To Know

To  Know

Martin Cecil  March 8, 1981  a.m.

I stand at the center

and the light shines all around me

and now I know that my spirit glowing makes this light.

I come into power with the sun for I am the sun.

I am my own light.

Here at the center I see the meaning of things, all things.

And now I know that I am the meaning. The whole meaning.

The four directions come together in me.

I am the center

and everything flows from me, returns to me.

I am that which they call Great Mystery.

I am that which each one calls Wakantanka before coming here,

before seeing the light.

I am here and so I know.

Here I know everything. Here I know myself.

I am thought and will. And nothing sits above my will.

I am pride and joy. And nothing sits above my joy.

I own my life. And only mine.

And so I shall appreciate my person.

And so I shall make proper use of myself.

I stand here in the light of my own presence and I recognize my power.

I am reason. And nothing sits above my choice.

I am truth. And so I live in the spirit.

And so I live forever.

I am the oneness of the whole.

And whatever happens, happens in me.

I am Ahbleza. I own the earth.

This particular quotation is taken from a book called Hanta Yo, by Ruth Beebe Hill. In this book she speaks of certain of the American Indians, their life, their understanding, their traditions, their history. It has been a rather controversial book, some of the Indians in this modern era objecting to her interpretations. But this particular quotation certainly finds a point of agreement with us and in our own experience. I might read it again. (Martin reread the piece.) I do not know that these words would necessarily be classified as coming from scripture, but they certainly convey the truth, the truth long forgotten, long unknown to human beings.

Nowadays it is interesting that because of the seeming energy shortage consideration is being given to solar energy—not all that much as yet but no doubt that interest will increase. There is a certain recognition of the immense apparent quantity of energy that is brought to the earth from the sun in each moment. I don’t know what the figures are but probably the energy received on this North American continent in a day would supply all human needs for a hundred years. Here is an awareness of an apparent source of energy separate from the earth, separate from human beings. All those things which may be observed, such as in this instance the sun, are symbols which may acquaint human beings with themselves. Because so much weight is given to externals the symbols have loomed as though they were something in and of themselves, rather than a beautiful evidence of a reality which partakes of the state of oneness.

In the words which I read, there was a consciousness of the fact, as it was put, “I am the sun.” The sun is looked upon as an immense source of energy, but it is simply a symbol of a source of energy of so much greater extent than is revealed by the sun. What the sun reveals springs from a source. Human beings try to explain it in terms of atomic fusion, but the source which is the sun is the same source which we are. As I say, because human beings place the greatest weight in what seems to them to be external to themselves, the sun is looked upon as the source; but the sun is merely the evidence of the source, just as human beings are, just as the earth itself is.

Because of the apparent shortage of energy, or expectation of such shortage, human beings are concerned to extract energy from somewhere else. The sun is an obvious source. It takes a little while for human consciousness to adjust to the possibility of making use of what derives from that source, but, clearly, there is an immense supply of energy apparently, from the human standpoint absolutely inexhaustible. I noticed that somebody, in commenting on the rather laggard approach to the right use of solar energy, expressed the thought that nobody can make any money out of it. Of course that is not exactly true because people must build complicated machinery in order to extract the energy, and therefore there is an economic factor involved, but the source itself cannot be sold. Nobody can get a corner on the sun.

However if we are aware that what powers the sun powers us, then why go to the sun? Of course the reason for going to the sun to get energy, or to get it out of the earth in some form or other, is so as to sustain the world which human beings have created on earth. This is considered to be an all-important project because it is inconceivable that human beings could exist without the world which they have created on earth. The popular phrase is that one might freeze in the dark. The whole exercise is based in the endeavor to save the human world. We have another viewpoint, perhaps still largely theoretical: This human world does not need to be saved. People everywhere apparently become convinced that without this human world they themselves couldn’t exist, but human beings did exist for a long time before this particular quality of human world put in an appearance. Possibly it may be true that people have become soft and have lost a great deal of the pioneering spirit and the initiative in living, so that their survival might be in question if the world as we know it didn’t continue to exist; nevertheless it might be said that the human population has been sold a bill of goods. The world that human beings have made, rightly must pass away. Ultimately no endeavors, even the most frantic, will be able to sustain it. We are well aware of the cracks in that world, extending in all directions, and the disintegration which is occurring.

If there is a relinquishing of the idea that it is important, even a matter of life and death, to save the human world, then we will have space in consciousness to consider something else. It would appear that all human beings are pretty well hypnotized, brainwashed, into the view that they must contribute all their energy to sustaining themselves and this human world in which they exist, so there is no time or inclination to look at anything else much. However it is also true that in these days there are those who are awakening, as it has been put, to the futility of the undertaking, the attempt to maintain the human world. While still much of the thought in those who so awaken is that really some aspects of this world must be maintained—the better ones presumably, whatever they are—nevertheless it is a movement occurring in human consciousness which in a sense is quite commendable because it does provide space to see something else. If the population of the world can be thoroughly convinced of the absolute necessity of pouring themselves into the sustaining of this human world, then they are ripe for all kinds of manipulation.

To turn in a little different direction, we have recently reemphasized in our own consciousness the spacefulness of the human flesh body. It’s virtually all space, and very largely it has seemed to be empty space. Space is looked upon as being empty. Perhaps in these days there is more of a recognition of electromagnetic phenomena present in the larger space around us. If it is there, presumably it is in us too. But we have an awareness, perhaps largely theoretical still, of the absolute solid of the substance of love, out of which all other substance derives, and what derives out of the substance of love is not something else than love. So, present within our own flesh bodies is this absolute solid. It fills all the space. In that sense then there isn't any space. However from the standpoint of the consciousness of human beings it has seemed that there has been a lot of space—maybe not looking at it merely from the standpoint of what is present in an atom, for instance, or a molecule, almost all space apparently, but from the standpoint of what human beings experience. Nowadays they talk about being “spaced out.”

There is an immense emptiness in human experience. There are apparently so many needs, which for the most part are human wants rather than needs, but indicative of a lack, of a state of emptiness, a condition where space prevails. The very desire for the acquisition of knowledge, for instance, is indication of a sense of lack, a sense of inadequacy, a realization of empty space. So the approach is: Let’s fill it up; let’s fill this empty space up with knowledge. If not with knowledge then with “good times,” as they are sometimes called. So all of human experience tends to be governed by this apparent absence, so that one must rush here, rush there, trying to fill up the space with knowledge, with wealth, with whatever can be thought of; some go in one direction and some another but they are all trying to fill up this seemingly empty space.

But we realize it isn’t empty space at all; it is the absolute solid of love, of which human beings have been unaware. They do not know the substance which is present in what they think of as space. It’s been blotted from their understanding, from their experience—not entirely; there are little bits and pieces of love come through sometimes, and this is translated in different ways. But the reality is unknown. We have seen this relative to ourselves and the fact that we have lived in a fanciful world, which only exists in our own consciousness. If from the human standpoint it seems that there is so much space, that’s a lie; it isn’t so. The very fact that there has seemed to be so much space has been the motivating element in frantic human activity; they are going to fill it up somehow. It never gets filled on that basis. It couldn’t be because it’s already filled.

So there is a state of illusion here where it is imagined that something is so which isn’t so, and every generation that has come along has more or less taken the same attitude, having the experience of this emptiness. “Let’s fill it up”—and human beings are inventive. After all, part of the human nature is of creativeness, so they think up ways of filling up this space, nonexistent space, living in a world of illusion. They fill it up, as I say, with their pleasures, the things which they desire of various sorts, maybe alcohol or drugs or money or power, as they think of it, knowledge. Oh, there is immense variety offered for this, and most human beings are so dumb they fall for it. I suppose this can be understood with respect to young people growing up, because they haven’t yet plumbed the depths of futility; but all this endeavor to fill up what seems to be empty space is a waste of time. It is complete self-delusion. The space is already occupied by the absolute solid of love substance.

What is necessary is, of course, that there should be what has been described as an awakening to the truth of the matter, so that one stops indulging in self-delusion. But who is going to awaken? The experience of human beings everywhere is of a self, and it is assumed that this self which is the experience must somehow awaken to a different state of affairs but it’s still the same self but an awakened one now. That is not true either. In this passage that I read from the book Hanta Yo the state of separateness, which is the human experience, passes away: “I am that which they call great mystery. I am that which each one calls Wakantanka before coming here,” before coming to center, before having the experience of the truth. In other words the truth is seen as being separate from the person, and the person is going toward the truth so that he can fill himself up with the truth. This is another area in which human beings are very active these days: they are going to fill themselves up with the truth, they suppose. But it is already there. There is no need to fill anything up.

So this idea, anyway, is present in human consciousness, that they should move toward the truth, or that the truth should be allowed to move toward them. This is translated in various ways, using various terms: the idea of getting to heaven somehow. Whether heaven is in the hereafter or whether heaven is supposed to be here, it’s the same thing; let’s get there! Well where are you going? So another attitude is taken, “Well it seems we can’t get there, so we’ll let it come here.” That’s a nice idea and it may be a useful way of approach for a while, but somewhere along the way we come to the understanding that it’s here already. It doesn’t need to come.

So there is certainly something to happen. Because it hasn’t happened in human experience no one knows how to explain it. That’s right, isn't it? People have all sorts of theories about it, but the theories are only necessary because there hasn’t been the experience; and because human beings are empty they swallow theories thick and fast, imagining that their appetite will be thereby assuaged. But you add nothing to nothing and you still have nothing; you still have the space, the awareness of the space, the awareness of the space which is consequent upon what has been described as a veil of the impure human heart. This excludes an awareness of the substance of love, the one substance of which all other substance of which human beings may be aware in some measure are aspects. But you take a little piece of something and it doesn’t tell you what the whole is, as witness the gentlemen who examined the elephant. The elephant isn’t all trunk, it isn’t all feet, it isn’t you all tail, it isn't all skin. Get it together and there’s the elephant. There is a state of wholeness consequent upon the fact of this one substance. So we have the opportunity, as it was put in this passage I read, of coming again to center. But then what’s that, because we never left it? How could we come again to it? It is simply a sufficient yielding of human minds and hearts so that what is so can be seen to be so—first of all seen to be so and then known to be so. There is a distinction here between seeing and knowing.

One can use metaphors of various sorts to open the heart and the mind of human beings. I suppose one of them is the mirage in the desert. If you are in the desert and you see a mirage but you don’t know that it is a mirage you may be convinced that just over there is the oasis with abundant water. I think that describes the attitude of human beings: “Just over there somewhere is the oasis with the abundance of everything.” But what has been looked at has been a mirage. A mirage of the oasis couldn’t exist if there was not a factual oasis, but if one mistakes the mirage for the oasis itself one is likely to perish in the desert. So it is that the world which human beings inhabit is a mirage world. It couldn’t be said not to exist, [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-uranda-may31-1953-class-0-0-1-26.html] any more than a mirage could be said not to exist. It’s there all right but it isn’t the real thing. But there wouldn’t be any world at all if it were not for the fact of the real thing. Perhaps this is a way of conveying an idea to the reluctant human mind and heart, that this present world which seems to be so real and from which it is imagined one can extract all that is necessary for one’s own life and enjoyment, is in fact a mirage, as people find out sooner or later. They endeavor to extract what they may, but it never satisfies. One may fool oneself momentarily but in the long run it never satisfies and a person discovers that he is more empty than he was before, just like the one who is wandering in the desert. He is getting thirstier and thirstier, amongst other things, tireder and tireder, trying to extract something from a mirage. But it isn’t in the mirage, even though the mirage can give evidence, if the individual will awaken to it, of a factual oasis.

So there has been this dream state, a state of a hypnotic trance, shall we say, where human beings have been open to suggestibility of all kinds and they believe all sorts of things that are absolutely not true, and each succeeding generation is educated into these beliefs. Being wide open in youth it’s not difficult for them to get filled up with these beliefs. We have all had that experience. I suppose in a sense one may say it is more difficult to get rid of them because they are reinforced by ages of human experience, repeated and repeated and repeated generation after generation after generation, and it is pretty thick apparently—it’s a real good mirage now. In this state there is a self, the experience of a self, which may be described I suppose as a mirage self, like unto what it believes in. And being a mirage person, of course, sooner or later the conditions are such that the mirage cannot exist anymore and it’s gone. We call that death. But the reality was still there. The truth is true and all is well.

It is in the dissolution of the veil, so that what is so may be the actual experience, that salvation is found. It’s not a matter of going anywhere, it’s not a matter of anything coming from anywhere, because everything is right here in fact. It requires a pure heart to know the truth. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” They shall see the character of God, which is love, and they shall see the quality of love, the character of love itself, which includes truth. As the heart is purified, this seeing arises. This was spoken of by Jesus apparently as the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven. He made the statement that a man must be born again if he is to see the Kingdom. Well the rebirth is simply the process of purification in the heart. As the heart is purified a little, then you can see things. For instance we are looking at something now and we can see it, if we have pure hearts—we can’t see it if we don’t—or at least adequately pure. What we see will be conditioned by the remaining impurities of the heart, but we can see something. On the other hand a man must be born of water and of the spirit if he is to enter into the Kingdom of God, if he is to know it, if he is to know the truth rather than just see it, if he is to be in position as himself or herself. In that position there is a knowing of what always was. What wasn’t, therefore, has simply vanished. There is no more human self in that sense then. There is no longer a deluded person on hand, subject to illusions of all sorts—which is the common lot of human experience.

Of those who are gathered here this morning, how many would be inclined to say that they know the truth, I wonder. I should be very careful about that. There may be quite a few who claim to see it but there is a vast difference when the human consciousness simply sees something as a possibility but does not know it. We may utilize the mirage again, if we want. The mirage is a reflection of the oasis; therefore you can see the oasis in this way and you may understand that it’s a mirage. You know about it. You see the palm trees, you see the water there, you see lush vegetation, and it’s lovely—but you ain’t there! The world in which you dwell is probably not quite of that nature; it’s more of the nature of the desert still; nevertheless you can see the reflection. “Well,” you can say, “I’ll know that oasis when I get there. I’ll know what it looks like because I have already seen it.” But it only becomes a useful place when you are actually there; so, seeing is obviously insufficient. As I say, there has been quite a bit of seeing in the Emissary ministry but a rather more restricted knowing, and yet it is the knowing alone that may be called salvation. One may thank God that there is water in the oasis, but if you are not in the oasis you can't drink it. So here is a totally different situation. Maybe seeing is necessary to subsequent knowing but let us never be fooled that seeing is knowing.

“I stand at the center

and the light shines all around me

and now I know that my spirit glowing makes this light.

I come into power with the sun for I am the sun.

I am my own light.”

Do you know that? Well you see it perhaps, because the same source which powers the sun powers us. But who are we? Are we the power or the powered? If we are the powered we will find ourselves, somewhere along the way, running out of energy. If we are the power, that energy is always present. That light outpouring is always there, and where the light is we can see and we are thereby given the opportunity to know, to live in an awareness that all of our space is composed of the absolute solid of love substance. And this is all that is necessary, because out of this substance come all the differentiations; and when that is where we are, where we dwell, then because we are present those differentiations put in an appearance. But if you stand over there somewhere with a sense of separation, then perhaps someone will feed you with a morsel now and again, but you will run out of steam for sure.

“I am the oneness of the whole.

And whatever happens happens in me.”

This is so when I am.

I Am That I Am

© emissaries of divine light