Person To Person
Martin Cecil October 1, 1969
Our recent meditations have emphasized the oneness of heaven and earth. This is the same as saying that the seven-dimensional world is one. The three-dimensional world is just a part of one. While we may recognize this truth intellectually, it does not always form the base from which our living proceeds. I do not say this in condemnation of anyone, but as recognizing a more or less self-evident fact. Using commonplace terms, it could be said of most that they don't really believe that heaven and earth are one. There has been such a long-term conditioning into the earthly experience, without regard to heaven, that it seems as though this distorted, disordered state is the way it is. If we do not proceed on the basis of the fact that heaven and earth are one, then we are living in a largely imaginary condition.
If there is oneness, if this is the reality, then another word for this is love, isn't it? It is the fact of oneness that reveals the truth of love. People talk about love, without experiencing oneness, without any consciousness of the truth that heaven and earth are one. Certainty it is not enough to talk about love; it only begins to have meaning when it is actually experienced. When oneness is experienced, love is experienced. The oneness of heaven and earth must be experienced individually for the experience of oneness with others to become a reality in the consciousness of those concerned. Heaven and earth are one. This is the evidence of love; this reveals the truth of love.
If anyone should take the attitude that we have somehow, by much effort and application in various ways, to cause heaven and earth to become one, we are denying the truth of love, as though love didn't exist—there was no love until we had by this struggle made heaven and earth one. But love is the reality. The oneness of heaven and earth is the truth, a truth of which we need to become more keenly aware. We have been blind to it, unconscious of it, believing in something different, believing that there is a need for love to come from somewhere, when the fact of the matter is that it is already present, awaiting experience, so that our blindness might give way to vision—the consciousness of the truth of love as being present now.
If heaven and earth are one we may recognize the fact that we are all one. Now this has not been the experience, has it? Or this has only been very slightly the experience. The experience of oneness between you as individuals is based in this truth, that heaven and earth are one. There is the need to awaken to the consciousness of the fact that you are one, not that you have to become one by some technique or other. And there are many techniques offered in the world to increase the experience of spirituality. Well, what would the experience of spirituality be if it isn't the experience of love? The experience of love is the experience of oneness. Oneness, love, already is. We do not need to make it so; all that is necessary is that we should become conscious of the truth, awaken to the truth.
If there are occasions when we find ourselves, in our relationships with each other, not to be one, not to have any sense of oneness, then that should immediately ring the alarm bell in our consciousness—not the alarm bell which says, “What's wrong with that person?” but the alarm bell that says, “What's wrong with me, that I do not have a consciousness of oneness?” The truth is that we are one now—we always have been. We're only just beginning to approach a point where we might be willing to acknowledge it. Thus far there has been the tendency to hold people at arm's length. How do we do this? By judging, of course; by our concepts with respect to people and with respect to ourselves.
This oneness is based in what we really are. And what should we call that? Are we people, do you think? Could it be said that we are people? We should be angelic people—but people. Our experience of oneness is as people: person to person. Now we can never get person to person if we have a lot of concepts surrounding us and others.
Where there is oneness there is the experience of what is called friendship. Friendship indicates a closeness, an understanding, a mutual respect. The friendship which should be known is between people. There is the reality of oneness already, based in the fact that we are divine people. In the experience of being divine people we have certain responsibilities, but we are not those responsibilities—we are the people who have them. The contact, the association, the closeness, the oneness, is between the people, not between the concepts that different ones develop about the responsibilities.
Now this relates to what might be called position, doesn't it? There tends to be a possessiveness, shall we say, sometimes, with respect to position. While it may be partly a sincere desire of the person to fill that position rightly, there are usually overtones which indicate that the individual's meaning is wrapped up with that position. If it is wrapped up with a position the individual hasn't experienced who he himself is. The position is not the person. We all have responsibilities, we all have positions. But we're all people; and it is being people that is important. When we are what we really are we will, in the unfolding design of things, occupy positions of responsibility. But those positions of responsibility are not what cause us to have meaning; we have the meaning already.
This is why those who have experienced the reality of meaning can move so easily from one position to another. They do not feel hurt or somehow condemned because they left one position and went into another—left a position that according to somebody's concept was a high position and went into a position that according to some other concept was a lower position. To human beings whose meaning is wrapped up in position this is disastrous: “I've been demoted. I don't have any meaning any more. I had meaning before, in that high position, but now I'm in a low position; I have nothing!” If a person feels that way he had no meaning in the first place. He had never experienced his own meaning, because it doesn't matter to a person, once he has meaning—he is a person, in other words—what position he occupies; he's still himself. It isn't the position that gives the person meaning or importance. The person has meaning and importance for himself, and, consequently, if there is that experience, when he moves into some particular position he brings meaning and importance to that position. And it doesn't matter who has a concept as to its highness or lowness, the position is then important.
Let us not, then, give so much value to position as such. Let us see the value, the meaning, the worth, in the person. We can draw close to people. We can't draw close to a position occupied by somebody else, but we can draw close to the person who occupies that position. Some people complain, “I don't seem to be able to get close to that person.” Do you see that person as a person? or do you have him wrapped up in the swaddling clothes of your concepts about him? Can't we meet each other without all this paraphernalia, all the robes of self-righteousness?
Our Master's instruction long ago was “Love one another.” We can only love one another to the extent that we love the Lord; that is, to the extent that we love the true state of what rightness is—oneness. That's what it is. Do you love that or are you suspicious of it, so that you don't want to get too close to this person or that person? You may have a concept which causes you to say, “Well, I don't like that person.” What don't you like? You don't like your concept about that person, so you're going to stay aloof because you don't like your concept about that person. But it's your concept; it's not the person. It's something that you yourself have established, because the person, in fact, is one with you already. All people, all beings, are one in God—One Being, differentiated, yes, but all One Being. There's no conflict in fact, anywhere, insofar as the truth is concerned. Love is oneness. This is the truth with respect to all people, with respect to all the Beings there are in the cosmos. This ridiculous idea that human beings have that if some being should appear from some other planet or star, or somewhere, immediately there would be a battle!—not from the standpoint of the celestial visitors, at least. Maybe that's why they stay away, if they do.
We are one and haven't known it. Are we interested in knowing it? This is the question, really, isn't it? This is what it means to love the Lord. We're interested in knowing oneness. Oneness with whom? “Well, with the Lord,” we say. Of course that's very convenient, because it relegates it to some incomprehensible realm to most people: but from our standpoint, if we say we're interested in loving the Lord we're interested in loving the state of oneness, we're interested in experiencing the state of oneness. If we are, obviously we have to relinquish all those things that obscure it, and the things that obscure it are our concepts about other people, and about ourselves too. My, the world is full of concepts about other people, and usually about groups of people; concepts about teen-agers, for instance, or concepts about old people—old people, that's anyone over, what? twenty-five?—concepts about all kinds of things, everything in fact.
Because we have these concepts we can have our devils around to blame for all our troubles, and we can ensure that we will never experience oneness, we will never know what love is. Now there are those who are interested in “making love.” You can't make love—it's impossible. Love is a reality. It can't be made. All that can be done is to become aware of its reality, and in that awareness we find a pattern, a design, of relationship. But the relationship is between people on earth, here—it's between people, not between positions, not between classifications according to the human concept. It's between people. And we discover that there are a great variety of such relationships. They're not all the same. The idea is that everybody was created equal—whatever that means—when it's an obvious fact that we're not all equal. We're all different. Different things can't equal each other. We all have our unique part to play in the whole. According to the human concept, some parts seem to be higher and some seem to be lower. Well, I suppose you could say your foot is lower than your head, unless you stand on your head! But we need feet just as we need heads. And all parts are perfect when they find their true relationship.
We are concerned with this state of oneness, which includes a pattern of right relationships; not something we have to make be so, but something that already is so. We need to become conscious of it. But, as we have already noted, we can't become conscious of it as long as we have these concepts about everything, but particularly about each other and about ourselves. We tend to classify people according to our brilliant concepts. Some people get very self-righteous on this basis; they have a deep insight, they think, with respect to the accuracy of their concepts. And as most people live on the basis of concepts of themselves, very often these things seem to be so. But the only way that we can ever find friendship is to let all those concepts go, that we may discover the people who have been hiding behind them, because the relationship is already established there. We don't have to make it so.
You can't be exclusive and experience the truth, because we're all one. There are those people who want to be recluses, who want to go off by themselves. Why, I wonder? Sometimes it is said that they want to find God. I think very often it's because they want to get away from men, from human beings—the evidence of a failure to experience the truth. Nobody can experience the truth alone. It's impossible, because the truth is we're all one. This is not to say there are not those occasions when it's all right to be alone in the external sense. But if we are alone in the external sense and we have found the truth of oneness, we will not be alone in the internal sense. We will find that we are still conscious of being a part of the whole, still conscious of oneness, still conscious of love, still conscious of God. This is God. The experience of oneness is the experience of love, which is the experience of God. People search, lo here! lo there! looking for God or for the kingdom of God. But it's here; nobody can get out of it. We can be unconscious of it, but that doesn't mean that we are out of it. We're only out of it when we're dead.
Being one, let us be willing to awaken to the awareness of it, instead of insisting upon maintaining positions—either position in relationship to ourselves or position in relationship to somebody else, according to our concept. What is your concept? Forget it! It's not true. You don't have to have a concept about your own position when you are yourself. Immediately you're in it, whatever it is. You've been in it all the time but didn't know it. Most people think they have to move from here to there. “I have to be promoted to feel more meaningful.” But our meaning is not in the position; our meaning is in ourselves, what we are. The fact of the matter is that we are one—we are friends but didn’t know it.
There has been a tendency at times for one person to look at another and say, “I could never be friends with that person. We don't get along at all.” Well, for heaven's sake, how little consciousness of the truth you have! If such an attitude is ever taken it is an insistence upon the fact that one has virtually no consciousness of the truth. All you can see is a lie. Love one another. Appreciate one another. You say, “I can't appreciate that person.” What you mean is you can't appreciate your concept about that person. Well, to hell with your concept! That won't be to hell with the person, just your concept, and the person will still be there; and you might be surprised to find a beautiful person, because that's the truth of the matter. It shouldn't be any surprise. You should know that it is so. And we can experience oneness, closeness, friendship, love, respect, appreciation, when we ditch our concepts about people and about positions.
Obviously there are responsibilities to be carried by all of you. And we need to have appreciation of this fact with respect to each other, so that we're not so wrapped up in our own responsibilities that we forget that others have them too. We should be more concerned with being helpful to those others whom we recognize as having responsibilities than we are with trying to get them to be helpful to us. If we're trying to get people to be helpful to us, or to behave in a way that we think they should, we can never be friends, can we? We're trying to do the impossible, because the fact of the matter is that we are people. And in the experience of the truth of this, there is oneness.
Concepts. A little stirring up on occasion is good, in any area of concepts, that we may begin to find the people instead of all this crust. And as we emerge as people, that's wonderful, that's illumination, that's pure delight, because we discover the truth that we are one, and we discover what love is in consequence. And the pure in heart see God. Of course. When the concept is gone the heart is pure, oneness is the reality. Love is known—God is known.
Are you interested, above all things, in the experience of this oneness? That is love for the Lord. It's love for love. I'm talking about the state of divine oneness. When the state of divine oneness is experienced the natural relationships appear as they should be. And they don't have to be made. This is something that our Master said about marriage, isn't it? There's no marrying, or giving in marriage, in heaven. Why? Because the pattern is as it is. We don't have to make it so. Human beings really have to work at it, don't they? In the earthly three-dimensional state they really have to work at it to “make a marriage,” they say, to “make it work.” Boy, it's tough! Well, yes, I suppose it is, because it wasn't really a marriage in the first place. The marriage comes on the basis of a consciousness of oneness, not just with respect to this person or that person, but with respect to all. Then out of that comes the emerging pattern of right relationships. It's already there; it doesn't have to be made by anyone.
But we come to know the truth in this regard when we love the Lord with all, love the state of oneness—this experience above all things. If that is love, could you possibly condemn and criticize and get into conflict and turmoil? Obviously not, because that would preclude the experience of oneness. You wouldn't have anything to do with that. Your love is for the experience of oneness—you see people and you are thoughtful of people. And you are thoughtful of those who are in positions of special responsibility. You are considerate in this regard, courteous, thoughtful. This is the emerging evidence of Divine Being, of the state of oneness.
They say that familiarity breeds contempt. Familiarity with what? With the human concepts. That breeds contempt, because the person actually is feeling contempt for himself. But, as is common with human beings, they always try to put it on somebody else. If you treat someone with contempt you're contemptible. That's the fact of the matter. Where you have close relationships, husbands and wives, for instance, this is a familiar situation, so it is thought to be quite all right to be rude to each other, to forget that courtesy may be a divine quality. Husbands and wives are the most deliberate, usually, in developing concepts about each other and then objecting to their concepts. You see this going on. I see it all the time—people fighting against their concepts about somebody else. How stupid! If we could just let the concepts go we'd find that there were divine people there. There are.
We are one. Heaven and earth are one, now. Let your consciousness be open to the awareness of this. Don't keep it closed off by your insistence upon having concepts about everybody. See if you can't find the people who are here, divine people, really here—the angels of God. This is the truth. Do you know it? If you don't know the truth, what is it you know? A lie, of course. And when you know the truth then oneness is the experience, but not before. Before that, you're in jail.
There are lots of people who have had a sort of martyr attitude toward living. “I'm going to put up with living in this limited condition.” Well, if it's limited, you must be remaining in your own jail cell. Come out. Come out of the limited condition. It has nothing to do with the environment at all, nothing whatsoever to do with the environment—just with you and your concept. You're bound round about by your concepts, hemmed in on every side. As long as you have them you're in your jail cell. Let them go, and there the truth is! The jail cell has vanished and you're free, and you find you live in the company of the angels of heaven. What's so bad about that? Do you have to put up with that, or is it a glorious experience? This experience is here, to be experienced by anyone. It's always been here, but perchance you're emerging to the point where you will admit that it's here, instead of insisting that it isn't. Every time you get blocked down in your little jail cell you're insisting that the kingdom of heaven isn't at hand, that the truth isn't oneness, that heaven and earth aren't one. But they are, and you can know it. I would that you might know it now and in the weeks and months to come, so that the truth might be revealed and the impact of that truth might extend effectively into the world of your responsibility, for this is your responsibility. It is a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light.
“That they all may be one.” This isn't a mystical hope. It is the experience of reality, available now. Oneness. The power of love dissolves barriers, and those who are aligned with the power of love are interested in seeing all barriers dissolved. They're not interested in maintaining them. No more defensiveness with respect to position, with respect to one's own little position or big position. Let it be dissolved in the consciousness of oneness. Let there be a willingness to acknowledge it and admit it; not just in words—this has been done many times—but in what is done, in the attitude, in the expression which appears in living. This is the truth of life, awaiting the fulness of experience.
© emissaries of divine light
