Ever Wakeful
Martin Cecil August 21, 1968
This is the concluding period in our chapel when all the servers will still be present. I suppose we could call it the final hour of Conference, 1968. There is a wonderful contentment in just being together in person. I wonder how long we would really be content if we stayed together in person. Human beings seem reluctant to accept change, and yet how deadly it would be if there were no change. As Emissaries we rejoice to experience the movement of life and the changes which that movement rightly brings. So it is that we rejoice to stay or to go, whatever may be right, because regardless of where we may be in the outer sense we are still members of one body. We may speak of this body as the body of the Son of God.
No doubt you will remember this story: “And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him.”
There were three present in this particular experience, both from the standpoint of those who appeared and those who observed: Jesus, Moses and Elias; John, James and Peter. We have seen here the representation of the Spirit of God—Love, Truth and Life—clearly revealed in the awareness of Peter, James and John: physical, mental and spiritual perception.
In the book which has just been printed [As Of A Trumpet], I used the idea of awakening from sleep to portray the experience of new identity, divine identity. At the present time, in the world as it now is, there is the experience of an unreal self in an unreal world, a sleeping state or a state comparable to that of sleep when a person dreams. The re-creation of the world comes because human beings awaken from the experience of this unreal self to that of the real self. Behold, the real self is already in a real world. Here, in this story, the portrayal seems to indicate that there was movement, physical movement, from wherever they were, up into a high mountain, apart. This is the way it is portrayed, a coming away from the dream state, rising up out of the depths of sleep into wakefulness. If a person has been sleeping deeply and dreaming, the process of waking up may seem like coming out of a pit, and so this portrayal can be seen, in the light of the parable that I used, as an awakening.
The wakeful state is as a high mountain compared to the sleeping state, which is deep down some place. We rise up out of sleep into wakefulness, and in the awakened state we see a new world. Remember John's statement: "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away. " The dream had vanished and the waking world was seen. Do you think this is an oversimplified portrayal? Is the change from the present state of a false self in a false world as easy as this—just awakening? Why not? If this is accepted as a true picture of what has occurred we are inclined to agree that we live in an unreal world. Only an unreal self could live in an unreal world. A real self would live in a real world. We are undertaking to accept the truth of this, so let’s awaken and let's see this process of re-creation, restoration, as the process of awakening. Then it isn’t so much of a struggle, is it, as though we had to take this unreal world and painstakingly turn it into a real world somehow. How would you turn your dream world into a waking-state world? Would you stay asleep and struggle with the dream, or would you just awaken and find yourself in the real world? This is the true process. Perhaps human beings have been in the sleeping state so long that they are thoroughly drugged and very reluctant to awaken, but fundamentally, in principle, this is all that needs to happen. The true self is real. Where the true self is, there is the real world. The kingdom of heaven is at hand because the citizen of the kingdom is at hand.
The citizen of the kingdom is one who is awake to the reality of the kingdom. We have, in our time spent together here on the Ranch, risen up to some degree out of our sleeping state, to come into a high mountain, apart. When we share the things of God the world of man seems rather far off, doesn’t it? It seems unreal. However, when there is a return to that unreal world, how does it look to you when you get back there? Does it look real? Does the real world and the real self fade, and the unreal world and the unreal self reappear? Is it just because we are in this valley, separated in some measure from the world in the usual pattern of things, that we experience what we do? Or is it because together we know an awakening? This is known while we are together. My concern is that it should continue to be known when we are apart in person. Obviously, there are those servers who have remained faithful over the years, held the line, experienced something of a continuing state of real being. And this not only applies to servers in the field, but what happens to those who live on Sunrise Ranch? When we have so many gathered, as we do now, people on Sunrise Ranch share the experience that is known by all of us together, but when this particular pattern changes, what occurs? Do we continue in the awakened state or do we find ourselves dozing, so that the unreal dream begins to reassert itself in our consciousness?
What happened, on this particular occasion, according to the story, after this glorious vision had been observed by Peter, James and John? “Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.”
It is assumed that this voice which came out of the cloud was referring to Jesus, but we might note that there were three present in this particular experience. The Spirit of God in its triune nature was here represented: Love, Truth and Life. If the voice proceeding out of the cloud was the voice of the Father, here is the voice which would emanate from the source of the cosmic all-that-is. We don’t need to particularly try to pinpoint where it would come from in this particular instance, but if it is the voice of the Father this relates to the cosmic all-that-is, and it is here drawing attention to the fact that this particular focalization of spirit was the Son insofar as this planet is concerned, was the focus appearing here in these conditions, from out of the Father, the Father being the source with respect to the whole cosmos. Brought to focus on earth is the Son, representing the Father, and particular attention is being drawn to this representation, referred to here as Jesus, Moses and Elias—three—Love, Truth, Life. This is the Son, and it is the Son, in expression through His body on earth, which will permit the achievement of the specific divine purpose relating to this world, in alignment with the creative purposes unfolding in the whole cosmos. We therefore see the source on earth of power, creative power, backed by what is moving in the cosmos as a whole.
There had just been a vision of this, but it is evident that those who saw were somewhat shaken by what they had seen. They had come out of the dream state and for a moment, then, they had been in position to see the divine world. Of course, when you first wake up you don’t see very far, do you? You haven't yet gotten up and proceeded to dress and go out into the larger world. There is the immediate view of things which, in bed, doesn't extend very far. At that point, if you have been dreaming vividly, the dream may seem more real than what you now observe as you awaken; and obviously it did, to these men. What they saw was not at all familiar to them. Somehow or other it was described, and somebody wrote about it later, but what actually occurred is obscure. However, we can see that here was a point of momentary awakening to the real world, because there was an awakening to real self on the part of those concerned. As I say, it was a rather shocking experience. Peter, the impulsive one, didn’t know what to make of it but immediately began to run off at the mouth, and because he began to indulge in what we would call self-activity a bright cloud hid what had been seen, because what is self-activity but a return to the sleeping state? So the real world vanished, but there was indication, an awareness, perhaps in the twilight zone between sleeping and waking, as to the real nature of what had been observed. This was the Son of God who should be the controlling force in the expression of life: "Hear ye him."
Having awakened for a moment and seen what was seen, slumping back again into sleep, it was assumed to be a fearful experience; they were afraid. Now we can relate this somewhat to our own experience, for there has been the beginning of an awakening, a beginning return to consciousness from semi-consciousness. That's about it, isn't it?—semi-consciousness. The state of semiconsciousness is a dream state where things are not seen as they really are. We have all been sharing in this dream, we have all been inclined to agree with each other as to what we were observing in this dream state, so that when we begin to awaken we see something that is new, that is wonderful; but if we begin to act again in old identity we lose our vision and we find ourselves living out the dream again.
I am sure you have had the experience where the unreal state that had been known was the familiar one, but you began to experience something new, something wonderful. Consequently the previous state faded into the background. Then you went back into it again. Because it is familiar it reasserts itself as being familiar, so that if you look at the real state which you had begun to experience it looks like a dream, and you are un- certain as to which is real and which is the dream. We know that human beings have things backwards. They know very little of the real state; they know a good deal of the dream state; so the dream state seems to be the real state to them, and what they imagine about the real state seems to be a dream. The waking-up process is a change-over, isn’t it? In your dream you were one person living in one sort of world, and you wake up to find you are another person living in another sort of world. Of course, in the literal sense, it may not be much improvement to move from the dream state to what is conceived to be the real world, but occasionally it is good to wake up from a nightmare.
My concern is that we should become so vividly aware of what may be describable as a transfigured state that we don’t sink back into slumber. Being awakened people we should be awake wherever we go, and we consequently should be experiencing the awakened world wherever we go. We may observe sleepers, people slumbering on every hand, thrashing around in their nightmares, but we do not wish to join them in their nightmares; we see the foolishness of it. Our whole concern is to offer what will awaken those who are close to awakening. There are some who are deeply imbedded in their slumbers, and presumably it will only take the last trump to awaken them. At that point it might be too late. But in the meantime we have a light to shine. You know, when the sun shines in your window as it rises early in the morning, it tends to wake you up. Some of you might have had that experience on Sunrise Ranch. The light shining in the window awakens the one who slumbers not too deeply. There are some, of course, who, when this occurs, just pull the covers over their heads so as to maintain the state of darkness. Those won’t awaken for a while. But there are some—enough, I think, for us—who are ready to awaken when the light shines. We must be identified with that light, with that waking-state world. We must be living in that waking-state world, in the experience of what is represented by Jesus, Moses and Elias—the Spirit of the Living God, the Spirit of the Son of God. This is the real thing, and it only fades from view, it only gets covered by a bright cloud, when we indulge ourselves in self-activity; when we begin to assume, in other words, the old human ego identity and we begin to see ourselves in the light of the dream world.
How do you see yourselves? As a part of that dream world? Well, you have a part to play in it, perhaps; or in relationship to it, at least; but you need to see yourself constantly as being in the real world, God's world, the kingdom which is here. The dream world is all around us, and it's there because there are so many people still sleeping; but it isn't our world. We need to have a consciousness of aliveness in the real world, which is here. We are not looking for it or trying to imagine it, because it is here, and when we accept a real identity we know the reality of the world in which the real identity dwells.
This has been one of the problems we have had, of course, over the years. There have been many, many people who have shared, in awareness, that there is a real world. They opened an eye, so to speak, and glimpsed something, and they saw the contrast between that and the dream state. But then they closed their eyes again, and back they were in the dream state, and the real world vanished, insofar as they were concerned, as though it had never been. Some have wondered why there have been, over the years, those who attended Class, for instance, and when we bade them goodbye after Class was over we never saw or heard of them again. They vanished! Well, they vanished into the dream state. They closed their eyes again, dreaming once more. The state of being awake was just forgotten; it was gone.
Now this occurred very much moreso in years gone by than it does now and than it needs to do, because there are so many more of us who have the experience, personal experience, of the awakened state. It wasn’t merely someone pointing out, while we were half asleep and half awake, that there really was a waking-state world around us. Then, if the person doesn't really wake up and see it, he only has someone’s word for it while the dream world seems so real. But with so many more of us now who have a consciousness of divine being, it is a lot easier than it used to be. We have a part to play in relationship to each other; we are supposed to love each other and that means we have a part to play; but we need to be very sure that we are each awake for ourselves, so that if you find yourself alone, in the outer sense, with people sleeping all around you, you don’t decide that the only thing to do is to go to sleep too. In some ways it has been a very lonely business to live in this waking-state world, peopled by slumberers—a beautiful world, waiting to be inhabited and enjoyed, and everybody lying around asleep. Maybe there is something to the story of the sleeping princess who was supposed to wake up by reason of the prince’s kiss. Well, perhaps there has been no prince on hand to do the kissing, or the princess has been sleeping too deeply.
How awake are we, really? How much dozing do we do? I suppose that when one is beginning to wake up there sometimes tends to be a feeling of lethargy: ’’Well, it's good to get up in the morning, but it's better to stay in bed. " Sleep comes easily when you are at that point. I think what is necessary is to get out of bed, isn’t it? If you stay in bed you are liable to go to sleep again; in other words, you have to get up and do something. And when you get up, don’t look back at the bed. It may appear, for the moment, to be inviting, but look at that real world. Look out the window and behold the beauty of it. Remember the part that you have to play there, and you will hurry to meet the dawn. Once you are awake, and doing, there is no desire to return to that state of misery in a dream world. Beholding the new world around us, we would wish to share this wonder with all who will awaken with us. We know we can't force people to wake up. Many of them are indeed drugged, and you can't make a drugged person wake up. You have to wait for the drug to wear off. But there are some who are reaching close to the point of awakening, and they will be quick to hear your glad cry, when you give expression to a glad cry. This is one thing that too many have forgotten. "Why don’t these people wake up? Why isn't there more response?” Well, what sort of a cry issues forth from you? Is it a cry of woe, or is it a glad one? "It's good to be alive! It's good to be awake in the morning, in this fresh new world, the kingdom which has always been at hand, all around"—known immediately a person wakes up.
So, as we continue on, in our acceptance of the Son of God, and we give form on earth to what He is—Love, Truth, Life—what sort of form would that take? A form of gloom, of misery, of uncertainty, of fear, of reluctance? Surely not. Love, Truth and Life is here, is present; let's give form to it. We don't have to wait for it to come. If it has been hidden it's only behind a bright cloud. It's always been there. Those three disciples saw, at that point, something which was translated as being Jesus, Moses and Elias. It seems to those who read this story that here was a particular point; they went up into a high mountain, apart, and the time came, and then suddenly something happened and this vision appeared in that moment. But it was always there, on the high mountain. If you live in the pit you don't see it. But it's always there. The truth always is there.
The Spirit of God always is here, always with you, individually, wherever you are, alone or in company. Why not prove the truth of it, because you have accepted it as being so? Then what else can you do but express it? If you don't accept it, you will say, “I don't see it, I don't feel it, I don't experience it. How can I give expression to this which doesn't seem to be there?” It isn't there because you haven't accepted it as being there. You are saying, “It isn't there.” Well, you can't give expression to what isn't there, that's true; but the fact of the matter is that it is there. As long as life remains, the Spirit of Life is obviously present, and there couldn't be the Spirit of Life if it weren't for the parents of Life—Love and Truth. They are all there. Why not accept the responsibility of giving these spirits expression? Then we are awake, then we know, and we are living in a true world, a real world. We may be able to observe the dreams of others because we then look upon the heart, but we know the unreality of them, the unreality of the things to which human beings attach their values in the sleeping state.
So, letting the light shine, because we would do nothing else but give consistent expression to the Spirit of the Son of God, we remain together in His body, wherever we are; and we see it, we know it. We share that one Spirit and the delight of the vision which it brings. I thank God that this is so, that you have known that it is so, that you know that it is so in this moment. Let it ever be so to you, because you refuse to be beguiled into slumber again. And that's what happens when we eat of the forbidden fruit, isn't it? The narcotic takes effect and we sleep, or we take a trip, an unreal trip. How much better to be awake in a real world, as real people; for this is what we really are.
O Lord, the reality is so beautiful, perhaps a little strange because it is so new to our awareness but so beautiful nevertheless, something to be desired above all else. Awakening to the truth we would spring into action, greeting the new day with joyous hearts because there is so much to do, so much to be experienced, so many creative wonders to be shared. As we move forth into Thy world on earth, the world which has for so long been empty—empty of Thy presence—giving form to Thy presence, Thou art present; we are in the garden with Thee. What more wonderful experience could there be, in the midst of man's apparent tribulation? We would let our light shine in oneness of spirit, we would speak Thy word, we would give form to Thy creative act, that all who will may awaken to the truth which makes them free in the reality of Thy kingdom on earth. O thank Thee, O Lord, for these thy faithful servants, who are accepting this great responsibility and wonderful fulfilment (for these two go together) that they may ever abide in wakefulness, alert and alive, filled with joy as they serve Thee on earth, together even though apart. I thank Thee, O Lord, for each one, for Thy blessing which enfolds them now and always, for the joy of being with them in Thy kingdom on earth, in the Christ. Aum-en.
