Things are working the way they really work, whether as human beings we have been aware of it or not. What is required of us is to become aware of it and thus to participate in an effective way with what is consequently allowed to take form. We all have some experience of this, according to the extent of our own purity of heart.
The spirit moves. That movement determines what shall be. What shall be, of course, is modified by the way human beings behave and react, but such behavior and reaction are consequent upon the movement of spirit. The viewpoint of spirit, of course, is not blind to the way human beings are likely to behave and react, so it is all taken into account. But it may be clearly seen that when human beings stop behaving and reacting in their usual human ways the spirit will have a clear shot. Then what needs to occur naturally occurs, and all may participate in it easily and with delight.
We ourselves presumably are in position to allow this to become known on earth in our own experience. There are others in other places, likewise, who are letting this occur, but the opportunity is open to everyone. What ease and naturalness and delight could be in the experience of all people on the face of the earth. It comes forth in some measure for us. If we find ourselves at times in difficulties it is because we produced those difficulties. We are all well aware of this. Someone else wasn’t responsible, just oneself.
So we have the opportunity of coming into line with the way things really are and the way things really work. That is the way of easiness, of naturalness and of delight. But the moment we try to make things work the way we humanly think they should we’re in trouble, and we begin to proliferate our difficulties and our so-called problems—all self-produced. What a great thing it is finally to take responsibility for the way things are in our own experience. Taking that responsibility, we are taking responsibility for the way things are in our worlds. But it takes a real man or a woman to do it.
The spirit is in motion; it always has been and always will be. That motion we have described in various terms. It is indeed the Word. Obviously, to know what the Word is in the moment it is necessary to hear it. There has been such a cacophony of noise humanly produced that the Word has not been heard at all by most human beings on the face of the earth. You know, we hear what we listen for. To hear the Word, we must listen for the Word. This ability to listen is important.
It is said, or it was written: “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” But according to what is present in the heart the ear heareth. There has been the idea sometimes that there has been a good deal of repetition in what I have said, for instance. If this is true, I wonder why. Was it because I couldn’t have said anything else? Or was it because those who were present didn’t hear what I was saying, because they had never learned to listen? Obviously, in the world as we know it scarcely anyone ever listens to anyone else. In a way I suppose that’s all right, because no one else has much to say! But usually it is amatter of putting up with what other people are saying, waiting for a chance to say what you have to say; so on that basis no one ever listens to anyone else.
Presumably over the years we have been learning to listen in some measure. We may well wonder if we really heard what has been provided even once, because according to what is in the heart our ears have heard. And if our hearts have been impure we certainly haven’t heard the truth. We impose upon the Word what is present in our own hearts. This capacity to listen is dependent upon our hearts and the state of them. If it is to be pure listening, we must have pure hearts.
Yes, this capacity does refine if we are willing to let it. So we learn to listen. The listening is of a different kind; it is not merely hearing sounds in the ordinary way, but a listening to the spirit. Listen to that first, not being so concerned with the form. Very often those of rather simple understanding, but with open hearts, hear the soundless sound of the spirit with greater clarity than those with complicated intellects, because what is present in the intellect tends to be imposed upon what may be faintly sensed of the spirit. That is describable as blasphemy.
The vast majority of people can sense the spirit if they are open to listen for it. They can be moved by it, be delighted because of it, without necessarily understanding or giving form to what it is that the spirit may be conveying in the moment. In fact that is unnecessary for most people. If they are willing to move with the spirit of God because they listen for it, then there is the experience of life; life is found to be a song and a dance. One can hum the music of a song without knowing the words of it. Onecan dance without specifically being instructed as to where one should put one’s feet. As there is indeed a listening to spirit there is the movement in life—something natural, something wonderful, something easy, something delightful, something which is experienced and doesn’t have to be explained.
It wouldn’t be a particularly enjoyable experience, should one enjoy dancing, if every few steps you had to stop and explain, or be explained to, as to what it was that was happening. How much better just to enjoy the happening! And to the vast majority of people on earth this is all that is necessary. There are those, fewer in number, who rightly have a specific conscious awareness emerging out of the mists of human concept, so that they may give particular focus to the movement of life, the movement of life in form on earth. If we have awakened somewhat in this way, then we have a particular responsibility, fundamentally for our own movement and then for that which relates to the movement of the whole.
Life is very powerful, and once there is a conscious focus of life on earth then it increasingly has opportunity to move in an unconscious way for people everywhere. It has heretofore obviously been distorted and twisted and caused to take form in destructive ways. But finally, as there are those appearing on earth who are so aligned with the movement of life that the mists clear for them and they see what is happening, then direction is given for the movement of life as it is experienced through all who have at least somewhat open hearts. The closed heart will continue to make trouble for itself and for those who have closed hearts.
But now life begins to move under intelligent control within the range of human experience, that all may share in the wonder of it, not because they know exactly what is happening but because they discover, when they are aligned with life, how delightful it is. They discover the steps of the dance. They begin to hear the music of the dance. What a joyous and fulfilling experience! Most people don’t really want to know the ins and outs of it—just have the experience. It is necessary that some should begin to know something of the ins and outs of it, so that the music may be sustained and the basic steps of the dance brought into form.
Human beings have been so earnest, and determined to push their own views ofthings, usually with the best of intentions, failing utterly to comprehend that the truth is already present, that things are the way they are and are working the way they work. As there are those present on earth who begin to be in position to discern what it is that is coming out of the mists in this regard, then there may be alignment with the way things work and what it is that is actually happening, instead of trying to impose human determinations upon the truth, thereby bringing untold tribulation into the world—for this is exactly what has been being done for centuries, millennia. But now a clarification may come, and we have a responsibility to let it come. We may discover that some of our brightest schemes have no value whatsoever. Is that going to be a shattering experience? Or is it going to be a delightful one? It is a delightful one if we discover what is really happening. Then we don’t need our brightest schemes anymore; we can participate in the truth, know the truth; but it requires that we listen. We can’t hear if we don’t listen, and we need to listen at a level which is beyond our schemes. If we have axes to grind, all we will hear is grinding axes, and that will utterly blot out what is there to be heard of the true spirit.
Listen! for the sound of many waters,
Listen! for the sound of the rushing wind,
Listen! for the sound of the silent earth,
Listen! for the sound of the radiant sun.
Listen!
Let your ear be tuned to this sound because your heart is; for what is present in your heart will determine what you hear. Listen for the sounds of the spirit. These sounds have always been with us but we have had no ears to hear them, because we didn’t listen. All that has been offered over the years through these services, for instance, is the opportunity to learn to listen to the sound of the spirit. Then there is no need for interpretation, which is invariably misinterpretation. But the Word is heard when you learn to listen. It is here present with us in this moment; it is in motion in this moment.
As our hearts and ears are attuned to that movement, then the rich substance of spirit may fill every part of our physical bodies. It may flow forth through every part, perhaps particularly through our arms, our hands, our fingers, but it floods through the flesh of our bodies. Do you think, if that is so, the physical form can remain the same? Would this not bring the reality of healing? Or do you think you are going to be healed by eating the right food, or by taking the right exercise? The spirit, the reality of life, pours forth when allowed to do so because we listen, and consequently hear, and so find natural attunement with the movement of spirit. Then the substance of spirit may fill our physical forms, our minds and our heartsand, pouring forth, fill the environment, so that the fire of God may fall from heaven.
This is a transforming fire, but how can it work, how can it be known, unless it can be received? And how can it be received if we do not hear the spirit by which it comes? And how can we hear that spirit without listening? What is it we listen to? There is something happening now, in this moment, which would sweep all the troubles from the face of the earth in a moment if there were those present who would let it happen. They will not let it happen if they are listening to the troubles; all that happens then is an increase of troubles. But listen to the spirit, listen to the Word, listen to the power of life, and move with that because you hear it. When you do, then you comprehend, you see; but you never see until you listen and consequently hear. Here are the words of Job: “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear”; that is indeed a first necessity. In actual fact a lot of people have heard about the truth, have heard about God, without ever having heard the spirit or heard the Word. One must listen to hear the Word, and when the Word is heard, “but now mine eye seeth thee”, now there is the experience of oneness.
The experience of oneness with God is the reconciliation which thus far human beings have rejected; it has been available for anyone and everyone. Now there begin to be those on the face of the earth who stop fooling themselves because they begin to know the truth, but only to the extent that they have learned to listen, to hear what is actually happening, what is really on the move. When that is heard with the hearing of the ears, as it has been put, then immediately this begins to be seen, understood, comprehended, because we share in the happening; we ourselves are the happening. That’s how weknow it, the only way it can be known, and that is man beginning to be reconciled with God. But the experience itself is that of oneness, no separation between God and man, the reality in one’s own experience.
So indeed, let us listen, listen to the spirit that has always been available to be heard when we turn our hearts away from the humanly produced noise of the world. Then we hear; then we begin to understand; the we begin to know the truth, and the truth makes free.
There must be the beginning and the realization of the reality of the Holy Place. And the Holy Place, once it is made manifest—what did I say a while ago?—the only entrance into the Holy of Holies is through the Holy Place. You hope to find the Holy of Holies? You must let the Holy Place take form in you. You must be true to the Holy Place within yourself and function correctly in relationship to it in body and mind and heart before you can hope to pass through the Holy Place to the Holy of Holies in the outworking of your own experience, your own individual illumination, your own awareness of relationship with God, or Deity.
Some there are who say, “Well I want to function in relationship to the body, physical things out here. I'm perfectly willing to learn things, gain knowledge. I would like very much to visit the Holy of Holies, but I'm not going to stay steady enough, I'm not going to be true enough, I'm not going to be honest enough, I'm not going to be centered in God enough, to allow the development of a Holy Place within myself. But please take me to the Holy of Holies. I'd like to visit there at least once. I'd like to know what it is to see the Ark of the Covenant, to rest before it, to commune with the One Who Dwells. I would like that very much. But I don't have time, or inclination, or steadiness, or all the other things necessary to the development of a Holy Place.”
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Without a Holy Place you will never see the Holy of Holies, never. The Holy Place must take form in you and be a reality in you before you can pass through the veil. What is the veil in the Temple? Solomon's Temple or the Tabernacle, they were both made on the same basic design, the same principles revealed. And it was said that the veil of the Temple was rent in twain. Yes, the veil of the Temple. Until our Master came and revealed Deity, for a long time no one had entered, in any true sense—I am not talking about Solomon's Temple—no one had entered that which was symbolized by the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle or the Temple. They had not passed through the veil. But how many have done it since? Precious few. They have not been willing to have a Holy Place, so that they would have an avenue of approach to the Holy of Holies, and you will never find the passage into the Holy of Holies unless you have a Holy Place through which you can move to find and know the Holy of Holies.
You must be a Whole Tabernacle, a Whole Temple, with a Holy Priesthood and a High Priest, individually. It is you. Male or female, it makes no difference. And it is not a question of whether you are married or not, whether you have a mate or not; it is a matter of whether you are willing to let the Holy Place become a reality within you, so that you can have an avenue of approach, a Way, that leads to the veil that is rent asunder, that you may pass through that veil in your appointed season. I don't mean to die, now. I'm not talking about dying; I'm talking about living. But you can pass through that veil into the Holy of Holies right here on earth, and see and know the Ark of the Covenant.
I told you last evening, the Ark of the Covenant is right here. But try to find it without a Holy Place! Man has been trying to do it for a good many centuries and no one has succeeded. There is only One Way. God's Way—only One Way. Our Master revealed it on earth. Until we begin to recognize the magic of being, the magic of living, which He offered to us, until we are ready to accept and to follow in the Way, the Truth and the Life, and yield to the Shekinah Pattern of Being, we will never know.
The Shekinah Pattern of Being must begin to work through you while you are still in the Outer Court. If you see the Cloud of Glory, does that mean you are in the Holy Place? Not at all. It does not even necessarily mean that you are in the Outer Court. “The glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle and shone round about.” You can see the Glory without getting that far. But you have to pass through the Outer Court to get to the Holy Place; there is no other way in. It must be through the Outer Court. And then there must be a Holy Place, functioning correctly, before you can reach the Holy of Holies and come at last to see the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells, above the Mercy Seat, between the Cherubims, where you know the wonder and the beauty and the reality of the Ark of the Covenant. The Master talks a good deal about the Ark of the Covenant. He talked about agreement on earth as touching these things. What things? The things of heaven. Not the things of human imagination. The things of heaven on earth. “If two or three of you shall agree on earth as touching these things, it shall be done of my Father which is in heaven.”
