upon askance by most people in observing someone who may be moving toward the chrysalis state, because that person seems to be becoming meaningless in the caterpillar world. And that’s true enough; that’s the way it looks to another caterpillar. Here is a caterpillar retiring into a cocoon, and this of course from the caterpillar standpoint is something that shouldn’t be done. There have been young people who have come along into the Emissary program who have been looked upon askance by their parents and relatives and friends and others because it seemed to them that they were becoming nothing. And that should be true; they are becoming nothing caterpillar-like at all. Caterpillar-hood is being relinquished! And if, as has been the case, caterpillars have had very little vision of butterflies—they just have sometimes a little urge in that direction—they try to work it out in caterpillar ways, and of course it’s not very effective.

But there is something moving. This relates to the rising tide of change, because heretofore over these last whatever it is—twenty thousand years—there has been a soft-pedaling of the creative process for the sake of the caterpillar, so that the caterpillar wouldn’t perish before it had a chance to become the chrysalis. Of course it needn’t have perished, but with the resistance that has been developed in human experience it is unlikely that the caterpillar would have survived. So things have been slowed down, but now in the collective sense the urge is moving in the caterpillar to enter into the chrysalis. This urge becomes something real in the caterpillar experience—that is, the collective experience of mankind—because there are individuals who have already been sufficiently sensitive to that urge so as to let themselves move, somewhat at least, into the chrysalis experience where this world, as we may speak of it, has very little meaning anymore. There is no expectation anymore of attaining great things in this world, even great spiritual things in this world. We have no aspiration to become spiritual caterpillars. The spiritual state is the state of the butterfly, and that isn’t a caterpillar. After all, I don’t think you could say that a butterfly is simply an improved caterpillar; it is something totally different. But that transformation requires that one pass through the intervening stage. One can leave it too late, I suppose, in which case the intervening stage becomes a tomb. We have seen that it may as well be a womb, out of which the butterfly comes. We were looking at a movie of this on TV recently and it’s really a miraculous thing to watch, the transformation that occurs. Most of it is hidden but it still occurs, and ultimately there is the evidence of butterflyness beginning to appear, and finally the butterfly stretches its wings and, after a little, flies away.

YouTube  Video

Here is the cycle of restoration, illustrated beautifully. It has been illustrated before human beings for a long time, so that they might associate themselves with the same process as it relates to this presently very human state but which nevertheless should be man. And man is as different from human beings as they now are as the butterfly is from the caterpillar. For whatever reason, there are caterpillars that are quite fancy, with their colors and their bristles and all the accoutrements of caterpillar-hood, which seems to be all right for caterpillars for a while, provided that they don’t make the mistake of being proud of being caterpillars and therefore try to preserve that condition. If they do that they will surely die.

So no matter how beautiful we may have thought ourselves to be as caterpillars, or as potentially brilliant caterpillars, it is necessary to reach a point individually where that has no more meaning to us. We may still be nibbling around a little in the caterpillar world because the transformation hasn’t come yet, but we are more interested in the transition to the butterfly than we are to stay caterpillars. And this transition needs to take place regardless of what anyone thinks about it, anyone says about it, or whatever pressures may be brought to bear upon us to stay caterpillars.

To the extent that we have taken the responsibility for letting this happen something is beginning to occur in the collective caterpillar of mankind. Something begins to come out externally and the irresistible movement, which causes a caterpillar in the natural world to move into the cocoon stage, is happening with mankind. And there are those who compose the body of this caterpillar which is moving into the cocoon. Moving into the cocoon simply means letting go of the caterpillar state. It doesn’t mean going somewhere else. The chrysalis, after all, is in the same world as the caterpillar was, and even the butterfly is in the same earth.

We find ourselves as individuals participating in this process internally, that it may be revealed externally in the whole. We ask nothing for ourselves. Participating in the whole, we experience what the whole experiences. But in order to allow this to occur we provide the focus of the compulsion to move out of caterpillar-hood into chrysalis-hood. We provide that because we do it ourselves as individuals, but we do it internally. We are not looking for external evidence that, now: “Ah, I am becoming butterfly here.” No, because it all relates to the whole if it is to become external. No one is being picked out as special, a special favorite who will be allowed to go through the chrysalis and become the butterfly while everyone else is just hanging around waiting for the process to complete itself. That's not the way it would work.

So we are quite willing to participate externally in what is happening in the whole, but internally we move through this process and we become new people, it might be said, in that internal sense. We become new people in what is expressed because of the change that has occurred by reason of that internal change. It is because of that that the intensity of the compulsion becomes more, to bring those who are potential parts of this caterpillar that is changing into the chrysalis to keep moving in that creative process. This is a story of the way it works, the way it is working, and the way we can even observe it working. But let us not become so fascinated with our observations that we forget that we are the ones who are initiating the process and that we have to be concerned with what is occurring internally in ourselves. As we are, we find ourselves meshing with others who are likewise conscious of these things. And it is good! It’s no longer a big deal, it’s a natural thing. We couldn’t do anything else.

People like to think that they have free will and they are quite capable of governing their own lives and so on. But the fact of the matter is that those who come simply can’t help themselves, because there is this compulsion of the rising tide moving and there are those who can’t help themselves in it. Of course there are those who can’t swim; presumably they drown somewhere along the way. But those who can swim in any measure, or float, or just stay with their heads above water, can’t help themselves from being moved by the tide. Now we know about this, do we not? I do, I know. I have never been able to help myself. It just has to go the way it goes. There are those who try to say no to this movement. Those are the ones who get, well at least a mouthful of salt water. You can’t say no and survive.

All that has been happening over these last thousands of years has been to enable human beings to survive on earth in the caterpillar state, because there was no indication of any willingness whatsoever to come out of it. So it had to last a certain amount of time, possibly to allow for the vast increase of population so that there might be a sufficient number who would be willing to come out of it. Whatever the reason, we don’t need to delve into that; we just let it happen insofar as we are concerned, internally. And we are not expecting to sprout wings tomorrow and fly away as butterflies. No, this process is happening through the whole, and there is that which is left behind from the standpoint of the chrysalis and there is that which emerges as the butterfly. This is the way it works.

We may see our responsibility in the matter possibly with a clearer vision because of the use of this analogy. Factually we are not caterpillars, or entering into a chrysalis, or becoming butterflies. But these words are useful to convey what is really happening, and we can be quite confident that if we let it happen it will happen just as easily as that process with the caterpillar transformed into the butterfly.

But we need to be on hand and providing that stable element which inspires trust, simply because we are trustworthy and we know the process is trustworthy. We are aligned with it, we are associated with it, we are a part of it, and we can’t do anything else. So we might as well acknowledge that we trust it and stop any further questioning in the matter: “Well I am not quite sure yet.” How long does it take a person to become sure? I think those who are being compelled to come now in this happening are delayed very much by those who have the direct conscious responsibility but who still retain a lack of trust in the working of the creative process. They are saying, in effect, “Well I don’t really trust this, so you shouldn’t trust it either.” As we trust, as we free up in ourselves, and are content to be nothing in the human state, we discover what it means to be something in the heavenly state. We cease being earthbound creatures and rise on the wings of spirit in the fulfilment of the restoration of man.

© emissaries of divine light