from
Forms of Beauty
Martin Cecil September 5, 1982
The way of the creative cycle is already
prepared on earth. A garden is rather an apt symbol, as it was used in the
story of creation, for what is required of us in assuming responsibility for
giving form to the creative cycle. The creative cycle already is. It should be
brought forth in forms of beauty. Here we may acknowledge the aptness of the
symbol of the garden, where the plants and the flowers are revelations of forms
of beauty.
There are seasons in the garden. We do not
anticipate, for the most part at least, that spring flowers will still be
blooming in the summer; by then they have faded and passed away. In our
responsibility for giving form to the creative cycles there are seasons; there
are pulsations of creative movement. If forms of beauty are allowed to appear
they have their seasons.
I think there may have been an assumption
on the part of some that if the garden of God was allowed to appear, there it
would be, forever just the same, a beautiful garden with flowers eternally
blooming. No, forms change according to the times and the seasons. The plant
grows, it buds, it flowers; there is the evidence of the beautiful form. But
then in the natural course of events the flowers fade and pass away, only to be
replaced by others according to the season.
So we may see that this movement of the
cyclic appearance of forms of beauty, and of the passing thereof, is natural.
It is to be anticipated; it is what should happen. We are here to clothe the
creative cycles in forms of beauty. These forms initially may not be recognized
as form. In other words the initial experience in this regard relates to a
level which is in one sense as yet invisible. In another sense it is not invisible;
we can think of thoughts, for instance, in this connection. If you are clothing
the creative cycle in the form of thought, someone who is standing next
to you may not be able to observe as yet what that form is; it needs to emerge
further before it can be shared. To share it further, I suppose we might
consider the matter of speech. There may be
communication so that the form of thought can be shared. It hasn’t as yet taken physical form
in what I suppose would be called the manifest sense. Yet it is a process, an
unfolding cycle, all aspects of which are necessary to what emerges in the
full-blown flower.
Even with a garden, I’m sure we are aware
that there is something very much back of the plants which we may observe. They
are present in their particular forms in a very specific way. This is because
there is something very specific back of them. The design of the plant was
already present in the seed, for instance, and so it is a matter of the design
unfolding.
And it unfolds initially in an invisible
realm, which becomes visible to the individual through whom the unfoldment is
taking place. The matter of thought and feeling is experienced within oneself,
and when the polarity relates to the unfoldment of the creative cycle because
we are centered in spirit insofar as our thinking and feeling is concerned,
then something begins to put in an appearance in thought and emotion. This is
very different from the state where emotional compulsions continually are
arising out of the reaction to environmental factors. Here is something which
is coming from an invisible realm and is taking form in successive levels of
experience.
First of all there is, rightly, a
spiritual sensing of what it is that is emerging. At that point it doesn't have
any form that we could put our fingers on, but if there is space for spirit it
continues to emerge and begins to activate the processes of thinking and the
processes of feeling. This is an individual matter, because it is still present
in the individual.
It
only begins to emerge into collective expression as it is shared with others.
On this basis I have shared many things with you. We may allow this sharing
amongst ourselves to be through the medium of words. The words of course are
simply the further form appearing at a new level to clothe the creative cycle
which has already emerged in the individual sense in thought and feeling. But
this creative cycle is not limited to one individual, certainly; it is moving
through many. We ourselves have been concerned collectively with this movement,
but it does put in an appearance first individually speaking. We may share an
increased experience of the bringing forth of what is necessary to clothe this
creative in various vibratory levels of form: we have touched upon thought and
feeling, and now words. Where we begin to share it in the form of words amongst
ourselves it becomes a collective thing then. If all have been allowing this
creative cycle to be clothed correctly within themselves, when it comes out in
words the words are found to be harmonious. We agree on the basis of the words
that are spoken. The way the words are put together by one person is a
particular aspect of form, by another person another aspect of form, but there
is a mutual awareness that it is all arising from the same source.
In this sense we could say that the garden
is beginning to take form. It is a living thing, because it comes forth on the
basis of our own living. The thoughts and the feelings, the words, are alive
because we are alive. And then because of this mutual experience other aspects
of form may appear. We share in the doing of many things: action, which clothes
the creative cycle in much more apparent material form, physical form.
Here is the creative process, but it
requires people to let it occur. This is the only part of the creation here on
earth that is so capable. Other aspects of the creation here on earth have
other areas of responsibility, we might say, for revealing in form
differentiated aspects of this creative cycle at the particular level where
they are capable. And so there may be what could be described as a depthful
whole; it has many dimensions, a glorious thing.
We are, I’m sure, capable of comprehending
through our own experience up to this point the validity of this process. We
have participated in it in varying degrees, clothing the creative cycle in
fitting forms of beauty, forms that are brought forth, forms which mature and
forms which rightly fade and pass away.
There is something else
emerging next and next and next, and this emergence can take place as there is
space for it to do so. In order to provide that space something else must pass
away. Human beings when they consider these things think of that passing away
as death. But what is it that is really taking place?
Whether we are considering it in the
symbol of the garden or whether we are considering it in the symbol of our own
field of creative responsibilities, the principles are the same. Substance is
required in order for anything to take form. Initially the substance that is
needful in our field of responsibility is emotional substance and mental
substance in order to accommodate spiritual substance, in order to allow the
creative cycle to emerge into the earth where we presently dwell. And so we
have the responsibility of providing the essential substance, that this may
occur.
This substance is of different vibrational
qualities. We could, I suppose, describe it as fine substance all the way
through to coarse substance. From the standpoint of the truth of the matter,
fine substance is no better than coarse substance, and coarse substance is no
better than fine substance. It’s all needed in the creative process; it’s all
perfect; it’s all what is required. When I use the word coarse
substance I am probably not referring to what is usually thought
of from this standpoint. My reference is to substance that is of a different
vibratory nature from what I have referred to as fine substance.
The fine substance is what provides the
initial connection between what is unmanifest and what is taking form. You
can’t start with the coarse substance, because the coarse substance remains
completely unmoved by the creative cycle if it is not connected to the creative
cycle by all the levels of substance in between up to the fine substance, which
is the initial connection.
So life emerges through this substance
which we provide. We are aware of what it is that makes the generation of this
substance possible: the quality of our own living. As that substance begins to
be generated and puts in an appearance, there is the immediate possibility for
something to take form as the creative cycle emerges. The creative cycle of
life is accommodated by this substance. And as the emergence continues it takes
coarser levels of substance to clothe the emerging creative cycle in the
complete range of beauty, of substance, which allows the beautiful form to be
apparent.
Now we have something which has emerged, a
living form of beauty, like unto a flower in the garden, and we rejoice. We
rejoice in the beauty of it, in the aroma of it, and it is good. That is the
extent of our comment, utilizing this word, because what happens next is that
this beauty begins to fade. And when it begins to fade human judgment usually
says that’s bad. The beauty was fine but it should persist, it shouldn’t fade
away; but it does in the natural cycles of things. And that is the evil fruit
but we don’t need to eat of it. We let it be what it is. There has been a
creative cycle, which until the full-blown flower appeared was incomplete and
therefore could be said to be evil. But here is the flower; it’s good. Now it
leads into a new cycle and the first fades away.
What
happens when this aspect of the matter begins to occur? From the standpoint of
external observation we see less and less life in the form. The substance which
has been composing the form is no longer filled full of life. Here is what we
would naturally call the evidence of a descending aspect of the creative cycle.
The substance which had heretofore accommodated life in its fulness now no
longer does so in that form. But the substance is still substance and it is
being made available thereafter in a different form, so nothing was lost of
that substance. All that seems to have been lost is the form of beauty that was
apparent before, when the substance was filled with life at the level of that
form.
Being aware of the nature of the
continuing creative cycle, this should disturb no one, because whatever beauty
appeared then will be naturally replaced, and is already being replaced, by
forms of beauty of a different nature. And we are so delighted with the forms
of beauty that are appearing, redolent with life, that the fading away becomes
a very unnoticed thing. And such substance as is no longer accommodating life
in that particular form is available to accommodate life in some other form, so
that’s perfect.
But during the time when this creative
process was unfolding, the form of beauty was being born and growing to reach
the point of its fulfilment, life was present, and substance was present filled
with this life, and a certain portion of that substance was in the process of
being lifted up, obviously so. There is life filling the substance in that
form, the power of life.
This process by which the substance is
lifted into a material form is not the only thing that is going on. In any
living form there is always substance coming in and substance going out, even
during the developmental period. We’re quite aware of this in our own physical
experience. And so there is this aspect of the cycle, ascending and descending,
but the ascension is more than merely filling out the form of the particular
aspect of the creative cycle which has appeared. There is that vibrational
quality of substance present which may be said to be transmuted or to blend
with the life which is present in the substance. There is a unification process
going on, so that the ascension of substance doesn’t stop merely at the level
of what appears in the beautiful form but continues on. So there is, at the
conclusion of a particular form of living beauty which is due to pass away, the
substance which will descend and some which will still ascend; but the
ascension has been going on all through the life of that form of beauty,
unifying with the life itself.
Because of the disturbance on earth by
reason of man’s failure, these things are not working exactly as they would if
man were in place, but the basic essentials are present and will become
activated again very easily in greater fulness as man reappears to play his
part in providing the essential substance to be unified with the creative
cycle. The place of man is at this point of union between the two.
I have been describing this relative to
our creative activities, spiritual expression, which is the basis for all the
forms which appear: first of all the form of our thoughts and feelings, then
the form of our words, the form of our actions, and the consequent gathering
together of material substance in whatever way to complete the process of the
creative cycle taking form. But we may see that this is something that happens
relative to our own souls, because here is substance lifted up into a form.
For a while it is full
of life; form reveals the fact that the substance is full of life. And while
this is so, there is still the ascending and descending of substance in the
form, but there is that which is unifying with life to the extent that the
finer levels of substance, and therefore the expression of that person, is
spiritual expression.
So the substance of the form may be filled
with spiritual expression but, as with everything else, there is the proper
cycle in this present state where something begins to fade. What is happening?
Well the incorporation of ascending substance has moved in the unifying cycle
toward oneness with life, still moving, and that substance is separating from
what is remaining in the physical form, in the coarsest level, and there is a
natural fading. All right! There is nothing wrong with it. The substance is
simply moving to another level where it may be incorporated in the cycles of
life. But the one who is present, incarnate in that form, may be said to be
richer because of what has ascended and what has been received into oneness.
Here is a description in words of what
occurs, of which we rightly need to be aware so that we may act intelligently
in this field, no longer subject to the ridiculous concepts and the unbalanced
emotions that are related to what human beings think of as death. It is the
natural creative cycle and while it
isn’t what it ultimately rightly becomes as we play our fitting parts in
clothing the creative cycle, it is what it is now and we can live with it. We
are not in the business of dying with it but of living with it.
Life is
supreme, and what happens to substance and the forms in which it is
incorporated at the present time is, in a sense, a minor matter. Life is
supreme. Spirit is supreme. The Lord is supreme. And our experience of union
with spirit and with life and with the Lord allows us to handle whatever arises
in our own personal and collective experience wisely and well.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
The way of the creative cycle is already prepared on earth. A garden is rather an apt symbol, as it was used in the story of creation, for what is required of us in assuming responsibility for giving form to the creative cycle. The creative cycle already is. It should be brought forth in forms of beauty. Here we may acknowledge the aptness of the symbol of the garden, where the plants and the flowers are revelations of forms of beauty.
There are seasons in the garden. We do not anticipate, for the most part at least, that spring flowers will still be blooming in the summer; by then they have faded and passed away. In our responsibility for giving form to the creative cycles there are seasons; there are pulsations of creative movement. If forms of beauty are allowed to appear they have their seasons.
I think there may have been an assumption on the part of some that if the garden of God was allowed to appear, there it would be, forever just the same, a beautiful garden with flowers eternally blooming. No, forms change according to the times and the seasons. The plant grows, it buds, it flowers; there is the evidence of the beautiful form. But then in the natural course of events the flowers fade and pass away, only to be replaced by others according to the season.
So we may see that this movement of the cyclic appearance of forms of beauty, and of the passing thereof, is natural. It is to be anticipated; it is what should happen. We are here to clothe the creative cycles in forms of beauty. These forms initially may not be recognized as form. In other words the initial experience in this regard relates to a level which is in one sense as yet invisible. In another sense it is not invisible; we can think of thoughts, for instance, in this connection. If you are clothing the creative cycle in the form of thought, someone who is standing next to you may not be able to observe as yet what that form is; it needs to emerge further before it can be shared. To share it further, I suppose we might consider the matter of speech. There may be communication so that the form of thought can be shared. It hasn’t as yet taken physical form in what I suppose would be called the manifest sense. Yet it is a process, an unfolding cycle, all aspects of which are necessary to what emerges in the full-blown flower.
Even with a garden, I’m sure we are aware that there is something very much back of the plants which we may observe. They are present in their particular forms in a very specific way. This is because there is something very specific back of them. The design of the plant was already present in the seed, for instance, and so it is a matter of the design unfolding.
And it unfolds initially in an invisible realm, which becomes visible to the individual through whom the unfoldment is taking place. The matter of thought and feeling is experienced within oneself, and when the polarity relates to the unfoldment of the creative cycle because we are centered in spirit insofar as our thinking and feeling is concerned, then something begins to put in an appearance in thought and emotion. This is very different from the state where emotional compulsions continually are arising out of the reaction to environmental factors. Here is something which is coming from an invisible realm and is taking form in successive levels of experience.
First of all there is, rightly, a spiritual sensing of what it is that is emerging. At that point it doesn't have any form that we could put our fingers on, but if there is space for spirit it continues to emerge and begins to activate the processes of thinking and the processes of feeling. This is an individual matter, because it is still present in the individual.
It only begins to emerge into collective expression as it is shared with others. On this basis I have shared many things with you. We may allow this sharing amongst ourselves to be through the medium of words. The words of course are simply the further form appearing at a new level to clothe the creative cycle which has already emerged in the individual sense in thought and feeling. But this creative cycle is not limited to one individual, certainly; it is moving through many. We ourselves have been concerned collectively with this movement, but it does put in an appearance first individually speaking. We may share an increased experience of the bringing forth of what is necessary to clothe this creative in various vibratory levels of form: we have touched upon thought and feeling, and now words. Where we begin to share it in the form of words amongst ourselves it becomes a collective thing then. If all have been allowing this creative cycle to be clothed correctly within themselves, when it comes out in words the words are found to be harmonious. We agree on the basis of the words that are spoken. The way the words are put together by one person is a particular aspect of form, by another person another aspect of form, but there is a mutual awareness that it is all arising from the same source.
In this sense we could say that the garden is beginning to take form. It is a living thing, because it comes forth on the basis of our own living. The thoughts and the feelings, the words, are alive because we are alive. And then because of this mutual experience other aspects of form may appear. We share in the doing of many things: action, which clothes the creative cycle in much more apparent material form, physical form.
Here is the creative process, but it requires people to let it occur. This is the only part of the creation here on earth that is so capable. Other aspects of the creation here on earth have other areas of responsibility, we might say, for revealing in form differentiated aspects of this creative cycle at the particular level where they are capable. And so there may be what could be described as a depthful whole; it has many dimensions, a glorious thing.
We are, I’m sure, capable of comprehending through our own experience up to this point the validity of this process. We have participated in it in varying degrees, clothing the creative cycle in fitting forms of beauty, forms that are brought forth, forms which mature and forms which rightly fade and pass away. There is something else emerging next and next and next, and this emergence can take place as there is space for it to do so. In order to provide that space something else must pass away. Human beings when they consider these things think of that passing away as death. But what is it that is really taking place?
Whether we are considering it in the symbol of the garden or whether we are considering it in the symbol of our own field of creative responsibilities, the principles are the same. Substance is required in order for anything to take form. Initially the substance that is needful in our field of responsibility is emotional substance and mental substance in order to accommodate spiritual substance, in order to allow the creative cycle to emerge into the earth where we presently dwell. And so we have the responsibility of providing the essential substance, that this may occur.
This substance is of different vibrational qualities. We could, I suppose, describe it as fine substance all the way through to coarse substance. From the standpoint of the truth of the matter, fine substance is no better than coarse substance, and coarse substance is no better than fine substance. It’s all needed in the creative process; it’s all perfect; it’s all what is required. When I use the word coarse substance I am probably not referring to what is usually thought of from this standpoint. My reference is to substance that is of a different vibratory nature from what I have referred to as fine substance.
The fine substance is what provides the initial connection between what is unmanifest and what is taking form. You can’t start with the coarse substance, because the coarse substance remains completely unmoved by the creative cycle if it is not connected to the creative cycle by all the levels of substance in between up to the fine substance, which is the initial connection.
So life emerges through this substance which we provide. We are aware of what it is that makes the generation of this substance possible: the quality of our own living. As that substance begins to be generated and puts in an appearance, there is the immediate possibility for something to take form as the creative cycle emerges. The creative cycle of life is accommodated by this substance. And as the emergence continues it takes coarser levels of substance to clothe the emerging creative cycle in the complete range of beauty, of substance, which allows the beautiful form to be apparent.
Now we have something which has emerged, a living form of beauty, like unto a flower in the garden, and we rejoice. We rejoice in the beauty of it, in the aroma of it, and it is good. That is the extent of our comment, utilizing this word, because what happens next is that this beauty begins to fade. And when it begins to fade human judgment usually says that’s bad. The beauty was fine but it should persist, it shouldn’t fade away; but it does in the natural cycles of things. And that is the evil fruit but we don’t need to eat of it. We let it be what it is. There has been a creative cycle, which until the full-blown flower appeared was incomplete and therefore could be said to be evil. But here is the flower; it’s good. Now it leads into a new cycle and the first fades away.
What happens when this aspect of the matter begins to occur? From the standpoint of external observation we see less and less life in the form. The substance which has been composing the form is no longer filled full of life. Here is what we would naturally call the evidence of a descending aspect of the creative cycle. The substance which had heretofore accommodated life in its fulness now no longer does so in that form. But the substance is still substance and it is being made available thereafter in a different form, so nothing was lost of that substance. All that seems to have been lost is the form of beauty that was apparent before, when the substance was filled with life at the level of that form.
Being aware of the nature of the continuing creative cycle, this should disturb no one, because whatever beauty appeared then will be naturally replaced, and is already being replaced, by forms of beauty of a different nature. And we are so delighted with the forms of beauty that are appearing, redolent with life, that the fading away becomes a very unnoticed thing. And such substance as is no longer accommodating life in that particular form is available to accommodate life in some other form, so that’s perfect.
But during the time when this creative process was unfolding, the form of beauty was being born and growing to reach the point of its fulfilment, life was present, and substance was present filled with this life, and a certain portion of that substance was in the process of being lifted up, obviously so. There is life filling the substance in that form, the power of life.
This process by which the substance is lifted into a material form is not the only thing that is going on. In any living form there is always substance coming in and substance going out, even during the developmental period. We’re quite aware of this in our own physical experience. And so there is this aspect of the cycle, ascending and descending, but the ascension is more than merely filling out the form of the particular aspect of the creative cycle which has appeared. There is that vibrational quality of substance present which may be said to be transmuted or to blend with the life which is present in the substance. There is a unification process going on, so that the ascension of substance doesn’t stop merely at the level of what appears in the beautiful form but continues on. So there is, at the conclusion of a particular form of living beauty which is due to pass away, the substance which will descend and some which will still ascend; but the ascension has been going on all through the life of that form of beauty, unifying with the life itself.
Because of the disturbance on earth by reason of man’s failure, these things are not working exactly as they would if man were in place, but the basic essentials are present and will become activated again very easily in greater fulness as man reappears to play his part in providing the essential substance to be unified with the creative cycle. The place of man is at this point of union between the two.
I have been describing this relative to our creative activities, spiritual expression, which is the basis for all the forms which appear: first of all the form of our thoughts and feelings, then the form of our words, the form of our actions, and the consequent gathering together of material substance in whatever way to complete the process of the creative cycle taking form. But we may see that this is something that happens relative to our own souls, because here is substance lifted up into a form. For a while it is full of life; form reveals the fact that the substance is full of life. And while this is so, there is still the ascending and descending of substance in the form, but there is that which is unifying with life to the extent that the finer levels of substance, and therefore the expression of that person, is spiritual expression.
So the substance of the form may be filled with spiritual expression but, as with everything else, there is the proper cycle in this present state where something begins to fade. What is happening? Well the incorporation of ascending substance has moved in the unifying cycle toward oneness with life, still moving, and that substance is separating from what is remaining in the physical form, in the coarsest level, and there is a natural fading. All right! There is nothing wrong with it. The substance is simply moving to another level where it may be incorporated in the cycles of life. But the one who is present, incarnate in that form, may be said to be richer because of what has ascended and what has been received into oneness.
Here is a description in words of what occurs, of which we rightly need to be aware so that we may act intelligently in this field, no longer subject to the ridiculous concepts and the unbalanced emotions that are related to what human beings think of as death. It is the natural creative cycle and while it isn’t what it ultimately rightly becomes as we play our fitting parts in clothing the creative cycle, it is what it is now and we can live with it. We are not in the business of dying with it but of living with it.
