Real People In A Real World
from Right Imagination
Martin Cecil January 13, 1980 p.m.
When we consider the spiritual tides which are working in the larger world around us, we may be aware of many things in this considerable creative field, but always we find it leads right back to where we are individually speaking. We know full well that we are not in position to do anything directly with respect to most of the things that are going on in the world but we are in position to do something directly in our own immediate worlds. If we fail to do it there we fail to do it anywhere. We may look at what is occurring in the larger world without anymore feeling a need to defend things. We have a certain understanding, we claim, as to what it is that’s going on; we don’t feel defensive about that—but when it comes back closer to home and relates immediately to ourselves, then there is a tendency to become defensive. It seems as though honesty is inhibited in close associations. We are well aware of why this is so: the human ego seeks to maintain its own dominance. Anything that may be called in question with respect to the quality of the human ego is certainly resisted.
I wonder how many of us sitting here this evening could take it if an honest evaluation was given of each person, particularly an honest evaluation that was given in front of everybody else. I think most of us sitting here wouldn’t like that too well. Everyone probably has a suspicion that things might come out into the open that they know very well are there but thought were well hidden. How long does it take to get to a point where we can be honest? We’ve spoken about honesty for a long time, and we all agree, sagely, that there must be honesty. And then there is a rider attached to this view: but let it not start with me. I think there are many still here present who would be absolutely devastated if there was in fact a real honesty in saying it like it is. I’m not suggesting that we need to trample over each other’s feelings, but you may be able to see the point: that we are still seeking to protect a human ego that needs to pass away—so that anything could be considered, and there would be no ruffled feelings whatsoever. That is not now possible, in the general sense at least. If it is not possible, then it certainly indicates that there is a lack of honesty somewhere. And we are tied hand and foot as long as there is a precious human ego around that is commanding protection.
It is because of this that whenever we look at the larger fields of responsibility we can’t stay there. We always have to come back to where we are as individuals. The Lord is seeking those who are capable of assuming responsibility for His world. That may seem like a large order, but it is the order. We each have our own individual overlapping worlds, and there are many others besides ourselves here present who have their worlds too. I’m speaking of those who begin to have awareness of spiritual responsibility. We are aware of One who assumed responsibility for the world as a whole some nineteen hundred years ago. It’s quite obvious that He assumed responsibility for the world—He assumed responsibility for His world. As it so happened, His world included the whole world. Our worlds are not quite the same as His world but if we put them all together, having all taken responsibility for our individual worlds, then responsibility is being assumed for the whole world and the world then is back in His hands once again. He wasn’t in position to let this happen merely on the basis of the fact that He took responsibility for the whole world in Himself as an individual. It could have worked that way if anybody had undertaken to agree with Him but there was very little agreement actually—it didn’t go very deep. He did what He came to do: namely, take responsibility for His world. He has done that. He doesn’t need to do it again. He did it but human beings didn’t agree with Him—they didn’t let Him have it back in their own factual experience. We are present on earth to let Him have it back in our own practical experience, and we let Him have it back because as individuals we assume spiritual responsibility for our own worlds.
What we know about our own worlds, to start with makes them seem to be rather small places. It is necessary to start at the beginning, to start at the center of things, and let it expand. So we do take responsibility spiritually for a rather small world, to start with: our own individual worlds right next to us. We may have some ideas of connectedness with things that are beyond. This is quite a practical view actually because we know that what we handle close at hand has its effect upon something else a little further out, and so it goes. When you drop the stone in the pool, the rings move out. And this happens. Sometimes we discover that something we did or said years ago has proliferated, and produced a situation which finally comes back to us; and we may at the time say, “I wonder where that came from.” But when we pause to think about it and hear perhaps what somebody else has to say, we find that we ourselves had initiated the thing long ago. Well these are rather rare occurrences of which we become aware consciously, but they’re happening all the time regardless of whether we are aware of them or not. So it’s important to be right in our handling of our immediate worlds because of the repercussions that are going to occur as the ripples go out, and we have a consciousness of larger responsibility on this basis. That larger responsibility comes more and more within the range of our conscious awareness to the extent that we handle the little world close to us on the right basis; then our own awareness expands.
We are quite conscious of the fact that we are responsible for creative action in our worlds. We’re not just sitting in the middle of our worlds hoping that something is going to work out as it should. That’s a vain hope, if we’re just sitting there. There is the need for creative action. In order to be in position to provide this creative action spiritual training is necessary—and we have taken note of the field of spiritual education as it relates to what we have called this ministry. Actually this ministry has existed almost entirely to make available spiritual education. Once the education has been received properly, then there is some sort of graduation out of the educational field into the field of action. Graduating into the field of action, what we have thought of as this ministry becomes less important. Its importance was with respect to education.
From the standpoint of spiritual education as it has been offered through this ministry we may see this relating also to a world of imagination, a theoretical world. We gain some Emissary understanding about the truth, but it is a world of imagination, because one has to graduate out of this educational process in order to find oneself in the real world, the world where it is not a matter of imagination anymore. I think you see this as applying to your own experience. There must be spiritual education; there’s nothing wrong with that—but let us recognize that while one is in the process of that education one is very largely living in a world of imagination. The only extent to which it is not imagination is the extent to which the individual finds himself being compelled into the expression of the spirit in his own living. As long as it is simply a matter of acquiring ideas about the truth, the principles of being and reality and so on, so that one may deem oneself to be wise on this basis, it is all imagination—not unnecessary imagination, it’s all right at the time; but it becomes fatal if one stays in that world of imagination.
The training is in order to produce those who are capable of living in the real world and taking the action that is required in that real world. As long as we are still being educated we are not in position to take the required action. Relative to what has been experienced thus far in our own ministry, it has been mostly education. And as very often occurs even in the schools of the world, a lot of students are not particularly interested in being educated. They’re involved in all kinds of other activities and there is very little vision at the time, on the part of most, of any value in the education. That has carried over to a certain extent into our own field of spiritual education. It has seemed to be some sort of pastime to many. Of course its only purpose was to bring people to a point where they might actually graduate and pass the examinations; and there are examinations by the way, not the ordinary kind but very specific in fact. Passing through those examinations they might come into the field of action, which was the whole reason for the exercise. The education of itself was not the end and the aim of things, just the first step, leading to the point of action. Now there comes a point when the very tides of the spirit compel action—and if students are not trained too well, then there are going to be a lot of casualties. How important the training is, and certainly it should be used to the fullest possible advantage with a recognition that it makes possible movement into the field of creative action.
That field of creative action is the whole world, but our association with that whole world is real because of our little world in which we live in the immediate sense; and how we handle that will reveal the value of our prior training. If we are capable of handling what arises in our immediate worlds in an intelligent and practical way—which is to say, handling something spiritually—then what we do spiritually will not be restricted merely to the immediate world. It will extend further and we will find ourselves encompassing more in our awareness of our worlds. We do not feel the necessity of constantly scurrying back to hold a reunion with the class of whatever-it-was—that’s all gone forever. It can never be recalled. It’s a wise thing to have this awareness with respect to everything which we are experiencing moment by moment. Whatever it is it will be gone forever. We can’t get it back. So we see the vital necessity of being right in the moment so that we may handle our spiritual responsibilities in the real world.
The real world—there's been a tendency to think of this in terms of some different imaginary world: the kingdom of heaven perhaps. Well it includes the kingdom of heaven, but how much of the kingdom of heaven does anybody know? What is known is imagination at the moment—mostly at least. When I speak of the real world in this sense I’m speaking of what is actually the fact, so that we come out of the world of imagination into a factual world. And no matter what has gone before, it’s not factual anymore. Yet human beings are constantly wrapped up in what went before, trying to sort out what went before in the present moment. Forget it! It’s gone! The question is: What are the facts now and how shall we handle these facts now? We approach the handling from the spiritual standpoint because we have some basis upon which to stand consequent upon our prior education. We let this education find application in the expression of our living, so that we handle what comes to us on this foundation. The very moment you forget about the past you let go of judgment. The point is: What is the situation now? What is the real world now? We need to come out of the imaginary world in order to be in the real world, so that we may begin to handle things that are really there, without all the overtones of imagination.
I've talked a good deal about the imaginary world and imagination, and I have the feeling that most of you have turned thumbs down on imagination, not having paused to consider that if there is a destructive pattern of imagination, there will also be a constructive pattern of imagination. It is an available capacity, and something very useful, very essential in the real world. Used in the imaginary world it multiplies destruction, even though for the moment it may look as though something practical is being done. Human beings use their imagination mostly to benefit themselves in whatever way may seem to be possible, but in benefiting themselves they are functioning on the basis of a cycle of disintegration, and the experience will prove to be destructive.
To live in the real world we have to be real people. Living in the imaginary world, which is the human nature world all around us, one has to be an imaginary person; and that’s the fact of the matter. There has been a search for identity in the consciousness of human beings—if you’re searching for it you don’t have it, and if you think you have an identity it must be an imaginary one. That’s the way it has been and the way it is for most people on the face of the earth. But to function in the real world one must be a real person, and one will handle whatever factually emerges out of the real world to be handled, on the basis of being a real person and not on the basis of being an imaginary person.
As a real person we may be in position to use imagination rightly. I have spoken of the need for ingenuity—using imagination for a purpose which has a relatedness to what is emerging by reason of the spiritual tides, emerging in this moment now. Imagination, ingenuity, used by a real person living in a real world. We need to see this with respect to all aspects of our living: that we are required to use our imagination as real people to handle effectively what is brought to us. You have to use a little ingenuity. You have to see what is necessary and handle it accordingly, but you handle it because you are a real person. You know all these things—you’ve had education—but how are these things going to work with respect to this particular situation? That’s for you to find out, using imagination to do it. You won’t be able to do it without imagination. If you try to do it on the basis of the concepts you have of correct function you will mess it up. There is something intangible here, something fresh, something that has never happened before. It’s always different, because it’s not the same moment; the whole situation is changed the next time. So there is the need for imagination, but it can only be useful in a creative sense when there’s a real person on hand using it. As long as it is an unreal or imaginary person there trying to use his imagination he will inevitably mess things up. That is the way human imagination works: it always makes things worse. Maybe there seemingly is something all right for the moment; everybody is enthused; then pretty soon it’s discovered that it is only making things worse.
There is something that can be done by a real person who is living in the real world and not trying to wrestle with all the things in the unreal world. What are the facts now? How are these going to be handled? We can’t go back and adjust anything in the past to make it different. It is the way it is. What are we going to do about it now? How are we going to handle it? Let us be real people who are capable of handling the real world the way it rightly is handled in what we have spoken of as spiritual expression. And this is the most practical and sensible, common sense way of handling things, because you’re not all bogged down in the stuff that comes out of the past. You have a clear field right there and you’re going to handle it rightly. Handling it rightly, that leads into something else which is handled rightly, and something else, and something else, and the ripples go out and the world begins to be encompassed. Our individual worlds are encompassed and consequently a collective world begins to be encompassed. And finally there is the whole world, which belongs to the Lord, and it has been restored to Him.
We speak of the restoration of man as though that was the great thing, but in fact it is the restoration of the world to the One to whom it belongs that is the great thing. That is our concern, and that allows us to be effective and worthwhile in the living of our individual and seemingly insignificant lives on earth. They’re not so insignificant as might be supposed, at least they are not when we are right. So let us be right.
© emissaries of divine light
