Communion of Friendship

Communion  of  Friendship

a  profound  influence  on  heaven

Uranda   May 24, 1953

In our most recent periods of meditation we have recognized certain of the basic factors concerning friendship; something of what friendship signifies; something of the opportunity we have that we may be friends to God even as God is a friend to us. Once the qualities of friendship, the capacities of friendship, begin to develop in the individual, the relationship so established between God and us makes possible the divinely ordained position for which man was first created. God created man in the image and likeness, the same design, the same principles, the same laws, the same capacities and qualities as are found in God Himself, to the end that man might be the means by which God could reveal Himself in action on earth in relationship to the rest of creation. 

Man was supposed to be the connecting link between Creator and creation. Man violated the basic principles of friendship; he lost the position of being a friend to God and became the missing link, allowing the appearance of separation between heaven and earth. In that divine position as the connecting link between Creator and creation man was, before the violation of friendship, a friend to God. God has never ceased being man’s friend; and with patience and love and infinite care He has sought through the generations since that day to reestablish a pattern on earth by which man might receive the friendship of God and become a friend to God. 

In the pattern of true friendship there is always, without any exception, to whatever degree it may be experienced between human beings on earth, a particular quality of communion. Those who move toward the state of true friendship—which has been in fact a very rare occurrence—began to experience a state of communion, of vibrational companionship—which might at times use words for the interchange of ideas—was not limited to words, for in friendship there is understanding, and there is a communion of spirit which is unknown to those who have never touched the true Spirit of friendship; a quality of comprehension of the inner play of the vibratory field of the One who is counted friend. And this quality of communion is one of the crowning marks of friendship. 

Once we begin to see that the true state of friendship is the true state of heaven on earth the idea of the Kingdom of Heaven being at hand does not seem so vague, so uncertain; once we begin to glimpse the reality of what friendship means, or what it means to be a friend to God, there is a new vision of heavenly things made manifest, for we have noted that friends make no demands upon each other. 

God is our friend and he does not make any demands on us. He offers us something; He invites us to share something, but God makes no demands. We can trust Him. He is not inclined to take something from us. And we learn, in the pattern of friendship, to make no demands upon God; for as long as man makes a demand upon God, whether he thinks it to be in prayer or some other form, he is violating the principles of friendship essential to the correct relationship with God. 

So, as we begin to comprehend the principles of friendship we make no demands upon God. But we have recognized in our meditations that where the state of friendship is established, those who are friends, without making any demands upon each other at the same time exert a powerful, profound and lasting influence upon each other. Man, in the limited realm, having failed to know the truth and let the truth make him free, could well experience this profound influence from God. 

But you may say: “What profound and powerful influence can I exert upon God?” Friendship is based upon qualities of equality. That is the point! For God first created Man, male and female, in the image and likeness of God, having qualities of equality; and it was never God’s intention that man should be in a limited, dwarfed, subservient or weak position. It was God’s intention that Man should be made manifest on earth as the image and likeness of God. 

There is, in the limited consciousness of man, a peculiar idea that in what is called heaven there is a sexless state of things. Angels are supposed to be creatures of neuter gender. This idea, developed out of ignorance and prejudice, has been one of the devil’s chief weapons to keep people from drawing near to the throne of God, for the suggestion of a sexless state suggests to man, whether he thinks it out or not, that such a state would be a realm without any particular feeling, without any particular joys of being, without any particular productiveness; a realm of virtual meaninglessness; and so the self-active mind of man has maintained a concept that here on earth we could accomplish certain things, have certain pleasures, be productive in various ways, and creative, but the moment we get to heaven there will be a static state. 

The idea of sitting on a cloud and plucking a harp, day after day, year after year, century after century, millennia after millennia: that is the picture of hell! unmitigated hell; boredom in the 9^th degree! So, by the very nature of the situation we see that this is a lie about God, that this concept maintains a state of consciousness in man whereby he is not privileged to know God, or to know the true state of things with respect to God. 

Perfection in heaven would require right function in the heavenly state, and God is a creator; God never ceases creating! God is a creator and God could no more stop creating than you could by holding your breath stop breathing; and there is no static state in eternity. We are in eternity. We couldn’t get out of it if we tried to. We are in eternity now; and once we begin to realize with absolute certainty that our God is a creator, that He is continually creating, and we are made in the image and likeness of God, then we too have the capacity to let the creative spirit work through us. 

I am talking about a creative life, so that man begins to reach a point where every thought, every word, every act is dedicated, under the control of the spirit of God to creating something lovely, something beautiful, to bringing into manifestation something that carries a blessing to others, or to the creation as a whole. Made in the image and likeness of God, it is our business to share the creative work of God; and God does not need us particularly in some other realm to share this creative work. God would like to have men and women on earth share the creative work; right here, to the end that paradise may be restored, to the end that heaven and earth may be seen as one, which in fact they are. It is only an appearance that makes it seem to man that they are separated. Heaven and earth are one already in fact. They have never been anything else. 

This quality of friendship with the Lord was supposed to be on a basis of equality, the manifestation of God Himself. The very moment any man or woman has the courage to face the truth, and let the truth make him free, there begins to be a recognition of the basic truth that man was created to be a means by which God could reveal Himself, so that man might be God in action on earth. We begin to see that friendship with God is possible. Friendship requires factors of equality. 

Man has imagined that God wanted him to grovel in the dust. Man has interpreted meekness as weakness, humility as a doormat attitude. Humility is necessary, but only the strong can be humble. Look at a weak person and you will never find humility. The weak person in the first place does not have the capacity for humility while he is weak, and in the second place he is afraid to be humble. He may manufacture an imitation of humility and pass it off as humility, but it will not be the genuine article. The weak feel that they cannot afford to be humble. Only the strong ever dare to be humble. Meekness does not properly suggest weakness. Humility and meekness simply suggest that man as such has let go of arrogance, wherein he is trying to be superior to God. He is willing, in his attitude, to accept God on the basis of the divine design, the qualities of equality. 

The point is that if man were not so insufferably arrogant, if he would begin to be humble and stop trying to act as if he were superior to God, he would begin to enter into the pattern of friendship with God and he would begin to have the privilege of communion with our Friend, our Lord and King. The privilege of communion with our Friend. That communion does not always require words, although it may utilize words. Communion between friends is not limited by distance or space. Man imagines that God is far, far away. He imagines that He could not possibly produce a state wherein there would be true communion with God. 

Some people try to order God about. I have heard many ministers on the pulpit do what they called praying, which in actual fact was a presumptuous, blasphemous attitude in which they were telling God what to do and how he should do it, making all kinds of demands upon God as if the master-mind of man was necessary to direct divine activities in heaven in relationship to the earth. Such presumption, such blasphemous attitudes, cannot be called prayer. And so man has failed to recognize what true prayer is. Millions of people do what they call praying when in actual fact it is not prayer, and they wonder why God doesn’t answer their prayer. The simple point is they never prayed! They only thought they did. We should begin to learn how to pray; which is to say we should reach a point of communion with our Friend. 

Would it not exert a profound influence on heaven if heaven were no longer shut up and denied the opportunity of manifestation on earth? Would it not exert a profound influence on heaven if we proved to be the friends of God and let heaven, the atmosphere of friendship—What is heaven? Heaven is the atmosphere of true friendship—if we let heaven appear on earth. The way is easy. It is the only easy life available to man on earth. All else is hard. 

Until we begin to let the friendship of God have meaning in our lives here on earth, so that we can let our friendship for God have meaning in heaven, and refuse to let God and the things of God out of heaven into the earth, we cannot possibly know fulfillment. We stop trying to do the impossible and accept the simple, easy task that God has offered to us—the simple process of working with the positive laws of being, the simple process of changing from dying existence to living fulfillment, the simple process of changing from the paths of defeat to the realm of victory—simply accepting the invitation to be on earth the friends of God, that we may stop believing so many lies about God, stop having false attitudes toward God, and begin to be the friends of God.

© Emissaries of Divine Light

There Is No Level Of The Spiritual That Is Not Physical

There  Is  No  Level  Of  The  Spiritual

That  Is  Not  Physical

Uranda   July 21, 1953

Some people say, "Well I thought it was only supposed to be spiritual. I want a spiritual life. I want to live a spiritual life. I want to see spiritual things. I don't want to look at physical things. I don't want a physical life. I want to rise above physical things." God made physical things. God put them here, and they are a part of God. God made these things. They are a part of God. 

The physical flesh, the physical substance, it is spiritual. You say physical things aren't spiritual? Then you are ignorant of the truth, because until you can see the spirituality of physical things, you cannot see the reality of spiritual things, not really. You can have a shell of concept and idea and belief, and live in a realm of delusion, a prison of your own making, but until you are capable of looking outside or inside of it somehow, you will never know what the truth is. This shell of delusion, it is a shell that everyone more or less has developed in relationship to himself. "I'm so and so— and yet you don't know yourself. "My neighbor is so and so"—and yet you don't know your neighbor. It is a shell. It is not physical things. If I talk about the shell, I am not talking about the fact that there is physical substance. My body is not the shell. My body is something more than a shell, and so is yours. 

Your physical body is spiritual. Until you begin to see that, you cannot really comprehend what spiritual is. You will have a fantastic idea of what it means to be spiritual, and you will try to do something that is impossible. Look inside. Look to the Father within. Looking to the Father within, yielding, responding, whatever, causes you to begin to do what the Father within is doing. And what is He doing? Well He is responding to His point of focalization, for one thing. So if I say to people, "Respond to our Lord and King," then immediately they want to ignore the Father within; they want to ignore all the focalizations in the pattern that God has ordained; they want to individually reach to the King. He would have to be a rather busy King, wouldn't He? He is going to have to do it all. One Being is going to have to take care of personal contacts with every man, woman and child on the face of the earth. What a busy Person! Foolishness. It doesn't work. But these ideas of religion and belief and concept have been so thoroughly embedded in consciousness that human beings have created this shell. If I say, "Look outside," they don't; they look at the outer edge of the shell, inside the shell, and they see what is there. I say, "Look inside." They don't; they look to the inner edge of the shell and see what is there, and they say, "That is the fact of the case." It is not the fact at all. It is a lie, it is a delusion.
 

Finally the individual begins to accept the idea that truth is beautiful, that there is no such thing as an ugly truth, never. Truth is never ugly, and if anything is ugly it is not truth. You cannot say, "That is an ugly truth," because there is no such thing as an ugly truth. There may be ugly temporary facts. There might be an ugly fact, but not an ugly truth. We may say that the shell is a fact, a temporary fact, the thing that you have been living in. It is the limit of the range of your consciousness and awareness, but the shell is not a truth; it is a lie. The shell is not a truth; it is a lie. It may be a fact but it is not a truth. All truth is beautiful. There is no such thing as an ugly truth. 

Then the body. We have to recognize that there is a body. Some people have tried to say that there is no such thing as a body; it is just an illusion; there is no matter; there is no physical substance, it is just illusion. Well they are in a realm of illusion, I will grant them; for to say that there is no physical substance is an illusion. There is physical substance. And then the human being says, "Well that must contrast with the spiritual. I see the physical, and I don't like what I see. I want to be spiritual, so I will get away from the physical and get to the spiritual somehow." And the spiritual is somehow supposed to be separate from the physical. But God made the physical, and the physical is spiritual, just as spiritual as anything else. If you take the attitude that you want something more spiritual than the physical, then you are complaining against God and saying, "I want something that You did not create. You didn't do a good job. You didn't supply me with all that I need. I don't want the physical; I just want the spiritual." 

Well the spiritual is on every level physical. This aspect of the physical is recognizable on this level, but you take the next higher level of the spiritual and once you are on that level, or can perceive on that level or function on that level, you will find that that level of the spiritual is physical to itself. There is no level of the spiritual that is not physical, not anywhere. Every level of the spiritual is physical to itself, to the highest point of Deity in the center of the cosmos. If you are going to get away from the physical, you can't do it, no matter where you go or what you do, up or down. 

The mansions in our Father's house are the levels of being, the mansions for this earth for instance, this world, within the scope of our immediate comprehension. We have the mansion of the mineral kingdom, we have the mansion of the realm of gases—the air, the atmosphere for instance—we have the mansion of the vegetable kingdom, we have the mansion of the animal kingdom, we have the mansion of the human kingdom, or the human realm, the body of mankind. And there are other mansions up and down the line. Mansions are realms of being in particularized form; but if any particularized form is seen as not being spirit, it killeth—that belief, that concept. It is spirit. If we say something about the mineral kingdom being spiritual, people immediately start saying, "Well, then, it must be just an illusion. We just think there is some mineral here. We just think this is wood. We just think that is a blackboard." No, they are there. This is wood. That is a rock out there. That is not an illusion. But if you say that is not spiritual you don't know what you are talking about. If you say, "But the spiritual couldn't be like that," then you don't know. It is spiritual, and it is a rock, it is physical; for every level of the spiritual is physical. It must have a relationship to itself. Certain levels are grouped together as having interrelated meaning. You get below that level and you don't comprehend; you get above that level and you don't comprehend, you don't see it immediately. 

The physical is spiritual, and as long as you are trying to separate the physical and the spiritual you are attempting to do the impossible. You will never get anywhere doing it. If you are trying to reject the physical in order to get to the spiritual, you are wrong. The physical is spiritual, and the spiritual is physical, and you can't separate them. You say, "Well I would like to get out of this realm of physical into the realm of spirit." If you could actually do it, and see it and know it, what would you find? That that next higher level of the spiritual is physical to itself. It is physical to itself. There is no level of the spiritual that is not physical. You cannot get out of the physical and into the spiritual; it can't be done. If you fight too much against the laws of life your body dies, and it returns to a spiritual state, free of the limitations that you imposed upon it, the spiritual state of the substance of the soil, because that is spiritual. But your body has the capacity of living a different pattern than the clod of dirt. You say that substance is not spiritual? Of course it is spiritual. The dust of the ground, isn't that spiritual? Oh yes it is. The physical substance of your body—is there some part of your body that is not spiritual? No! Is there any function of your body that is not spiritual? No! You can use some of those spiritual things without regard to the divine Law and produce an ill condition, but that physical body is spiritual, every organ in your body is spiritual, now, already. It doesn't have to become spiritual. 

What do we mean, then, when we start talking about the development of the spiritual? The control factors as they relate to your intelligence and to your function have all too often been of an evil spirit; that is, a spirit of action, attitude, etc., which is contrary to the true nature of the physical organism. Well, then, as soon as that spirit that you have produced arbitrarily—that attitude, that belief, that idea, that concept, that has been imposed upon a physical organism without regard to its laws and principles of being—is removed, then it has returned to the spiritual, the spiritual in the divine sense, no longer subjected to something imposed by man but freed from that imposition to the pattern of being which God has designed. And the pattern of the spiritual, in the sense of spirit as we speak of it in relationship to the physical, is in perfect correlation. The spirit and the physical are one. Earth and heaven are one. They do not have to become one; they are one now. 

There is a little layer in here which human beings have produced, which is all they see, looking in or out—it makes no difference—which is a realm of illusion, a realm of delusion and distortion. And the human beings who dwell there look at a human being and they think they know that human being. They don't. They only know their idea about the human being, their concept, their peculiar belief. You cannot understand others until you understand yourself, and you cannot understand yourself until you know the truth about yourself. As the Master put it, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." As long as people imagine that they must get away from the physical in order to be spiritual, they don't know the truth about the physical. And they think they are going to be spiritual when they leave the physical behind. 

I have heard people say, "Well this body doesn't mean anything to me. If I'm all right and my body dies, I don't care what happens to my body. I just don't care what happens to my body." I have heard how many people say that? But you know they are liars when they say it. They may not know they are liars, but you know it. If they say they don't care what happens to their body they are lying. Why do they eat? Why do they sleep? Why do they utilize the capacities of their body in any way? Why do they live? You cannot live without your body, insofar as this world is concerned. Without your body you are meaningless to this level of being. 

Our Master, who lived on earth, had a body, and He had meaning on earth at that time. But His body ceased to be a physical body. How that worked out is for the moment beside the point, but He has no meaning on earth at the present time, in any direct sense. Why? Because He has no body on earth. He can have no meaning on earth except by reason of a body on earth. That which does not have a body on earth has no meaning on earth. I don't care what it is supposed to be.That which has no body on earth has no meaning on earth. If I didn't have a body on earth I would not have any meaning on earth, except as others, perhaps, gave body to my spirit, to that which I represent; but they would have to be themselves, they would have to be themselves individually. They could not be me. Any being, to have meaning on this earth, must have a body on this earth. God Himself—why doesn't God have more meaning on earth? Because He has not had a body on earth. 

Would God with a body be less spiritual than God without a body? Or would the body be not spiritual somehow? No! The body is spiritual. Heaven and earth are one. And when we begin to see that we do not have to get away from the physical to know the spiritual, in fact we cannot know the spiritual except in relationship to the physical, we can begin to understand the principles of magic, of being, of living, letting the kingdom come, letting the will of God be done on earth as it is in heaven.

© Emissaries of Divine Light

Borderland

Borderland

Uranda   100 Mile House, B.C.  October 16, 1947

 

Our Great Master came into the world and, facing the limitations, the prevailing levels of consciousness, the ceilings, the bigotry and the self-righteousness, and above all, the unresponsiveness, of the world, He carried through to Victory. It remains for us, and for all who are willing to give consideration to the Way, the Truth and the Life, to prove our allegiance to our KING by likewise carrying through to Victory. When we accept the proffered citizenship in the Kingdom of God on earth, so that we begin to fulfill those specifications that He set down by which we might prove that we are in the world but not of it, there is the necessity of our recognizing loyalty to our KING, and our daily lives should prove our patriotism in His Kingdom. All too often individuals who claim to have accepted our KING are inclined to act as if personal considerations were of primary moment when they consider the problems and the choices that come before them. 

If we Love our KING, and we Love our Country, then loyalty and patriotism are spontaneously there, having their influence every moment of every day, in relationship to every question, conditioning our attitudes in the face of every problem. Personal considerations are never primary factors in the face of true loyalty and patriotism. We recognize and appreciate, in this outer world, loyalty to one's government, patriotism to one's country. These are things that carry the Current of Nobility, but the governments of this outer world although they are essential with things as they are, cannot offer the blessings or provide the joys and satisfactions that are to be found in the Kingdom that is ruled by the Prince of Peace. 

When we cross the line from one country to another in this world, our citizenship has to be recognized in relationship to such border crossings. There are many individuals in the world today who would like to cross the border from the place where they are, to some other country, who, by reason of conditions or restrictions imposed, cannot do so. We have, in relationship to our Ministry, the problem of assisting those who would become citizens of the Christ Kingdom to cross the boundaries into the Kingdom. There is a boundary line. Tens of thousands move toward that boundary line—and the world calls them good. Some reach the boundary line and decide to camp there, or to return back to the places from whence they came. A few are willing to accept the conditions of entry into the Kingdom. Yet, all who will come find that the Way is opened before them if they will but let it be so. 

The problems of development in the Spiritual sense are, essentially, the problems of crossing that boundary line, so that the individual is no more of the world, although he is in it; and, crossing that boundary line, the individual finds that he cannot penetrate to the open freedom of the Heart of the Kingdom until he passes through what we might call a Borderland. In this Borderland the individual begins to truly comprehend the meaning of the Master's Words, "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love, one to another". 

In this Borderland the individual learns the customs and the language of the people of the Kingdom. In this Borderland the individual proves his loyalty to our KING, and by his life he reveals as to whether or not he is truly a Patriot of the Kingdom. In this Borderland the individual must establish the facts as to whether or not he believes in the only begotten Son of God on earth, and there is absolutely no way by which any may enter on a basis of deception. 

Some undertake to deceive, as a conscious act or a consciously determined course of action; others undertake to deceive unconsciously because they have deceived themselves, and because they are trying to carry the methods and customs of the outer world into the Kingdom. It cannot be done. No one, under any circumstance, can pass beyond this Borderland into the Kingdom on earth until he has learned to be true to God, true to his KING, true to his Country, true to himself, true to his brother man. 

If one loves one's KING and one's Country more than life itself, he is not going to pose personal considerations as being of primary importance in his attitude toward problems in his expression of choices as they arise in daily life. 

At the present time we are working in that Borderland. To varying degrees you have ascended the pleasant slopes of the range of hills that are to be found in this Borderland, and from such vantage points as you have attained, you have looked into the Kingdom, so to speak, you have glimpsed some of the Glory, you have felt something of the Peace and known something of the Joy, you have experienced something of the satisfactions and the wonder of Being which are known in the Kingdom. 

It is impossible for anyone to slip in by disguising himself to make himself appear to be something that he is not. Each must come just as he is, willing to become a citizen of the Christ Kingdom, willing to learn the manners and customs, willing to learn the language, willing to be cleansed and purified and made Whole, willing to let the outer mind be stilled, willing to let the great calm be a Reality in the feeling realm. 

He who looks back overmuch to the kingdom of the prince of this world will find himself moving outward from the Borderland and slipping back across the boundary into the realm of the prince of death. He whose eyes are steadfastly set upon that of true citizenship in the Kingdom cannot be turned aside by conditions or circumstances or by what any may think or say or do. Such an one is not looking for excuse to turn back. This gives a key to attitudes that are made manifest with respect to the obstacles that appear in the path. 

He who is looking for excuses to turn back always finds them, even in the Borderland, but he whose eyes are steadfastly set upon Kingdom will accept no excuses. Obstacles do not suggest that he cannot get through; obstacles simply raise the question, "How can I get through or around or over, because get around or through or over I must and I will, in the Name of my KING". Those who turn back under any pretext whatsoever, because of any excuse or because of obstacle or for anything else that may be called a reason, are utterly unworthy of citizenship in the Kingdom, for those who are worthy do not see excuses when they see obstacles; they do not see reasons for turning back when they are faced with problems; they only see an opportunity to prove that they Love their KING and their Country. 

Our Ministry is to those who come to the Borderland and to those who are passing through the Borderland. Those who do not, willingly and of themselves, come to the Borderland are beyond our range of Ministry. Those who cross back out of the Borderland into the world are beyond our range of Ministry. Our Ministry begins at the Border. Our Ministry is to those who would cross the Border and who would pass through the Borderland. For the time being, we simply are not concerned, from the standpoint of individuals who are on the other side of the Border. Each will, in season, be given his opportunity if he remains true to the inherent longing within himself to find Fulfillment in relationship to the things of God, but, for the present, our Ministry is at the Border and in the Borderland. 

Those who think to gain some point for themselves or to benefit in some fashion, by placing personal considerations first in relationship to their problems and their choices, are only closing the gates in front of themselves. They gain utterly and absolutely nothing. Such action brings loss always. Once the individual has stepped across the Border into the Borderland, every thought, every word, every feeling, every deed, reveals something as to where one's allegiance rests. If it is to our KING, to the Christ Kingdom, if it is to the Banner of the Prince of Peace, then it will be revealed through thought and word and feeling and deed—but, if allegiance still rests with the prince of this world, it will likewise be revealed. No matter how hard any may try, he cannot learn the language of the Kingdom while he retains an attitude of allegiance to the banner of the prince of this world. 

It is essential that the individual should learn the language and the customs of the Kingdom, and these things cannot be learned except as the individual gives full, one-pointed, loyal Response to the KING. When one has his heart set on the Kingdom he never thinks of anything that may arise as a possible excuse for turning back. He sees all such things as opportunities to prove his allegiance to his KING.

© Emissaries of Divine Light