The Tone Sustained

 The  Tone  Sustained

Lloyd Meeker and Martin Exeter  August 3, 1986  Sunrise Ranch

Lloyd Meeker — During the course of the service this morning I was reminded that the truth is beautiful, that there is no such thing as an ugly truth. There are certainly plenty of ugly external facts of which we are aware, which I won’t list. The truth remains perfect and beautiful. In fact, in one of the early tapes, Uranda said something about the truth being “exquisitely beautiful!”

This gave rise to some consideration about the difference between truth and external fact, the relationship between them, but certainly the attempt of human nature to supplant truth with acquisition of and control over external facts. It’s a pretty pathetic undertaking, considering that right away truth is spirit, cause, and external facts are results, effects. We know how it is impossible to climb back up through the network of results, of external fact, to get to the pure truth. We can explore the external facts and perhaps even dissect them; but ultimately there is nothing there because truth is spirit, unencumbered by external facts and certainly unencumbered by our understanding of them. Certainly human nature has been able to encompass a large—well we think it’s a large—number of external facts. I suspect in actual fact, in truth, it is a very small number of the external facts which are available. But human nature will never encompass truth, for truth is an aspect of the spirit which makes the very existence of human nature possible in the first place.

We’ve considered often recently the pursuit of knowledge, which is, in basic terms, pursuit and collection of external facts. I thought of a game called “Trivial Pursuit.” I am somewhat embarrassed to confess that apparently I am fairly good at this game. It is staggering the number of absolutely useless and unrelated facts which one collects even without trying very hard, and they sit around in the subconscious, in some subterranean barracks, like soldiers in a grade B movie just waiting for the call, and out they pop; and it’s amusing for an hour or so. But it is a trivial pursuit; for the truth, the spirit of truth, floods creation in beauty unattainable so long as we identify with human nature and are addicted to external facts. Part of the problem, I guess, is that external facts always seem to change from time to time. Even when we get them basically organized they tend to shift and squirt out from under our mitts: think of how views of natural science have changed from time to time.

During the Music Conference we saw a film of some cymatics, which has to do with placing substance on a membrane and then introducing the vibration of a certain frequency into the membrane and agitating the substance, which then collects in patterns reflecting the shape of the vibration. All you have to do is change the vibration a little bit and the substance reorganizes in an entirely different pattern. And if you’re a sand collector on this bouncing membrane, trying to organize sand, and somebody upstairs turns the knob, changes the vibration—as always happens in the beautiful variety of truth—just when we thought we had it figured out it all shifts under our feet and away we go again.

The vibration of the Tone does transform external fact. And this is our concern, not the follies of human nature particularly, but how might we more clearly give release to the Tone so that the vibration of truth has meaningful contact with the substance of the earth, heretofore stolen by human nature. As we have gathered and allowed our consciousness to expand somewhat to encompass the vibration of the Tone as we are presently capable, we have seen how it transforms our view of external facts around us. But hasn’t there from time to time been a tendency to begin to see “needs” in the realm of external fact (more acutely perhaps!) and in the pressure of feeling that somehow that need should be filled in a particular way, resorting to our habits of manipulation in order to achieve a certain result, rather than simply sounding the Tone more clearly and steadfastly than ever before? Human nature is never going to be convinced that the Tone is actually sufficient to let the earth be transformed. After all, it’s looking for facts to prove it, external facts. Well there has been no sustained emanation of the Tone for a long time. Perhaps we have thought that if we just gave an occasional bleat of the Tone that that would be enough. But no, the Tone must be sustained. The moment the tone is cut off from this shaking membrane the form in the sand disappears. Truly the means does determine the end. The Tone determines the end. Or if we resort to manipulation, that determines the end result. We know the nature of that end.

External facts, though, are only a part of fact. There are heavenly facts, the purpose behind truth. We say “love”; but the dimensions of that word remain closed to us until we are sufficiently capable of accommodating the Tone that the veil between earthly and heavenly facts parts in our consciousness, so that we begin to understand facts that we are also responsible for in heaven. We know that we can collect external facts until the cows come home, and interpret them any number of ways, but there is no clear direction there because the design and control of truth are missing, and behind them the purposes of love are missing. I suppose the final proof of our ability to accommodate the Tone is the dissolution of disagreement. After all, if the truth is being expressed and therefore known, how can there be disagreement? The truth is true, and the truth is oneness. And that’s a fact!

Lord Exeter — The facts are inclusive of both heaven and earth. If we think of heaven and earth as each being fifty percent, then considering earthly facts is only seeing half the picture. Trying to work merely with earthly facts is excluding half the facts that need to be known. This is one way of looking at it. We have the opportunity of looking at things in various ways. Many analogies have been used. Some of them have persisted over their natural life span, shall we say! Some of these analogies return again to be used at a different level of understanding. If this happens, care needs to be taken that we do not slip back into the understanding that the analogy portrayed before, but let it be new. We are concerned with what is in the present moment. This is our connection with the truth. Whatever it is that is present in the present moment includes both heaven and earth, and also includes the fact of spirit which makes possible heaven and earth. Here is another factor. It isn’t even a matter of fifty percent, is it? There is a transcendent factor, which we may have referred to by using the word “spirit,” from which the creative process proceeds and the vibrational design of truth is established in the heaven.

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The substance of heaven we have referred to by using the coined word pneumaplasm. As we have noted, pneumaplasm has a variety of consistencies. In view of the fact that the heaven is the habitation of antispirit as well as of spirit, the quality of pneumaplasm will reflect the character of either one. If I use an analogy now, don’t get stuck with it. Lloyd was mentioning cymatics and the fact that there is a membrane upon which the physical substance rests, and the vibration is transmitted by reason of the membrane to the physical substance. There might well be a vibration present and the physical substance present, but if there wasn’t a membrane it would have no effect whatsoever on the physical substance. So here we could see an analogy with respect to pneumaplasm. In this case the membrane would represent the pneumaplasm which is required to vibrate according to the invisible vibration that is brought to bear. And when it does so, it in turn transmits that vibration to the physical substance, which stands up in a variety of forms according to the nature of the vibration.

This pneumaplasmic membrane which is present in mankind could be seen as having a rather sticky consistency. It is the quality of pneumaplasm which accommodates antispirit. This sticky pneumaplasm is reflected in sticky substance, substance which is not resilient and capable of revealing the true designs of the vibration of the spirit of truth, because the quality of the pneumaplasm cannot accommodate that refined vibratory level. The pneumaplasm is sticky; the physical substance is sticky. It is held together in this way but more or less immovably, so that the only way that life could move in this state of affairs would be on the basis of a pressure which ultimately shatters the stuck state. Of course when the stuck state does shatter, as occurs in individual experience and as has occurred in the body of mankind over the ages from time to time, the shattered pieces have invariably come together again on the basis of the quality of pneumaplasm that accommodates antispirit, so that there has been an endless repetition.

It is said that history repeats itself. It does this because the form which takes place on the basis of this sticky pneumaplasm is subject to this cycle of being built into a structure that is seemingly immovable, but then the pressure of life breaks it down. In more recent times we have the spectacle of what was called the British Empire, a very fancy structure that was composed, or brought into form, by this sticky substance of pneumaplasm on the basis of antispirit. I don’t think the British—I have to look at myself in this—would be inclined to acknowledge this fact. But it’s not just the British Empire; I think the British might acknowledge it with respect to the Spanish empire of old or the French empire or some other empire, and the attitudes of these various empires would be similar to the British attitude, no doubt. History repeats itself.

There can’t be a living form on the basis of this quality of pneumaplasm which permits the working of antispirit. There is a very confused vibratory state which is reflected in the confused physical substance. There are no very beautiful designs appearing on this basis, and we may see easily how futile it is to try to produce anything of a living, and of a consequently lasting, nature on this basis. Empires have come and gone, nations have risen and fallen, civilizations have risen and fallen. And many of those civilizations in the past have been completely obliterated from human memory. At least they cannot be consciously recalled in the ordinary course of events. There is no point in recalling them anyway because what we know now is merely a repetition of what went before.

But there is the refined pneumaplasm which is capable of accommodating the spirit of truth, the design and the control that is present in that, so that the membrane of pneumaplasm can then transmit that to the substance which rests upon the membrane. Remember that pneumaplasm permeates all physical substance, pneumaplasm of one sort or another. I suppose in a way this is merely a method of describing something which the rather limited capacity of the mental apparatus can comprehend. One may be rather assured that this way of describing it is not really the way it is, but it is an interim opportunity to begin to participate in experiencing a larger understanding.

This human state of affairs, which has been in existence for many thousands of years, has in fact been in existence, cosmically speaking, less than the blink of an eye. Human beings involved in the condition put great store by it, but in the overall sense it doesn’t amount to very much. However, there is a reason for the existence of mankind, as we well know, which relates to the cosmic whole; and there is something lacking in the cosmic whole when the reason for the existence of man is ignored, overlooked, forgotten. This being the case, the creative forces which operate throughout the universe will, at the appointed time, bring things to issue so as to eliminate this point of lack, of absence, this little hole in the overall operation. And we find ourselves related to this process—we call it a recreative process.

Now as we well know, there is present an incarnate angel insofar as each of us is concerned—we will look at it from our own immediate standpoint—who is operating already in the design of truth. It’s only human minds and hearts, and consequently bodies, that have been occupied with other things, therefore have not been aware of the working that is already in effect by reason of the presence of the incarnate angel. The mind of man has been almost a total blank insofar as this is concerned, but just because the mind doesn’t know about something doesn’t mean that it isn’t happening. That is the usual arrogant view of human minds, that if they don’t know about it, it can’t really exist. But there is this creative process at work with which the incarnating angel is always aligned, there is an encompassing control with respect to mankind, an encompassing control of which mankind is not at all aware. They think mentally and emotionally that they’re free agents to do whatever they choose to do. We’ve all had that sort of an idea individually, haven’t we? “Well I think I’ll do this or do that.” We seldom realize what it is that is compelling us to make our human decisions. We think that it is the wisdom of our great minds, and the power of our emotions is going to put it into effect, and all this; but really that’s a fantasy, a fantasy in which most people believe.

There is something in operation that completely transcends anything that human beings are doing on earth, and if we have this perspective we may see how insignificant the things that human beings are doing on earth really are. It’s like a little comer of the nursery, so to speak, in which brats are trying to do their thing while the adult world, this cosmic whole, goes on uninterrupted. If the kids get too noisy and obstreperous, sometimes a parental control is thrust into the nursery and human beings are temporarily called to task. Well we can see that in terms of the rise and fall of nations and empires and civilizations. It has never gotten so far out of hand that it could affect the operation of the creative process in the cosmic whole. And there has been a way by which what human beings have been doing has been kept within a certain range, so that there would be the opportunity for what we now call restoration to permit mankind to come out of the state in which it has existed for all these thousands of years. We have become aware of this. Something has penetrated into our rather sticky human minds which has reminded us that there is much more than we usually think about. And there has been the urge on this basis to align ourselves with what it is that is really happening. What it is that is really happening is an aspect of the truth.

There is a living process at work throughout the whole universe, whatever the universe may be. We mentally define it in certain terms, which may not be the way it is at all. We endeavor, in the operation of our minds and hearts, to fit things into the confines of our minds and hearts, then get formulas and different things, and say, “Well this is the way it is.” But the things that we try to fit into our minds and hearts don’t fit. After all, the human heart and mind is a very minuscule thing. You’re going to fit the operation of the whole universe into a little human mind and heart? How ridiculous! It wasn’t designed to be filled with that.

So we have an overshadowing control which has always been present and which has kept human beings from going too far. Of course there has been a certain awareness of this in certain minds and hearts, translated in terms of the God of religion who finally is seen as being a caring and loving God and who therefore would enfold mankind. It’s all very fine to be enfolded by a loving parent, so that one is kept from going too far astray; but if the kids refuse to grow up, they can’t forever be kept within the confines of the nursery, something has to happen, something has to give, and fundamentally I suppose the creative word is, “Grow up.” And not only grow up, but grow up or else! There has been a vast amount of patience exhibited over thousands of years in which brash human beings have rejected, generation after generation, the opportunity to grow up. They want to stay in the nursery, playing with their toys. They have become quite ingenious kids and invented a lot of sophisticated toys. But it’s all in the nursery; it has nothing to do with the adult operation. I suppose you could say that mankind is addicted to the nursery, to this infantile state. Kids often feel that they can do as they please—and a wise parent will allow them a certain leeway—but rightly even in human families it should be “Thus far and no further.” It certainly is in the overall human family. There has been a firm hand which has said, “Thus far and no further.” I suppose that’s been said at stated intervals; when things get too obstreperous, then that’s it.

All this is based in the fact that the quality of pneumaplasmic substance that has been present in the flesh bodies of human beings has been of this very sticky nature which has held things together in clumps. We have, after all, nations and races and communities and families, all held together in clumps. There has been great concern about the dissolution of the family, this particular little clump, because the dissolution of clumps is easily seen to be fatal to human nature because the human nature state is held together by this glue, this pneumaplasmic glue. But the consistency of that glue is so sticky that life can scarcely move in it. Of course this fact is used to advantage because eventually life begins to break up the crystallized form. Ultimately life won’t be prevented from moving. If it can’t appear through this gelled form, well it will appear through another. But for another to appear, substance needs to be broken up in the one that is fixed, the one that is glued together. And we can see this in process.

It’s not something new. It’s happened over and over again. What seems to be new about it, or in relationship to it, is the emergence of some pneumaplasmic substance that: is sufficiently resilient to accommodate the spirit of truth. So something is brought into the picture that was never there adequately before. It may be that it required this enormous population on earth to find enough people who would be willing to let this generation of flexible substance take place. That, I suppose it could be said, is speculation, but still it seems a good reason why there is such a mass of population because it has been proven out in times past that a very small percentage of the human race has ever been willing to transcend human nature. I don’t know how many people there were on earth when the Master was here, but insofar as transcending human nature was concerned there was just one person on earth. So maybe it has needed five billion, I don’t know, to have just a few hundred even who would be willing to let this generation of pneumaplasmic substance take place, capable of accommodating the spirit of truth.

As this happens, a new creation can begin to put in an appearance; and the creation that puts in an appearance isn’t a dying structure, it’s a living form. We ourselves can testify, at least in some measure, to the fact of this living form. We may not be too sure as yet, insofar as our conscious minds are concerned, what exactly it is. Some may define it in terms of EDL; others don’t like those letters very much for some reason, so they don’t want to define it that way. Well it doesn’t really matter how you define it; it’s what it is that counts. There is what we call a body and, seeing that we have some consciousness of being alive, it has some evidence of being a living body—a body which takes form how? According to the design of truth, if the fine substance of pneumaplasm is present to let it happen. Heretofore those who begin to permit this to occur have been trapped in the old human nature state of sticky substance. And we have found it, I’m sure, as rather sticky when we were coming out of it. It wanted constantly to pull us back again into the old state. But to the extent that there is this fine substance generated, it is capable of accommodating the spirit of truth and therefore the spirit of life, and the design begins to emerge. We have some indication of the nature of that design on the basis of our own physical forms. Of course they’re not a very good example of it for the most part, because there are so many ills of the flesh around, but there are some principles that are observable at least.

There has been an indication of the nature of that design contained in what we have called the “spiritual blueprint,” namely the Book of Revelation. You may recall that the first thing John became aware of, when he paid attention to the voice behind him, was seven golden candlesticks and One in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. How would you describe the living organization of the collective body which should put in an appearance on the basis of the working of the spirit of truth through the refined pneumplasm? You wouldn’t really have any words, would you? You wouldn’t, to start with, know what it was. But there might be a sensing as to its nature, and that sensing affected the consciousness of this particular man in this way, so that he saw it in terms of seven golden candlesticks and the fact that there was One in the midst of the seven candlesticks, clothed in a certain way, a very bright figure that wasn’t of some strange dragon or ogre or something else but like unto the Son of Man. Surrounding this One were the seven golden candlesticks, and there were seven stars. And, carrying the analogy a little further, the candlesticks became churches and the stars became the angels of the churches. Here we see something of a design putting in an appearance. It’s splendid that it was touched in terms that human beings could hardly take hold of and make something out of them; of course there has been much attempt in that regard.

The point is that, as there is the generation of this substance, the design begins to emerge; and the heretofore uncomprehending conscious human mind may begin to glimpse, in relationship to itself, the nature of the incarnate angel. Human minds usually want to take the glory to themselves: “I’m really going to make something out of myself. I’m going to get all of this education, all of this knowledge, and I’m going to make something out of myself.” And all they make eventually is nothing. But if there is humility in the mind there may be a sensing of the nature of the design of truth emerging through the pneumaplasm which one has generated by one’s own living. If you haven’t done that of course you don’t have any and so there’s no possibility of discerning anything. Those who haven’t done it are inclined to say, “There isn’t anything there.” Well there’s nothing there for them of course.

But letting this be generated, there comes an awareness of the nature of the angelic positioning in the design. I don’t like to use the word “positioning” because it makes it look as though it was some sort of fixed structure. It isn’t that. If you were to become aware of the spirit of truth emerging into your consciousness, that isn’t a structure, is it? It’s an awareness of something that is invisible. But this was described in terms of churches; and I wonder a little bit whether that is an accurate translation of the word as it originally was. I think it is probable that it was translated as “churches” because there was this intent to create a church and to justify that creation; and of course a church was created, the church of Rome. But here were seven vibrational levels; this would be a more accurate way of describing it. We know something about the fact of our own endocrine system, which is related to the figure seven, and perhaps some awareness that these seals, as they have been called, permit certain spiritual vibratory factors to enter into the physical form to establish various levels, or potential levels, of consciousness in the physical form.

Most people are very interested in how that applies to themselves, and they try to figure it all out with respect to themselves, how it should all work. But the description here is not so much with respect to the individual as it is with respect to this body which must take form, if there is to be the basis for the restoration of man. That is the angelic concern. Incidentally there may be a bit of restoration going on in the individual mind and heart and body. Fine, but let’s keep it in perspective. That’s a very small thing relative to what it is that is happening in the overall sense, and each incarnate angel has a task in the overall sense. Here it is described with respect to just seven: seven angels, seven stars, the seven angels of the seven churches. Here is the most elementary part of the emerging design. And there are those who are the angels of the seven churches, the angels of the seven vibratory levels that are contained in the forming body.

I trust that we have reached beyond that self-centered attitude which is inclined to say—and this is the mind speaking again—“Well I’d like to know what my position is,” as though the mind had been appointed to a position. It’s not been appointed to any position; it never could be. All it is capable of doing is allowing the angelic awareness to come forth so that it may know as much as it needs to know. I think that will not be very much, for a while at least, because if the mind gets hold of something it tends to take it to itself and say, “Ah, now this is me; I know how it is now, I know what to do.” And away it goes again, and all is lost. It has to stay humble.

I rejoice to introduce something of this nature so that there may be an awareness of the fact of angelic incarnation in this way, establishing whatever the design is. That is what establishes the design, not what the mind thinks about it or what the heart feels about it. The design is already present, but as there is humility once again, repentance and humility, there is space for the angel to peep through, shall we say. And the mind can become aware of that peeping and, staying humble, can participate in the process by which this design emerges in its natural creative cycles. There are those who do become aware of these things first; then of course somebody else sitting nearby may say, “Are you becoming aware of something? I’m not; therefore you can’t be.” Or if there is an admission that somebody else does know something then perhaps jealousy sets in. We have all these human nature traits which have to be relinquished. We can’t allow them to have any part in what is occurring. And gradually the truth emerges, both consciously and subconsciously. It doesn’t all emerge consciously. That would be utter confusion, wouldn’t it? It emerges consciously one thing at a time, moment by moment by moment, and we are content with that.

We share the expression of the angel and we discover what that really is, the expression of the angel in human form on earth. And we do it collectively in this larger body which accommodates the Archangel, the coordinating point, so that all move together easily and naturally and delightedly, all in love. It’s a wonderful feeling, isn’t it, to be in love. Let us share that wonderful feeling under the hand of the spirit.

Gary Diggins, PenDell Pittman and eight other men offered harmonic chanting

interspersed with George Hanson speaking words from “Let Love Command.”

Filled with glory, we abide

in this blessed place.

Sacred tones our voices sound,

reshaping hallowed space.

Let love command. Let wonders form.

Let heaven’s beauty shine.

Let ev’ry living breath

sing praise for light divine.

Lord Exeter — As there is pneumaplasmic substance in which sound may initiate a particular vibration, this permits the initiation of a creative process to be brought into the earth. We have shared something of this by reason of this time of chant. It is not separate and apart from what we ourselves release in our living. As this coordinated release occurs, the effect is reflected in external facts. Whatever is done is not merely of that moment—which is already in the past, insofar as this chant is concerned—but is properly sustained because all maintain their awareness of responsibility in this regard.

There has been a sustained vibratory tone sounded over the last fifty or so years. It has been sustained. Various ways have been introduced in form by reason of the Tone, by which is made possible the sustaining of the Tone with respect to the field of the creative process. You are aware how this has occurred. There has been the release, week after week, year after year, of the live expression of the Tone; and that has been complemented by the printed word, more recently by the audio reproduction of the word, and then the video reproduction of the word. These have all been aspects revealing the fact that the Tone has been sustained. It was never allowed to fall to the ground. Consistently over the weeks, the months, the years, it has been sustained.

Now it begins to emerge in a more direct way from the body itself, symbolized particularly by this chant this evening, the responsibility for which was taken by Gary and by the other men. Let us be very sure that each one of us sustains the Tone. This chant is but a small beginning of what shall no doubt be, but it is perfect for now. I am so thankful that Gary particularly has allowed this to be drawn to focus; there are some others with him. No doubt in the days to come it will be allowed to expand, so that the Tone in this way is sustained and increased. It runs parallel to what is happening in our whole release of spirit by reason of this body. What a rich blessing we know, and how much more there is to be known—not in the sense of gaining knowledge but in the sense of letting the truth take form in expression, moment by moment by moment.

© emissaries of divine light