The Garden Eastward In Eden

The  Garden  Eastward  In  Eden

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Martin Cecil   March 1, 1981 a.m.

“And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.”

Here is a beautiful portrayal of the truth in understandable words; however, because the words are understandable this does not mean that what is being said is necessarily comprehended. The word Eden is used to portray the manifest world, which indeed would include the planet Earth but is vastly more than the Earth. The Garden planted eastward in Eden portrays the heaven, but is also vastly more than is understood by the word heaven. Whatever is included in Eden reveals in manifest form and expression the reality of what is included in the Garden. This is so when Man is on hand in the midst of the Garden. This portrayal is of the Garden, of Eden, and of Man—all three essential requirements in the whole. The story of the Garden of Eden, and Man in the midst, is usually seen in rather fantastic terms relating somehow to the material world, but here is a portrayal of what might be referred to as the true state, long forgotten.

We ourselves have some comprehension of these things and are indeed concerned to participate in the revelation of whatever this truth is. Something obviously has first to be remembered. If I use this particular passage out of the Book of Genesis in the Bible it is to bring something to remembrance. It might well be possible to use some other passage from some other scriptures which would likewise recall what is necessary to remembrance. What may be remembered in this regard is rather faint, but with most people there is a sense of the reality somehow present and capable of being recalled. Of course if it is a matter just of recalling something to mind out of the past, that in and of itself does not amount to much. The recall that is necessary is that which allows the state portrayed by the words which I read to become factual in present experience. Then it isn't just a matter of memory. Here is something to be known now. Most people are very reluctant to let this occur. All sorts of supposedly good arguments are raised up to indicate that it would be quite impossible. This is of course a rationalization and is not a rational attitude.

Obviously the present state is unsatisfactory to most people, and yet how obstinately human beings refuse to allow it to be any other way: “I don't like the way things are but I will die if necessary to keep them that way!” That is hardly rational, and yet it is the factual situation insofar as experience of this irrationality in a personal sense. I think the general attitude is a resistance to change. People claim to want something different but when it comes to allowing something different actually to occur, then that is a different story. Resistance appears—rationalizations are put forward to indicate that any change would be wrong, particularly those changes which are suggested by somebody else. We see this occurring constantly on the political scene, for instance. Everybody, I am sure, agrees that something should be done but nobody agrees as to what; and no matter what is suggested there is always the opposition on hand to refute it. In a sense I suppose this is right and proper because anything that human beings do will be wrong and make things worse, and yet nothing is gained by trying to leave things as they are. Only deterioration can occur on that basis. We have a state of affairs propped up by scaffolding, so to speak, because it is falling apart and nobody can decide what should replace that which is passing away. All the suggestions that arise are based in improvements upon what was before. Some of the improvements are radical improvements, some of them just gentle adjustments; but the whole endeavor is to sustain what human beings have known in the historical past—perhaps improved, particularly as we now have so much so-called modern technology to do it. But all this is a futile and purposeless endeavor, leading nowhere.

There is, however, the true state described in these words: “The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had made.” He didn't put man to function from the standpoint of the material world, from the standpoint of Eden. He put him in the Garden—in the midst of the Garden. The proper place of man is in heaven on earth. We might for a moment look at the Garden, at least what we can see of it, which isn't much because according to the story man was ejected from it. Of course we know very well that he ejected himself but he doesn't know what it is he ejected himself from, because not being in the Garden he does not know the Garden; he does not know what it is. There is, in all people, a certain sense of longing to get back into something or other, a different state, but what the real state is has been forgotten. Our memories have been revived a little so as to become aware of a reality which, though present, has been excluded from human experience.

Referring again to this matter of change, the need for it and the reluctance of human beings to let anything of value occur, we may recognize that the past, which is contained in our history as individuals or as the human race, is gone. We cannot do anything about it. We cannot change the past. You can't change a thing. This past relates to what used to be Eden—the world, inclusive of the earth, and all the things that have been happening over the centuries, over the ages. So nothing can be done about the past. But if there is to be an Edenic world, a world which is a true reflection of the Garden planted eastward in Eden, then man needs to be in the midst of the Garden. That is part of the formula. He is not in the midst of the Garden, is he? He is in the midst of Eden-lost, struggling with all the factors that seem to have come down to him out of the past. If indeed we must struggle with the things of the past, and we cannot change the past, we are in a bad way—nothing whatsoever can be done to change it.

What about the present then? You can't change the present, can you? It is just exactly the way it is. Not a thing can be done about it. It will now! [Martin snapped his fingers] be in the past. So trying to change the state of affairs by struggling with the present is futile. The present is the way it is. It instantly moves out of the present moment and becomes a part of the past, which certainly cannot be changed. So human beings have seen that maybe it was necessary to pin their hopes upon the future. Ah, there may be something to this, if it is not merely a matter of hope. The Garden was planted eastward in Eden. Our tomorrows certainly come out of the east insofar as the rotation of this planet is concerned. Here is a portrayal of the future.

The Garden relates to the future, what is coming in this instance from God into the present moment through man, and so into the past. If this is allowed to happen in its proper sequence, then we may have some delight in remembering the past because it is so beautiful. At the moment human beings endeavor to remember what was pleasing and forget what wasn't. As most of the past was not pleasing most people have poor memories, and in endeavoring to remember what was pleasing, for the most part they invent it. It is a fantasy. It was not that way at all. It is rather a horrendous thing if one realizes, somewhere along the way, the ugliness and the worthlessness of the past. It seems better to take artistic license and paint it in different colors on the canvas of memory, if we can. Some are better artists at this than others!

When man is in the midst of the Garden he lives in the present moment, but he is concerned with what shall appear out of the future. He is not concerned initially with the events themselves. We might see what is called time as a conveyor belt which brings events out of the future to the present moment and then into the past. The question is as to what those events shall be. Once they are here we cannot do anything about them, and once they are past we cannot do anything about them. But there is something that can be done about what is coming out of the future—it is not yet here. But we shouldn't concentrate on events, because the events will reflect the quality of preparation that has been made in an invisible sense while the event is still invisible. It only becomes visible when it is right here in the present moment—then there it is. So the preparation for such events as shall put in an appearance in the days to come is made now in the Garden planted eastward in Eden. Man was instructed to dress it and to keep it, not particularly to dress and keep Eden, the manifest world—that has gone by—but to dress and to keep this invisible realm of the Garden, which is heaven.

Most human beings think that they are subject to the earthly world in which they live, and they are subject consequently to the events which are coming on this conveyor belt out of the future. They see doom in the offing these days, coming on the conveyor belt; and where there is fear people freeze into immobility and that which they feared comes upon them. Because the Garden has been forgotten and the opportunity to determine the nature of what is coming out of the future in this realm, it has seemed to human beings that they were subject to the whims of fate. But the events that are coming out of the future always relate to what human beings are doing now. We have the portrayal of the seed and the harvest. The seed you sow now will be harvested in the future. As you sow, so also shall you reap. But there is always the sneaking suspicion of the possibility of somehow escaping the harvest of one's own sowing; and when the harvest does come most people loudly complain, as though they had nothing to do with it.

There is the endeavor on the part of many to try to influence the future. They make demands which the future is going to have to deliver. This seems to be a way of somehow circumventing history. “Now we are going to take the garden of the future by force and bend it to our will”—mostly for the sake of survival supposedly, and also because these characteristics of fear—fear and greed are strong. If there is to be a right future it must come in the way that it was designed to come and not on the basis of human demand. Man was put in the midst of the Garden and instructed to dress it and to keep it, not to demand anything from it but to do what was right, and trust that then what had been established in this invisible sense would be made evident in that moment when the form of it reached the present moment. The form of the Garden then would be a true reflection of the Garden—a very easy way of handling things, actually.

Because the Garden has been forgotten and the Edenic world has become something else by reason of the fact that the Garden has been forgotten, then it seemed necessary to be in conflict constantly with what was coming along on the conveyor belt. Regardless of all the human manipulations that have come into the picture, and the human demands that have been made, still unwanted events show up, some of them seemingly unexpected. They shouldn't be. Attention is toward this lack of an Edenic world, and the endeavor to make it into a more Edenic world has prevailed, which simply short-circuits the creative process and everybody goes around and around in a circle, because the Garden is ignored as though it didn't exist and as though it was impossible for man to be restored to the midst of the Garden.

We may see this conveyor belt of time bringing events out of the future. These days the conveyor belt is gathering speed and events are coming thick and fast. What shall those events be? Do we have any say in the matter? Man in the midst of the Garden has a complete say in the matter within the context of the Cosmic Whole. Of course, humanly speaking the Cosmic Whole has been completely ignored, because the Garden was ignored and there was no sense of relatedness to the Cosmic Whole. But in the midst of the Garden there is that sense of relatedness, and one would never do anything which would be a violation of what it is that is unfolding in the Cosmic Whole. But one has a responsibility right here to let what is so unfolding be brought to focus and allowed to take form in the event which comes to be experienced in the moment. Then we can look with joy and satisfaction toward the past if we want, from time to time. Of course, we will find ourselves so occupied with handling our responsibilities relative to the Garden planted eastward in Eden that we won't have all that much time to soliloquize about the past. But the past might be said to get better and better.

So there is the event that is coming on this conveyor belt. But at the same time there is something else coming to be received in the Garden. Now that, if we are thinking in terms of this conveyor belt, could be said to be in the future too. It is in the future of the event that is coming on the conveyor belt, or at least from our viewpoint in the present moment it is the future. But whatever it is in this invisible sense that constitutes what is present in the Garden—in our field of responsibility in other words—is there already insofar as we are concerned. It is simply coming down, so that it properly meets the event when the event reaches the present moment. We can see, on this vertical aspect of the Garden, that the things that are closest to us relate to immediate events, but things that are further up the upright relate to more far-distant events. Now if we get far enough up there we find ourselves beyond the field of our particular responsibility. We get out further and further into what is coming relative to the Cosmic Whole.

In order to allow the Garden which is planted eastward in Eden to become known in our experience we must keep it—that is, maintain a condition in which it may be present, and within the range of our comprehension and understanding. We have spoken about this condition as a stable atmosphere in which there are no violent storms to disrupt the power lines, to disrupt the connection. We have seen the importance of holding steady moment by moment in our living, so that we are not swept hither and yon by subliminal emotions which rise up and seek to govern what we do and what we say and how we think. If that is happening we are in this meaningless circle—we are trapped. It is what is happening in the experience of most people. We all know something about it. And when something does rise up in that way we do rationalize it—we always have the cart before the horse. The rationalization comes so quickly that we think the rationalization preceded the feeling, but it didn't. We become experts at deluding ourselves. The whole world is deceived on this basis, so that we are able to say, “Well it was because of what so-and-so said, or what so-and-so did, it was because of this event, that I have this feeling.” No, you had the feeling first and you hooked it to an event. You found an event that was suitable to you to which to attach it.

We need to realize this with respect to our living. Whenever we have a seemingly good reason for doing something on the basis of a reaction, we should realize that because there is a reaction it sprang out of emotion and there was nothing rational about it at all. To maintain our self-respect, as we think, we rationalize so as to make it seem, to ourselves at least, to be a rational action. “It is only natural,” we say, “that we should get into this disturbed condition and that we should say things, nasty things, and all the rest.” It is not natural at all. It is because one is subject to emotions which have no relatedness to what is occurring in the Garden. They are simply related to what is occurring in the world of events which is not the Edenic world, and even if it were the Edenic world we would still have no business reacting to it, even though our reaction might seem to be a pleasing one. It doesn't matter which way you go, pro or con, it is wrong.

So there is what is coming down in the invisible sense in the Garden to be considered, because in that realm everything is very malleable. You know it is malleable in your realm of thought, isn't it? You can think this way or you can think that way—no big deal. It is only when we have something seemingly crystallized in form that it becomes a bigger deal to change it around. But before it gets to that point, while it is still in the future, the ordinances of heaven can be known, so that the dominion of them can be set in the earth. Then the events that come along will simply reflect what has already been established vibrationally. Of course they are going to do that anyway. The trouble is that what has been established vibrationally has been so distorted and the events reflect that. They cannot help themselves; they do it. How easy then to restore the world: all the events that are coming along on the conveyor belt may, insofar as our field of responsibility is concerned, be a true reflection of what is present in the Garden. We have absolute responsibility in this. It is an individual matter, but when we accept the responsibility individually immediately we begin to find that it is a collective matter too. But we don't really know that until we have accepted our own individual responsibility. We may have some imagination about it.

So we look after the Garden, and we do not have to worry about the events then. We rightly look after the Garden like we do with respect to a baby that is enfolded in pregnancy. We see the event of birth coming. What shall that event portray when it arrives? The mother has a responsibility in this, not the only one but the primary one. How we handle what it is that is coming down invisibly will exactly determine the nature of that event. We obviously have the responsibility for it. We may say, “Well there are others involved too.” Yes there are others involved, but if we handle our responsibility correctly it will come out the way it should come out in view of all these factors which are being drawn to focus.

The Garden is planted eastward in Eden and we may do our gardening work in that realm relative to what is coming. But insofar as we are concerned, what we are working with is present now vibrationally, because the vertical connection is always maintained in the present moment; however it will only connect up with the forms on the conveyor belt as those forms put in an appearance in the present moment. Then the vibrational factors being what they should be, right, present in that present moment as that event comes, the event reveals the Garden. It takes its true form on earth, no sweat of the face—it can't help but do it. It has been doing it right along but the absence of the vibrational preparation has been made very evident because there have been no human beings in the midst of the Garden to do it. So the events are certainly not what they should be but they are a reflection of whatever human beings have generated in the realm that should be heaven. For the most part it has been hell, hasn't it? And here comes hell on earth and everybody complains about it. Well human beings put it there. But we can allow that to dissolve and pass away so easily when we begin to accept our responsibility relative to the ordinances of heaven, that the dominion thereof may be set in the earth.

© emissaries of divine light