It is a real privilege for me to stand in this place on a morning like this, with the sun shining brightly, with all of you. I would like to share something from the Bible with you. It is from Revelation, the last book in the Bible. The emphasis I wish to share with you is on some of the words in this Book— “things which must shortly come to pass … for the time is at hand.” I will read a few verses from the beginning of the Book:
“The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John.” Here we have a continuum. I would mention this wonderful servant, John, who was the one to allow what the Master Jesus brought to continue. It came to focus in the Book of Revelation, which John wrote.
“Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw. Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.” Isn’t that what we have always heard? You can read the words, but do you hear them? You can hear them, but do you live them? Are you among those who keep the words?
I am going to use the tenth chapter of Revelation—it is a picture of incarnation. In the whole Bible, and certainly in Revelation, when there is something depicted, as in this chapter, it applies to the individual, but not just to the individual. It can refer to a particular individual, or a whole body of people. I am emphasizing the Whole Body this morning. This is what we are concerned with, surely. But you will find it interesting from the standpoint of your own incarnation!
“And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire: And he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth, And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices.
“And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me. Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not … And the voice which I heard from heaven spake unto me again, and said. Go and take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel which standeth upon the sea and upon the earth.
“And I went unto the angel, and said unto him. Give me the little book. And he said unto me. Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey. And I took the little book out of the angel’s hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter. And he said unto me. Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings.”
Again, from the first verse: “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud.” That is the first step in incarnation: a movement, we say, “down.” It isn’t denigrating anything that is lower: it is simply a movement into a denser level. So the movement begins, down from the absolute state—we say “God Being”—the Source—coming down from heaven, clothed with a cloud. Here is the first form: Cloud-clothing.
“And a rainbow was upon his head.” Here is a sevenfold differentiation—the Cloud, or the levels of vibrational being, comes first. From this Cloud-clothing will come physical form in this process. We have talked about pneumaplasm, or spirit substance, which is the Cloud closest to the physical body. So we have this spiritual body—which is not a separate body; it is the connecting link. There are those who have a certain sensitivity, perception, about these levels, having seen something of them. It has been recognized that any distortion or lack in the physical body is first in this Cloud Body, this vibrational body. Therefore the healing must take place in that spirit substance. None of this is new, but it lets us see something in a different way.
“And his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire.” Here, from the pure, white light, which is Divine Being, we now have some golden substance: “his face as the sun.” One is reminded of the Silver Cord and the Golden Bowl in Ecclesiastes. If you see the moon, particularly a full moon, right over the horizon, it looks golden because it is shining through a cloud. Well, here we have the pure, White Light through the Cloud, and we have the Golden Bowl. It is all a description of this process.
“And he had in his hand a little book open.” This is true, and the book has never been closed. “And he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth.” So we have the earth substance now, right here, and something begins to happen. The little book contains the design for this form—everything is in that little book. And it is open; there is nothing hidden. The earth substance is now ready to receive this little book: “He set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth.” The book will be integrated, the incarnation of the being will take place, with everything provided that will manifest through this person.
Now that this substance is in place, he “cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth.” Throughout the Bible, when the sound of a loud voice, or a trumpet, or anything like that, is used, it is talking about an impact, a vibrational impact, the emanation of power. This is certainly happening here, likened to a lion roaring; the lion is the symbol of the highest point of authority, of One Power.
“And when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices.” We have a differentiation again. We had white light into seven, a rainbow—the colors, from the most ethereal down to the red, physical, in that Vibrational Body— and now we have it in sound. Here is the One Power being differentiated into seven thunders, or vibrations. Here is the establishing of that magnificent system, the endocrine glands. The endocrine system consists of ductless glands. Here is something pouring directly from the Spirit into the River of Life, the bloodstream. So into the physical form now we have the establishing of this sevenfold system which provides the connection with the inner reality.
“And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices”—were in place and operating—“I was about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me. Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.” Here is something hidden: the endocrine secretions. There is a definite connection between the invisible and the visible. This is a fascinating subject for the human mind; it would like to control this! Of course it is the way all of this is used that determines what happens to the individual. Expressing emotions of anger, hate, and all the rest, impacts the body and brings about distortion. Conversely, this system may also be the instrument for healing.
“And the voice which I heard from heaven spake unto me again. and said. Go and take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel which standeth upon the sea and upon the earth.” The angel is present, so there is a Voice here. And I, whoever I am at this point, do have a responsibility: take the little book!
And I went unto the angel, and said unto him. Give me the little book. And he said unto me. Take it.” I had to do it every step of the way! I like this text, because it shows I took responsibility before I ever came on earth—and so did you. It seems that there have been complaints by some: “I didn’t ask to come—all this is imposed upon me.” But we did, for sure! We took responsibility from the very beginning: “Give it to me!” And he said, “Take it”—absolute responsibility. Contained in that little book (and it is still open, always) is the Commission, the purpose, the very specific reasons we are on earth. It is all there, and open to be used. One aspect of the physical provision in the little book is the wonderful spiral of DNA.
What about this business that it is bitter in the belly? “It was in my mouth sweet as honey.” The Word contained in the book is sweet in the mouth, isn’t it? It is in the living where a little something else might creep in, in the belly, in the area of digestion, the subconscious realm. Remember that this little book is eaten, absorbed into the world just exactly the way it is, individually and collectively, with all the factors of heredity, environment—prenatal, postnatal—all the rest of it. This little book, this Presence, is now in the midst of all this, the way the world is. And when there are bitter experiences it is purely because of subjection to these earthly factors. The Master spoke about being in the world but not of it.
In the sense of the whole body of mankind there has been a twenty-thousand-year-old bellyache! When we think of all the function that goes on in what is indelicately here called “the belly,” we have digestion, assimilation, elimination. The acceptance of the Sweet Commission in the mouth is wonderful—we can’t wait to get to it—but then there is the living of it! It all has to be applied in everything we do, and the digestion, assimilation into every speck: the physical substance, mind, heart. This is what is necessary if there isn’t to be indigestion and the bellyache. And that is all that needs to be assimilated—the little book. This is the one thing that will let the Word be made flesh. We are beginning to see it, feel it, and really know it. The time is at hand, and these things must come to pass.
I often recall Martin’s words, particularly more recently, that the pollution in the heaven must be dissolved—must! This is the time. This bitterness has been in the subconscious of the whole body of humanity for a number of years, but it isn’t very long from the Divine standpoint. How could John say, in Revelation, written two thousand years ago, that these things “must shortly come to pass”? Our minds may say, “Next week, next month, next year—surely in a lifetime!” Two thousand years? We have what is called a “timeline” in our Story of Man class, where it shows graphically this period of time since the fall of man, compared with other cycles. It is a short span of time, a twenty-thousand-year period, as compared with what went before. So from the Divine View I would say definitely that the time for change is at hand. And it is being brought to consciousness in many, many people that this is such a time. From a view that sees the destructive side of life, it could be said, “There isn’t any more time. This is terrible!” But what a wonderful thing that this is the time for the end of all that.
There is a word that pictures this state, and that is karma. Karma never seems to get resolved. I don’t think it is expected to be resolved! It is there: “So I’ll come back and finish what I couldn’t do now.” Why not do it now? No one has ever had more opportunity, more training, care, inspiration. Let’s keep moving. We let the conviction dissolve, the conviction that nothing will change: “It can’t. It has gone on this long, this stuff in me. It can’t change!” We know it not only can but it does and it has. It is absoluteness I am talking about. The word is, “The mystery of God is finished,” as recorded in this Book, Revelation, which is dealing with this present time. It isn’t God’s mystery; it is man’s mystery, even though it is seen as God’s mystery. So there is the finishing of this closed-in state that man’s mind has created. What could be more wonderful? The fact that we are here is cause for the greatest thanksgiving, but it requires all of the old state to be gone, every last bit.
I am going to read some words from the twentieth chapter of Exodus, which contains the Ten Commandments. These words are from the first of those:
“I am the Lord thy God … visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.” Let the little book that is open be incorporated into everything we do. That makes the difference.
There is another verse, in Matthew, where the Master said, “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” I would say that this implies that karma doesn’t go on forever; after all, it is only in the consciousness of mankind. The idea has been that God inflicts this unto the third and fourth generation, but we are talking about hereditary factors. It applies only to those who reject the little book in the hand of the angel. It is all dissolved for those who love the LORD and keep His commandments, and let the book be revealed, which is the Word made flesh.
“Till heaven and earth pass”—the old heaven and the old earth. That is the theme in the Book of Revelation: the passing of the old heaven and the old earth. And I would not say, “the coming of the new,” because there it is—if the old has passed, the smudge is off, the sludge is gone, there it is! It has always been here. But until every jot or tittle (today we would say “tad” or “titch,” whatever), until every speck of it is gone, there is the state of being under the Law. It shall not “pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” Here is the state of absoluteness. It isn’t a matter of trying to dig out every little bit of the old so that every bit has gone. Love simply cleans the slate. Love is radiation, and nothing escapes that radiation.
From this passage in Revelation I will read the last verse again. This is written to the Body of the Son of God: “Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings.” That prophecy isn’t foretelling what is going to happen next week, or whatever. It is simply the uttering of the Word in the moment, and it inevitably touches many peoples and nations and tongues—all tongues; it doesn’t matter what the language is—and kings, and heads of state, and presidents! This is the impact into the body of humanity.
I would like to look into another book in the Bible. It is written, as is Revelation, purely in symbol: the Book of Ezekiel. In his day Ezekiel prophesied very much as John did later. His writings apply to exactly the same time as John’s do—this time of fulfilment. There is a chapter I would like to share with you. The reason my attention was called to this Book was because of the service by Martin that came in the last mailing. The title of it is “The Sign of the Times”—a singular sign. We see lots of signs out there. Martin said:
“There is one central and primary sign of the times which has not been recognized, let alone acknowledged, by the population of mankind in general. We know something about it because of our own personal experience. It might be described as the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. The Son of Man is the sign, and that sign is in heaven. Human beings are aware of many things in the earth but virtually nothing in the true heaven. Consequently there is no awareness, really at all, in the consciousness of mankind of the Son of Man in heaven. That awareness shall come.
“The Son of Man is the Body of the Son of God, the Body of which we have some immediate experience. The experience of the Son of Man is only known in heaven. The fact that it is present on earth is easily recognized, but the reality of it is in heaven. We only know the Son of Man to the extent that we ourselves abide in heaven.”
Reading the Book of Ezekiel with Martin’s words in mind—that the Son of Man is the Body of God on earth—I find a chapter here that is very interesting. Chapter thirty-seven:
“The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones.” We are talking about the earth and we are also talking about the time in which we live today. There weren’t that many bones in the day he lived! This is the day of the population explosion. “And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley”—of this planet—“and, lo, they were very dry.” That describes the state of the world—very many, and very dry, and it looks impossible that anything could be done about this situation. “And he said unto me. Son of Man”—the words are to the Body of God already established “can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest.” You’re asking me?
“Again he said unto me. Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord.”
The prophecy is: “Hear the Word of the Lord.” The absoluteness of that prophecy is to know that I am the Lord: “Ye shall know that I am the Lord,” he says. First there is the recognition that there is a Body of God on earth, that there is a Voice that can say, “I am the Lord,” and this is what the Body represents: it must, if it is to happen. Then eventually there comes the realization that I am the Lord.
“So I prophesied as I was commanded”—and there’s the secret, isn’t it, to prophesy “as I was commanded,” this which is in the little book—“and as I prophesied, there was a noise”—again, the noise, one of the first things ever to appear in a creative cycle, the impact of spirit, of power. “And behold a shaking”—that came along simultaneously; we have all experienced that! The shaking is what loosens the hold on everything. Every external influence is shaken: relationships, people, things, situations—all of it. This is the process when the Word is truly spoken.
“And the bones came together, bone to his bone.” That is a picture of what is happening in the world, even though they are just bones at this point. They come together. “Bone to his bone”: here is a picture of one person coming to another. We could say a group draws people, but it is always, isn’t it, the influence of one person, one word, one smile, the light in the eyes of one. So the experience of “bone to his bone” is happening—we do see it.
“And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them.” Ah, it is beginning to have a body—the skeleton is going to have a form, because it does start out as a skeleton, as bones that have come together. Then there comes flesh up upon them, but first sinews, muscles, ligaments, etc. And these are brought into this forming Body, which was just a honey structure at one time. The body of humankind is now beginning to have these vital elements, and we see it; we see it coming. It could look like a beautiful body one of these days. We see what is going on in the Soviet Union, Korea, Japan, South America, many places. Things are moving, and the parts that make the Body operational are coming into place.
So, continuing with this analogy: “And the skin covered them above”—that is good; the body needs skin. Creation is all one thing, but in this analogy we have the individual parts coming into place. Well, they are all wonderful, and they have their functions, and they work together; but until the skin is on, the body isn’t wholly beautiful. Until the skin covers it, it seems to be composed of separate parts, even though they are working together. Covered with skin, you have one thing, and you don’t see the parts. They are all moving and working, but blessed skin makes it one unit. It looks like it is all ready: the parts are all covered with skin, “but there was no breath in them.
“Then said he unto me. Prophesy unto the wind.” We have a fresh wind blowing! as this larger Body is forming, coming so beautifully into place and into a place of conscious awareness. There is a wind needed. This is the final step, and we hear the U.S. president talk about a fresh wind blowing, and all over the place there is a wind blowing.
“Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, Son of Man, and say to the wind. Thus saith the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.”
This is the purpose of the wind. But there must be a Core Body, the Son of Man, to prophesy. In other words, the Word is spoken through the wind. This Core Body has this vital place with regard to the wind. “O breath,” the breath of God, “breathe upon these slain, that they may live.”
One can feel the longing, in the hearts of this larger body that is forming, to live. There has been a conviction throughout the vast population of the world that the human state is in a terminal condition; it is all going to end in destruction. Well, we don’t know how it is all going to work out, but the question was asked of the Core Body: “Can these bones live?” And the Core Body might say, “I decide this? I know this? Surely it is the LORD who knows.” True! “Surely it is already decided that the LORD’s Will shall be done, that it cannot be defeated.” True! But we are responsible for what happens in this part of the cosmos right now, in this time that is at hand. In this chapter we see our responsibility toward all the people on the face of the earth—a great responsibility. That is accomplished only as the absoluteness of our Mission is achieved. It means that not one little bit of that old heaven is allowed to remain. The little complaints and judgments that are experienced, maybe as recently as yesterday, don’t have to be here today.
This prophecy was to the breath: “Come from the four winds.” We know about those Four Winds, and their representation: the Four Forces, which are differentiations of the One Spirit which makes creation possible on this earth. In the very beginning in Genesis, concerning creation, a river is spoken of, One River, that went out of Eden. It represents the one source of power in all the cosmos, and it is differentiated, or takes characteristics applicable to the place needed, into Four Forces on this planet—the One River became Four Rivers. We have One Wind becoming Four Winds. It is all one thing. Here is the working of the Spirit of God. We need to let it be so vibrant and so consistent in us that we truly remember taking that little book. We may say, “I took it, and in my mouth the Commission was sweet as honey. I love to talk about it!” But it is in living that the Commission is fulfilled, and that is not bitter.
“Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” And what begins to come into the consciousness of all mankind is a conviction of life.
“So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great body.” This is the time that has been looked forward to, as Uranda put it, “by all the prophets of all the ages.” Do we give thanks for just being here, that the mystery of God can be finished, and all the mystery on the face of the earth be dissolved? There are those who would have loved to be here in this time that is at hand. Our responsibility is very great; we are here. And we are His body, and there is an absoluteness in consciousness.
I am reminded of the words of Jesus: “That where I am, there ye may be also”—that your state of being may be what mine is. This has nothing to do with place or geographical position, just that this state of being may be so absolute, because of love, that the mystery of God might be finished. It is the only thing that does it: love, a passion that transcends love for self. We knew that with Uranda, with Martin—for many years with Martin; of course most of you only knew Martin, and that is enough! The love is so great that it fills everything, and there is nothing else. I am most thankful for the opportunity we have of letting the LORD live on earth through us, very aware that this is the time, and that it must be done.
In the outworking of God's love on earth there are many adjustments that are essential to the sharing of God's love. We have recognized that it is through Divine love that centering becomes possible. No matter how much the human mind may think to try to remain centered, without love it is impossible, and the first and the greatest of the commandments admonishes us to love God with all that we are. We have shared meditations on that point many times, but I would tonight that we might come to know more deeply, more fully, the reality of our KING's provision, in His Kingdom on earth, in this matter.
We have recognized that without centering in love the control factors in truth cannot become effective and the design factors in truth cannot manifest. They become spoiled, distorted, and that which does appear is far different from that which God designed. The reality of the Kingdom requires that control and design shall manifest through the working of God's power. Fundamentally we have acknowledged that all power does come from God and that the power that destroys is from God but not under God's control; it is being used by the human agency, wilfully or ignorantly, to spoil God's design. When God's power is used by human beings to spoil God's design we have a horrible incongruity, something which by its very nature is abhorrent. But man has lived for so long with the distortion patterns of being, with that which is decaying and dying, that he has become used to the abhorrent factors in existence and accepts them as being natural. They are in fact unnatural, but in the self-active expression of the human being misusing God's power to spoil God's design we have the natural result in the condition which we find in the world.
I always feel at a loss for words when I approach the subject of God's love, the love of the Lord of Love. Our KING so loved the world, the earth and the people in it, His whole creation, that He came into the world to restore that pattern of relatedness, that whosoever believeth in Him, the Lord of Love, might not perish but have everlasting life. What does it mean to believe in the Lord of Love? What is there in your consciousness tonight which will allow you to have a deeper awareness of what it means to believe in the Lord of Love?
What if every question, if every problem, all the things which might be deemed a necessity in any way, shape or form, could be dismissed from consciousness so that the whole attention, the whole of the heart or feeling nature, the whole of the mind and the whole of the body, might be brought to point in this one thing?
When there is love on earth, for instance, between a man and a woman, and it is real and it has a spiritual quality, it has a depth, the mutuality of that love establishes a timelessness. When there is a centering in relationship to that love, other things, though they be essential, are seen as secondary to love, no matter how important they might be, no matter how necessary it may be to do the essential work or consider other matters. It is not that they are set aside as meaningless, but the quality of that which is known and felt, the timelessness, and the recognition that that love is primary, gives meaning to everything else. Without that love what meaning would there be? Without love somewhere, somehow—not necessarily limited to marital love—but without love somehow, no human being can live a normal life. Without love there is only emptiness, coldness, meaninglessness. Whatever else there may be, only love can give it meaning. Whatever the need may be, only love can provide the starting point for filling that need. No matter what problem, without love there is no way of really solving the problem, no matter how much the human being may try. The basic pattern of love open to each and every one, without regard to anything else, is the most precious of all, the most priceless of all aspects of love: the love of God, the love of the Lord of Love.
When that love begins to work in and through the human being, and it is held sacred, the human consciousness and heart remain true to it, changes begin to take place. All changes are fundamentally adjustments either to the pattern of life or to the pattern of decay. Sometimes the human being resists the necessity of adjustment, but without adjustment the true expression of love is impossible, because the means of manifestation must become fitting to the expression of love. The endlessness of love is that which makes eternity desirable. Without love one could rightly abhor the thought of eternity. But love is of sufficient importance so that from God's standpoint the centering of all things, including God Himself, is established in love. Our KING, Supreme in heaven and earth, is the Lord of Love, the Apex of All. Love, then, is of sufficient importance so that from the standpoint of God's design, of expression in His own Being, disregarding the human being for the moment, in the Body of God made up of many God Beings the One who provides the apex is the Lord of Love. Not the Lord of Truth, not the Lord of Life, not the Lord of something else in the various aspects of God's Being, but the Lord of Love. He is the Center, the Supreme One, the Apex.
From the standpoint of God, then, in relationship to God Himself, Love is Supreme. To that end we have the second shortest verse in the Bible. The shortest one was caused because someone failed to recognize the truth of the second shortest. The shortest verse in the Bible has two words; the second, three: the simple statement, “God is love.” The shortest verse in the Bible: “Jesus wept.” Why did He weep? Not for the cause that human beings suppose. Not because Lazarus was in the tomb, not because all the others were weeping. He told them plainly, even before He wept, “Lazarus is not dead, but sleepeth.” But when Mary of Bethany forgot to remember that God is love and that the power of God is supreme, when she betrayed the trust He had placed in her to hold the pattern, when Mary doubted God's love, when Mary, who to the Master symbolized the centering of all the fulfilments for which He hoped on earth, yielded to the pattern of appearances and broke and became subject to the things to which the world is subject, then He wept; for in that moment He knew that what could have been would not be. He wept because there was not one, not even Mary of Bethany, who remembered “God is love,” who remembered the importance of staying centered regardless of appearances—not one, of those who should have provided the pattern in that hour. I feel the question rise in your mind with respect to the Disciple John. The pattern of which I am speaking had no direct relationship to him. I am not suggesting that John failed to maintain the pattern. I am talking about something else.
“Jesus wept.” Do you think the Master's life was without love? No. Mary of Bethany was His sweetheart. Mary of Bethany provided the centering, from the standpoint of the negative aspect of Being, for that outworking for which He was on earth, for which He labored. That provision of God's love we can say should have held—but Jesus wept. Why? Because the one whom He had trusted to hold the centering of the pattern in what we would speak of as the negative response of the world, to provide the key, forgot her responsibility. She forgot God's love, and “Jesus wept.” Mary yielded to the wrong precedent. Since the fall there was no other precedent but that of failure; but there was a precedent going back beyond the fall of man, and God's love had to have meaning on earth. There was a keynote of response in the outworking of things, a point where love reigned supreme, where nothing else mattered, and when something else was allowed to matter, Jesus wept.
So from the standpoint of God, from the standpoint of our LORD on earth, love was first. He said the first commandment had to do with love, God's love: to love the Lord thy God with all that you are. When there is this yielding to God's love, letting go in it, what happens? In the world there are crystallizations of every sort, distorted patterns wherever one may turn, nothing exactly the way God intended it to be. In the whole realm of humanity there is that which is moving toward that pattern of fulfilment, the Divine manifestation of the Divine Design, in the flesh of human beings, in their minds and hearts, but so often something other than God's love matters first. “God is love.” The centering of God is love; the expression of God is love; the nature of God is love. If, then, the reality of love is allowed to begin to work through the human heart there is the beginning of the relatedness with God. But the working of that love must do something. It must melt the crystallizations. It must bring about a yielding which allows adjustment to the Divine pattern, so that the delicate factors of the Divine Design may begin to have meaning.
One of the strangest things to me—and, I might mention, to all the angels of heaven—is this: That human beings so often seem to imagine that the essential adjustments are difficult, something to be resisted, something to be avoided as much as possible, that there is somehow suffering in those adjustments. Such an attitude reveals a tremendous ignorance with respect to love and truth and life. One of the greatest joys which any man or woman may know is the joy of going through the patterns of attunement or adjustment necessary to the ever-increasing reality of love, God's love, in life. Instead of resisting the necessities of change the human being should accept them willingly, gladly.
How can the body be healed if there be no change in the body according to the Divine Design? It can't. Only as changes come by reason of the control according to the Divine Design can healing come to the body. Only so can healing come to the mind or heart. These changes are not painful unless the human being makes them so. And if they are painful they are not the true changes; they are partial changes wherein factors other than God's are allowed to play a part, where human factors are imposed. Getting used to God's love is a delightful experience. Remaining true to God's love gives a sense of wholeness and wholesomeness, a consciousness of something holy and sacred. There is such a sweet spirit which pervades, and all fear is cast out, and there is no cause for suffering in any real sense. There is relaxation. There is letting go. There is yielding. There is a response which permits God's power to make changes. How deep does God's love go? To the intellectual level, so that one may say, “I love God”? If so, the moment the attention is centered on the necessities of our daily lives God's love is forgotten. But if it goes deep, deep into the heart, the feeling nature, and penetrates the body, it is there no matter what may demand attention, no matter what one may be under the necessity of doing. It is there all the time.
There is no adequate way to convey in words that which love is. It can be called a fire, and that would be true, but some would be afraid of it. It can be called a consuming fire; not because it destroys, but because it enfolds and contains, because it takes unto itself that which yields—to change, not to destroy it; not to bring it to an end, but to give it meaning. There are so many delicate factors in love, so very delicate, and only as there is an appreciation of delicate design, in truth, can the full beauties of love be known. The human being cannot be taught by lecture, by book, by blackboard design, just what adjustments must take place within himself with respect to this fulfilment. A general idea can be given, principles can be portrayed, but there is that something in each and every one which can appear only in the working of the spirit of love itself in the individual—not something that can be known in advance, not something that can be intellectually predetermined. It is something which can be experienced only in the working of love within oneself. And it cannot be described. That which is true of one may not be true of another, with respect to these delicate factors—in other words, each one has a peculiar design.
In the basic factors we are all alike, in the fundamental. And those things can be recognized and appreciated and known. They can be more or less described. They become common knowledge. But the human being who limits himself to that never knows what it is to live. There must be an unfolding of something beyond the range of that which is intellectually predetermined. There must be the outworking of something which is absolutely unique to the individual himself. It is in the delicacy of the design that the variations in characteristics become known. We may classify any person on earth as a human being. That is a very general classification—all human beings. Then we can make the division between male and female, and everyone is in one classification or the other. But that which is a basic fact does not make the distinction of Being evident. The delicacy of the Divine Design which relates to you is important to the fulfilment of your life, the reality of your ministry of service, the reality of your Being, what God intended you to be. But without love those delicate factors of design, spirit, nature, can never take outer form. They never find expression. They never have any meaning to you or to anyone else. So, while you may be a human being, you are not what you ought to be. You may be a man or a woman, but you are not what you ought to be.
How shall this come forth? By great intellectual attainments? By inventive genius? By mental gymnastics? By human emotionalism? By giving way to feelings of various sorts? Oh no. Of course wherever love is at work there are feelings, but it is a matter of letting that love, that fire, that feeling, work through in the sense of a centering, in the sense of an unfolding. It is such a revealing thing to the eyes of love, but if there are no eyes of love it reveals nothing. And that delicacy of design reaches back into the very essence or heart of God. It is this that characterizes our LORD and KING. If we think of Him simply as a KING in some far-off place, a Lord, perhaps, more or less unapproachable—for those who do not know love it may be true, and it is—then you do not know Him: these delicate factors of Being, so intricate in design, so moving, so all-inclusive, so always new, so ever-changing and yet always the same. That sounds like a paradox to human ears, “ever-changing and yet always the same”—always the same in love but never the same in Being. Always there is that quality of newness, that quality of aliveness, which is beyond human words to describe. These essences, these delicate things which cannot be described, must be allowed an opportunity of movement within oneself. If one is so crystallized in fundamentals that the delicate things are always crushed or given second place, or some such thing, there can never be the unfolding of Being, there can never be the joy of true living, of true loving.
The Lord of Love. Why is eternity a reality? Fundamentally because of love. When one begins to know love as it centers in our KING, the Lord of Love, one begins to realize that even eternity can never exhaust the newness, the wonder, the joy of love. Love, true love, is something that never grows old. It is not subject to time. It is not subject to space or distance. It simply is, and it is eternally new. If there is anything which is not showing forth the quality of eternal newness it is because of a lack of love, a lack of centering in the God of Love, the Lord of Love.
What is it that makes newness, in the sense of restoring physical health, the restoration of the body to the Divine Design? There must come a newness, and the oldness must pass away—not oldness necessarily in the sense of years but from the standpoint of something that is out of design, something which is crystallized, something that is not allowing the delicate factors of Being to appear, so it grows old. It can grow old in five minutes, shall we say. I have met people where things grew old in five minutes, and one was glad to get away. But where God's love is working there is an eternal newness, something different, something alive, something refreshing, something delightful, something thrilling, something so deep and satisfying. In this ever-newness we have the secret of eternal aliveness, which is called Eternal Life. Without that ever-newness of love, God's love, extended life is impossible, because the crystallizations take over and that which is not of the Divine Design becomes evident in control. This ever-newness is the living quality of Being, and without it sometimes human beings reach a point where they so yield to the adversary that they even say such a horrible thing as, “What is the use?” What a depth of something too horrible to name!—“What's the use?”—the meaninglessness that brings such an expression. And where does that come from? From a lack of God's love. God's love is sufficient for all.
There is an interesting thing about our LORD and KING. His love is great enough to include every human being. His capacity to love has never been exhausted. There are not enough beings in heaven or earth, or both together, to exhaust His capacity to love. He has enough for you, and He can share all the love of your being and not exclude anyone else—a place for you in the heart of the Lord of Love. And it will not limit you. It will not make you something less than you are. It will make you something more than you are. It will not circumscribe you in the sense of anything distorting or limiting, but it will give you meaning to yourself and to others.
Blessed ones, love isn't something that you can get all in a lump, as if you might have some trucker deliver a ton of it. Love is something that flows and unfolds and moves. Some people seem to imagine that if they have love, then suddenly, as if they got the ton of it, everything would be thus and thus and thus and so, instantly, in a moment. But love is there for every human being on the face of the earth. It doesn't come by the ton; it comes by the measure of living. It is something that has to express through; and its intricate designs, its changing patterns, provide that something which increases the capacity to know God's love. God in His wisdom arranged that eternity would be available for the expression of love, not that it should be delivered in a lump and when that is gone it is done. It is not something that can be put in a box or jar or can or something, and stored. It is something which in its movement reveals itself. The quality of that movement is determined by the reality of the love that is involved in its unfolding expression.
When one begins to know love one begins to realize that it actually is primary, not secondary, and that God was not arbitrary when He pointed to that fact in the two great commandments. It is primary—it is the first thing, not the second. Once that primary thing is moving there begins to be a relatedness to other things: first to God, and then, according to the Divine Design in the outworking, one to another and to all created things. But you never see love twice the same. If you miss it in any moment, what you miss will never, in all of eternity, be available to you again, because it is never in any two moments exactly the same. All the eternity of the future will be taken up with the natural unfoldings of love in the future, and there is no time in all of eternity to return to something that was missed in the past. If you miss it in any moment it is gone forever. And God's love is too precious to miss, too important to throw away. We have seen that with God it is primary. The Lord of Love centers the Body of God, the Apex of it All—first, supreme. Human beings think to make it secondary? Oh no. If they do they destroy themselves, and day by day throw away, literally throw away, God's richest blessings. Once they are missed they can never be known, because they are gone.
That which is today will appear today, if we let love have its way. One should not waste time in vain regrets with respect to what is past. That will do no good. But one should learn the lesson well enough so that one doesn't today throw away that which should be known today; for God's love is available today, available to you. If you do not let it unfold today the opportunity is gone. Each new moment brings a new opportunity—and a whole eternity before us, endless—for the unfolding of the ever-changing wonders of God's love. Until you begin to appreciate the delicacy of design, the things which can be known only as they unfold—not by the word that is spoken, not to be put in black and white somehow—until one begins to let that delicacy of design have real meaning in oneself, one cannot begin to know the LORD of Love. But you cannot know the delicacy of design unless you are honest, faithful and true, unless you let the truth make you free by reason of your centering. There is no other way of centering than this, by reason of God's love. If you would know the ever-newness of God's love it must be through His love, according to the delicacy of design which God ordains. It is to this end, this fulfilment, that the Lord of Love Himself came into the world, so that instead of excluding love from your life and decaying, you might accept love in your life and share the ever-newness of God Himself.
In the review program as it came to a close this afternoon for this week, the subject of the Shekinah Pattern of Being had been introduced. We will be sharing much more meditation in this particular field, but in this consideration of the basic theme, I would like to draw to your attention tonight a point which has to do with the manifestation of many of the blessings which the world has known, so that we may consider the reason why those blessings appear, something of what is at work, and consequently be more effective in our own ministry. We have all heard many stories about various shrines, the shrines where one may more or less anticipate some form of healing of body or mind, or those shrines where one goes to find a particularized awareness of a spiritual experience. In the Mohammedan world, for instance, Mecca provides a basic shrine for many millions of people on the face of the earth, and we find these shrines present in many parts of the world. We all have heard about one in France, which is under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Church, where there have been many healings—various patterns, which we will not undertake to outline in an historical sense tonight. But a recognition of the principle of the shrine. We find these shrines present in many parts of the world—where there have been many healings—various patterns, which we will not undertake to outline in an historical sense tonight. But a recognition of the principle of the shrine.
As we recall the pattern in relationship to the story of Abraham, for instance, we remember that in many places where he stopped he built an altar unto the Lord, and when he was returning out of Egypt after the famine he went to a place where he had previously built an altar unto the Lord. An altar, a temple, a shrine of some sort, has down through the millennia provided a consciousness of a centering in relationship to spiritual experience. Why is it that at some particular shrine something of this nature tends to develop? What is happening? How does it happen and why? In the consideration of the Shekinah Pattern of Being, we took note of the fact that the spirit of God comes to a point of meeting in relationship to something in the outer physical realm. The Cloud of Glory, as it is seen, is the body of the Shekinah, which we have spoken of as being the essence of undifferentiated truth.
As a background to this approach to a consideration of Shekinah we gave attention to the principles of magic, both white and black. The use of the word “white” in relationship to magic is very often misleading. There are many philosophies or schools of thought in the world which claim to be dealing on a basis of white magic, or teaching the principles of white magic; but when we begin to check into them we find that they are all dealing with black magic, even though they call it white magic. So we want to be careful from the standpoint of terminology, because if we say “white magic” some person who has had contact with some of the schools in the world that presume to teach something about white magic may assume that we are talking about the same thing, when we are not. And this pattern of false translation of idea is something which we must very carefully watch. There are many schools of thought which claim to be teaching the principles of white magic; but when we check into them we find that they are all dealing with black magic, though they call it white magic. However, we recognize that in black magic there is the use of the principle of the shrine or the altar, a place of centering, also—and we recognize the black magic triangle.
Now if we remember the principles which we have also studied with respect to pneumaplasm, and recognize that spirit as such is something that is absolutely and forever invisible to the physical eye of man as he is so constituted, and then remember something with respect to the emanations or radiations which have been noted with respect to the body—how they extend further out from the body when there is a normal condition of health, how they withdraw into the body, and how there are the facts of various colorations—we can begin to put together some of the basic factors which are essential to our meditation this evening.
Remember the point: The spirit of God cannot be seen in its true or pure form. The human eye never sees the spirit of God. We can see the results of the spirit of God—we can see the forms through which the spirit of God operates, but we cannot with physical vision see the spirit of God. And until the pneumaplasm begins to provide a body for spirit, spirit cannot have any meaning in relationship to this world. Spirit as such does not have any relationship to this world, to any physical things, human, animal, vegetable or anything else, except through pneumaplasm.
When we begin to think about the manifestation of the power of God on earth, we recognize that there must be some means by which that power can manifest in relationship to this realm. And yet we know that millions of human beings, having something of the idea that the power of God is a reality and that it should be able to have meaning in relationship to human beings, have assumed that somehow there is just a contact, a connection, that may be made somehow that will let spirit have direct meaning in relationship to the human body or the mind or the heart. But in our studies, meditation, we have seen that such is not the case. We have also recognized that we, as human beings, have the responsibility of generating the pneumaplasm that is to be used. God does not generate the pneumaplasm from an Inner Plane standpoint. We can depend upon God to provide the ever-flowing current of His spirit, but that spirit as such has no meaning on earth until we ourselves provide the connecting link.
So the only begotten Son of God—Shekinah—is issuing forth from God all of the time. And in this connection, let us be certain to remember that God is to the realm of God Being exactly the same as mankind is to the realm of human being. As mankind includes all human beings, God includes all God Beings; and while there are focalizations particularized with respect to God Being—and such focalizations may, for instance in relationship to the LORD of Lords and KING of Kings, be spoken of as God—when we say God, we have reference to the realm of God Being, which includes all God Beings. And when we say mankind, we do not refer just to one human being or one group of human beings; we have reference to all human beings. So mankind is to humanity, or to human beings, as God is to the realm of God Being; and from God, that is, from the realm of God Being in which all God Beings share—an individual and a collective pattern—we have the manifestation, on that level, of the spirit of God issuing forth from all God Beings.
This spirit of God is the only begotten Son of God; which is to say, it is that which issues forth from God eternally. Now this only begotten Son of God can have no meaning on earth whatsoever except as we permit it—except as we cooperate. And man has not learned how to cooperate; which is to say, man has not learned how to live. We look into the world pattern and, regardless of all the religions on earth and all the philosophies and all the beliefs, we have human beings in a miserable condition, suffering all kinds of diseases and difficulties, chaos, a lack of peace, a pattern of decay, subject to death. Man, then, has not learned the art of living, and all the various philosophies have failed to give man an understanding of the art of living. So we are interested in finding this contact, learning how to function in relationship to it and learning how to live—the magic of life, or the magic of living.
One other point we must bring to focus out of our past meditation, and that is the point of balance; how it is that the positive aspects of a given formation, such as a solar system, provide a pattern of energy, or a creative field, in which the negative aspects find a point of balance. That point of balance establishes, for instance, the orbit of this earth. The sun has a gravitational pull which is felt by all of its planets, including this earth, but there is also the centrifugal force which tends to throw the planet out from the sun. There are other energies involved, but we will not take time to study them at the moment. The important thing is that two forces, or energies, are counteracting each other, and the point where they come to balance, where they neutralize each other, establishes the orbit of the earth. From the standpoint of anything that is to have stability, we need the same pattern of principle.
There must be the positive centering; there must be the negative response. Remember, when I use the word “negative” I do not mean “destructive”. If I mean destructive I will say it. Negative things are constructive, and we must use negative things. Negative then means responsive. Responsive: yielded to a given Positive. And the point where negative response and positive radiation neutralize each other establishes a place—or a placing of form in relationship—according to the Divine Design. This point of balance must be seen if we are going to begin to understand the principles that begin to work in relationship to that which is an altar unto the Lord, a shrine, or a Temple that becomes a shrine, etc.
There is no gainsaying the fact that many remarkable things have happened in relationship to shrines in all parts of the world, under all religions. It is not limited to the so-called Christian religions at all. It is not limited to the Mohammedan religion. It is not limited to any of them. We go back in history, or check all of the different patterns of belief on the face of the earth, and wherever there is a shrine, whether in the field of so-called white magic or so-called black magic, remarkable things have happened, interesting things, a manifestation of phenomena which carries conviction to human minds, establishes belief, faith, and consequently cooperative action. Anyone who understands even a little of the principles involved can establish a black pattern of magic, give it an appearance of white magic, make it seem to be based in God's love, emphasize God's love, establish a shrine and develop phenomena. And when the individual comes in contact with this given phenomenon, it tends to make those who see believe that here is something special, something that gives evidence of the reality of God. Actually it does, in one sense, because all energy does come from God, all life forces come from God, whether they are used according to God's Will, Plan, purpose, or not. But most of these human activities utilize a process of stealing life energy to produce a given result. However, we are particularly interested tonight in seeing something of how this works in relationship to heavenly magic, the Divine pattern of magic.
First, an altar—a place, any place. It can be a rock of peculiar formation; it can be almost anything. It can be a tree, a selected tree, that has a certain definite appeal to a number of human beings, where there is a pattern of focalization. It can be virtually any spot on the face of the earth. And in one sense we might say that here on Sunrise Ranch we are in the process of developing a shrine. So it can be here. But if we understand the principles involved we should be able to function more effectively in relationship to the development of that shrine, and the possibilities of greater blessings by reason of the shrine.
First, we have considered the development of pneumaplasm. And in our meditations—to bring in another point which is essential—we have recognized the principle of the hedge: the hedge about the individual, about his house, and about all that he hath on every side. This hedge, in its original or first or primary manifestations, has within it the reality of the spirit of God, but depends upon the generation of pneumaplasm and the coordinated relationship of that which is humanly generated with that which issues forth from God.
We have noted that the moment any resentment pattern, any rebellious pattern, any self-centered pattern of any sort, egotism or false belief of any kind, distorts the vibrational field to the extent that there is no true meeting between that which is generated by the human beings involved and that which is issuing forth from God—anything that disturbs that point of meeting, that point of the beginning of the blending at the point of union between heaven and earth, will disrupt and spoil the result.
In the pattern of the world—generally, where human beings have not carried forward to being pure of heart, where they have not understood what was happening—the basic result has been achieved by classifying the place as sacred; and the individual, the faithful of that particular pattern of belief, would not think of going there and displaying anything that would violate that sacredness. He may have it inside himself; but generally speaking there is a period of preparation of some sort before visiting a shrine, perhaps some fasting, perhaps some praying, perhaps something else. But the important thing is that, within the scope of the individual's consciousness and the degree of purity of heart, there is an acceptance of the idea that that place is sacred. And the faithful individual of that philosophy or religion would not under any circumstance willingly, or knowingly, desecrate that which is held to be sacred. Consequently, by this means, as much in the self-active range as is humanly possible has been eliminated from the vibrational field immediately surrounding the shrine, and the more conscientious everyone is in relationship to the idea of keeping the shrine sacred and of having proper preparation in relationship to it, the more the vibratory pattern is allowed to remain undisturbed.
It has a very definite ceiling; it does not go as high as it could or should, but it is held sacred, and there is a sense of holiness, or of that which is hallowed. At that point, therefore, the individual who comes to that point is giving the best of his or her response. Whatever its limitations may be, there is the willingness to keep the vibratory pattern at the shrine sacred and undisturbed, and at that point the individual gives the best that he knows how to give in response. Consequently a current of power begins to generate, and the shrine, if it is a rock of peculiar formation, say, or whatever it may be, the shrine becomes the symbol in the consciousness of the individuals involved, so that whatever they think of the shrine, they see or image that particular thing. It centers there in their thought and in their feeling, even though they may be far away. So, regardless of where they are, all of these individuals who have accepted the one shrine see one thing—they think of one thing. They have a mutuality of dedication that it shall be kept sacred, that it is holy, and that it is a point to which they respond for some reason; and they see in the mind's eye and in the feeling patterns of the heart the same thing, the same basic symbol. Therefore, whether they are present in person or far away, there is a centering of vibrational factors at that point.
Now the spirit of God is issuing forth constantly—the only begotten Son of God is constantly being born, flowing like a fountain. And when we consider the fact that God sends His rain on the just and the unjust, we begin to see that nowhere on the face of the earth, without respect to persons or anything else, is there a place, a point, a person, where God withholds His spirit. God's spirit is issuing forth so that it is absolutely everywhere. But we look at the world and we see that the world is not in contact with that spirit, and that even in the cases of shrines and temples or cathedrals, or what have you, whatever contact there is is far less than that which ought to be. A little manifestation of power here or there, something that occasionally appears, and it is enough to make people keep thinking, “Well maybe something will happen for me.” It keeps the individual centered but it does not provide the manifestation of the essential power.
We look into the world and we see that nowhere, with respect to any church, any philosophy, any teaching anywhere that we may see out there in the world, has that power been made manifest. Why? There are many reasons, but there has been a failure to recognize the basic principles of man's relationship to God. In our case, then, we are interested in letting the mind be filled with the truth, a recognition of the reality of the Divine Design and Divine Control. We are interested in true centering in God's love and true dedication to the reality of life, the trinity of the spirit, or the trinity of the Shekinah Pattern of Being.
Next we recognize that the uses of the power must be according to God's Will—not according to personalized human desires, but according to God's Will. Now human beings going to these shrines imagine, according to their various philosophies, that they are perfectly willing that God's Will be done. Some of them take the attitude, “If it is God's will I will be healed; if not, I will not,” just to illustrate. And the individuals going there tend to have their personalized pattern of desire, the thing they want, the thing they are longing for. As a consequence, whatever power is actually generated is kept scattered, instead of letting it be centered to the point where there can be a true manifestation of power that will be effective in relationship to the world as a whole, and through changing the world pattern, begin to alleviate, and finally to correct, the situation with the individual. The individuals as such are so hungry, so thirsty, so desirous, that they keep making their own little contacts for their own little purposes, dissipating whatever is developed.
Now if we are going to have anything different from that which is to be found in these various places in the world, we must reach a point where the personal desires as such have no meaning. We must reach a point where we recognize the reality of the Divine Formula: The Lord is your shepherd, you shall not want. To stop wanting—not to even want healing, not to want anything; for anyone who goes to a shrine wanting something and hoping to get something, trusting it will be God's will that he as an individual will receive it, is actually desecrating the shrine, although he does not know it. And most of those who have charge of such shrines in the world do not know it, because they do not understand the principles that are at work.
Here we begin to see that God's Will is not something that functions from the standpoint of the individual, on a basis of, “Is it God's will that so-and-so should get well or should not get well?” In an overall sense we recognize that it is God's Will that all people should be well, but we also recognize that human beings must relinquish their self-active patterns, their self-centeredness, before they can be truly, effectively or permanently healed. Even if they receive a little healing they will reproduce some ill condition, because they assume that they know something which they do not know. They assume that they are living a spiritual life when they are not. So here we cease having a personalized desire, and we must encourage human beings to reach a point where they do not want healing, no matter how much they may need to be healed.
Sometimes human beings get confused on that point. They assume that if it is God's Will that all people should be healed then it is perfectly all right for them to want to be healed, and therefore they start trying to get healing, assuming that it is within the pattern of the teaching, which it is not. It is not all right for anyone to want to be healed—the very attitude of wanting to be healed separates you from your healing. It personalizes the vibrational field in relationship to yourself, without regard to the whole. Our consideration must be with respect to the whole, and if you forget the vital importance of the whole and say, “Even at the cost of the outworking for the whole I would like to have something for myself,” you prevent the fulfilment of the whole, which is absolutely essential to your fulfilment.
You cannot have a true, lasting or real fulfilment without regard to the whole. And for you as an individual human being it is utterly and absolutely impossible to have a real fulfilment, it is impossible for you to truly serve or really accomplish anything worthwhile in life—your fulfilment as an individual depends upon the whole—and at the same time your progress as an individual helps, if it is worked out properly, helps to bring about the fulfilment of the whole. When this point of balance is maintained between the individual parts of the whole and the whole, we can move forward effectively; but the minute the whole tries to progress at the expense of the individual part, spiritually or vibrationally speaking, it will defeat itself; and the minute the individual human being attempts to make progress or attain fulfilment in some fashion at the expense of the whole, then that individual will defeat himself and tend to detract from the whole. Consequently the movement forward, individually and with respect to the whole, must be on a balanced basis, and anything that violates that basis desecrates the shrine. Anything that violates that balance desecrates the shrine.
The Master recognized this principle of the shrine in an outer sense when He spoke of giving alms, which is a pattern of life expression. Alms: the doing, the living, the acting, the wholeness of what we give to others, into life; the whole thing, what we give into life. And that is the seed we are sowing, whatever it is. So, to give in secret. Of course some of our giving must be seen, known and recognized; but the giving that we give where it can be seen must be backed up by giving which is not seen by the human being, if it is to have any meaning. If the beginning of the giving is on the basis of that which is seen, you fail, because then you are acting on a self-centered basis. If that which you give that may be seen of men is simply an expression that has a background reservoir of giving that is not seen of men, then it begins to have power.
We need to begin to see that surface giving, outer giving in the ordinary fashion of things, brings about failure and desecrates the shrine. And that desecration takes place two ways: the individual who gives and the individual who tries to receive. Very often people think they are serving, undertaking to give in service, when it is not service at all; it is a desecration of the shrine pattern. On the other hand, the individual who receives on such a basis is encouraged to receive for self-centered desire, the desire to get healed or to do something else, to get something, to have position or money. Let us remember that every teaching, whether it is Unity or anything else, up and down the line, that says, “If you follow out these affirmations, if you do thus and so, if you know thus and so, you can get a job, you can get a house, you can get an automobile, you can develop security,” etc.—I don't care what they are, what the teaching—anyone that holds out that materialistic reward to appear as the result of following out some particular pattern of being is using black magic. I don't care what kind of sheep's clothing it wears, I don't care what they claim, it's all black magic, without an exception. And we need to begin to realize that these personalized desires of personalized gain, even if it seems to work on the surface—yes, up to a certain point it will; you can demonstrate various things; you can accomplish something for the moment, but you will destroy yourself. You desecrate the shrine. You spoil the pattern for yourself and everyone else.
We begin to recognize the basic principle of selflessness, so that even though we need healing, say, we do not try to get healing as such. What is the correct attitude on your part, if you are in difficulty of some sort and you seek out a server? What is the correct attitude? For you to try to get well? No. Now I have seen this pattern desecrated right here on Sunrise Ranch, over and over again. Someone goes to a server and wants an attunement, for what purpose? To get well or something, to clear a headache—to get something. Well now, those individuals have not realized that they have been desecrating the shrine, spoiling the pattern, reducing the amount of power that is made available by our overall program. What is the right attitude? We cannot immediately change this pattern of attitude out in the world, out in the public sphere where we serve. People are going to come to us looking for help with their health. It is because they are sick that they are driven at last to seek out a server, generally more or less on a desperation pattern. So do we turn them away because their attitude is wrong? Oh no we don't. We accept their response and begin to help them to come into attunement with God on a basic pattern of polarity which will allow them eventually, if they function correctly, to be healed. But if they are seeking healing they have not yet reached a place where they have a right to contact with the shrine, with the secret place. It is on the outside. If what we do, in relationship to those who respond on the only basis that human beings know or understand, is backed up by our right function inside of the shrine, inside of the secret place, then we will be able to do something. But we will not invite those people inside the shrine, the secret place. Oh, into the attunement sanctuary certainly; that is all right.
But what is the shrine? Perhaps it is in your heart. Perhaps it has an outer manifestation point in your home, a little corner where you have an altar. It could be, in its immediate pattern, almost any place or any thing. But that immediate or personalized shrine must be a part of an overall shrine if it is to have any meaning. It must have a center somewhere on earth. If you try to have a personalized shrine simply centered with God as a contact point, a place of contact with God on a personal basis without regard to the whole, you are violating laws and principles, and while it may seem to work a little bit once in a while, you will never have any real fulfilment. Why? Because you have violated the basic principle of recognizing the whole.
You as a person, you are going to contact God for blessings and benefits, or so that your service can increase, so that you can help others and so be a blessing to the whole, you say. You think so, but it will not work that way. Any shrine that is to have meaning insofar as the individual pattern of life is concerned must have a relatedness to a point of centering on earth—not somewhere in heaven; for heaven is at hand anyway; any heaven that is to have any meaning to us is on earth—but the centering of the shrine must be on earth, and the shrine must have a relationship to the whole. If it has its primary pattern of relationship to the individual as such it will not work.
Now it is possible to develop a place, say a meditation chamber or something of that nature, where people can go, and they will contact something of the spirit of God and they will say, “That was lovely, and I had a great blessing.” Or some may go up in the hills or wherever the individual thinks is best, and he can have some kind of a contact and it can be a blessing up to a point. And yet it violates the principles of the deeper shrine unless the pattern is carried out in a recognition of the Central Shrine of the Whole. Whatever we have in a personal sense must have its relationship to the whole on the proper basis or we violate the principles of being and defeat ourselves.
In the Master's instruction on this vitally important point of the shrine, He went on from the point that is translated as alms, or the giving into life of what we do in relationship to others, to what is called prayer, and He spoke of entering into the closet and praying to the Father in secret. We need to realize, then, that somewhere, somehow, if we are to achieve anything, we must become members of a Whole Body. Our Master came on earth to establish the principles of that Body—the One Christ Body, or the Vine with many Branches.
But those who think of themselves as branches or members of that body have scattered ideas; they have never come together with one accord in one place. We have never had an actual blending to that degree right here. We have reached high levels, yes, but never the absolute blending of being with one accord in one place, right here. Sooner or later, I am hoping, I am trusting, in fact I am sure, that you here will reach a point where you are willing to relinquish all of your variations of viewpoint and thought, where you are willing to just utterly and completely trust God, where you are not concerned about variations of belief and concept, where you are not concerned about divisions with respect to our own membership—“I do not think too much of that person,” or anything else—where you are willing to reach a point of trusting God and really coming together with one accord at one point. Sooner or later it will happen. How long will it take? That depends on you. But in any case, it is that toward which we are working.
And when it happens we will begin to have, in the deeper sense about which I am speaking tonight, a real shrine, a point where individuals have forgotten themselves in true selflessness, a point where human beings have ceased all wanting; where personal desires of every sort have been left outside; where frictions, holding back, any ill attitude whatsoever toward others, has been all eliminated; where there is just one thing: responding in center to God on earth, right here, letting it work, because we have set aside all personal desires—“Thou shalt not want”; you shall not want—because we have set aside all personal desires for healing, for wisdom, for anything. There is a level where, moving along the way, you seek wisdom, etc., as an individual thing. But you must come to a point where you stop seeking wisdom, come to a point where you are not wanting anything except to let the will of God be done—to yield utterly to center—and at that point, letting all division cease, you finally demonstrate the reality of trust in God. Because as long as you are afraid that your beliefs will be violated, or think somebody over there believes thus and so and “I don't agree with that,” or “I don't think too much of that person, I don't like the other thing; I really want this,” even if you try to cover it up, “I want healing, I want something or other,” you maintain a separation factor.
If God is a reality—and He is—why take the attitude that you need to want something that is of God? To request it, to try to get it in some fashion, that attitude is one that is declaring, “I am separate from God.” And if you are separate from God you are not one with God. You cannot be separate from God and be one with God at the same time. If you want to be separate from God, that is your business. You have the privilege of doing it as long as you live, and what is left will certainly be separate from God. So that is your business. But to maintain this separation arbitrarily when there is the opportunity to let oneness manifest is really a desecration of the shrine. It is preventing the manifestation of the very thing you want. You may say, “I am justified in wanting this. God's will is that I should get well. Why shouldn't I want to get well?” What did the Master say? “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” “Well,” you say, “then it is all right for me to want the Kingdom of God, is it?”
It is all right for you to want to find the Kingdom of God as long as you are convinced that you are separate from the Kingdom of God, that you do not know where it is. But you must come to a point where you do not even seek or want the Kingdom of God. Why? Because you have come to realize that the Master knew what He was talking about when He said, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” It is here. Well, if it is here, then why keep on wanting it? Why not let it manifest? But it will not manifest if you just sit and twiddle your thumbs, or if you maintain your personalized desires or concepts or beliefs or resentments or what have you. You will be violating the shrine, until you trust God enough to say, “Whatever is true in me will not be violated; whatever is true in someone else will not be violated; whatever is not true in somebody else over there will not get in.” Why should you be so careful to resist that person getting in with that idea that you don't like, that personality that you don't like, or something? “I just don't get along well with so-and-so.” So there is friction in some degree. Maybe just a little, but it is still friction; and if it is friction it is friction, even if it is just a little.
If you are trusting God in actual fact you are not saying, “I'm afraid some false idea is going to get in.” It won't. Don't you worry, it won't. For as long as that other individual maintains the pattern of separateness, he or she will not get in. That person can be right here in the room with us and all the rest finding the centering, and that person would not experience it. That person would not even know what had happened. Maintaining the violations, the desecrations of the shrine, you cannot share the reality of the shrine. If, by the right pattern of response and letting go, we permit the generation of the pneumaplasmic substance and its centering at the point where it is supposed to be, it will be strong enough to carry the current of the spirit of God into the realm of manifestation in relationship to ourselves. What? So that we can get something? No, so that we can share God's giving into the world—not to get anything.
