Only With Thine Eyes Shalt Thou See
Uranda May 4, 1954 Class
“And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.” This invitation was extended to the opening of each of the first four seals: Come and see. We have had the opportunity of seeing something this morning which is indicative [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/the-four-horsemen.html] of the opening of the seal. When the seal is opened something may be seen. We saw something; therefore the seal is opened to the extent of our seeing.
We are aware of this particular cycle in motion as it relates to human beings everywhere, ourselves included. However we have recognized that there are two possibilities here: the disintegrative cycle or the integrative cycle. The one described in this beginning of the 6th Chapter of Revelation relates to the disintegrative cycle. This is what is seen; this is what is made evident. It is apparent to us in these days. By reason of our consideration this morning we saw how it fits with what is happening now, both in the individual and collective sense, all relating to the passing of human nature. We came and we saw this, because the seals are open and it’s happening.
Perhaps it might be helpful to remember some words from the 91st Psalm: “Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.” The reward of the wicked relates to this cycle of the dissolution of human nature. We see this, but only with our eyes, rightly. It should not engender fear. It should not require our emotional involvement at all. We are of value in the integrative cycle because we are not in the disintegrative cycle. If we are emotionally moved by the disintegrative cycle we are involved with it. If we are honest with ourselves we will acknowledge that we have been involved with the four horsemen, and still are to some extent; we give weight to what is present in the field of disintegration. We do this every time we enter into judgment.
If we feel that it is important to us that we should criticize and condemn all the wrong things that we think we see, not only in the great wide world out there but in our neighbors close at hand, and in ourselves even, we are giving weight to the unreal which is in the process of dissolving. To the extent that we give it weight we delay its dissolution, because we are charging it with our life force. If there is emotion of some kind present relative to such things our life force is pouring into that and what should be passing away is sustained.
Now over the years we have all been guilty of doing this, and perhaps we may find that our guilt is not so far in the past either. Every time there is judgment of the old world which is passing away we contribute our life force to maintaining it, and that is a direct contradiction of what we may insist that we are here on earth to do. Clearly enough there are vast numbers of people on earth, virtually the whole population of the world, who are doing just this. If we have a keen and sensitive awareness of the horrible state into which the world has come and we see this reflected in those around us closer at hand and consequently judge it, condemn it, then we are liable to do one of two things: make the attempt directly or indirectly to destroy what we have thought was wrong—that’s one way that human nature approaches the situation—the other way is to reform it, to try to make it over to make it better. There are indeed many earnest and sincere human beings in the world who give themselves wholeheartedly to such endeavors. We might well be reminded of the prophets of Baal, who leapt upon the altar which they had made with much zeal, trying frantically to make something happen that wouldn’t happen. Such endeavors all relate initially to a horse of another color, a red one. [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/stay-with-white-horse.html]
If we have seen these things relative to the cycle of disintegration, I am sure we would all acknowledge that we are not at all interested in participating in that cycle but rather in playing our parts in the cycle of integration. There is a division of ways which occurs after the white horse. The white horse and the rider thereon have opened the way for something creative to happen. If, out of habit, there is a human nature endeavor in the usual way of the world, then there are those who take the path of the red horse. If on the other hand there is a willingness to continue to yield to what was made available by reason of the rider on the white horse, then the cycle of integration may begin to be experienced. If there are human beings who do experience this on earth then that cycle of integration is at work within the body of mankind. If no one does that, then it isn’t at work and there’s only the one possibility, which ends up with a pale horse.
So we are concerned with the cycle of integration, the true creative cycle, the path of which leads into the experience of the firmament. While horses are not used to symbolize what occurred in that First Chapter of Genesis, obviously there was power at work: “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light,” At that point you could say a white horse—white light, Christ Power. The evidence of the working of that power put in an appearance as light. The same power continued to work but its action was summarized by the words: “Let there be a firmament.” Here is power at work again. This is the way of the cycle of integration, the true creative cycle; so we’re not going to leap onto red horses and ride off in all directions, but stay with the true creative cycle. We do not leap onto the red horse if we stop judging what is happening in the old world, whether in the old world as a whole or in old worlds in an individual sense.
As long as we are judging we are giving weight to the old world, we are pouring our life force into it; and we will get into a battle at times, or we will be very diligent in endeavoring to make people over, particularly the people who are right close to us in our environment. If you indulge in this endeavor at all you’re on your red horse. If human nature behavior of others looms large to you it is because your own factual human nature is large. If your human nature is dissolving then the human nature that you may observe around you will cease to carry weight. It will not remain the impulse for your endeavor either to destroy it or to change it. There will be no such impulse anymore. As long as there is such an impulse it reveals itself, more delicately perhaps these days, as gentle criticism, gentle condemnation, gentle judgments in general, but it’s the same thing as if you went out there with your sword on the red horse and started lopping heads. We’re not in the business of reformation.
Human nature is to pass away. Let it go. How do you let it go? Because you stop paying so much attention to it, you stop giving it so much weight. And when you give it weight you will know you are doing that by reason of the emotion you feel. Emotions of various kinds rise up in you on occasion in consequence of elements of human nature behavior that put in an appearance around you. That’s so isn’t it? All right, the very fact that there is an emotion here in that way indicates that you are giving your life force in support of whatever it is that is present in your environment, in the behavior of others or in the circumstances or whatever, to which you are objecting. There’s quite a bit of objection, isn’t there still? This is a denial and a betrayal of the reason that we are here.
The instruction was given and was brought to focus in the words: “Feed my sheep.” If you’re busy making people over, or trying to—you won’t be very successful anyway—or even have a grander project to make the world over, you have no time to feed my sheep. We have the urge to do this because we love the LORD. The question asked first was: “Lovest thou me?” Peter on that occasion tried to pass it off, “Yes, of course,” and when the question was asked repeatedly he got a little impatient, as was his wont: “Certainly I love you. Let’s get on with the business.” What is the business? Feed my sheep. “What is the other fellow going to do?” It was John in that instance, insofar as Peter was concerned. “Mind your own business. What are you going to do?” That’s the only question that anyone has to answer. What am I going to do? Feed my sheep. Take care of what should be taken care of, and leave alone what is no longer any of your business: namely, human nature behavior, human nature circumstances, human nature affairs. You may be under the necessity of handling what’s in your environment, but on what basis? Why? Feed my sheep.
In every circumstance, in every person, everywhere, there is present the truth, the spirit of God. Nothing would exist but for this fact; it’s all there. There is what is characteristic of the spirit of God present everywhere. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/the-kingdom-of-heaven-is-here.html] This is present everywhere. It’s present in people everywhere. It is more evident in some than in others but it is there, and should be the most important thing to us. All too often it hasn’t been, because the material factors, the behavior of people, the external forms of things, were given the weight. As long as a person is doing that, he has no weight left to give to the truth, the elements of reality that are always present, the Kingdom of Heaven that is in fact at hand and for which we have direct responsibility.
The elements of reality are present everywhere and we are charged with the responsibility of providing space for these elements to emerge into larger expression. These things could be said to be seedlings in some, little sprouts in others. Round about there may be many other things which are not what they should be, but here and there are these beautiful growing seeds of the Kingdom in people. Are you going to say of someone, there’s no seed there? It would never be true, unless his toes were turned up; then there’s nothing more to be done. But as long as life is present the seeds of reality must be present. I’ve said they are better hidden in some than in others, but part of that hiding is consequent upon a pall that we ourselves may have placed upon these things because we have been giving weight to the material forms and to the material behavior that we see, or think we see. All too often it is imagination anyway: we’re seeing through our own distorted consciousness. Feed my sheep.
We’re not here to feed the goats, the unreality, the ill behavior. We feed it when we fight it or even if we just emotionally object to it. Only with thine eyes shalt thou see such things, not with thine heart. Withdraw attention from all the things that should pass away. The things that become most obvious to you as needing to pass away may take the form of someone else’s behavior. Withdraw your attention from it. Don’t try to shoot it down; don’t try to make it over. No one of us knows what it should be made over into anyway. If someone tries to make something over in this way, it is to make it over in order to suit his own concept of what it should be, which is not at all what it should be anyway.
Can we not leave people alone in the sense of leaving their human nature characteristics alone? Sometimes we have to deal with them a little because they bang up against us, but if they do so, we handle them, not because they carry any weight to us but because something needs to be done, that’s all. And there’s no emotional content to what we do, at least not in reaction to what bumped into us. If in handling the thing there is some necessity for an increase of power in our experience then there will be an emotion, but that’s not a reaction; that’s merely a by-product of the fact of power being generated and forthcoming in whatever action is being taken. The emotion didn’t come out of the circumstance; it was part of the movement of the creative power; there’s a vast difference. Most people don’t know the difference because they never allowed the movement of the creative power in any large enough sense. We have vast experience of the other: feelings generated by the material forms around us. Let them go. That is what must pass away. Let it pass away. It will, if human beings would only let it. But no, they think they know better: “That person said something that he or she shouldn’t have said!” One might ask the question, “How do you know?”
The point is: In the human nature world people are going to behave in human nature ways. That’s the way it is. Let it be that way. Human beings have produced this old world because of human nature behavior and they live in that world on the basis of human nature behavior. It’s all part of the old world which is passing away. Don’t try to reform that human nature so that it won’t pass away. It doesn’t matter how carefully you may adjust it, take it all to pieces and put it together again—quite different apparently—it's still human nature, made of human nature substance, and it will remain a part of the human nature world. “Come out of her, my people.” Let that world pass away. We let it pass away because we’re not involved in it anymore, we’re not trying to do anything to it anymore. We’re not trying to make it into Utopia somehow by instituting some special political or economic or religious system. It has to pass away.
We do pay attention to this business of feeding my sheep, of enfolding, protecting, what is precious in the sight of the LORD in people. There may be one little precious shoot in a person; that occupies your whole attention insofar as that person is concerned. It may be surrounded by a whole mass of garbage; that’s of no interest to you. It isn’t the garbage that is important. You can’t make that into anything of value. But there’s a little shoot there somewhere. Find it. Take care of it, enfold it, protect it. Feed my sheep. Don’t feed my goats—just the sheep, just what is true, what the reality is, what the seed of the Kingdom is, or the sprout of the Kingdom. We have to wait perhaps, insofar as many people are concerned, for the seed to sprout before we can do anything, but when it comes up through the ground it needs to be enfolded. There needs to be a heaven there for it to come into and we provide that. We encourage those concerned to recognize what it is that is happening, so that they also may become increasingly responsible for what is happening through themselves. Feed my sheep. Withdraw support from the old world which is passing away.
I’m not saying that you should throw over all your material responsibilities, because your material responsibilities provide one way of finding the sprouting seeds of reality which are present in the world. If you withdraw from the world you’ll never find them. We’re not withdrawing in that sense; we’re just withdrawing our support insofar as that old world state is concerned. The old world behavior, the old world attitudes and viewpoints—we no longer give them any weight. We speak the Word, “Let there be light, let there be a firmament,” for what is true with respect to this person. All the rest is of little consequence. We may have to clear it out of the road at times in order to preserve the plant but as long as it is not interfering with the growth of the plant, just let it pass away of its own accord.
We begin to see that there is a much more practical business to feeding my sheep than we may have thought. I suspect that many think of feeding my sheep as giving someone a piece of literature. That conceivably might be the right thing to do on occasion but that is a very little thing compared to what is really necessary: providing what is needful to keep sacred things sacred. There tends to be a good deal of bumbling in this field, and unfitting things are done and said with the best of intentions. Yes, we might need to learn still, but for heaven’s sake, we’ve had plenty of opportunity. Most have been houses divided, giving support to their own human nature characteristics.
We understand. We have seen the disintegrating state and the cycle that carries the rubbish away, but we also are aware, in our own experience, of the true creative cycle which leads out of light into the firmament of heaven, for which we are responsible. We are responsible for the light; we are responsible for the heaven; and without participation in the light and in the heaven we cannot feed my sheep. The way is clear. Let us acknowledge the reality of it in all our ways. We are here to minister, not to be ministered unto. This is not to say that others will not minister unto us, and we rejoice and are thankful for this—many have certainly ministered unto me—but our purpose on earth is not to be ministered unto. This may be necessary in order to assist us in the process of ministering, but we are here to minister.
© emissaries of divine light
