Transparency
Martin Cecil November 12, 1978
How great is the Lord! He is clothed in majesty and strength. He reigneth forever. His kingdom is characterized by holiness. The kingdoms of this world are characterized by coarseness, filthiness, violence. All the works of men in this present state are valueless.
Holiness is brought into the world by the angels of the Lord who are in expression through human form. The kingdom comes because the nature and the character of the King is revealed. Human nature knows not the Lord, nor ever can. The Lord is great and greatly to be praised. Do we really know this in this hour? The choir may sing about it, the rest of us may hear the choir singing, but do we know the truth? To what extent is there a gathering of angels here this morning, not only incarnate in human form but revealed in human form? Those who know the truth in human consciousness are angels incarnate and in expression. Are you in fact counted among these on earth? We make no sense if this is not so. It could be said that in such case we are senseless. This is perhaps another word for being unconscious.
Let us not deceive ourselves with fantasies. Fantasies of any kind are worthless. The Lord reigneth. This is the fact, whether human beings know it or not. This is the truth. Are we really associated with this truth? Do we know it? Or do we still imagine that as human beings we have to exert some sort of influence and control to make things work out the way we think they should? The Lord reigneth. This is indeed the truth. Human nature plays its games. Sometimes there are those who imagine that they are winning. Others know darn well they are losing. But the Lord reigneth, the truth is true.
The fact that the Lord reigneth must be proclaimed on earth, not simply in words alone, as I am using them this morning. There is more to the words that I am using than the words themselves. So must it be with our words spoken day by day. How weighty, how useful, how creative, are the words which fall from your lips? Do they reveal the Word, or are they merely idle words, words without meaning, words without sense, because they are spoken by a senseless person? How could a senseless person speak sensible words? The words that human beings utter sometimes sound pretty grand to other human beings who delight to be fooled. This is a characteristic of human nature. It seems to be happy only when it is deceived. But human nature is always deceived, and yet not always happy—seldom in fact.
The creative expression of the Word through words carries what is called happiness with it. Idle words breed dissatisfaction. It is well to pause to consider this fact. Do you experience dissatisfaction? If so, look to your words. Words reveal the nature of what it is that is in expression by reason of you. "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." The quality of speech is very revealing and also induces the experience of the one who speaks. For instance if words are those of complaint the experience of the person who complains will be of a very unsatisfactory nature, characterized by his complaining.
The kingdom of the King of heaven and earth is characterized by majesty and strength and holiness. No unholy word is spoken in the kingdom of the King. If unholy words proceed from our mouths, obviously we are not present in the kingdom and so it isn't known. It isn't known that the Lord reigneth—His majesty and strength are not known. But when our words are characterized by holiness, being an expression springing forth from the heart which is pure, the kingdom is known. It is known then as being present and is recognized as having always been at hand. Are we to leave it at hand, or is it to be made known because we live and speak words which spring from a pure heart?
We can watch our words to see from whence they came. If they come from an impure heart then the wise thing at the moment would be to shut up. Some people find difficulty in shutting up: they have started to say something, and they think that they have to carry through to the bitter end—and it's a bitter end when the heart is impure. However if one is not completely senseless one may recognize when words do spring from an impure heart and simply shut up, even if it means doing it in mid-sentence. It may seem to someone else to be a little peculiar, but praise the Lord! I've heard even at times comments being made after a service which went on and on because the individual was perhaps diligently searching for something to say but saying nothing. Surely, if one is not completely in a coma, he becomes aware of this fact and may just shut his mouth.
It would seem that Emissary experience might be one of great quietness if care was taken with words. Is there something wrong with being quiet? Is there something wrong with silence at times? Surely not. "Be still, and know that I am God." Every idle word must be given account of in the day of judgment. As the kingdom is at hand, so is the day of judgment. We are more apt to have experience that the day of judgment is present than we are that the kingdom is present. The day of judgment comes, we object, we complain, we think of ourselves as being badly treated. But those who are strong in the Lord acknowledge their own responsibility in the matter and, forgetting the past, live in the moment to express what is right in the moment, thereby revealing the Lord. The Lord reigneth; He expresses what is right in the moment. If we should happen to do likewise, would we find ourselves separate from the Lord do you think? We only have the sense of separation when what is expressed in words, and in other ways too, is not of the Lord.
The Lord reigneth. The Lord is clothed with majesty and strength. There is what we have referred to as radiation. The Word never ceases to be expressed insofar as the Lord is concerned—He never changes character. In that sense He is the same today, yesterday and forever. He's not going to change character to please human beings. The Lord is. The Lord reigneth. The Lord is clothed in majesty and strength. The Word is spoken. There is what we have called radiation, the radiation of spirit, the creative power of the universe in action constantly. Human beings have seemingly forgotten this. Imagining that there isn't any such thing they try to make it be somehow in their own strength. But perchance there are those in human nature who do offer some response to that radiation, usually to start with unconsciously. The conscious mind apparently has the power to argue almost anyone out of response; but there are those who nevertheless do respond, perhaps you amongst them.
When there is response to radiation, when resistance dissolves to that extent, there is the experience of attraction. You know these words of old, I am sure: radiation, response, attraction. You are attracted toward the source of the radiation. You are attracted by the radiation. It carries some appeal even though mentally speaking you may try to discount it. But where there is some consistency in response, attraction continues, opening the door to an ultimate union with the source of that radiation and consequently a participation with that source in continuing radiation. Here is the transition out of the realm of effects into oneness with Cause: unified radiation. When this is seen as relating to human experience, when this fact emerges, there is One who comes in the name of the Lord.
I would like to read a sentence from a letter I received from one of your number: "It is almost as though I stand in front of you with my back to you but transparent, so that I face out into the world and the world sees you through me."
You may recall something that was said at the beginning of the Book of Revelation when the one who wrote indicated that he turned to see the voice that spake with him. Here is something that correlates with response: a turning in a different direction, making a one-eighty, as they say in flying circles. Of course we don't want to fly in circles! There are many occasions when making a one-eighty is the safest thing to do. It is so in this area which we are now considering. Here is a reversing of polarity so that response, which heretofore had been directed toward externals—even though sometimes those externals are invisible externals just in the realm of feeling or thought—comes again to the Lord. This is the requirement of all human beings everywhere, but how shall it happen? It can happen only in a sensible way when there is one who comes in the name of the Lord. Then we may turn to see the voice—not only hear it but see it.
You may remember that something of the same sort occurred in the story of Job. He had heard the Lord and now He saw. There is a difference. The difference relates to what we have recently been considering with respect to the spirit of truth being with us and then in us. When the spirit of truth is in us because it is our own expression, then we see—otherwise we only hear. "Somebody said something which I think is true. I believe it because I heard it, not because I saw it." At that point it could be said that it is not one's own; one is still dependent upon somebody else to provide what is properly finding expression of the truth. But we only become sensible when we ourselves provide what is properly finding expression of the truth. When this is so, we see, we know for ourselves, and there is no dependence upon the seeing of somebody else to permit us to allow a true expression of the Word through our words, and in other ways. We don't have constantly to be checking with somebody else to see if what we imagine to be true is really true. Well if it is imagination it isn't true. It needs to be the actual expression of the truth in living; then we know.
However to reach that point there must first be response, in order that there might be attraction. And so according to this story in Revelation the one who wrote the words turned to see the voice that spake with him, and being turned he saw something, and he described what he saw in symbolical terms, because there wasn't any other way of describing it. That is right at the beginning of the Book of Revelation. That is about as far as many people seem to want to go. If you see seven golden candlesticks, for instance, that may be an impressive sight perhaps, but what does it mean? Of what value is it? Does it make any sense?
It seems that human nature likes to indulge itself in vain imagination; it gets all wrapped up in its translation of various patterns of symbolism, as though this was what was required. What is required is that response should permit attraction, so that instead of seeing things through a glass darkly and trying to figure it all out when we don't see clearly, there is a willingness just to move in the cycle of attraction, letting resistances dissolve so that there may be a greater understanding as the fog begins to clear.
Moving toward the kingdom in experience, we are moving toward something that is brightly lit. First of all a person sees that there is a glow in the sky so to speak, or through the fog, in a certain direction. There are those who have imagined that that was all that was necessary. "Let's keep our eyes on the glow," retaining in the meantime the resistances which prevent any further movement toward what it is that is producing the glow. But where there is a yielding in response, so that attraction can work and resistances are not projected into the forefront of experience but are allowed to recede into the background, there comes a greater seeing.
There are many things to be experienced. There are many changes to work out, not on the basis of any human nature endeavor but merely because there is this force of attraction and there is movement in response to that. When this is seen then you recognize that you really can't accomplish anything by trying to make something be some way that you think it ought to be, either in yourself or in your circumstances or in somebody else. The senseless state is without sense but human beings imagine that they have sense. They talk about "common" sense, a very rare commodity by the way, very uncommon, because human nature is stupid.
By reason of the yielding in response there is attraction. Whatever it is that needs to happen can be set in motion. It is set in motion not by anything that the human being did or can do, other than yield in response. There is something else acting. We call that radiation perhaps—it is the Word. The Word begins to emerge. First of all just the form of it is seen, words. Well, that's all right if those words are based in the Word. A person may draw closer to the words. There will be the inclination, as there has been in most of you I suspect, to imagine that somehow the words are the thing, but they only are valuable because they may acquaint someone who is in the process of attraction, with the Word. The Word is a reality regardless of words, but words may clothe the Word, and response to words which clothe the Word may, if the individual is in the cycle of attraction, acquaint that person with the Word.
It might be said that the words of the Bible may acquaint a person who is in the cycle of attraction with something of the Word. There are many, many people the world around who sense that there is something to the Bible. There are those who have made some arbitrary interpretation of the words—in which case, if they do that, they tend to block out the experience of the Word because they are wrapped up in the words. It is far better for a person to be content with the sensing of the fact that behind the words there is the Word, even though he doesn't know what it is. It is much better to let it be that way than to try to dissect the words with the expectation of finding the Word. The Word is lost by reason of an attempt to dissect the form which actually does reveal the Word, even though human nature may not see it. Obviously human nature doesn't see it.
The same is true, incidentally, with respect to human beings. There are those who try to dissect themselves or train others in this matter of dissection. I'm not thinking of it merely from the standpoint of the physical level of things, but mentally speaking and emotionally speaking human beings are always picking at each other in one way or another. There are those who are particularly trained in the art of picking: psychiatrists and psychologists, and so on; but the more they pick the less they discover, because if they pick enough the person begins to imagine that he knows himself on the basis of the picking. Well that isn't him at all, because to know oneself one must know oneself wholly. One cannot know oneself piece by piece. One is a whole person, after all.
Find polarity which leads ultimately to union with whatever the reality of oneself is. When the reality is known and expressed, all the parts which make possible the increase of that expression fall into place. They participate in the expression of life. Life springs from the Word. It springs out of a state of wholeness and is what, from our standpoint, we would call essence. The wholeness is in that spiritual essence. Describing it that way it tends, in human consciousness, to make it look as though it were pretty small, just a little essence here. That is merely the human view of the thing. But there is wholeness in undimensional spirit; therefore you can't describe it in dimensional terms except symbolically. But then the symbols tend to be taken by the human nature consciousness as though they were the thing itself, which they never are.
Words may symbolize the Word, but words are not the Word until the Word is known. Then the words are an expansion, a differentiation, of the Word. But one needs to be on the other side of the words, so to speak, where the Word is, before one's own words will be an expansion, a differentiation of the Word, which is one's own true nature, the character of one's own real expression. And that isn't in fact a small thing, because it is inseparable from the whole character of God and God isn't very small, although human beings try to make Him small by exalting other things in their own experience of existence. But He isn't small. God can't be changed by human imagination. The reality remains, the same today, yesterday and forever. So there is this essential to be differentiated in expression, the reality of God.
The Lord is great. The Lord is clothed with majesty and with strength. His kingdom is characterized by holiness; indeed by wholeness, wholesomeness. If the kingdom is to be known the King must be present. The King is present but unknown. He must be present and known. How is He going to be present and known? The only way He can be known is by reason of human beings. At least at this level of things this is the only way. This is the reason for human existence. If we don't let that reason be fulfilled then we don't exist anymore. As we let that reason be fulfilled we are indeed transparent.
We do face the world in oneness with Cause, with radiation, and those who turn to see the voice that speaks with them may see the Lord because of us. You see the Lord because of me to the extent of my transparency and your willingness to look beyond the words to the Word. It is because of this that you have a point of centering that is present with you. As long as you are merely looking at me, very little is achieved. All that is being achieved in that case is through whatever measure of attraction is taking place, and this is commensurate with the extent to which you are letting resistances be dissolved. You look at me not to worship me but because here is a point of centering in the Lord and you begin to see the Lord through me—not to mistake me for the Lord but to see the Lord through me. The same is true with respect to you as you yourselves are so clarified of resistance that you are finding union with Cause, union with the radiation, so that there might be unified radiation.
Then we all stand looking in the same direction, looking out into the world, so that the Lord, for one thing, can see into the world because our eyes are available to Him, all our senses are available to Him. Then those in the world who look to us may see the Lord through us because we are transparent. If we start taking to ourselves what people begin to offer because they don't know any better, we immediately establish a barrier so that they see no further than us and they don't see the Lord. They see an imitation, a counterfeit. Some of them may want to believe in the counterfeit and some of them may reject it out of hand, so nothing is achieved on that basis.
There must be transparency, so that when someone looks at you they see me, and when someone looks at me they see the Lord. Then there is a clear means of seeing all the way through; then it has become sensible to human beings because it is at a level where they are and they no longer need to imagine anything. They see the Word that is back of the words, and you are all words, words through which the Word rightly may be seen.
It will not be seen by everybody. There will be those who try to stop at the words. There will be those who try to worship you. What are you going to say? "Oh goody, isn't this nice?" Is it? It never appealed to me! Let the words be transparent so that the Word can be seen by those who turn to see. Of course it won't be seen by those who don't turn, but that's all right too. Maybe they'll turn later. But if there are those who do turn, and there certainly are, what do they see? What do they see by reason of the fact that we as individuals are present?
