December 06, 2014
The Initiation Of A Great Creative Cycle
Tonight I have chosen a text which has tremendous significance.
Our own view with respect to it is not according to the popular concept. Tonight
let the vibrational pattern be as focalized as possible. Let us, then, in our
focalized meditations, see what new significance we can find in meditating upon
the birth of Jesus Christ on earth. In the first chapter of Matthew, beginning
with the l8th verse, we read:
"Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this
wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together,
she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. "Then Joseph her husband,
being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to
put her away privily. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel
of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear
not to take unto Thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of
the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name
JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins. Now all this was done,
that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,
Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they
shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us. Then
Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and
took unto him his wife: And knew her not till she had brought forth her
firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS."
In this simple story, which has confounded the
minds of the worldly-wise, we have a record of the most significant event that
the world has known since the fall of man. Here we have a portrayal in a few
simple words of a process by which God initiated a Creative Cycle on earth, the
Creative Cycle by which salvation should come to man, the restoration from that
low estate to which man had fallen to that Divine Estate for which God first
created man. We are particularly concerned tonight with a consideration of the
principles that are involved here.
First, to clarify our approach to the matter, I
would point out that we do not accept the popular idea that the laws of
conception were in some manner superseded, or some supernatural method of conception
took place. We do not believe that a right understanding of this passage teaches
any such thing. As we have before recognized, it was essential that Jesus, in
His Life and Ministry, reveal the Heavenly Father. This story, as it is
presented, does not violate Truth when it is understood; it does not violate
the facts. Our particular concern tonight is not with the manner in which this
conception took place. It is not of particular importance to our subject and
consideration, but always, when a great leader has appeared in the world and
has been more or less generally accepted—the same, for instance, is true of
Buddha—the idea has become prevalent that such an one was born of a virgin, by
some supposedly super-natural process of conception.
Actually, from an ordinary approach of mental
processes of human beings, any conception is a miracle. Any conception is
super-normal in the sense of anything that human beings can do. It is beyond
the normal of the range of human activity. So, there is the Divine Aspect, and
we recognize that in every case insofar as the reality of the matter is concerned—the
true conception, the true manifestation of life that begins to appear in the
womb, is the result of Divine action—and that that is not limited to the case
of Jesus or of some others. It is simply emphasized in our text that the
reality of the Life Force that permits conception and birth is something that
is of God, far beyond the range of human understanding. And that is true of each
and every one of us.
One of the great stumbling blocks to a true
understanding of the Life and Teaching of Jesus Christ has been that human
beings, generally, have imagined that the initial beginnings with respect to the
birth of Jesus on earth were so far different from that which is true of the rest
of us that we have no valid hope of fulfilling promises and instructions which
He gave which anticipate that we should do as He did. He said that the works
that He did we should do also. Human beings have taken this portrayal of His Birth
as an excuse for accepting a far lower state of life than God intended that we
should. We approach this consideration from the standpoint of considering how
the principles that are revealed with respect to Creative Cycles can be allowed
to more effectively manifest in relationship to our own lives and our Ministry
on earth.
Notice here that it is the beginning of a great
Creative Cycle. The meaningfulness of our lives today in Ministry is dependent
upon our relationship with and in that Cycle that began then—the Creative Cycle
designed to bring about the restoration of man to the Divine Estate. Human
efforts which disregard that Cycle come to naught. Human beings, with all of
their increased knowledge, struggle and strive to establish a better world.
They invent great things and accomplish much that is laudable according to
human vision, but the state of the world shows that human beings in their
efforts to improve the world have failed to recognize the Creative Cycle which God established and designed for the
achievement of the Goal.
Birth is used symbolically in many places in the
Bible to portray the beginning of a new cycle. He stated that His Gospel was that,
"The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." It had been at hand, and He was
undertaking to reveal that it was at hand. He revealed the manner in which we
may let the Kingdom have meaning on earth in our lives here and now. The Gospel
was that the Kingdom of Heaven is at
hand, and He revealed the Way by which we may share in that Kingdom. When we
have the vision to recognize the great over-all picture of the beginning of
that Creative Cycle in which we now share, how little, how insignificant, from
a human standpoint, was that conception. The conception of that Cycle of
Salvation certainly was not of man. The conception of that Cycle of
transmission and transformation was of God, and it was of what Aspect of God? The
words here are translated, "Holy Ghost." We prefer, "Holy
Spirit." The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, or, as it was then and still
is, the Spirit of the Living Christ. The Spirit of the Living Christ, working
through human agencies, initiated the great Cycle of Salvation, the Creative
Cycle which should transform the world so that ultimately it would be recognized
that the former things shall pass away—"And behold, I create all things
new."
The specific consideration here, of the principles
of the Creative Cycle, will need a little relaxation of mind, and technical
recognition of the symbolism that is involved, because we know that underneath the
simple stories of the Bible there are profound revelations of the Truth of God.
"When, as his mother, Mary, was espoused to Joseph."
Mary, the mother, yes—but Mary, the mother, represents a great deal more than
just a woman, or womankind. Mary represents the body of humanity as a whole—that
which needs to bring forth on earth the things of God. The great influence
which Jesus has had upon the world and upon the people in it has been because
the greatest thing He did was to reveal Deity on earth. All things else that He
did were a result of that central fact. The greatest thing He did was to reveal
Deity on earth. And He instructed His followers to do likewise, to follow Him
in that fulfillment and to do the same works that He did. He revealed Deity on
earth. So, Mary here represents the mass of humanity which is supposed, under
the right influence, to bring forth the things of God on earth and to reveal
Deity. At this point we recall our recognition of the fact that man was originally
created to be the connecting link between Creator and the creation. Man fell
from that position and the creation was left without adequate correlation with
the Creator, and consequently chaos has been in the world. The process of restoration,
then, is supposed to bring man back to the point where he is a connecting link
on earth between the Creator and the creation.
"She was espoused to Joseph before they came
together." In other words, here we have the elimination of the popular ideas
of human effort, human trying, human struggling, by which it is generally
supposed that great things are accomplished. Here the human element of
self-centeredness and self-sufficiency are set aside and we recognize that this
work of bringing forth the things of God on earth, of revealing Deity, of
becoming again the connecting link between Creator and creation, necessitates something
in humanity that cannot be engendered by man. It is something that must be
engendered in man by God and the
process of establishing that conception, that beginning, is through the Holy
Spirit, or the Spirit of the Living Christ. That Spirit of God must be allowed
to work in man; it must be received by man; and it must begin to produce something in man.
November 30, 2014
Myths and Legends of Jesus
from
Myths and Legends of Jesus
Special Session Riverside, California
Uranda March 16, 1947
When we pause to consider the fact that
virtually all of the so-called world saviours, and many of the pagan gods, came
into manifestation on earth, according to legend or history, through some type
of Divine visitation to some woman especially set apart or perfected for such
purpose, we have to come to some conclusion. It is not necessary to examine all
such legends or stories in order to come to the truth. It is significant that
the points of similarity that exist with respect to so-called world saviours in
this regard, is limited to characters, real or legendary, who have had a
tremendous influence upon the trends of thought and function of the people of the
world down through the ages.
We recognize that there is some truth in
every teaching that exists for any period of time, else it could not exist, and
when we find any one point re-appearing in such a wide range with respect to so
many different teachings and teachers, it seems to me that it is reasonable to
suppose that there must be some basis in truth for such concepts, whether real
or legendary, and that if there is such a truth then it is important that that
truth be recognized so that the real meaning behind the stories may begin to
have an influence in our lives.
With respect to all of these stories,
the very fact that the concepts developed with respect to them have tended to
make the people of the world feel these world saviours, or any one of them, to
be something separate and apart from the world of humanity, having some special
process of birth or origin which made it possible for that particular being to
manifest Divinity, but which, according to the concept, likewise provides an
excuse for humanity as a whole for failing to attain to such perfection; and
causes the human mind to say that, if, in the case of Jesus for instance, He
was born under such conditions He had it comparatively easy to achieve what He
did, and because we are so separated from Him in the matter of birth, we are
necessarily separated from Him in the processes of life—and there is a great
gulf fixed insofar as the human consciousness is concerned, between that which
the Master achieved and that which human beings can achieve. Thus it is that
the devil, seizing upon a truth, presents it in a false light, and uses that
very truth to defeat the purposes of the truth.
The so-called miraculous, or immaculate,
conception of Jesus Christ is a matter that is controversial from the standpoint
of religionists, and with many of them the point is established so thoroughly
in prejudice that if it is even suggested that the meaning generally accepted
is erroneous, anything else that may be said is rejected in advance. Therefore,
to the degree that we can come free of any tendency toward prejudice in this
regard, it seems reasonable to suppose that if there is any fundamental truth
in the story of the birth of the Master Jesus, then He, being the greatest
Teacher that the world has ever known, must surely have given something in his
own words which should reveal or provide the key for, at least an understanding
of the truth with respect to His manifestation in the world.
If Jesus neglected to provide a key to
the understanding of any phase of His own revelation of Deity on earth, then
how could He say, in His great prayer of intercession, as given in John 17:
"I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do"? Our time
tonight does not permit our examining the whole Teaching of Jesus in search of
the key, so I shall draw your attention directly to it. In John 14 we have a
record of the Master’s words where He said: "The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself,
but the Father Who dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works." During the Master’s
Ministry He spoke often of His Father, and He spoke often of the Oneness of His
Father and the manifest being whom we call Jesus, and in this text He says:
"My Father Who dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works."
Human beings have lost the vision of their relationship to God. The Saviour was born to re-establish in consciousness an understanding of man’s relationship to God. Man, in the fallen human consciousness, thinks of his parentage as being limited to that generally recognized in the human sense—his earthly father and his earthly mother. The one point wherein man in the fallen state is permitted to participate in relationship to true Creative work in the physical sense, is with respect to procreation, but because of this fact man has tended to think of the whole matter as if it were a purely physiological proposition instead of recognizing that the one point where he is still permitted to have a relationship with true Creative work is still the point where he could, if he would, discover his fundamental relationship with God.
In the story of the Master's birth we
have a presentation which is properly designed to take attention away from the
earthly father, in order to establish a consciousness or awareness of the
relationship of God to birth, not just the birth of Jesus Christ, but the birth
of every man, woman and child on the face of the earth. It has always seemed to
me to be utterly ridiculous to claim, on the one hand, that Jesus is supposed
to be our example and then to claim, on the other hand, that He had a birth
into the world so far different from that which we are privileged to have. If
our birth into the world is so far different from His birth into the world,
then God would be asking the impossible of us, to expect us to accept Him as
our example, because if there was anything true with respect to the Master's
birth that is not true with respect to our birth, then He is not our example—He
is simply a Being so far separated from us, and so far above us, that there is
no hope of our ever achieving that which He achieved.
But He, Himself, said: "The works that I do shall ye do also, and greater works than these shall ye do," thereby pointing out that that which He achieved we can achieve, and if we can achieve what He achieved, then that which was true of Him is true of us. It is not sacrilegious, on the basis of the Master's own words, to undertake to determine the truth with respect to His birth which will, at the same time, reveal the truth with respect to our birth, and if we recognize the truth with respect to our birth, we find that we are not so far separated from God that it is foolish and futile for us to accept Jesus Christ as our example.
The story of the Master's birth
emphasizes rightly, to start with, that God was His Father. With the world
consciousness as it was, and as it still is to such a high degree, there was no
other way by which the truth of the Master's Divinity in relationship to His
parentage could be focalized into the consciousness of the world in a way that
would make it have vital influence in the attitude of the world. As the
translation stands the wording of it does not necessarily give a clear
indication of the truth of the matter, but rather tends to support the
prejudiced viewpoint whereby the truth has been presented in a false light that
defeats the purpose of the truth. So, the light wherewith we view this matter
must come from the Master's own words. When He said that the works that He did
were possible to us, and when l said that the Father within Him accomplished
the works which He did, it is evident that He was recognizing the Father within
us and recognizing that, to the degree that we let the Father do the works, the
works of the Father would be done through us as surely as they were done
through Him.
We recognize that in the processes of
birth the physical seed is present, and must be present, and if that is true of
us and we say that it was not true of Jesus with respect to His birth, then we
set Him apart from us where His Life can have no real meaning to us, and that
peculiar distinction which has been established in consciousness has caused His
life to not have very much real meaning, even to the mass of people numbered in
Christendom, because they have felt that lie was too far removed from them for
them to achieve; therefore, under the direction of the devil they developed the
idea of mere acceptance with the lips, assuming that that would be enough, that
Jesus did it all and they would not have to do anything but believe with the
lips. How convenient!—and how certain to bring failure and maintain the
supremacy of the devil!
The physical seed was present with
respect to the birth of Jesus. That may seem to you as an arbitrary statement
on my part, and if you ask for Biblical proof I am not in position to give it,
and prejudices tend to arise at this point and say that such an idea is utterly
sacrilegious, but such prejudices are fostered by the devil so that he may
maintain supremacy and defeat the purposes of the truth, and keep Jesus Christ
from becoming the Ruler in the lives of men.
Let us go back a little. The fall came
into manifestation through Eve, and she was promised that through her seed
salvation should come. Woman represents the negative manifestation of humanity;
man represents the positive phase of humanity; but humanity as a whole is
represented as a woman in relationship to the positive expression of God. We have,
for instance in Revelation, the Church and its membership of men and women
forming the Bride of the Lamb. From the standpoint of the relationship in
actuality, in the right sense of man and God, man and woman are one, and the
two in oneness are negative to God so that in that absolute oneness of man and
woman the manifestation of woman in relationship to God is made manifest, so that
the fatherhood of God, working through the woman, manifest as the oneness of
man and woman, permits the manifestation of the birth of the child as revealed
in the case of Jesus Christ.
The perfect woman, insofar as this world
is concerned, is the perfect manifestation or blending of man and woman, so
that together they make a complete unit, and a unit that is negative or
responsive to God, so that that which is of God may come through that one being
into the world. This is the central, fundamental truth back of the story of the
birth of Jesus, for the mother of Jesus, pictured in its idealism, simply
symbolizes the perfect blending of man and woman. "They two shall be one
flesh," and if they are one flesh they cannot be two pieces of flesh and
separated, and considered as being distinct, one from the other; therefore, to
the degree that we recognize that man and woman, as one flesh, become perfectly
negative and responsive to God, then the fatherhood of God in relationship to
birth or Creative activity on earth, becomes a reality.
Now it is true that the degree of
perfection in this cycle
was higher in the case of Jesus Christ than is true in the case of most human
beings. Nevertheless, it is true for each child who is born of a love union. In
that union the male and female are one flesh and they constitute the woman in
union with God the Father, so that God the Father is the father of the child,
and the recognition of the Father in the Divine sense is absolutely essential
to a realization that we are not far from God, and that in Reality we can, if
we will, let it be so, fulfilling the Master's words, "Verily, verily I
say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do, shall he do also;
and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father."
How? On the same basis, by reason of which His works were made manifest.
"The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself, but the Father
that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works."
So here we have briefly, directly stated, the real truth back of the story of the immaculate conception, and when we recognize this truth we realize it is not ridiculous, nor is God asking the impossible of us for us to recognize that Jesus Christ is our example, and that we are to follow Him.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
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