The Transparent Human Self

The  Transparent  Human  Self

Martin Exeter  February 10, 1985  100 Mile House, BC

“And the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory?” No particular attempt was made to identify Him in the song which the choir sang—but the Psalmist makes a stab at it! “The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.” And then, finally, “The Lord of hosts.” However, all this is merely giving one concept after another and, I don’t think, in the end, has identified the King of glory any more than as the King of glory. If there is a state of separateness from the King of glory, then all that can be provided is some human concept. The state of separation is known to human beings in their awareness of selfhood. Human identity is separate from divine identity, angelic identity, heavenly identity. Human identity is an earthly identity. There is then on the one hand an earthly identity and on the other hand a heavenly identity—a state of separation. So the human idea of God and of the Lord of hosts, or the King of glory, is required to identify something other than what the human being presently knows himself to be. “There is another state, but it isn’t me. I am this human state, and everybody knows that this human state is very impoverished and limited. Therefore it is not surprising if I am impoverished and limited.”

We have recently been giving some thought to the matter of ascension, the creative process by which there is a raising up. Human beings everywhere have been raised up out of the mineral kingdom, the kingdom of vegetation, even the animal kingdom these days, so that there is substance standing up in a flesh body. Included in this substance is also the substance of mind and emotions—the substance of consciousness. While life remains, this substance of consciousness is not separate from the physical substance of one’s flesh—and the physical substance of one’s flesh is not really separate from the other kingdoms of this world: they are all included. This raising-up process of ascension just goes so far, and human beings develop an identity. There is the attitude that I am myself—but the self is composed of all this substance which has been lifted up to a certain level of experience, characterized by a certain level of consciousness. We are well aware that human beings vary considerably in the level of their consciousness. But the whole experience of self in the human sense is restricted to this lump of raised-up substance, with the inclusion of what we call consciousness. The consciousness which we have and which comes to focus in a sense of self occurs because there are certain facilities available in the physical form to permit this to happen. In the development of these facilities are various systems in the physical form, such as the endocrine system and the nervous system, the circulatory system, the lymphatic system, the digestive system. One can identify a number of different systems, which obviously are facilities for the expression of life in human form, and these facilities allow for the development of consciousness.

So we have one gathering together of substance at various levels which, because of its nature and design, produces or creates an earthly identity. All human beings have this sense of human self, the earthly self—but clearly this is a creation; it developed out of what happened in this cycle of ascension. But if there has been a cycle of ascension, something must have produced it, and it wasn’t the thing that was created; it wasn’t the sense of self humanly speaking that did it, because there wasn’t any self to start with; it merely developed along the way. Everyone these days has become so enamored with this sense of identity which puts in an appearance that they claim it as being the ultimate. Human beings after all are the ultimate creation here on earth, and therefore the earth was created for human beings and it is available for their use—and here they are, trying to benefit themselves from the situation as they have found it, at the level of ascension to which experience has brought them.

Because of the love of this earthly self there is the endeavor to promote it in various ways and to maintain it in existence. Finally it can’t be maintained anymore, and that is that. This seemed a rather unfortunate state of affairs, so various ideas have been developed in the mental realm of consciousness to help sustain this earthly sense of self. These theories and beliefs that have been developed look to what they call a life after death for this creation, which only appeared by reason of the physical body. We can well see the reason why all these ideas have been promulgated, mostly through religions of various sorts. Whether one proceeds immediately to an ultimate heaven or hell in the earthly identity, or whether one just goes into limbo for a while and shows up again later in some other form, it makes very little difference. The idea is to maintain the earthly identity which is so much in love with itself. The primary characteristic of a human being is self-love. This is considered to be natural. It may be thought of in terms of sustaining life itself, or it may be thought of in these religious terms; and all that human beings attempt is based in this self-love. The self-love may include some others as well—and with some, they reach a point where they are, in theory at least, including everybody, the whole human race: “We have got to sustain the existence of the whole human race in this state of human identity.”

Well we have all passed through this stage I am sure. The question is as to how far beyond it we have come, or whether we just got stuck somewhere along the way because we were so in love with this human identity. That is the only reason why anyone gets stuck—self-love. We know that the valid instruction is to love the Lord. But then who is the Lord? One can develop a theory and say, “It is myself. After all, I am.” And this human character boosts itself into a position of deity and functions on this basis. This is the way all human beings have been functioning. No matter what their claims about some other deity somewhere, the actions of human beings have all been based in what has emerged through this human facility, what was present in the flesh. In the flesh there are, as is well known these days, the factors of heredity—and all this is included in the character that is developed in the human identity.

So we have this very obvious state of separation from whatever it is that allowed for the development of this human identity. After all, there was a point back along the way where it didn’t exist, for all of us—there was no human identity. We look back and we study history, or we hear of our ancestors, and feel a sort of connection back there with all this that has been ongoing; but it is quite clear that there was a point where in the human identity we didn’t exist. We hadn’t even been thought of, and there comes a time when we are likely to be forgotten, where we have ceased to exist. This has always seemed a terrible fate insofar as the human identity was concerned, because of the self-love. No matter how miserable and rotten the experience of human identity has been, there has been sufficient self-love to want to preserve it.

Mention was made by Jack Callister yesterday evening, reading from an old service, of a movement of the solar system and the galaxy through space, in the recognition that there are various qualities of what is present in space through which these systems move. This was seen in light of the fact that there came a time in the past when the quality of substance in space was such that what has subsequently been called the fall became possible—it became a fact. However in the course of time there is movement further, and there is an emergence out of that particular quality of substance, so that it establishes a state where what we have known as the fallen state cannot exist—this whether human beings like it or not. We now have an awareness that the rising tide parallels this cosmic movement. After all, the whole of the all-that-is is one thing. Unlike human beings, who try to go off in their own separate ways and achieve their own isolated purposes, all that composes the universal whole is part of one thing, naturally and easily coordinated. That state of coordination is consequent upon what we have called love—oneness—the universe is one. Only in the self-loving consciousness of human beings is there this state of assumed separation. It is unreal; it doesn’t really exist anywhere but in human consciousness.

So there is this rising tide, which is a cosmic tide, but it comes to focus particularly in our galaxy, in our solar system, in our planet, in ourselves, in all human beings. Human beings are part of this whole universal operation. It has been possible to exist in this limited human state for many thousands of years simply because of the nature, the character, the quality of space substance through which this solar system in particular is passing. Now, the fact is that it is emerging out of that substance, which means, for human beings, that the state of separation from the all-that-is can no longer be maintained. We ourselves have caught some vision, and have some experience of the fact, that we are one. We have not always approved of this, mind you, and have sought to maintain our uniquely splendid characters! But the human identity is not splendid at all, and is not particularly unique either. You find a lot of people who are very much like each other, some of them even in appearance. So we have this rising tide, which is not a little local affair, although it seems to be so from the human standpoint—from the standpoint of human identity it becomes more and more uncomfortable because the state of separateness from the whole is moving toward the point where it can no longer exist. As human beings are accustomed to being separate, they are accustomed to their self-love, they are accustomed to doing the things that they do on the basis of that self-love, and this is harder and harder to sustain; it becomes quite uncomfortable to the human identity. Then there is a good deal of complaint about this and a good deal of blame put here or there for it—but the blame is not rightly put on somebody else. What is happening is merely consequent upon the rising tide, which one either learns to move with, to enter the ark, shall we say, and float on the surface of the water, or one drowns—and what drowns is this human identity.

So the human sense of self is raised up to a certain level. It has been all down through the ages, and human beings have reached whatever level it was but never allowed it to go any further because they were held firmly in that restricted and disintegrating state by their self-love. Well obviously if one is to emerge out of that, that self-love must be dissolved somehow. There must be love of another self. The self-love which is known by human beings is a phony. It is an unreal experience, because there isn’t any self of that nature that is lasting. It is a temporary self, a temporary identity. Now in this raising-up process—the process of ascension—there is movement which brings a clarifying state of self. The human self becomes increasingly transparent. If you consider the word transparent you will immediately be aware of the fact that the human self becomes increasingly nonexistent—because it is transparent, whatever the truth is can come forth.

So there is the gradual dissolution of the human self but at the same time the emergence of the true self, the true identity that has always been present and which has made possible the unfinished, incomplete human identity which has been the experience. It has been incomplete because it only went up so far. It never came to the point of clarification and transparency where the human self would vanish and the true self would appear. We can see that this happens for a baby, a child, adolescent, and so on. There is the fading of one experience of self and the emergence in greater expression of another experience of self, a new identity. We were, I am sure, quite content to have a baby identity when we were babies. We didn’t really know all that much about it because the identity hadn’t developed adequately yet. But as it begins to emerge, a human self is created, a human identity. This could be—it hasn’t been for a very, very long time—a natural progression. It hasn’t been a natural progression because it got stopped at a certain point where the self-love was so strong that it held the person identified with the earth and it did not allow any further development of the experience of identity. It seems that most people are quite satisfied with their identity in the human state, and they usually hook it to various fields of human endeavor, and this human identity developed in self-love becomes the great thing. That is why it is such a shattering experience when the individual has to retire. He is losing what he thinks of as his identity. The former things need to pass away. So the process of ascension insists that you either rise up or you go down. Human beings individually have chosen to go down, so far. Generation after generation they have gone down. It has been such a habit that it is considered to be natural. Well it is natural in a sense because it is something that doesn’t belong—it is just simply passing away, that is all. But why go to all the trouble to create human beings and then simply ditch them? Of course that isn’t what was done. That is what human beings have done to themselves because of this state of self-love.

The ascending process has always been there, because people have been lifted up in physical form, lived for a little while and then died; and that process of lifting up has been going on, but it has always dropped right back again. It was never allowed to carry on through because human beings were so self-satisfied and so intent upon following out their theories of achievement in self-love—and we have a world of that nature. But it is reaching a point where this restricted state cannot continue to exist—there are cosmic reasons for that, beyond human control; but regardless of why it is happening, it is happening. And human beings are either participating in this ascending process, so that their sense of identity is changing, or they are staying with the old identity and passing out of the picture.

This is something which is happening on a large scale—it is happening on the scale of mankind. It is not only on the scale of mankind; it is happening throughout the universal whole—but this is a very particular event that is occurring in this particular part of the universe. The universe is not bland; it is not all the same thing going on at the same time. There is a vast multiplicity. But here something is happening which involves mankind, and it involves us because we are a part of mankind. It involves everyone. No one can find a position of exemption; at least the only position of exemption is the death or the passing of the human identity. Then you are exempt, but then you don’t exist anymore; whereas this state of human identity, if allowed to participate in the continuing ascending process, becomes increasingly transparent. One self fades out, another self fades in—this is something that happens at death anyway, but that is not very satisfactory for a human self which suddenly fades out; it is cut, it is not fading out. Rightly there is a fading out as the human identity becomes less structured, less of what the individual has been insistent upon maintaining all the years before. As there is a willingness to let that fade out something else fades in, because it is all part of the process of ascension.

Human beings in the limited condition have never known what wholeness would be. Something is beginning to percolate in human consciousness with respect to a state of wholeness. They don’t know what it is. They try to apply it in various ways in various fields. But the state of wholeness is something which already exists; it doesn’t need to be applied but becomes the human experience to the extent that the human identity fades out. As long as one insists upon maintaining one’s position in the human state and there is an unwillingness to let that fade out, one is insisting upon passing away with what is only temporary. It proves to be only temporary because the whole cycle of ascension is not allowed to work itself out. So it is cut off at a certain point by reason of human self-love.

We participate in what has been described as being with one accord. Being with one accord relates to love, and we find ourselves, to the extent of this experience of love, to be in one place. The place no longer is seen in earthly terms. We don’t all have to jam into one geographical position to be in one place. The point is that we are in one place of identity. Instead of saying, “I am an earthly person; I am this earthly character; I have these earthly peculiarities,” you begin to realize that you are not all that, but you are the One who has caused all that to reach the point which it has in the process of ascension. You could look with some compassion upon this earthly character who has rather arrogantly claimed an earthly identity and you can see that that is just a stage in the process of ascension. That is the experience that is known at that stage. But now, having developed some sort of a human identity, a human character in the earthly sense, you look upon that and you say, “Well that’s rather a strange sort of thing. How about coming up higher? Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away,” so that all this earthly stuff begins to dissolve and the earthly identity becomes more and more transparent. One is no longer blocked by this earthly self.

The experience of identity becomes more and more transparent and the old is fading out, the former things are passing away, and the new is fading in. Behold, I make all things new. That is the process if we are willing to go with it. There must be the willingness to let this earthly identity fade—and there is something that fades in. You begin to find a new state. We all have had this experience, in whatever measure, of something fading in when something else was fading out. Unfortunately the self-love tends to keep a grasp on certain things and it only is a partial experience in consequence. But there may be ease in relinquishing the past, relinquishing ourselves: “I of myself can do nothing. I don’t want anything. I am not trying to get anything. I am just willing to participate in the experience of the true identity I am.” One may describe that using the word life: “I am life.” Or “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” But I am life. I am life humaning, in this specific way. But I am life humaning everywhere. I am life treeing. Life is no respecter of persons. Here is the common denominator. I am that—and being that I am not separate from anything. I may not immediately be, in the personal sense, in the form of a tree, but still what I am is in the form of a tree too. Then we begin to discover that there is this state of being with one accord in one place, a place of life—and life is love expressing through the design and the control of truth. I am love, I am truth, if I am life. It all is one. There is one whole.

All that needs to happen is to experience it, which requires that the old state fade out and the new one fade in. Where there is a willingness for this to happen—that proves itself out—then it happens. It is not done by the human self. The human self didn’t create itself in the first place. It sustains itself by self-love, but if that self-love wasn’t there it would have naturally followed through in the ascending cycle and would have emerged into the experience of the divine self, because the human self would have faded completely away just as your baby self faded completely away, and all the subsequent selves. Some of them didn’t fade completely away. That is the trouble with immature human beings—they didn’t allow the natural process to permit a fading out at one level and a fading in at the next, all the way through. A person becomes so enamored with himself that he says, “No, stop! I am me now”—which is a lie. It is a false identity. It must continue all the way through if there is to be the discovery on earth of the truth. If there is not that discovery then what is not true passes away. Simple. It passes away individually, and has been doing it for a long time, but somewhere it passes away collectively because there is this rising tide and the false cannot be sustained.

So we share this responsibility of moving in accord, because we accept an identity which is not restricted and limited by the former things. One must participate in this rising tide, in this ascending process, to begin to find a level of perspective where you can look back at yourself: “My heavens! How could I have been like that?” Well you can only do that when you have emerged out of that, and you can only emerge out of it when you stop loving yourself so much. You love what is happening in the whole. You love the rising tide. You love the changing perspective. You love letting the former things pass away. You love allowing all things to be made new. All things! Let the former things pass away, that there may be the experience of being with one accord in one place, the place of life, the place of joy, the place of satisfaction and fulfillment. “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.” We need to be able to speak those words to the identity which has been so intent upon maintaining itself, claiming to be oneself when it isn’t. When we can begin to stand above it, and see it with perspective, it is ready to dissolve, and the increasing transparency for the experience of the truth is known. I rejoice that we may participate in this process together, with one accord, in a setting such as this—but let us participate in it regardless of the setting, because we are there. I am there. I am life humaning, humaning in all kinds of different ways. Just take a look around: animaling, treeing, mineraling—everything. That is what I am doing, and it is all one. I am.

© emissaries of divine light