Ascension and Rebirth
From the Third to the Fourth Sacred School
Alan Hammond June 30, 1990 World Service Class
I have a service of Martin's upon which we can launch. It is entitled, To Finish the Work [August 2, 1987]. I would like to read the opening paragraph: “There can be no restoration of the planet and of all the various forms of life on the surface of the planet until there is first the restoration of man. It is well that there are those who are awakening to the needs of the planet. They may see and understand the rape that has been going on. But if it is still imagined that there is some way by which further depravations can be stopped, and all this put together again so that it works to the satisfaction of human beings, then there is delusion indeed. The true state of the planet is absolutely dependent upon the true state of man. When that is restored, the restoration of the planet to its true state is no problem. Thus far, this basic fact has been overlooked.” [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/2017/09/to-martin-exeter-august-2-1987-there.html]
There is something of a cliche in Emissary-dom. “It is a privilege to be here.” But surely we are at least somewhat conscious of the privilege of being in this Dome in this place, and amongst other things, being aware of this first paragraph. As we well know, millions if not billions of human beings are sincerely struggling to save themselves, the world, find happiness. But they do not know the crux of the matter which is contained in this one simple paragraph. All the efforts of every discipline are futile unless somewhere in the body and the consciousness of mankind the restoration of man is recognized as the apex requirement. Now we don't have to compare Emissaries as a group to anyone else, but I would suggest you hear this central requirement voiced very little anywhere else. So if we are aware of this apex, central requirement, we find ourselves in a position of supreme responsibility. Others may be aware of this, and that's fine. We are not in a footrace to superiority but we are aware of this central requirement and are working to let this central requirement be fulfilled.
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Problems in the world abound. I am not going to take any time to rehearse all the problems; globally, internationally, nationally, personal. What would the answer be? The answer would be the restoration of a state of experience describable by the word heaven. That is what all the activity on the surface of this planet by mankind is about—endeavoring to restore, albeit unconsciously, the quality of experience describable by the word heaven. World Service Class: you will undoubtedly be in various positions of service, but one of them will be when individuals or couples come with problems, personal life problems. And if you don't already know you can listen to the rehearsal of these problems, namely, what is making them unhappy. They encourage you to help them juggle the situation. And it's impossible, actually, to produce the experience of heaven by juggling the environment. The only starting point, the only job actually, is the restoration within the individual of the sense of true identity. If we can do that, problems, in the sense of personal anguish and misery, are eliminated.
This is a colossal awareness because although it is true that we do act in the environment and are engaged in the external processes, we don't imagine success in that level brings fulfillment or heaven. It won't. So just knowing this is, I think, a tremendous awareness—one of the privileges of being seated in this Dome, to hear this—because people will wrestle around trying to solve their problems. No success is possible. The answer, obviously, is ascension. Ascension of the sense of self to a level where those problems, or situations as they then become, do not impinge upon Me—impinging, in the sense of disturbing me.
This ascension process is accomplished as we know by the quality of our spiritual expression in every moment, expressing our true character with whatever form of expression is appropriate in the moment. That generates finer substance. The sense of self, then, we find begins to ascend. The sense of identity is focused in the finest quality of substance adequately present so that gradually we begin to be able to be in a place of self consciousness in finer substance within this form we can look down, as it were, upon certainly the physical form; but we can also begin to look down upon the mental level. We can begin to observe the nature and pattern of our own thinking and our own feeling. Most people are identified at the mental or emotional level of substance and they don't realize the nature of their thinking or feeling. They just think it and feel it and act and live accordingly. But as we generate finer substance, the sense of identity ascends and we can begin to look down upon these lower levels of substance and we see the forms of thought and the patterns of feeling in these lower levels of substance. Then we can begin to act from this transcendent position relative to our feelings and our thoughts. I, being spirit, quality of character, can begin to align, attune, feelings and thoughts with the nature of my Being. That obviously will have repercussions creatively in all the levels of substance beyond.
Ascension is a very natural process and we've been experiencing it. We can observe our own feelings and our own thoughts much better now than we could five years ago I'm sure, and do something about them. The vast majority of so-called problems which cause personal angst, unhappiness, are the natural products of what we call the human ego. I don't even want to make that a derogatory label because the human ego is nothing of itself, it is merely the absence of the fullness of the presence of true identity. There are blocks within the equipment, the psyche, which prevent the full expression of the Tone in various aspects of living. Because of those blocks, shadows are cast the other side of the block and problems and miseries appear.
Just for your future meditation, most of the miseries which the human being experiences are caused by attachment to the environment. That is because of identification at those lower levels. We are not haranguing that state, we are just beginning to observe it from above and therefore be in position to do something more effective about that situation because we are here to bring something of heaven into this level of being in consciousness. So there is invariably attachment to various things or people in the environment. It is just a habit, shall we say, that the human consciousness has gotten into.
If you think of some of the areas that cause you the most misery, you will find that it is because of attachment to some pattern of form external to yourself. It may be the lack of money—that causes a lot of people misery. Well, that is attachment to form. I am not going to go into the whole discussion now about what you might say to someone who is petrified of having a cut in pay. The truth is, we could probably all live on a fraction of the stuff we have piled around us. Anyway, attachment to money, things that money can buy, we're unhappy because we can't have this or that, or we're miserable about relationships—I must have this person—why? Why not let them go?! If they want to go, why are you hanging on? Well, you'd tell me, I'm sure, why you're hanging on! Because at the moment the state of consciousness is such that you are afraid that if you let this person go there won't be anyone, you're going to be lonely, etc., etc. On and on it goes. That is all the unreal identity in an unreal world and there's no answer to that state other than ascension into self conscious identity in spirit. I could elaborate further. Jesus, Buddha, all the teachers in the body of mankind have pointed to this—that most of the distorted, unhappy feelings that people wrestle with can be traceable to attachment to external form in the environment: position, money, relationship. There is a petrified clinging to these. I am not trying to rip any of that away from anyone, I am just emphasizing something.
We have to love the Lord our God with All. That is the first commandment. Love the quality of spiritual expression above everything else. Be true to that and let the chips fall where they may. You will come to discover it doesn't matter where they fall because there is always the incredible opportunity of being in human form to express my stature, my beauty, my character, my strength. That is the fulfillment. Not bits and pieces in the environment.
I don't have to tell you what proportion of distorted feelings are accumulated or caused by what I have just been describing. Then there's a small fraction caused by our vibrational connections within the body of mankind. Believe me, there's a colossal burden off our shoulders once we start being emotionally uninvolved with the environment. People would think that to be emotionally uninvolved, you would not love. But it is only when you are emotionally uninvolved with specifics in the environment that you are actually free to express creative love to everything in your environment. The obsessions are with certain things and people in the environment. That is a diseased involvement. Coming free from that external attachment, we are free to actually bless, with the radiance of the creative spirit, whatever, whomsoever comes. There's a big difference there. It's a different world. As you listen to people answer the question, “Why are you unhappy?”, if they tell you about some situation or some person then you know that is human ego. If they can say honestly, “I have no awareness, I am not conscious of anything that I should be miserable or fearful about, I am just feeling this,” then we can switch to cause B which would be, no doubt, vibrational connection within the body of mankind. We can from above send out the radiance of blessing through that feeling.
I'd like to now move over to an area of consideration which pertains to what I have just been speaking about which is ascension or coming into a greater sense of Divine Identity—eternal identity. And that is something which has been labeled, “Ages and Stages in the Life of the Outer Form and Its Consciousness.” If we as world servers look at the human cycle of incarnation and look at various segments of experience in that cycle, surely it is not a put-down to examine some of the factors in those ages and stages.
I've spoken about the midlife age and stage where the bulk of our ministry now is—between thirty-five and forty-five there they are, “the bulge.” This has great significance within the spiritual body. It is in no way in the spirit of put-down that I feel it important for us to look consciously at some of the changes and causes for those changes and experiences that are occurring in those people in that bracket. We look at infants. That is an age and stage. Because we think about that and endeavor to enfold that age and stage, we're not putting down babies or putting down the angels that are incarnate. We can enfold more effectively if we have some thought about what the baby might be going through and needing. Same with teenagers; twenties, and so on; and seniors at the other end. Shouldn't we consider some of the factors with which they are dealing in the life cycle? I would think so. So when I start speaking for a few minutes about midlife and the so-called crisis that occurs in there, this is intended to be helpful.
However one of the characteristics of being in that age bracket is that there are strong feelings going on in the emotions and the psyche which have a natural resistance to authority figures, for example. Now is there something wrong with that? Not at all! I would suggest that the midlife is one of the most important junctures for the emergence of Divine Identity through the human equipment. I want to compare it to the teen age, not because I am trying to say that the thirty-five to forty-five age bracket is in level or intelligence or anything else the same as teenage. But there are certain experiences that are similar. The teenage era is an incredible phase of growth and development and emergence into a greater sense of self, responsibility, identity. Coming out of a child-state, the teenager is moving into adulthood. There is a tremendous burst of development in that teenage era. That is paralleled in the thirty-five to forty-five phase because there's a tremendous surge of development in the capacities and consciousness and there are stresses involved with that.
The person in their midlife has an increased sense of their personal stature and power. That is what is emerging. In that sense of a greater self and the greater power, naturally the confines of the previous patterns of self-expression and the context of a larger design are too confining—and there's a sense of confinement, and it would be called repression, which it is. Not intentional or hostile, but because the greater self is emerging, the new wine needs new bottles. But that feeling of confinement in one's life expression now with this greater self emerging—can I say naturally there are feelings of rebellion against the structure in which one has been performing quite happily for years, and the relationship with authority figures is bound to change. There is nothing wrong with that. It's got to happen. There is a review—what have I been doing with my life? Well usually, whatever you've been doing is not satisfactory now; for many people anyway. For some it is satisfactory and there is a sense “I'll just expand my expression through whatever I am doing.” That's fine—as long as there is expansion. Some people review their lives and they think, “Well, is this all I've accomplished in life?” Great dissatisfaction and unhappiness. Looking for new bottles for the new wine. Well, we can understand that maybe there would be changes in actual occupation. Anybody who understands what is going on is open to that possibility and also, can't we see that some people will have this feeling of confinement, repression, resentment, and it's got nothing to do with anybody else really. It’s helping the individual to emerge into their new stature and therefore new role. And it may be that they just need to hang tough for awhile and the new bottles turn out to be new dimensions of what they were doing previously. It is still new bottles.
Having said this, it's an age and a stage, people think, “Well now you're dismissing what I'm feeling, what I'm saying about the organization, the ministry, as if we should just sit there and we'll get over it.” Well, no that is not the spirit in which this is said. One of the results of a greater presence is greater contribution. The design as it now is, I think is ready and willing to hear new views. Things are going to change if you have angels appearing more clearly, you're going to have a new dynamic both within and outward. So, all I am trying to emphasize here is that what looks like a lot of wrestling around going on in the Emissary body right now, no small portion of it is what I've just been describing. We need to be aware of that and still work with the individual dynamic.
One of the glories of this age and stage is that ascension is taking place or may take place. New dimensions of the form, the human form with its consciousness, new dimensions begin to open up that have not been experienced heretofore—part of the greater Self. The greater Self is emerging; greater sense of responsibility; greater equipment to discharge the greater responsibilities. And that pertains largely to new dimensions of the sense of Self and the expression of Self. For example, in any aspect of our living the greater Self is emerging. Therefore, if we don't change our jobs, we'll say, there will be new dimensions come to consciousness about our work in our work. It will begin to take on global proportions because whatever I am doing I am working with essences. I am working with more concentrated substance. My identity is in more concentrated substance. If my identity is in finer substance then I begin to see instrumentation and levels of action in denser levels of substance so that what I do in my job has global implications. Spiritual expression is global leadership! There is nothing higher than spiritual expression. That is the leadership. That is the apex of human activity. So every occupation has its vibrational essence which I exercise. I express through these essences. Since this is the creative Tone, all activity pertaining to this field is focused by me, as I'm on Tone. That sounds, of course, megalomanic to a human mind but it is the truth of the matter. We don't necessarily say that to others but we know it's the case. The Tone is omnipotent. No man cometh into heaven but by me—this Tone, through these lines of force.
The new dimensions come into relationships also. Whereas previously, sexual relationship, the primary conception of fulfillment would be physical intercourse. For many people, when they talk about sexuality—“What's your sex life like?” If they haven't been having intercourse they think, “Well, I haven't got a sex life.” That is not true. We begin to be aware of intercourse at other than physical levels more acutely than ever before, at the more intense levels of being, and therefore of experience, actually. Even if you are in a married state, your sexual relationship with your partner, if you think about it, if that's the range (gestures with arms wide apart) of your sexual experience with your partner, if you think of the time involved in physical intercourse, it's about that much (holds fingers about an inch apart) compared with all the other dimensions of interaction and interrelationship. You're thinking, you're feeling, you're dealing with one another; the relationship has all these other levels, albeit it's been unconscious for much of our lives anyway, and just this much physical time spent. As the angelic reality emerges, we become aware of this larger aspect and we begin to share more consciously the truth of love through these other dimensions of interaction. And that involves more than just our one partner, too.
The opportunities of communion in the truth of love are vast as we come into true identity and become aware of these other levels of communion and intercourse. So the sex life, instead of petering out at forty, actually burgeons now. It really does. And that applies to every dimension of our living. They say, “Life begins at forty.” Everybody chuckles about that. It sounds as though somebody somewhere had an inkling of the change and the possibilities. But this is the truth. The true cycle of life on earth is from glory to glory.
There is one other aspect I want to touch on in this new dimensional phase of things, and that is focalization. You know what teenagers are like relative to the authority figures because of what we've been discussing. It is the same with the thirty-five to forty-five age bracket. I remember, I used to listen to services and I was arguing all the way through, vibrationally, for a little while. I know what it is now. At the time I didn't. But no matter what our transitional adjustments may be, well, everybody carry on, that's fine. Everybody's got their own individual path in the emergence. Nobody can manipulate from outside. As long as we keep in the general flow and keep trusting the Lord that we are in the right place, fundamentally, it will all keep working out alright.
But with focalization, I just want to suggest that as one becomes mature, with stature, authority because of one's own living, wouldn't that make us more effective in a pattern of focalization? Wouldn't that allow us to present our view to whoever is focalizing a pattern without being affected by whether they did it our way or not? If you think about it, focalization doesn't disappear after maturity, it really begins to get operational. The fight against focus is the fight against external control. But when a differentiation of the One Spirit actually emerges, so that I am not really bothered by whether we do it this way or whether we do it that way—that's the environment. Whether I am in this position or that position—an angel can work with any design and his or her influence will bring about whatever changes are needed. But we don't have to attempt coups or snipe at who is in focus. No. That's not the angelic stature. That is not a prince or a princess of the kingdom. That is not really how they would function. So it is through all our different areas of living.
This is such an exciting juncture in which individuals and also the spiritual body finds itself. If the emergence comes, the greater emergence of what would be the Archangelic Presence, with these other dimensions of function consciously with it, then it's influence will be exponential in the whole. We don't have to worry about that. It will just be that.
What we are really speaking about is what Jesus spoke about. It really is like being born again. Ye must be born again! We were born into the human state and therefore born because of the human state into the human world. We've been educated as to what that is. But Jesus said, “Ye must be born again.” Let me just read this. He is speaking to Nicodemus. “Jesus answered him and said unto him, Verily, verily I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” This is getting back to what we were saying at the beginning. In the kingdom of God there are no personal problems. Now wouldn't that be a different world? Born into a world where there are no personal problems! It's almost inconceivable.
Bearing in mind what we've been speaking about with this transition, rebirth is taking place all the way through the life cycle. Obviously, we've been awakening, becoming more aware of a different world, a different self, all the way through the life cycle. But I am suggesting this very accelerated potential. Nicodemus saith unto him, “How can a man be born when he's old?” Thirty-five, forty. “Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I say unto thee, Ye must be born again.” Now in the recreative process of man, true mankind, male and female, in the recreative process, there is this juncture where it is like unto being born again. And I am suggesting this middle bracket, if it hasn't happened, is another excellent opportunity.
Identity in spirit. It says here, “born of water (the truth) and of the spirit.” We in our recreative path encountered what we have called the Spirit of Truth, Uranda, who set the Tone relative to virtually every aspect of life experience. He only touched on many of them. How much development could be done? But the tonal factors were set for life in human form. In other words, essences. The essences were brought out of the invisible levels into the conscious level. The lines of force are in the Tone. If we begin to find attunement with the Truth, the true Tone which those in this ministry have had that opportunity, they will find the awakening process continues. Those lines of force lead into heaven—that is how it is. So there is rebirth. The rebirth of a spiritual self—we must be born of truth and of spirit—the spirit begins to be our identity, and as that identity actually emerges through these lower levels of substance: mind, emotions, physical, into our environment, we find we are in a totally different world than anybody else! It is a world of perfection! And we are here to bring this awareness. The true Self is in the true world. The latter cannot precede the former in experience. So that is why we work away on our feelings and our thoughts and our expression to get them into attunement, union with the Tone of Being. This world upon which we look is beautiful—it is working perfectly.
Another interesting change which comes about at this juncture of rebirth into the new world is that one begins to be less, well certainly less but eventually non-manipulative. Manipulation is of the human mind. Civilization has sought to manipulate life through exoteric technology. The mind has created the instrumentation to manipulate the experience of life according to its good ideas about what would bring fulfillment and happiness and preserve itself. By the way, midlife is where that sort of activity reaches a peak. There's a crisis there because many people begin to realize it isn't producing heaven, so let's chuck up the exoteric technology. Some people turn to esoteric technology—magic—manipulation of vibrational factors. Again, to create or to implement ideas conceived by the mind.
I want very briefly to touch upon Assemblies in this regard. Assemblies were created about ten years ago (in my midlife crisis), and in looking for new bottles for the new wine and becoming aware of larger dimensions of self, it needed new forms of self expression to extend vibrational influence into the world. Some of you probably know that Assemblies were utilized (amongst other things) to explore some of these forms of the expression of the greater Self which had not been conscious to us until that point, in order to extend the greater influence. And we use things like symbols to bring to focus vibratory factors and to radiate through them into the world; ceremonies, same thing; even glossalalia. Even the forums, the set-up of a circular format, emerged out of Assemblies. That was more conducive to developing a sense of communion and communication and complementation. All this, endeavoring to create a vocabulary of the heart and the subconscious mind, rather than what had been primarily in focus in our ministry, which was a more conscious articulation of the truth.
All I am suggesting is that you will find, in this age bracket, in many, a desire to explore such forms. It complements the emergence of the greater Self. In Assemblies we have been very careful to relate such new forms which have pervaded the body of mankind's activity for millenia, relate them back to conscious orientation in the Tone because then the sense of true identity isn't lost; and it isn't a human ego endeavoring to use vibrational technology to implement its bright ideas. Those factors actually pertain to the end of the Second Sacred School. You know we've heard there are seven Sacred Schools. Uranda focused the emergence in the experience of the body of mankind of the Third Sacred School. Previously it was the Second Sacred School, where spirit was focused in an awakening consciousness of identity and purpose through Jesus. But in the Second Sacred School, the mind being predominant (vibrationally that was the part of the equipment which was predominant) there was developed the distorted exoteric technology, in due course, whereby the mind would implement its will. Esoteric technology has been prevalent in the body of mankind too. All were endeavors of the mind to utilize whatever technology or machinery it could to implement its ideas and purposes.
So I feel that we have to be very careful when we hear of people in our body undertaking ceremonies and using symbols, and all this kind of thing. We certainly shouldn't fall into it ourselves, because we have some bright idea or specific purpose and utilize esoteric technology. That is the tail end of function in the Second Sacred School. The Third Sacred School leaves manipulation behind, no matter how well intended.
The identification in spirit emerges and we find that we are consciously responsible for the expression of the Tone, as it has been called — the true character, the spirit. And whatever is needful to be accomplished is accomplished by the Divine technology which operates at a subconscious level. The machinery is already present in levels of substance of which the mind has no awareness, consciously. But in true identity, in the Third Sacred School, we begin to refrain from manipulation and let spirit, the Tone, accomplish what it will in the overall creative process because the creative process has all the Divine technology at its disposal. This relieves us of an awful lot of struggling. This is the new world!
I would like to read something about the Fourth Sacred School—just because being incarnate in human form in consciousness, there is a continuing unfoldment of the restored Divine experience in human form in consciousness. The Third Sacred School isn't the end. It leads into the Fourth. In Genesis, the Fourth Day, remember? “And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.”
This relates to a phase of evolution of the process whereby identity, the sense of Self, begins to move out of time and space completely. If there are Seven Dimensions of Being; there are three outer dimensions—physical, mental, spiritual expression—and three inner dimensions. The seventh, love, also permeates the six. And as the spiritual, the third, the spiritual identity is established in experience and we live out of that, we generate substance out of that identity, the next phase of experience begins to unfold. And one becomes aware of Self as an eternal quality of Being. The halfway point is three and a half. So somewhere in the Third Sacred School experience, something else begins to emerge which is a sense of Self which is not measureable at all in time and space. I am here in these levels of substance, here and now, here to express who I am. There is really no involvement—certainly there is engagement—with this human world, but we are in the heavens, lights in the heaven ruling over the day and the night, the conscious mind and the subconscious mind—remember those lights were created to have dominion over the day and the night. We begin to have dominion over the human consciousness and its processes.
The dominion is really the Presence in the midst. The radiance of the Presence creates in the substance of consciousness, an experience describable by the word heaven. It's the real world created through the substance, the malleable substance of consciousness in the dimensional world. This is a hint of the omnipotence of the angelic presence. When we consider how human beings below the veil, in the birth canal, struggle to relieve the darkness and the confinement of the birth canal that is their state. Billions of dollars, resources and efforts are all designed to create the experience known inherently at some level as heaven. But when the presence of the Angel is here all the resources, whatever they are in the environment of that Angel, the raw material of physical substance, mental substance, emotional substance, it is all transmuted into an experience of ecstasy. That is omnipotence. Nothing can stop it. God is almighty and that is who we are, the reality of Being. So the omnipotence of true Being is evidenced because whatever the raw materials which enter consciousness are, are fashioned into an experience of delight. Not comfort necessarily, but glorious delight because of the accomplishment of bringing the ecstatic state. And ecstasy isn't necessarily frothing at the mouth! We can be sitting very quietly knowing the true state of being. We may have difficulties with our bodies, we may have times of confusion and stress in our minds and emotions. It is all incorporated into the sum total—heaven. That is why we are here. This is the restoration of man, and then heaven, simultaneously.
