Being the Word
Martin Cecil April 25, 1982
Words always may be allowed to clothe the Word; then words are no longer idle words. Because we all speak from time to time, words are prominent; but there are a multitude of other ways by which the Word is spoken. If we try to make it all words it won’t work. It requires all the forms of living. These forms vary from person to person. Flowers in a garden have often been used as an analogy. I suppose it might be impressive for a while if the garden was filled with all the same flowers, but shortly it would become boring. And so we do delight, rightly, in variety, a symphony of sound and color, all revealing the Word. It is the Word that is important. Human beings have been wrapped up in forms, giving these weight and meaning and forgetting what the forms are intended to reveal. All forms harmonize when they reveal the Word—this is the only way that it happens—peace on earth.
But, paying attention to the forms, the Word has been forgotten. These forms are many and varied and we become aware of them through our senses, what are called our physical senses. Sometimes it is indicated that we have five of them; others may say we have vastly more, but five is enough for the moment: the sense of sight, the sense of hearing, the sense of smell, the sense of taste and the sense of touch. These senses are looked upon as the means of informing us as to what is going on in the area that we have thought of as the external environment. The senses have been defined in human consciousness, for the most part, in terms of what is thus incoming from the environment to the individual experience. That’s about all the senses are for in the view of most.
There is little recognition that there are two aspects to our senses, which might be thought of in terms of incoming and also outgoing. The outgoing aspect has been virtually ignored or has only been considered at a very coarse level. If one happened to see something that he thought wasn’t right, then one could subsequently try to figure out what should be done about it. But this tended to divorce whatever action might appear from the sense which had acquainted the person with the apparent need for action. You see something which apparently needs to be adjusted somehow, so you pick up your crescent wrench and go over and adjust it, which has very little to do with seeing. So the action has been divorced from the incoming perception. It hasn’t been recognized that there was something to go forth through the particular sense which had provided the information.
There is something to go forth through the sense of sight, for instance; there is a positive aspect as well as a negative aspect. The negative aspect has dominated in human experience, whether it be sight or hearing or any of the other senses. With respect to each there is a radiant aspect as well as a responsive aspect, but because human attention has been given to the realm of form the only purpose for senses seemed to be to acquaint the individual with the forms of the environment. This illustrates a state of reversed polarity where the incoming information dominated. And that is one way of understanding what is meant by eating of the forbidden fruit.
If we consider that other tree, the tree of life, which bears fruit too, we cannot gorge ourselves on the incoming information through our senses and at the same time have any capacity left for receiving the fruit of the tree of life. So gradually we starve for life. This is one way of looking at the experience of dying, which is popular with most people; everybody indulges in it, after all. It has become an addiction because at least half of the true cycle of life has been neglected. We receive through our senses but we don’t give.
The senses provide the facilities for spiritual expression; this is their primary business. Who really knows anything about this? To know what this is requires what may be described as eating of the fruit of the tree of life, which may be seen in terms of the Word—listening for the Word. Most people simply listen for what is bombarding them through their senses. They are so preoccupied with all of this that they have very little facility left to discern the Word. It is only as the Word is discerned, is heard, that there is the radiant aspect available for seeing.
The seeing which human beings do is based in the information that comes out of the environment, or what is deemed to be the environment. I qualify that a little because it is not perhaps what it seems to be. But we have a lot of information coming to us through our senses constantly, and this is what occupies virtually all of human attention. It has been thought that if we didn’t really pay attention to all of this we would be overwhelmed by events; we have to learn to be quick on our feet so that we are not clobbered by all this hostile environment which is closing in on us. It makes for the experience of a very restricted state, a very tiring state: we can never for a moment relax our vigilance!—a vigilance merely based upon the information coming to us out of the environment which, because we have no true vision, we cannot see clearly. We interpret it wrongly. The way we see it is not really the way it is, because we have no means of comprehension—I suppose you could call it true comprehension, because we have what we think of as comprehension but it is uncomprehending—we don’t understand. This is the human state, isn’t it? Human beings don’t understand. They are always trying to gain greater understanding by eating more of the forbidden fruit, getting more knowledge; but there is no way by which what is present in the environment can be understood except on the basis of radiant vision. One might call it penetrating vision. If you depend upon what is reflected out of the environment, understanding and comprehension are impossible. All that can be done is to build up theories, and we try to function according to these theories, which are not true anyway. So we live in a land of make-believe.
Theories are imagination, vain imagination at that. We only need theories when we don’t know. The only way to know is to participate in the true cycles of living, which are not based in the incoming information out of the environment. True living is based in the Word. In the Word is life, and the life is the light of men. In other words seeing becomes possible when the Word is heard because it is one’s own natural expression in living. That is the only way it can really be heard.
There must be some experience of that natural expression for the Word to be touched by reason of the expression of somebody else. Of all the people who have touched the Word as it has found expression in words through this ministry there have been a very small percentage who actually heard it. And the only way it could be heard was if there was already in that person something of the Word in expression. If there wasn’t that experience the individual might hear the words, might even say of the words, “Well, they seem to make some sort of sense. And so we have had those on our mailing list, perhaps for years, who were there on this basis—just because of the words. They liked these words better than the words that were being spoken somewhere else. But there were those in whom there was some experience of the Word, and so the words which they received touched a chord in themselves because to them the words which they received were the clothing of the Word. Becoming aware of the beauty of what was sensed, it was a wonderful thing, because it wasn’t merely something external to oneself; it was something that flooded one’s own experience.
To reach a point where there was something sufficiently active in oneself already of the Word, it has seemed that certain vicissitudes were required. Tribulations of various sorts usually seem to have been necessary to bring us to the point where we would pay attention to the Word once there were words available clothing the Word for us. We’ve been instructed in the way to give thanks for all things; so we are thankful for these tribulations, these troubles, these vicissitudes that came upon us. But sometimes when the person looks at these things and is thankful for them, he tends to become a little bit proud of all that was passed through to bring one finally to the point where one might awaken to the truth in one’s own experience. Well there is a difference between being thankful and being proud. All the vicissitudes, all the tribulations which we experienced were self-imposed. It wasn’t some malign, or even beneficent, God who was imposing these things upon us in order to wake us up. But all these things human beings bring upon themselves, and if we put ourselves through the hoop with sundry tribulations, we ourselves did it. I think, if we came to the point of waking up, while we may be thankful that these prods did wake us up, we would be a little ashamed of the fact that all these things were self-produced anyway.
How people look around sometimes for some other way of awakening, or perhaps some way of awakening at all; but it is something, you know, for which one must finally assume one’s own responsibility. The impositions that have come upon us—self-impositions—may bring us to the point of taking responsibility, but why not take the responsibility without going through all the rigmarole of tribulation as though it were necessary? It isn’t necessary, except as we make it so for ourselves; it’s self-induced. I suppose we’ve all produced such things for ourselves in various ways. I trust we’ve been willing to acknowledge the fact that they were self-induced—in other words, we’ve become that much honest. But looking back on the situation, why on earth would one have insisted upon all the useless hell? because if we did awaken finally, there was something in us already which could have allowed it in the first place. There are those who try out all kinds of techniques here, there and everywhere to bring themselves to the point where they may be awakened. Well if they can be awakened—and that is not always sure either—but if they can be awakened they didn’t need all that stuff. What was necessary has been present all along; it is simply a matter of listening. And one can’t be made to listen; one must choose to listen.
This seems to be a human habit: people want to be forced to do the thing. They won’t take responsibility for themselves; they’re weak and flabby. Ugh! What appalling flabbiness. That doesn’t give much indication of the ability to awaken to the Word, because ultimately a person must do it for him- or herself. Nobody can force another to awaken. Sometimes it seems so, but pretty soon he’s sagging again. The true experience of oneself is self-induced. No one else can do it; no one else can prevent it either. Oh, to grow up out of the childish state and assume the responsibility of a man or a woman! There has been a great dearth of these on earth. And we awaken to the fact that there is more to our experience than merely reacting to what our senses tell us; that is the basis for virtually all of human existence. One may take a look at oneself in one’s own experience.
Listening for the Word [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/2018/08/listen-for-word-martin-cecil-april-16.html] one begins to associate oneself with the radiant action required for comprehension. The comprehension comes because there begins to be radiant seeing, a penetrating vision, which looks upon the heart, which looks upon the core of things, and is not stopped by the reflection, the reflection which comes through the negative aspect of the physical senses. It is the positive aspect of the physical senses that is important. When this is important in one’s own experience, so that there is alignment with the Word, and it is the Word that determines what finds expression, then the environment begins to reflect that, and the incoming information from the environment through the physical senses—the negative aspect—will reveal what may be called the Kingdom. The Kingdom has come on this basis. This is the way it comes. It is reflected back in our experience by the physical senses. That’s fine. But what is reflected back, even though it is the Kingdom, doesn’t determine what it is that is going out from us. It is what is going out from us of the expression of the Word that brings back to us the evidence of the Kingdom, the evidence of the Kingdom which is discerned by the incoming aspect of our physical senses. But we leave that alone. That’s fine, something to be enjoyed, something wonderful, but something not to determine the quality of our expression. This remains the Word, and as long as it remains the Word we will be aware increasingly that the Kingdom has come, because it is reflected back to us. This is another way of recognizing what happened in the Fall, which gradually brought the incoming information from the senses into a dominant position of control in human experience. As long as that is the case the Kingdom is excluded from human experience, because it can only come by reason of the presence of human beings. Listen for the Word.
Like many of you back along the way, I produced a certain amount of stress and strain and tribulation in my experience. I suppose this was some sort of conditioning factor. But when the words came to me clothing the Word from Uranda, there could be no doubt, no hesitation. There it was. I suppose, like I've noted some others do, I could have put it off. Perhaps I did for a while insofar as immediate experience was concerned, and maybe I put myself through some more tribulation, but looking back I can say, “Oh how unnecessary; what a waste of time.” Well I can assure anyone else that it really is a waste of time. One may conceivably learn from the experience of somebody else. Not many do, mind you, but it’s possible. Why fiddle? Why waste time? I don’t think there is all that much to be wasted anymore.
