On this, another Sunday morning, we gather in the chapel on Sunrise Ranch for an hour of meditation. And this ninth day of May 1954 has been set aside in honor of the mothers of the world. Mother's Day.
When we think of “mother”, we think of home—and we know the vital importance of the true Spirit of Home in the family pattern of father and mother and children on earth. But when we think of father and mother and children, we think of the Family of which we are a part, not in the segregated cells but in the Unified Body of cells, making up the Home of Heaven and Earth, of Father God, of Mother God, and of ourselves, the Children of God. And we would honor our Father and our Mother that our days may be long in the land which the Lord our God hath given us, as Children of God. We would that all the children of men should come to realize that we are more than children of men, children of earthly fathers and mothers, that we are likewise the Children of God, children of the Heavenly Father and Mother. And so, in this spirit we are gathered, and in this spirit we would pause for a moment of devotion.
Our gracious Lord, Heavenly Father of us all, we thank Thee, not only for all Thy provision by a reason of which we may live, but also for the expression and revelation of Thyself through the being of Mother God, for the privilege of birth on earth, for the privilege of revealing the nature of the Heavenly Family in the world of men; for the provision by which we may live would be of no value had we not first been born. And having been born of our earthly mothers, we would also be born of our Heavenly Mother, that being on earth where thou hath established the provision, we may live, and in that living reveal the sweet essences of our Heavenly Parents—the beauty and the wonder of Love, not only our Father's Love, which we so deeply appreciate, but also our Mother's Love, our Mother's care. For in the earthly mother, we see and know the symbol and the revelation of our Heavenly Mother—our Mother's Love, our Mother's care, our Mother's ability to produce and maintain the atmosphere of Home, Sweet Home; that we may know a place for our heart to come to rest and our spirits be at ease, that peace, sweet peace, may pervade the Home, the realm of Eternal Being in the Spirit of the Living Christ. Aumen.
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This morning as we give thought to the significance of Mother's Day, there is a particular point which presses upon our consciousness. The significance of Mother's Day depends upon the significance of birth. What is the significance of the fact that we have been born into the world? I have known human beings in a moment of futility and discouragement to say, “I wish I had never been born.” In such a moment, the individual has lost the consciousness of the significance of birth. We need to have a sense of our origin, a sense of our purpose. If in some unguarded moment a human being says, “I wish I had never been born”, what is the significance of that attitude? What are its implications? I think if we pause to consider this aspect for a moment, it will help us to see something else more clearly, for I suspect that most of you have known some such moment.
But first, such an attitude dishonors Father God. Such an attitude suggests that God did not know what He was doing. Such an attitude is finding fault with God—both with Father God and with Mother God. Such an attitude is finding fault with earthly parents. While this is a significant part of the matter, it is small compared to the attitude of finding fault with God. If in any moment the human vision cannot immediately grasp, perceive or comprehend the reasons for our presence here on earth, this one thought should sustain us, regardless of the problems we may face, regardless of the seemingly impossible task, regardless of what may seem at times to be imposed upon us, this one thing should sustain us, for we know within ourselves that we should not find fault with God. This one thing should sustain us: God the Father, God the Mother, had a purpose in bringing forth that which you are—you individually, you the person, you the man or the woman, you whom we know. No matter whether the human being himself, no matter the attitude of one's fellows, wherein there is a failure to grasp the purpose and the meaning of the individual, God had a purpose for you.
Almost always when we think with any depth of meditation upon the thought of “mother”, there comes a sense of nostalgia. There is a certain hint of sadness, or of longing, a certain something which cannot well be described. I remember when, in this outer form, I was a child. I remember certain lovely things with respect to my mother. And then, at a time when I was entering the teens, when I was 12 years old, my mother left this realm of things, and I remember particularly those early teen years following that event. As I have said many times, I could not wish her back in the circumstances which she had known. But there was a certain cycle which worked out. There was a loneliness, a deep inside sadness, and yet an acceptance of the situation as it was.
As time passed, the greatest need in my being was for a sense of meaning—the meaningfulness of my own life. At that age, it appeared that the years before me, stretching toward adulthood, were unspeakably long and endless, and I had some vague concept that when I had reached manhood, I would then, in such a time, have meaning. I remember long hours of loneliness that reached the depth of whatever being I knew. I remember those hours on the barren waste of the Whitewater Country, and hours in the high mountains, and Grand Mesa. And I remember particularly certain hours, when after a long day's work, the time for milking came, and there was no milking shed on top of Grand Mesa; a corral up under the tall evergreen trees. And there the wind, the breeze moving through those trees, the mountain stillness, the mountain chill in the air—the whole atmosphere so far from the haunts of men; no sounds of civilization in the dusk. There were certain feelings which cannot well be described, but I think it was a longing for Home. And yet my mind could not turn to any spot on the face of the earth, any place, any geographical location, and think of that as Home—not a single place anywhere, there in that vast loneliness. A certain sense of communion with nature and yet a longing for Home. But there was not one single geographical location on the face of the earth that meant Home to me.
Now if you can sense or feel something of that, perhaps you can more readily appreciate how human beings have, with false and limited concepts of home, which have been allowed to fill the consciousness, produced a substitute, a substitute pattern of home; not wholly satisfying, but providing something of an anesthetic, dulling somewhat the longings, the deeper longings, for the Higher Home. And under the anesthesia, trying to be somehow content with the geographical location, the place that human beings call home.
We consider the feelings as they work through the masses of mankind. How many songs there are which speak of “home”, a longing to go home or to return to a certain place; many, many songs, many stories, many ideas. And there may be certain factors in a location which provide a setting for that sense of home, which means a sense of meaning. When a young person leaves home, as it is put, for the first time, to be away for even a vacation or a term at school, usually there is a certain amount of homesickness, a desire to return to a place where one has a greater sense of meaning to others. In that new location, the young person does not have, all too often, a deep sense of having meaning to others. And consequently, he becomes homesick. And he thinks that if he could return to the geographical location, to his earthly parents, he would have meaning once again.
As soon as a person develops a sense of having meaning in any location, his tendency toward homesickness with respect to some other location tends to vanish away. Home is the place of personal meaning; and we think of “mother” as the one who provides the deepest and the most consistent sense of personal meaning. And yet we know that with many mothers, regardless of their fine qualities, there were great faults or limitations; and in many cases, the sense of personal meaning which mother could have, or should have provided, has become overshadowed with a sense of duty, established in the act of physical relationship. Here in such a case there are always conflicts, something that is detracting from the true sense of personal meaning, something that is contrary to the true significance of “home” and “mother”. Perhaps my early experience, as I have briefly touched upon it, had something to do with instilling deep in my being a longing for a Spirit of Home on Earth for all mankind, regardless of race or color or creed.
The Fatherhood of God is ever so important, beyond words to describe. But in the world, due to all these factors upon which we have touched, human beings in adult life have tended to imagine that the place of personal meaning was “heaven” to which one would go on leaving the earth; an acceptance of limited meaning on earth, but with a hope to go to a place where there would be personal meaning. If we consider the many, many songs that are utilized, we will see this point emphasized: the idea that true personal meaning could never be experienced on earth, but surely there would be true personal meaning in heaven. And yet God placed us here. We are here on earth. And the logical, the sensible mind, must feel the necessity for some practical solution among men on earth.
There is something that stirs in the hearts of all the children of men, making them somehow dissatisfied with the substitutes which they themselves have been able to devise—a longing for Home. A longing for the true Spirit of Home, and yet a longing to live on earth, for life to have meaning in this world, among men. To many, this has seemed to be a basis of conflict. It is seen to separate the practical phases of life and the so-called spiritual phases of life. And yet, if we accept this idea as basic, this substitute pattern, there is in it inherently a reflection against God, a process of finding fault with God, and the feeling that our opportunities are inadequate. And there is nothing more dangerous for any human being than to begin to imagine that the reasons for his failure, for his lack of personal meaning, are established in a lack of opportunity. For the moment the individual begins to feel that he has been cheated in this sense, he begins to blame someone else for his failure, his failure to have personal meaning. Some blame parents, some other relatives, some blame husband or wife or friends, business associates. But the moment any human being begins to blame someone else for his own lack of personal meaning, he has sold his birthright for a mess of pottage; and unless he changes that attitude, he makes the remainder of his life to be bitter as gall, without meaning, without purpose—a denial of home, whether of God or of man, a denial of the Fatherhood and the Motherhood of being, whether of God or of man. Such an attitude precludes the possibility of ever finding Home, a place of personal meaning.
Once we begin to realize that even though there may be some failures in one way or another, with respect to the revelation of Father God and Mother God on earth, through parents or others, we can personally establish our own sphere of relationship with Father God and Mother God. We begin to have a sense of personal meaning and the assurance that we can, by our living, establish right here on earth, regardless of limitations or difficulties, something of the spirit, the atmosphere of Home. And wherever there are those who share a life-longing for the reality of Home, there will be a touching of kindred spirits, a joining of hands in the doing of the tasks by which the common purpose may be realized. The sense of utility vanishes away; the sense of personal meaning is increased; and we do not say the reasons for living have vanished away—but rather, we see in life, and in the fact of our presence here, a glorious challenge by reason of which we may do our part toward making it possible for all men and women everywhere to begin to find the Spirit of Home. For if we ourselves have missed it, that surely gives us a basis of appreciating Home.
And if we appreciate and value this atmosphere of Home, what greater task could come to heart and hand and mind but to help establish that Home, that in the days to come there need not be so many who wander in the wilderness in a solitary way. And how better could we glorify Father God and Mother God than to do our part in establishing and maintaining the reality, the form, and the Spirit of Home on Earth, where all who will may come and begin to know the true value of personal meaning, not in selfishness and greed, but in generosity and love—a Home wherein we honor our Heavenly Father and our Heavenly Mother, so that there is meaning for the days which are granted to us in the land which the Lord our God hath given us. Not empty days, meaningless days, which some have thought to wish might be shortened, but that our days may be long in the land which the Lord our God hath given us, long and filled with meaning, filled with joy, filled with the accomplishments of living, because we have not accepted a substitute, a mere geographical place, but that we allow ourselves to be dedicated to the development of a Spirit of Home which shall in season envelop the whole earth, to the Glory of God and to the blessing of all the children of men who are willing to acknowledge their birthright as the Children of God.
Our Father, we thank Thee for the privilege of being at Home on Earth—a place for Home and a place where we may know the sweet essences of Mother God, for Thy Provision is of a Mother, and of a Home, and the opportunity to live in the Spirit of the Living Christ. Aumen
We have considered something of the Shekinah Pattern of Being and recognized that the Fire that Burns is the reality of God’s Love, the Light that Glows is the reality of Truth, and the Cloud of Glory is the expression, the manifestation of Life. Life is the child born of the union of Love and Truth. We become, in the true sense, sons and daughters of God when we let the Shekinah Pattern of Being control in our lives. When we let God’s Love and Truth come to a point of union in us we begin to have the experience of motherhood, in the sense of being the means by which Life is born into action on earth.
We speak of the invisible planes of Being as the positive aspect of the Whole Holy World, and these three outer planes of Being in which we function as the negative aspect of the Whole Holy World. The positive and the negative are the male and female. And living on earth as focalizations of the Crowning Creation, the crowning manifestation of the negative triune world, we begin to realize what it is to share motherhood, regardless of whether we are male or female—something that God the Father has fathered in us is born through us. But if there is to be a child born in this sense if must first be conceived, it must have its period of gestation in the womb, and it must have the privilege of birth. Man, mankind, is the Mother aspect of God Being in this world. The invisible reality of God, being the reality of many God Beings, is the Father aspect in relationship to this world. We begin to have an awareness of Deity.
Now, we remember, “In the beginning was the Shekinah, and the Shekinah was with God, and Shekinah was God,” in manifest action and reality. “The same was in the beginning with God.” And then, “All things were made by Shekinah; and without Shekinah was not anything made that was made. In Shekinah was life.” Why? Because Shekinah is the pattern wherein Love and Truth find union and bring forth Life. And the Life that is to be used in any moment is born in that moment, it is there, if there is the union of Love and Truth. But if you believe many things that are not true then you are asking Love to have union with a lie, and it won’t do it.
Neither Love nor Truth will commit adultery. You can’t force them to. Love and Truth will not commit adultery. Love must be married to Truth before Love can father anything that can be born on earth. But when we begin to realize that Love and Truth belong together in a state of wedded bliss, true union, they’ll have a child and that child will be Life. And as long as Love and Truth remain in union in you Life will be manifesting through you. So if we would have the processes of living we must let Love and Truth be married in us, that they may be in union in us, and then Life appears, like a fountain.
Life is from God but how does Life come from God or manifest in any form? Love and Truth must be in union in the form through which Life is to manifest—whether it is a blade of grass, an amoebae, or a man, or a woman. “And in Shekinah was life.” Shekinah means the union of Love and Truth with the manifest child of life—glory, the glory of the child, of bringing forth. And so wherever there is to appear through us as human beings, or as a body of human beings, as mankind, if it is to be the reality of being it must be fathered by God—why do we call Him the Father if He isn’t going to have the function of a father?—and cause something to be conceived in us, that it may gestate in us, and be born through us. The function of the Father and the function of the Mother.
Mankind is supposed to be Mother God made manifest. Now, mankind is not at the present time. The body of mankind has played the whore and has had union with everything it could find, except God—union with all kinds of things but not with God the Father. But if God the Father is to have meaning then God the Mother must have meaning and the whole body of mankind, including every man, woman, and child, is supposed to be a member of God the Mother.
Now this pattern is clearly revealed in the Biblical portrayal, and what we find spoken of as Jehovah in the Old Testament is supposed to be the manifestation of God the Mother, not God the Father, although God the Father is revealed through God the Mother, and the union between the two is supposed to bring forth something—the manifestation of not just the fact of life but of the forms, the experiences, by reason of which Life may appear.
If we just have life as an elusive spirit it has no meaning on earth. There must be a form for the manifestation of Life. And what are these forms? We say your body. Yes. And its capacities. Yes. But experience is a form through which Life appears. According to what? The control and design of Truth and the fire of Love, for you cannot separate these three. That is the family pattern, and if you try to take the child away from the parents, or if you think you are going to separate the parents, you lose all three. It will not work, it is a family pattern—Love and Truth and Life, and Life is the child, Truth is the Mother, Love is the Father.
But the Shekinah family must manifest through something—your body and its capacities, yes. And when we have a Unit Body with many members, or what we might call the Christ Body, then the Shekinah Family is manifesting through that Unit Body, and the Unit Body is a manifestation of God the Mother, which must be then in union with God the Father, the One Who Dwells. But the forms through which the Shekinah Family appears are many. Your body as a member of the body of mankind, on an individual basis, the body of a group, friends, all kinds of relationships, but the body of experience, for experience is a form through which something invisible is made visible to the Glory of God, to the manifestation of God’s Life on earth, and to the blessing of the children of men.
“In Shekinah was Life.” It is the only place where you can find Life, for the Shekinah Pattern of Being in one way or another makes possible the Life manifestation in any part of vegetation, the insects, the birds, fish, the animals, wherever life is found. So we begin to really know Life, not just about it, not just the results of its presence. We begin to know that we can know Life and know what it is. And once we begin to know Life we are in position to function in relationship to Life. Once we realize that the body of mankind, properly including every man, woman and child of every color and race regardless of creed and belief, every one is supposed to be a member of the body of mankind, which in turn is supposed to become the body of God the Mother that God the Father may conceive something in God the Mother and that it may gestate in the womb of God the Mother and be born.
Now there is a creative process. How do you think the animals were formed? How do you think anything was formed? They were all made by Shekinah. There was the union of Love and Truth with the consequent birth of Life, but it had to be in relationship to a form of some kind. How was the form provided, the body of man or the body of anything? By reason of the Fatherhood of God and the Motherhood of God. God the Father in the so-called invisible realms, God the Mother in this realm, and there was the conception with respect to that which was to take form and the body of God the Mother provided the means whereby that which was conceived was given form and was brought forth in what we call birth—creation, with respect to vibratory fields and cycles, etc., some of which we have studied.
Once you begin to comprehend this you realize the sacredness of God and the things of God, you realize that you can be a part of God the Mother only as you keep sacred things sacred. We think of the female body as being a beautiful thing. You are supposed to be a part of a female body, man or woman, it makes no difference—the body of Mother God. And a substitute name for the Mother is Jehovah. Now that is not the right pronunciation. Just as the name Jesus is a substitute name, it is not the right pronunciation.
Once we begin to comprehend these things intellectually, if the mind is willing to rest and be still, we can begin to perceive through feeling, the eye of the heart, that which cannot be known any other way, and the ear of the heart, the perceptions of the feeling nature. So the mind begins to have an awareness of idea, of Truth, of design. But the mind does not try to struggle with it, the mind comes under control and is at rest, at peace, relaxed, serene, tranquil. “Be still and know that I am God.” And then we begin to know that the name of our Lord, the Lord of Love, the name that applies not only to the body but to the Shekinah Pattern of Being which He revealed is something of exquisite beauty, of loveliness. And we remember that the letter killeth but the spirit giveth Life.
And what is that spirit? Yielding to it, can we know it? If the mind is tranquil, if there is serenity, if there is peace and trust, true yielding, we can begin to know the name of our KING, and through His name we can begin to know the Spirit of His Presence. For the KING is also a Prince. He is KING to us and a Prince in relationship to the still higher pattern of Being, the Prince of Peace.
And in the stillness, in the quietness of the Holy of Holies, we hear the breathing of the breath of Life. And upon the breath we hear a name [Uranda chants] Jesu — Jesu — Jesu. And there is an answering [Uranda chants] Je-ho-vah — Je-ho-vah — Je-ho-vah. And there is a union, union of God the Father and God the Mother, and something Divine is conceived in the body of God the Mother. And in season the child shall be born and the form shall appear by which Life is made manifest, that all who will may come to know that The Lord He is the God. The Lord He is The God.
Our Father who art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name to us. Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. For Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory, forever. [Uranda chants] AUM—ENA—U—M A—U—MA—U—M and so are you enfolded in the Cosmic ALL that IS that you may dwell in the Secret Place of the Most High and abide under the Shadow of the Almighty, for the Shadow is the evidence of His Presence and Shekinah is the evidence of the Presence of the One who Dwells. So let it be in you and through you now and forever. Aumen
