From Water To Air
Martin Exeter October 27, 1985 am
In a very particular way today a line is drawn upon the face of the earth. This earthly line provides a base of connection with the earth and with all who dwell therein. Beyond this we may be with one accord in one place, one position, the position where we rightly belong, in heaven. This place of accord is a place of stillness where we rightly may all be together. Let it be so. Out of this place, this shared position, the light shines. If we are in fact in the place where the light shines we are identified with the light. Here is the place of radiation out of stillness, out of heaven. Being the light, all shadows flee away. This can be readily understood within the range of our own experience. Forms cast shadows. If one is in the position of the light the shadows are behind the forms. The forms are seen clearly for what they are because the light shines upon them. The shadows then are unseen; the shadows have fled away.
Human experience has been confined to the realm of shadows. This is indicative of the experience of what has been called the fall. Human consciousness has not been one with the light, but rather one with the shadows. The shadows are cast by forms. Those forms which cast the shadows have not been known. Being under the forms, or behind the forms, in the realm of the shadows, all that has been known has been shadows. All human activity—mental, emotional, physical—is merely related to shadows. We have ourselves spoken of this before as the realm of the unreal—but being unaware of anything but shadows, of anything but the unreal, it didn’t really mean very much, because what we were aware of was real to us even though in the larger perspective it was factually unreal. Having no larger perspective human beings have been unaware of what the fact is.
The realm of forms was described allegorically in the Bible as the Garden planted eastward in Eden. There is indication that man, as he was first created, removed himself from the Garden, and instead of being identified with the light which illuminated all the forms in the Garden he was behind the forms, experiencing the shadows consequent upon the illumination in the Garden. This has been the human state. We have had various ideas about it heretofore and have had considerable experience of it; but this is a way of portraying the state of affairs with which we may begin to have a sense of kinship. There is a way by which hearts and minds may be cleared of the shadows, rise up, participate in a process of resurrection.
Resurrection in its fulfillment brings human beings again into the light which shines forth from the midst of the Garden, so as to be one with that light. It may then be said: I am the light. And from that positioning all the forms of the Garden are seen for what they are. They cannot possibly be seen for what they are outside of the Garden in the realm of shadows, the customary realm of human experience where shadows are deemed to be the reality and there is the endeavor to manipulate shadows. This is not a very satisfactory pastime, because the shadows keep changing according to the changing forms which cast them, the forms which are present in the Garden. Outside of the Garden all that can be seen are shadows—the back of the forms, but the back of the forms are very dark. In the realm of the shadows there has been immense effort to try to make the realm of shadows into the Garden. The futility of that is surely obvious.
The process of resurrection was initiated by one man over nineteen centuries ago, one man whose experience brought him again into the Garden, into the place of light. In that place all the forms of the Garden can be clearly seen. It is a place where man belongs. He was placed in the Garden to dress it and to keep it. He could hardly dress it and keep it if he was not aware of the nature of the living forms of it. This was no mystery because, being identified with the light, the character of the forms of the Garden was obvious. Even then, beyond the Garden, there was a realm of shadows—the forms cast shadows. But this realm was of little consequence insofar as the action of man was concerned in the midst of the Garden. His concern was with the forms of the Garden, the forms which were casting the shadows.
The radiation of spirit, the light, creates its own forms, and it activates those forms because the creation is ongoing. They are living, moving, changing forms; and because they are living, moving, changing forms they cast moving, changing shadows. This has always been troublesome to human beings in the realm of the shadows because they kept changing. There was the idea that something was being well encompassed and pinned down, and then suddenly it was discovered that the shadows were changing, and so there was a rapid regrouping to try to take care of the new set of shadows, much rushing to and fro in the earth and up and down in it, much movement in the realm of shadows, much expenditure of energy, much effort, and much destructiveness.
The consciousness of human beings has been trapped in the realm of shadows. Now, because of what was initiated these nineteen centuries ago, the process of resurrection has been at work; that is resurrection where minds and hearts are sufficiently open and yielded to let the rising up process be experienced. If there is resistance to the rising up process, then it isn’t resurrection; it’s destruction. It has to be one or the other. Human beings can determine which for themselves, but there is no other choice. Either rise up or go down. This relates to human forms and the consciousness that is within those human forms, all of which have been held in the realm of shadows. The raising-up process is not something that is produced by human effort. Human beings cannot say, and make it stick, “I am now going to raise myself up.” It’s impossible. But there is the creative process at work—the rising tide—which will raise up the condition of human hearts and minds if those hearts and minds are not resistant to it. If they are they stay in limbo, in the realm of shadows, until destruction overtakes them.
This raising-up process relates to man, and man is not just one person. Man is not even just one male person or one female person. Man is both male and female and includes a number of people. The population of the earth today is not man, because it is out of the Garden. Man can only be in the Garden. So there is another creature here, a shadowy creature, existing briefly in the realm of shadows but having the opportunity to participate in the resurrection. However, as soon as the process of resurrection is set in motion, also the process of destruction is set in motion. As the resurrection takes effect and there is a raising up of a body of human beings to participate in the place of accord and stillness, to be the light, then all that is unwilling to be raised up in this way passes away. There is a particular passage in the Book of Revelation which says something about this: And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. That is an interesting comment which hasn’t been readily understood.
In the symbolic sense human beings have been existing in the realm of shadows underwater. This relates to the subconscious state. Human beings have not been conscious of the true state of Man in the Garden. They have vague memories of such a state sometimes and there is an aspiring toward that state, even though it may not be seen in the terms of the Garden; but what that state would be is totally unknown. There has been the process of resurrection in effect, however, regardless of what human beings have been doing, so that some become aware of changes which allow an emergence out of the shadows to some extent.
If one is in the water—and in the depths of the water it is very dark—rising toward the surface of the water it begins to brighten and it gets quite light near the surface of the water even though one is still under water. Human existence has been at the level of the subconscious. There has been a certain consciousness of the subconscious. But in the process of resurrection there is a rising up. Using this allegory of water, we may see that under water one can only hold one’s breath so long. In factual experience this probably wouldn’t be more than two or three minutes, but if we’re looking at it from a larger perspective the capability of holding one’s breath might extend to threescore years and ten—holding one’s breath under water in the subconscious state. One may perceive what a marvelous release it would be to break surface and gulp the air once again.
This has not occurred for mankind. It just occurred for one person, who was in the business of opening the door for the rest of mankind to let the same thing happen. One cannot let the same thing happen if one denies the possibility of sharing the experience of that One; and this Christianity has done in a very effective way. They have shut the door—people have been deceived, or deceived themselves, into imagining that this was somehow efficacious, but everybody remained in the realm of shadows.
So, individually speaking, we are able to hold our breath spiritually for a human lifetime, whatever that may be, sometimes short, sometimes longer, but it has all been a condition of holding one’s breath under the water. Some have risen up in the water to a greater extent than others and become aware of light while still under the water. This is considered to be very commendable, if one began to experience something of that light while still being under the water. But it never was or could be resurrection until surface is broken into the air. The air is above the water. You have to come out through the surface of the water to come to the air. It has been so customary for human beings to hold their breath spiritually that they have suffocated, as though that was the normal and only experience possible. Generation after generation there has been that suffocation.
Breaking surface is not just an individual matter, except in the case of the One who opened the door. It is the resurrection of man. That One represented man, and the resurrection that was set in motion then relates to the body of mankind, whatever that proves to be, to be raised up out of the water of the subconscious, out of the realm of shadows where nothing is really understood, into the realm of spirit. That’s the heaven, the place where man belongs in the midst of the Garden. Then everything else around him is seen from that perspective, and it is totally different. Behold, I make all things new. They are factually the same things but seen from the standpoint of the light—the radiation which has created those things. The forms are created, the forms are seen for what they are, understood for what their purpose is, and in the midst of that man lives. That is the true state, but it certainly is unimaginable to human consciousness still in the realm of shadows. There may be a sensing that there is something, because in the process of resurrection one is moving up through the water closer to the surface so that there is light. But you don’t see much of what’s going on up there, the other side of the surface of the water. There is a mere awareness that there is light.
What is in process is the resurrection of man, collective man. There are those who have tried to experience something special for themselves, but the fact of the matter is that man is one, that all things are one. You can’t pick little pieces out and have a special dispensation for them; this has been a peculiar human doctrine in the realm of Christianity. We are all part of one thing. We can’t escape from being a part of one thing without vanishing, because there isn’t anything else. Of course human beings have been busy vanishing generation after generation, because fundamentally there was a refusal to accept the fact of oneness. The fact of oneness cannot be known below the surface of the water. It can be sensed. But only when one breaks surface, so that one comes again to the place of light, to be identified with the light, can one understand what the situation really is. We have all these philosophies, all these doctrines, all these intellectual struggles by human beings, to try to find out what the truth is while still under the water. It can’t be done. There is no perspective there, just imagination, fantasy, with respect to shadows.
We have a certain sensing of the truth of all this; and there has been a certain willingness also, on our parts, to rise up in the water. Ah, there’s light! Rising up in the water and being aware of some light, we begin to think we understand; but we haven’t broken surface yet. To understand, one has to come into the midst of the Garden, and you can’t come into the midst of the Garden all on your own; no one can do it. It relates to a whole whole sorting-out process in the present body of humanity. It includes everybody. So we, approaching the surface so that the light is brighter, begin to recognize some of the factors related to ourselves; the factor, for instance, that we belong in the air above the water, that we belong in heaven, we belong in the spirit. But when we say “we,” what are we referring to? We are referring to our hearts and minds and bodies, which are what we have known ourselves to be. This is the way we have known ourselves, on earth.
This process of resurrection clarifies these capacities of mind and heart so that they can accommodate more of the light. This is the experience of rising up in the water: There is more light being accommodated in one’s own heart and mind; also an awareness that if there is light there must be a Source of light. Then there is a dawning awareness that the real person is already in the light, and that it is simply one’s own heart and mind which are rising up to a level where they may break surface so that there is the experience of what is in the light, an experience in heart and mind. That is man restored, resurrected.
So we share the process. But let’s not fool ourselves into imagining that somehow we can arrive without everybody else—everybody else who is in the process of arriving, not everybody else who is in the process of being dissipated in the processes of destruction. There are those. We won’t judge between them. By the way, it’s very easy to see in this realm of shadows as to why one should not judge by the appearance. Judging by the appearance of the shadow doesn’t tell you anything. Well it tells you one thing: there is something which is casting the shadow, and there is also a light present which produces the shadow. It doesn’t take much intelligence to realize those two things, but very few people do. So we are, have been, in the realm of the shadows and there has been a process of resurrection going on, not because we decided, “Now I am going to be resurrected,” but because willy-nilly we were pushed up, or we rose up. There is no need to question why, just to realize the fact of it, that’s all.
Rising toward the surface then, we become aware that there is light and we also become aware that we belong in the light. We do not have that experience yet. We belong in the light to be one with the light. We have that experience when everybody has that experience. There may be those who rise up in the water ahead of others who are lower down, so to speak, in the whole process, but it is all one process. And it may be that there are those who break surface first, but they are not thereby separated from those who are coming up through the water. It’s all one process. It’s all one body. It’s all one thing. Man is whole, but not only is man whole, one whole composed of however many individuals, but the whole universe is whole. It’s all one thing and man is not separate from that.
There is a rather interesting little passage I came across in the Song of Solomon which says something about this. It says here: “Until the day break, and the shadows flee away”—of course they have been fleeing away for quite a long time, because the light has been there even though the day has not broken yet. And the shadows flee away always from behind the forms which cast them. If you are in the position of the light you don’t see any shadows, all you see are the forms. You have to get behind the form to find the shadow. Well you don’t belong behind the form outside the Garden. We belong in the Garden, one with the light; then everything is clear, natural and easy and understandable. It doesn’t require great stress and strain, sweat of the brow, to gain knowledge in all these things, because everything is plain. It’s only in the shadows that you need that sort of thing. If a person has expended all his life force in accumulating knowledge about shadows it may be seemingly a little difficult to let go of all that in order to associate oneself with the light which cast the shadows in the first place. The shadows don’t really mean anything. It is the forms that are casting them that mean something, but one can’t tell what those are until one is in the Garden. One can’t be in the Garden without being one with the light.
“Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether.” Bether is a word which apparently means division. And there are mountains of division in the earth, divisions which human beings have created amongst themselves, between themselves and the rest of what is thought of as nature, the rest of the universe. So there is a time when one necessarily has to function with ease and grace, like a roe or a young hart, on the mountains of division. All this is going on and we are very much aware of it; it’s still in the realm of shadows. We know what’s happening in the realm of shadows—we know what the shadows are doing; but we can function in that realm without becoming involved with it. With grace and ease and naturalness we can move upon the mountains of division. It doesn’t matter what they are, we need not become involved with them but reveal the fact of the light which is now known at whatever level we are in the water.
There is another verse down here which says, “Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense.” Here we have the realm of stillness, the atmosphere of heaven, the aroma of heaven. Let’s allow that to be the fact until the day break. The day break relates to this breaking of surface. And incidentally, in the margin it says that the word “break” is the word “breathe.” Interesting, isn’t it?—until you are able to breathe air again and stop holding your breath. It’s necessary to hold your breath while you are under water to survive a little while, but how much better to share in the process of resurrection so that the surface may be broken and we may breathe once again freely in the air of the spirit.
So we participate in this resurrecting process, letting the door be opened for all who would rise up, to feel safe in rising up in the water toward the light and away from the darkest shadows. It is a very perverse thing in human consciousness, that there is usually an endeavor to remain associated with the darkest shadows. All the troubles and difficulties and terrible things that are supposed to be going on in the shadows, which are reported prolifically by the media, human beings are gluttons for. They want to stay in the dark, associated with the darkest shadows; and it seems like a betrayal of some sort to most people if they should let go of that. “Well, after all, there are terrible things happening; I’ve got to do something about it.” Yes, rise up out of it. Let it go, so that one may come to the surface. Everybody is being offered that opportunity to come to the surface but most people hang on to these weights; they insist because they’re good people—all this just increases one’s awareness of the darkness of the shadows. It produces awareness of more shadows. Let go. Rise up, that we may come again out of this appalling realm of shadows where we don’t belong, where it’s miserable and we suffer. Why not let it go and come up out of it? The way is there. The door is open. We are here to prove that that is the fact of the matter so others may become aware of the wide open door that is there. We share in coming again into the Garden where man is. Man can’t be anywhere else but in the Garden. Outside he’s something else, a shadowy creature in the shadows. Let’s become real, sharing that reality in our own experience, so that the door may be opened for everybody else.
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