As you begin to function on the basis of the principles of reality, you learn to discern the factors which should come to focus in a cycle that is of comparatively short duration and you do not try to bring to focus in the present those factors which are of a larger cycle. You let them work out. One of the causes for difficulty, futility, failure, is this: until the human being learns to so function in the current of the spirit that he can discern what factors are properly to be brought to focus today and what factors are to be left alone to work out in a larger cycle, he will be tending to ignore the things that should come to focus today and he will be trying to bring to focus today things that should be left alone.
Now the human mind, with human intelligence, cannot learn to do this in self-activity—it simply cannot be done. There are no rules and regulations you can point to. In the ordinary sense, you can't put it on what is commonly called the scientific basis, that is, subject to the logic and reason of the intellect. But once you begin to let the spirit control, you find it is on a scientific basis, and that logic and reason recognize the reality as it manifests. So one of the things that you can do very effectively in relationship to your own progress is to watch—not trying to make something be thus and so, but just to watch and observe; be alert. Watch the cycles working out in relationship to yourselves, to whatever degree you can see them in relationship to one another. But particularly watch the cycles as they work out in the material which I present to you, because there, if you are alert, you can perceive the variations.
But learn to watch the vibratory factors, learn to perceive them. If you do not practice looking for them, watching them, you will never learn to see them. It takes alertness, observation, and it takes the process of letting. For here we see letting comes into two specific classifications: one, letting the vibratory factors of the larger cycle alone, letting them work on out; but the factors which are supposed to come to focus in the present, letting them have the proper vibratory pattern, the control and design patterns, so that they can manifest. You go through a process of letting in both cases. One, you let it work out further, let the cycle continue, leave it alone. Do not try to make it be thus and so. The others, you let them come to point in the present, you cooperate, you give them an opportunity of having controlled focalization.
This gives you an opportunityto have a little insight into the way in which human beings fail to receive God's blessings. Because, for some reason or other, whether they are struggling or being concerned about the larger cycle, or whether they are self-centered or functioning wrongly in some fashion, they will fail to cooperate in receiving into focalized pattern, in relationship to themselves, the vibratory factors that should come to focus. Now they are not going to just, by some magic means, gather to a point and manifest for you. There has to be some way of receiving them. You have to give them a contact point. If you are trying to get hold of vibratory factors that are beyond your reach, that you have no business playing with, you are going to be in trouble, or at least fail. But there are those factors each day in your life, right here and now, which are supposed to begin to come into focus. And unless you are so functioning that you can gather them in and let them have point in relationship to yourself, they are not going to come into form; they will pass on by. The thing is so scattered that it never appears.
The point is that we have something to do and we have to learn how to function in relationship to it. Now, at the moment I can tell, by the looks on some of your faces anyway, that this sounds a little ambiguous, a little—well, these are the things we are here to learn. Don't imagine that you are supposed to be able to so function overnight. But I want you to take a little look at it to see the principles involved, so that you could stop rejecting God's blessings which are coming your way, and start doing your part toward letting the vibratory factors come to focus as they are supposed to appear in your life in relationship to the Unit here, or in relationship to the Lord's service wherever the pattern may be working out.
All of this has a very definite bearing on the basic principles that we have been studying in relationship to history, because one of the great values in history as it has been introduced is to let you see how it was that human beings failed to receive blessings when they could have, when they should have, when they were provided; how human reactions or self-activity dissipated the vibratory factors that were supposed to come to point, instead of letting them come into focalization in relationship to the individuals then living. Unless you begin to see history on this basis you will not be able to gain the greatest possible comprehension of the lessons that are contained there.
Of course, you can always say that history teaches various things more or less on the surface, or to be intellectually observed. One of the things that tends to come into consciousness for anyone who really studies history is the idea that there are great cycles that work out and have within the whole scope of recorded history, that can be seen in relationship to the rise and fall of empires. A certain pattern would begin to take form, people would cooperate in it up to a certain point, then they'd begin to be lethargic and self-righteous and self-satisfied and so on. And you can see where the graph of the cycle begins to level out, and in that pattern you look at the historical factors and you see how these people were so self-content, they thought they were on top of the world and they were just going to stay there. And then, perhaps almost imperceptibly at first, there was a decline, beginning to go down, and then suddenly, generally, a plunge, and another cycle begins: the rise and fall of empires, the great cycles in history.
We can look at those great cycles—you probably have enough knowledge of history to see clearly the point I'm talking about at the moment—we can look at those and see how human beings precipitated those things. They were the ones that brought it about. We see a dangerous tendency, that has been in manifestation for some time in our own country, of a leveling off. There is a little rally at the present time; how well it's going to hold we shall see. But being called the greatest nation on earth, etc., taking some of our blessing and privileges and opportunities for granted, tending to be self-righteous and self-satisfied, feeling secure with industrial patterns and business, commerce; we've got the best of everything, etc—I'm not sure that that is true; to a certain extent it is, but not on the basis that is generally thought of—and all of this self-righteousness, and what do we begin to see? Self-satisfied, instead of the forward movement upward, a tendency to level off, a tendency to lose the moral fiber, the strength, the stamina, the pioneering spirit necessary to keep moving upward.
Now it's our business, in part, to help maintain that pioneering spirit in relationship to our national program. It works here and in Canada, or wherever there is response to it. There must be something moving upwards. If we pause to consider the matter, just very briefly, we could see that the reason why England, as the center of the British Empire, has managed to stay up as well as it has, has been because of the outlying dominions where something of that upward swing was present, and it siphoned back to England. If England had been left more or less on her own, and the pattern had worked out as it did in England, it too would have reached the point of taking the great plunge before this. But the upward trend in the dominions held it up.
Now all the way back through history we see how God has given man opportunities, over and over again, which man has failed to utilize. He didn't take advantage of them. He started to perhaps, in some ways, and then let self-activity enter in. In recorded history we do not have any specific pattern which makes for easier examination and analysis in this regard than the experience of the Children of Israel. And it is this specific pattern which we begin to analyze in order to see what relationship that outworking has to us. And you will be surprised, if you have not already begun to see it, how closely those same principles, those same factors, show up in relationship to ourselves in this present day. We won't be studying history as something way back yonder. We'll see it in relationship to the present cycle, because the same basic factors are present in any case, and it is brought out into the pattern that you see on the basis of symbolism. And we begin to appreciate the meanings of the various symbolic factors. We begin to see how those things are in operation here and now, so that we are not relegating it merely to a story of the past.
Once you see the prehistoric pattern, see how man went through a process of rapid devolution, and gradually began to move upward again, we began to have a written record, the early Egyptian period, etc—we begin to see the dawn of history. And back in that period of the dawn of history, our attention comes to focus on a man called Abraham and his particular pattern of response, the things that began to work out in his life. I do not suppose that any of you ever think of Abraham without thinking almost in the same split second of Melchizedek. In any case, the very mention of the name Abraham should remind you instantly of Melchizedek—Melchizedek, King of Salem, meaning the Prince of Peace. The beginning pattern, initiated by Melchizedek, who according to the record was not as a man born—he was without beginning of years as we think of it, without end of days; the picture we have is of a Being who was not subject to birth and death or ascension, as we think of it, in relationship to this particularized pattern. And we recall that this King—the King of Salem, or Melchizedek—comes into the picture at a time when Abraham had some trouble. His brother Lot was not as responsive to the spirit of God as Abraham was, and he got into trouble. There was a raiding party, as was common in those days with respect to the various tribes that were beginning to take form, and each little group had its king, so there were all kinds of kings in those days. And one of these kings had come against Lot and carried off some of the people and the animals and goods. And the King of Salem went out to help. He cooperated with Abraham in bringing this king under control. They had a little battle, and the upshot was that the loot, or the plunder that had been taken, was restored. Now it's in that setting that we see the beginnings of this pattern.
It's interesting to note that the same cycle initiated with respect to the Orient has the same type of setting—two wholly different outworkings on the basis of the historical pattern, and with respect to the Biblical record we can see this one with respect to Abraham and Melchizedek—but, in the opening phases of the historical pattern as it relates to the Orient, we have a very similar story. And it opens in relationship to a very similar pattern of battle. If you know anything about the Bhagavad-Gita, you will appreciate what I have reference to. I am hoping to introduce you to The Song Celestial before too long. The version that we use was translated from the Sanskrit by Sir Edwin Arnold. He did a beautiful job, but just as we find is the case with respect to the Bible, so is it there—the centuries through which these records come to us, the manipulations of priesthood, etc, have obscured some of the specific meanings, some of the symbolism, some of the values, and some of them become, under this pattern, definitely misleading. So a number of years ago—just about ten, roughly speaking—I undertook to revise the significant portion of The Song Celestial, and it is that revised pattern of Sir Edwin Arnold's translation of the Bhavagad-Gita, which he called The Song Celestial, which we will use as opportunity affords.
But I wish to draw particularly to your attention now the fact that that story too begins on a battlefield. And when we come to the story of the Bhagavad-Gita we find that there is the Blind King; there is Arjuna, who would correspond in principle to Abraham; there is Krishna, who corresponds in principle to Melchizedek. And exactly the same principles, exactly the same laws, exactly the same processes, are portrayed in these two patterns—one with the setting, as you know it with respect to Abraham, and the other far away in the Orient, where it took form in the revelation of the laws and principles of God in a completely different place and setting and yet the same kind of setting. So we begin to note such similarities and see that these two revelations of Divine Principle and Law started in each case—though so widely separated—started on a battlefield.
Now what is the case with respect to you? When you begin to move into the pattern of the Divine Design, is there one of you that could say that the story with respect to your life did not begin on a battlefield? Didn't it begin on a battlefield with you? Certainly it did. Wasn't there a blind king—your own self-active mind? Wasn't there a Lot in the lot? Certainly. There is always some kind of a battle. It has various patterns in the background of your individual lives, but there was at least an internal conflict. There was a refusal to accept the realm of limitation roundabout. There was probably in you the contest between the Abraham side of your nature and the Lot side of your nature. If you look back, the Lot side wanted to be content with things as they are, more or less, and talked about how good it was to get settled down in the right kind of a pattern. And Abraham's side was the pioneer. Just settling down here like that, just the same as everyone else is doing, just having these creature comforts—that isn't going to bring the fulfilment of life. We need to lead on out into something more wonderful; we don't know what it is yet, but we have the assurance that there will be a revelation. We will begin to find the Way, the Truth and the Life. We will begin to know where we are going, why we are here, where we came from, what our purpose is, and how to to serve—to have our lives have meaning, so that we can accomplish that for which we came into the world.
So there was the Lot side of you, to whatever degree it tended to have an influence, and there was the Abraham side of you. We could examine the same picture as it is revealed in the Bhagavad-Gita. But there is the Arjuna side of you. And just as there was the Melchizedek to reveal the way at the time of Abraham, there was a Krishna to reveal the way at the time of Arjuna. Always, whenever human beings have been ready to respond to God and let the will of God be done on earth, and they were ready to yield to the will of God, to leave behind the old patterns, always there has been provision by which the things of God might become known to those who would receive them, and we have two outstanding illustrations of this.
And if these two patterns had been allowed to work out—the one in the near East, as it extended out into the Occident, and the other in the Orient—it would not have been necessary for our LORD to come on earth. If either one of these patterns had held, if either one of them had been allowed to work out the way it should have, it would not have been necessary for the LORD of Lords and KING of Kings to come into the world and face the things He did. It was perfectly possible, it was a Divine opportunity extended to man, it was a wonderful invitation. But man didn't let it work out in either case.
And so finally there was the manifestation of the pattern, the same principles all over again, the same type of thing all over again, in what we call the New Testament story. For the land was under subjection to the Roman rule; there was the pattern of conflict and unrest; there was Herod the King; and there was Jesus Christ. Exactly the same thing in principle, in revelation, the laws of being, all over again—a different focalization of them but exactly the same laws and principles. And outside of the particular facts with respect to the Master as a Being, did He bring into the world any truth, did He reveal to man any knowledge that had not already been offered to man? Many would be inclined to say, “Yes, He surely did,” but is it so? No. It had already been revealed to man; it was already available to man, but man wasn't taking advantage of it. He re-focalized it, revitalized it, but outside of the newness of the reality of His Own Being in manifestation on earth, and the application as it was established with respect to Himself, there was nothing new in it, because it had all been given before. And once we begin to see that and realize it—and you will see it as we go along—you begin to see that it was not God's design, it was not arbitrarily required by God that our Lord and King Himself should come into the world and face the things He did. It was unnecessary. And so, perhaps the best way to make this beginning is to actually read some of the story, let you see how it worked out.
“And Tera’n took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.
“Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee:
“And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
“And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”
One of the first things we note here is the necessity for the human capacity to accept, in relationship to oneself, a Great Promise. The tendency in human beings is to say, “Well, that can be for someone else, somewhere else”—but to receive for oneself a great promise? Why, what arrogance for me to even think that such a thing could be me! Now if God produced a great person over there or something, and gave us a leader, I would be happy to follow. But for me? Just to think, me? No, no, no.” But he accepted a great promise in relationship to himself. There was no outer evidence of the fulfilment of the promise but there was the willingness to do his part; not arrogance or foolhardiness—but not holding back, not refusing to have a share in God's givingness, not refusing to let himself be the means by which something could come on earth. He didn't always function in absolute perfection perhaps, but he accepted a great promise in relationship to himself, when everything made it look as if he was simply having a pipe dream. It was ridiculous; it was fanciful.
It takes a greatness inside, for a human being to accept a great promise in relationship to himself without becoming egotistical, arrogant and self-active on the one hand, or without rejecting it in a false pattern of humility on the other hand. There's the Central Way. Most people reject the blessings of God because they are so humble. Humility is necessary, true humility—but the false pattern of humility has been used by the adversary to defeat many, many people. Oh, it's necessary to be humble before God, yes. But a false pattern of humility has made so many people refuse to accept the great promises in relationship to themselves. And what did Abram start with but a promise? What was there in the pattern round about him, in the uncertainties of the world at that time, the tribal feuds and all the rest of it? What kind of character, what kind of capacity, what kind of a quality would that be? Something quite remarkable, don't you think? that under those circumstances a man had the capacity to accept a great promise in relationship to himself when there was no outer evidence to indicate that he was doing anything but having a foolish dream. It looked like everything was against him. But that is the spirit of the true pioneer, and the quality of a man or a woman who will dare to accept a great promise as having meaning to himself or herself. It's easy enough to set it aside. It's easy enough to spoil it with arrogance, egotism, on the one hand, or to reject it in the false pattern of humility. So few there have been in the world who had what it took to walk in the Central Way, to be balanced. Because if you do walk in that Central Way, there will be those who will take the attitude that you are arrogant, that you are an egotist.
How often I have been classified as an egotist because I refused to relinquish the position that I have a Mission on earth, I have a message to give, I have a purpose, something that is important to the whole of humanity. How often I have been called egotistical because, in the false pattern of humility, I wouldn't deny the Commission. When I received that Commission was there any outer evidence that we'd ever reach a point where I would have the privilege of standing here talking to you? The extent to which that has reached out into the world already means something. And we share it. But it takes that something that causes an individual to accept a great promise as having meaning in relationship to himself in actual fact, so that he is ready to act upon it. Not just to say, “Well now. I'll wait and see if such-and-such a thing works out or someday perhaps, somehow,” but to act upon it when from every outer standpoint it appears that you are just plain fanciful, ridiculous—to dare to do in the face of that type of situation.
The Lord told him—Get thee out of thy country. “Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father's house.” Now for anyone who is going to amount to anything on earth, that's the finest advice that can be given, whether to Abram or somebody else. It was the advice the Lord gave. And anyone who wants to really serve God on earth had better do it, because as long as one stays in the pattern of kinfolk, as ordinarily established, he will become subject to the old patterns, the old situations. Of course sometimes you can take mother and dad along. I managed that for Kathy's sake, but it was quite a struggle! Kathy: “And you finally won!” [Great laughter from Uranda.]
“Get thee out of thy country.” That doesn't necessarily mean that you have to move from the United States to Canada, or somewhere. But you have to make a change. You're not going to do it in the old pattern because, well, it would just be asking too much. You've got to dare to make a move. “Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father's house.” Now there is instruction that applies to any man or womanwho finds himself stirred of the spirit of God out there in the world. And it is our business to help establish a place to which those aspiring souls may come and turn, that they may not just go wandering through the patterns of life seeking and never finding. But there are many of all ages out there in the world pattern today who are hearing that call. Some of them are beginning to act upon it. Some of them are just getting conditioned to the idea. But they are ready to come and be with us, not necessarily geographically, but from the standpoint of sharing in the working of God's Plan on earth. And so the word today, just as surely as it was then, the Word the Lord if you please, is “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee.” That is a promise to you. You have accepted it or you wouldn’t be here. For some of you it was a little difficult perhaps, and for some of you not so difficult—but if you hadn't been ready and willing!
“And I will make of thee a great nation.” Now that doesn't necessarily have to mean that you will have to be the original parent that produces a great nation after so many generations—No! That is more or less the way it worked out with Abram, but we are not Abram. We are ourselves, right here. “And I will make of thee a great nation.” All of those who so respond, who are willing to dare to move out of old patterns and into the new, whoever they are, wherever they are, “I will make of thee a nation,” and that promise applies for us today and the people who awakening, just as surely as it did to Abram. And what does He say “And I will bless thee.” Not perhaps—I will. Once we begin to move in that pattern, as you have done or you wouldn't be here, once you begin to share, in a true sense, that Divine outworking—“I will bless thee.”
Of course, you have to learn how to receive the blessing. And it is the thing you have to learn how to help others learn, because human beings simply do not know how to receive the blessings of the Lord, and that is the difficulty. So when you learn to receive them, and you can inspire others to receive those blessings, you are serving. And those who are responding to that call, which is sounding in the world today as surely as it did at the time of Abram, begin to see the pattern of service to the Glory of God and the blessing of the children of men to which you are called. So few? Yes. But as we hold it steady and do our part it will open, and there are many who are ready to become a part of this Great Nation. Not a great nation in the sense of entering into competition with the United States or Canada or Great Britain or someone else, no. A Great Nation in the sense of a body of human beings who are willing to serve God on earth, to let the will of God be done on earth as it is in heaven. “And I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing.” Now, when you are blessed, you are supposed to become a blessing. What did the Master say? “He that would be great among you, let him be the servant of all”—the same principle exactly that God had expounded to Abram way back there, the same principle. “And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”
My question is, today: Are you man enough, are you woman enough, to receive that promise in relationship to yourself, in this day, in this time, in this hour? Because it is offered to you just as surely as it was offered to Abram. It may not look like you can do anything about it, but how about accepting a Great Promise in relationship to youself, in this hour?
This promise: that you shall be blessed
and that you may be a blessing to others;
that you may let this have meaning in your life now.
Because if it was of any value at the time of Abram, as he was then known, it is of value to you in this moment. And it applies to you just as surely as to Abram, if you will let yourself do your part in this moment, in this hour, in relationship to this Cycle of the Divine Plan. Because it's the same promise today as it was then, for the same purpose. It is not a changed pattern. Oh, it may manifest differently, yes, but just the same laws, the same promise, the same principles, the same God, all for the same purpose. And we are the ones who are on earth and have a chance to take a look at it.
Are you man enough, woman enough,
to receive a Great Promise from God Himself to you now?
No comments:
Post a Comment