Through music and singing we have the opportunity of establishing a setting within which we may participate in the creative expression of love. This is true radiation. For man to exist as he was designed to be on earth, there first had to be the creation of a setting. For man to be restored, so that be may be once more on earth, there must be the re-creation of a setting. We could describe this setting as a heavenly one, without as yet comprehending entirely what that might mean. We are aware of the symbolism of fire as representing love. Symbols, or what is represented by them, are not in reality separate. They have become separated in human consciousness; for the reality has been absent from human experience, leaving only the symbol. The absence of the reality has caused the symbol to be a distorted one in the consciousness of human beings. It is distorted because the reality is not known, and so the symbol must represent something imaginary.
By the way, there is nothing wrong with true imagination. Imagination has become such a very fanciful thing in human experience that it is necessary to recognize the nature of what it has become. There is no particular value in continuing to generate fanciful imagination, but the faculty of imagination is useful when it is under control and permits the emergence of the true design. This cannot happen without imagination; we could call it creative imagination. But this has been very rarely experienced by anyone. Perhaps there have been hints now and again over the ages, but we come again to the point where there is the necessity for the reactivation of creative imagination. First of all, as I say, there has to be a receding or a relinquishing of the fanciful brand with which human beings are familiar. An aspect of this has been described as daydreaming; there is night-dreaming as well. So, fanciful imagination indulged in by unregenerate human consciousness necessarily must pass away. However this is not to say that imagination must pass away. This is the case with respect to so much of human experience. The way all the various factors of human experience have been known by human beings must pass away, but the factors themselves, presently distorted in human experience, should not pass away. There is a basic reality present. The Word is present, and the Word shall not pass away. Heaven and earth may pass away. The forms which have been fancifully imagined into existence must pass away, and the preoccupation with fanciful imagination must pass away; but imagination shall not pass away, because it is part of the expression of the Word. We could no doubt consider a range of such elements which in their distorted nature within human experience must pass away; but the elements themselves do not pass away.
So we are aware of many symbols but have rather a limited experience of the reality which is symbolized by these symbols. When we know the reality, we find that it is one with the symbol, or perhaps, to put it the other way around, the symbol is one with the reality. If we speak of fire we think of it as a symbol of love, but if we know love we find that fire is one with love. Clearly enough, human experience of fire has not revealed the reality of love. Fire very often is a destructive thing in human experience. The fire of passion in human hearts has not been the experience of the reality of love. There is indeed passionate hate, isn’t there? There is the passionate experience of many emotions which all reveal, in varying degrees the absence of love. The passionate experience of love itself has been conspicuous by its absence. The only way by which love could be experienced in the intensity of passion is by reason of the presence of truth. Truth is characterized by design and control. Unless there is spiritual control in one's own living, so that the expression is actually a part of the design, the experience of love, of the fire, will prove to be destructive. It is not a matter of intensifying human passions, is it? They seem to be intensified enough, and they produce a great deal of destructiveness. But the passionate experience of love is needful if the creative radiation is to occur within the range of human experience. This all relates to human beings. Things are all right factually in the universal sense; it is just out of kilter in human experience. This is the only little blemish that is present perhaps in the whole universal state. So the concern is not to set the universe to rights, or make sense out of it or something or other. There have been those who have been so arrogant in their intellects as to suppose that, because of the discoveries that human beings make, they are at last making sense out of the universe. Of course the universe has sense already, but human beings are so dumb and ignorant and blind that they don't know it; and the more the human intellect is developed in this state of separation the less it knows.
We are concerned with fire as it truly is. The reality of fire cannot be known until love is known. In these days, of course, fire tends to be correlated with nuclear fission. This is a fire which seems to be external to man and dangerous to his continued existence. There is, however, rightly what might be referred to as an internal fire which when released, under control in the true design, is creative. We might look at this matter of internal and external fire from the standpoint of the truth of the matter. Most people are aware of the potential of destructiveness, but that is not based in the truth of the matter, it is based in the distortion in human consciousness. We might examine something of the truth of the matter, not in order to develop more concepts but that we may associate ourselves in experience with what is actually happening. We have already been seeking to do this and we have some understanding of what is actually happening, but obviously there is far more that we do not know. We would allow our knowing to increase, recognizing that such knowing is consequent upon doing; it isn’t consequent upon theorizing. Nevertheless we can examine certain things which may seem to be theoretical at the moment in order to open the door for experience.
I was interested last evening when Alan mentioned last evening something with respect to the fire that is at the core of the earth. This is a factor that is seldom considered. We creep around on the surface with very little awareness of subterranean fire. Occasionally we become aware of it because a volcano erupts and fire puts in an appearance on the surface; here is an indication of the fact that there is something pretty hot at the core. That fire is a symbol of love—therefore love is present at the core—the core of the earth. The crust of the earth seems to be pretty crusty and, in a general sense, the core has been hidden away. Maybe that is something symbolic too; human beings on the surface of the earth have had very little awareness of the truth of love. However they wouldn’t exist at all if it wasn’t for the truth of love. The fiery core of the earth may be recognized as symbolizing an aspect of love; we could speak of it as the negative aspect of love. This relates to the working of the spirit of God subconsciously; probably we would say through the heart.
Most of us are very much aware of another body of fire in the person of the sun. This seems to be an external fire. The creative process on the surface of the earth is consequent upon the fire in the heavens, the sun, and the fire in the core of the earth. The fire in the sun is the positive aspect; the fire in the earth is the negative aspect. As these two meet in the vicinity of the surface of the earth, creation consequently occurs. There is a radiant aspect proceeding from the core of the earth which correlates with the radiant aspect being received from the sun. Here is the design established, under control, by which life appears. Human beings with their great intellects have been trying to figure out how life appeared on earth. They came up with a number of rather fanciful theories. The most recent one is that it came drifting in out of space of life—little packages of life!—and started to evolve on earth. There is no need for anything to drift in from space. All the requirement is present for the creative process to proceed, and it obviously has done. And while there may be more to it than what I am now bringing out, the basic elements are positive and negative aspects of love represented by the sun of our solar system and the fire at the core of the earth. It is the interaction between these two that has allowed for the birth of life in form on the surface of the earth.
Human beings refer to earth as mother earth sometimes but I think they usually look upon the mother aspect as simply relating to nature on the surface of the earth. But nature on the surface of the earth is part of that which was produced as a setting for man. Nature is not the mother of things but the progeny of things. The mother could be said to be the love aspect, symbolized by the fiery core of the earth; and out of the earth, centered in the fiery core, in conjunction with the sun of the solar system, life was conceived, and life was born into form, initially to provide a setting for man. Here we are anyway.
Now we know that the condition in which we find ourselves has been a state of darkness where none of these things have been known. Because they have not been known, and still are not adequately known even by us, there has seemed to be the necessity for speculation about the origins of life. The idea is that if you proceed far enough into space you are going to discover all of the factors that will provide knowledge about the origins of life. But all of the factors that are needful are present in our own backyard; they are present exactly where we are. We may see that in this symbol of the sun and the earth. There is more to it than that because there is a solar system, we call it, with other planets and comets, electromagnetic fields, etc—considerably more radiation from the sun than is used in the design established for the earth. Insofar as the earth is concerned the fire is at the core of the earth—internal in other words, but it seems as though the sun is an external fire. But if we take the whole body of the solar system we find that the sun is also an internal fire; it is in the midst of the solar system. However from the standpoint of the sun there is another seeming external fire. I suppose we would probably identify this at the core of the galaxy, but that fire at the core of the galaxy is internal to the galaxy; and one can proceed in this fashion in the observation of internal fire and what seems to be external fire which turns into internal fire.
Having observed this symbol we may also see it with respect to ourselves. Individually speaking, we have a certain awareness of the core fire that is present. The evidence of the fact that it is present is life itself. We have spoken of this core fire, utilizing various terms: the Angel, the Word, the Tone. This is something internal, present, we have been trying to describe. It isn't internal in the sense of being smaller than our physical forms. There are those who have, in considering the internal nature of the source, been inclined to feel that it shrank. It is merely internal in the sense of being of a different vibratory nature, but that says nothing as to its size; and eventually the point is reached beyond the field of what human beings think of as dimension. So we are not considering size particularly but recognizing that there is an internal source, individually speaking, which—not in the sense of dimension but in the sense of quality and creative capacity—is much larger than what appears externally.But the fire is there internally in the individual sense. We are individually assuming greater responsibility because of this. But we also recognize that there is a larger body than our individual bodies and there is an internal fire to this larger body which is seen from the individual standpoint as being external. But as individual vision begins to encompass the true picture, there is an awareness that the core fire in that body is internal to that body. The core fire of that body is first seen, by those who are beyond that body, as being external. Awakening to the fact of their own core fire, there comes a realization that what seemed to be external before is really internal to the larger body still.
There is no necessity to be confused by all of this. It is clear enough, if one stops the fiddling of the human mind and acknowledges the truth of one’s own experience. Perhaps, in times past you have seen me as the external fire, the core focus of what we deem to be our body. But then, as the body begins to be an experience in reality, that external fire no longer is seen as being external but is experienced as being internal—internal to the body. Now all this pattern, design of relatedness, reveals the reality of oneness—because it is not restricted merely to human experience; all these things can be extended as far as you wish into the cosmic whole. But here is the design, isn't it?—the basic fundamental design. And it is the fact of the incarnation of spirit in that design that maintains the control; for spirit incarnates in the whole design, in the design of what we think of now as the cosmos. But where does the cosmos end? The little human mind is inclined to try to get an edge to it, but factually we do not need to exercise ourselves in this way because we have plenty to do right where we are. Wandering around in what are supposed to be vast spaces is suddenly of very little value when we need to tie our shoelaces! So we operate where we are. Where we are is a larger place than perhaps we originally thought it was in the state of self-centeredness.
We are aware of a body. This body has tended to be seen simply in terms of flesh: Well there are some Emissaries around on the mailing list and somehow or other an association has developed between them, and so there appears to be a body of flesh composed of the individual flesh bodies of those who compose it. But that is a very limited, restricted view of things. It is a peripheral view of things, because there could be no body of flesh if it were not for the fact of a body of spirit So the real body is a spiritual body, not a flesh body. Here is the reality. When that reality is experienced, then the flesh body is included, but to try to get the flesh body into that experience is impossible. One must experience the spiritual reality. To extent that we have done this we have become aware of the reality of a flesh body. But let us not, in our own consciousness, emphasize the fact of the flesh body into a position of dominance. It only exists, this collective body, and our own individual bodies for that matter, because of the fiery core, because of spirit. And so we experience the reality of this body in spirit. If we do not experience it in spirit we can never experience it in the flesh. We may have a conceptual view of something in the flesh, which has been largely the case with many. They have thought of themselves as belonging to EDL, being members of it or something of the sort, which is not a true picture at all. Our unified experience is in spirit. We have known this conceptually, intheory, and somewhat in fact, but the extent of that experience needs obviously to expand. If it is to expand there must be a greater experience of the fire. That is the core of reality; that is what is experienced in spirit. That experience includes passion, at all levels, in a fitting way. It is made to be a fitting way because of the truth, the design and the control of truth.
As was pointed out by Alan yesterday evening, there is a distinction in the expression of love. With some it has tended to be rather undifferentiated thing heretofore. One should naturally have a passionate love, and that may be true, but you don't display it all over the place. You don't rush up to people in the street and start hugging them. And in own more internal relationships in spirit there is a fitting behavior. It has at times been a little bit brash in Emissary experience, too much display perhaps in settings where it shouldn't have been. Just because we do not proclaim our love from the housetops on all occasions does not mean that we have stopped loving. It means that we have accepted the control and the design of truth. And having done that, then passion can intensify and there can be a more intense expression of love at all the various levels, but it will be fitting to those various levels. It will be something that we have perhaps not experienced heretofore, and certainly others have not experience heretofore, but it needs to come into the picture in a controlled manner, so that the passion of love may be proclaimed. It is proclaimed in living. It is not proclaimed because we stand on a soapbox and talk about it; it is proclaimed because it is made manifest in our living. But it is only made manifest in our living as we are a part of the spiritual body which is the core of the flesh body. So our experience is dominantly of that core state. As it increasingly becomes the dominant experience, here is the experience of fire, under control, operating according to the design, which creates all things new.
Now this fire is a blend. It is not just positive and it is not just negative. It is a balance of the positive and the negative. The positive fire is required, but the negative fire is also required, rising up through the heart, through the subconscious levels. The positive fire, in a way, we can't get at, any more than we can get at the sun. The negative fire we can get at—not that we need to bore into the core of the earth, but because that core of the earth is radiating in a way that is closest to us. It is closer to us, obviously, than the sun which in distance is supposedly, what?—a long way anyhow! whereas the core of the earth is not so far.
So we have the enfoldment, one might say, the potential of setting, for our experience on the surface of the earth. In this sense I suppose we are still in the arms of our mother. However on the surface of the earth we find ourselves at the point of union between what is rising up from the core of the earth and what is coming down from the sun. Here is the crossover point we might say. Here is the point of life. Here is the point where man may be Here is the point where man was created to be. The setting is there, yes, but it was to provide the external essentials by which he might live and move and have his being on the surface of the earth. Here is the progeny of the union of the earth and the sun, mother and father: man, the son, the progeny, the child. The same core that is symbolized by the fiery core of the earth and by the fiery sun, core of the solar system, is present also in man. Here is the heavenly heredity, we might say—and it correlates in man with the larger picture, or what we think of at least as the larger picture: the earth and the sun—because there is what rises up of the fire through the subconscious mind and heart to purify the heart. As we begin to associate ourselves with things the way they are, then this process can occur. We have found it to be occurring because, in some small measure at least, we have been associating ourselves with the way things are. Part of the way things are is that this core fire properly rises up in radiation, through the subconscious mind and heart to the surface of our being, where it meets the radiation that comes from above.
Human beings have had some awareness of the reality of the radiation coming from above, which has been given form symbolically in their consciousness by the utilization of terms such as God. We see the sun of our solar system and there has been some investigation as to what is supposed to be there, scientifically speaking: but no one really knows what the sun is, what is going on there, any more than anyone knows God in the present state of a human being. It is just a theory, just a concept, something to believe in perhaps, or not to believe in, as the case may be. I suppose if one lived one's life in a mine, below the surface of the earth, you might deny the fact that the sun exists. So there are those who don't believe in the sun and there are those who do believe in the sun; it depends on your positioning I suppose. If you get out on the surface, then you may believe in the sun: if you live subterraneanly, as most people do in the subconscious then you tend to deny the sun. So the process is well portrayed: the truth is well portrayed: it has always been there, understandable, up to a point at least.
There has been a certain willingness to let spirit penetrate our own minds and hearts, to the extent that we can let some doors and windows be opened to see these things and to see how they correlate with our own experience. And there are certain aspects of this that we know because we have the experience. But obviously, whatever passion we now know, whatever love we now know, appearing in what we think of as friendship, perhaps, one aspect of it at least, is our experience. We know that. We still at times try to deny it but when we are honest we know it. We need to be honest, by the way, so that we function on the basis of our knowing and not on the basis of the peculiar compulsions that still rise up out of the self-conscious mind and the heart which is not yet pure. But as shame dissolves, as fear dissolves, because this rising up of the fire in our own hearts has it’s effect, then the heart becomes pure. "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God” It is impossible to be aware of the reality of God, to know God, without a pure heart. Only then what is rising up through the heart of the fire, meets at the surface, where the conscious mind is, what is coming down from above. That, as I say, appears to be external. It is external to oneself as an individual, but it is not external to oneself as a part of the spiritual body which is becoming known.
There is much upon which we may meditate in order to permit a greater experience in our knowing; but what I have portrayed here, symbolically speaking, is factually one with the truth, one with spirit. There is no distinction between the symbol and what is the reality that is thereby symbolized. We may share in that in our own experience, in our own living, allowing the core fire to rise up through our hearts, and we also have some awareness of the shining of the sun already, of the brightness external to ourselves. In this particular setting perhaps I provide a symbol of that external brightness; but if the fire is rising up in you, then it meets that external brightness and we all discover what that means at the surface. And at the surface is what we know consciously; we share a conscious understanding. Here is the blending point. Perhaps it is better seen and known as a blending point now than a crossover point. It is the blending point of what is coming down from God out of heaven and what is rising up in ourselves of His fire of love in our hearts.
So we rejoice to have had the opportunity of participating in this conscious clarification at the surface, to the extent that we have been participating in the actual process. The radiation from above has always been there, but if there is a rising up of the radiation through the heart, the intensified fire there, then, behold there is light—light consciously speaking. And we may say. “Oh. I see.” We may also add to that “I don't see it all. But I see something. I see something emerging. The light is shining; I see something emerging that I didn't comprehend before.” Only in experience, moving together, do we reach the point of comprehension, of knowing of knowing what it is. But let us acknowledge the truth of what occurs so that we are associated with it and we are not standing on one side sucking our teeth!—of doubtful mind. We place ourselves in the fire quite willingly, knowing of course that the fire burns what doesn’t belong. If we have been unwisely loving some of the things that are going to be burned then we are going to get burned. But if we begin to feel a little hot and bothered—there is something a bit fiery around—well we are keenly aware of the necessity to let go of what it is that needs to go. Let it burn. Even if you don’t know what it is, let it burn. The fire will take care of it.
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We move with absolute assurance into the blended union of conscious experience at the surface, rejoicing to play our parts by which the fulfilment may come to mankind as a whole, all to the glory of God, whom we may begin to see and know because our hearts become pure. The fire of love, rising up through the heart, is love for the truth. Let us let that fire burn freely. Love for the truth consequently allows, as the heart is purified, for a conscious knowing of the truth.
In the beauty of holiness, clothed in the garments of our flesh bodies, minds and hearts, thankfully and humbly we bow before Thee, most gracious Lord and King. Representing Thee on earth we represent the children of men to Thee, letting our garments be sanctified in the truth of Thy Word and purified by the fire of Thy love. So may it be for all the children of men. Accordingly it is done.
We readily acknowledge that what is to be done is done in ourselves here and now. It always is here and now. In imagination you may have been somewhere else at some other time, but never in fact. If we assemble as we have this morning in our Chapel, this then is the here and now for us together. The sounding of the Tone we have heard and hear; the fire of love has been and is known to us. In symbol this fire is present at the core of the earth and in the core of the solar system. In our own experience there is the fire at the core of our own beings and the fire which we acknowledge to be above us, the ascending and the descending fire respectively. Fire is the symbol of love. These two aspects of love rightly blend and fuse in us here and now.
We are well aware that man was created to be at this point of fusion, standing upright in the air of the spirit on the surface of the earth. I think it was Paul who said something about being caught up into the air at a certain point. This has generated some rather fanciful ideas. But we are rightly caught up into the air of the spirit, where the fire from above and below blends. This is the positioning of man, certainly not the experienced positioning of human beings at the present time or in any historical memory that we might have.
The rising up into the air of the spirit is out of the subconscious crust of corruption that is presently known in human experience. We cannot do this by some sort of application of will. It is in the process of being done by the application of the ascending flame of love in concert with the descending flame of love. It might be said that the atmosphere is clear above. There is a thin layer of corruption at the surface and below the surface. I say "thin" relatively speaking. In symbol there certainly is a lot of apparent space above us in which there is no evidence of human corruption. Mind you, in recent times human corruption has been catapulted into the immediate space in the vicinity of the earth, so that here, it might be said, there is toxic substance present in the cell of the solar system. Our own physical health is very largely dependent upon the clearing of toxic substances from the cells of our own bodies.
In this connection I might share a portion of a letter with you that came from Dawn Blechman, who is, as you know, a professional in the field of nursing. She says (and incidentally the title to this particular letter is “Observations on Illness.” Are you ever ill? Are you really, now, ever ill?):
“In this process of transformation and transmutation, most have agreed that a 'letting go' is necessary, letting the old pass away, or letting that which does not belong pass away. But when it happens, why is it called 'illness'?
“For a while now we have had moving through our population what is referred to as a ‘bug,’ which I understand is not confined to Sunrise but is moving in many across the nation. Each person is handling this in different ways. One is vomiting and has diarrhea, another has a sore throat and swollen glands, and yet another has a heavy chest cold—all indicating an attempt by the body to rid itself of toxins. Doctors call it the “flu,” but what has heretofore been diagnosed as flu has a virus strain which is given a name (Asian flu, etc.). Although we haven't done so, I'd be willing to bet that there are very few virus strains present, if any, but ninety percent of any exudate put under the microscope would have neon lights blinking Fear or Shame or Judgment, etc—toxins being released from the vibrational surround of the physical cells, a letting go of the old.”
I wonder how many of you actually have such a view, for instance, of the flu which may attack you? This is the usual human way of seeing things: We are always being attacked by this and that, so that we have to raise our defenses. We see this well reflected in the world around us, even on the international scene, where everybody fears attack and everybody raises defenses. Certainly we do not need to look at things in this way and should not be doing so. Dawn has pointed to something here of which we are all, I am sure, well aware: that there is the need for cleansing in the water of truth and for purification in the fire of love. This in times past has been spoken of as baptism. Most people seem to be afraid of being baptized and are inclined to fight the process tooth and nail. Do we need to fight and resist? We know better but probably we still do it, at least in this particular area if in no other.
Viruses are interesting. It seems to be supposed that they cause various kinds of disease, illness. They do not. They may be present when various kinds of disease are present, but they are not the cause of them. They do give evidence of the fact that there is a cause, an invisible cause, one might say. The viruses themselves are almost invisible. Some of them apparently still are; they can't be located. As I say, these are evidences of what is over the edge of the visible in the realm of the invisible. We are aware that this realm of the invisible is related to the subconscious crust, those toxic vibrational factors that are present at the subconscious level in all human beings. The level at which they are present is relatively a narrow band, but here is the corruption. Here is the realm of vibrational decay which is then quite naturally reflected in what occurs at the level of physical form, particularly with respect to the cells of the human body.
The cells of the human body are bathed in an invisible substance. This invisible substance, as we have just noted, at its lower edge is quite corrupt. As there is movement beyond that layer of corruption there is increasing clarity. The fire moves freely in the clear atmosphere, but when it reaches the corruption the fire begins to burn it. In theory I am sure that we can all rejoice in the fact that this is so. This is one way by which the corruption is disposed of. But the heat may seem to be uncomfortable at a level which we cannot define until the corruption spills over into the physical cells of our bodies, which then proceed to become well saturated also with corruption, toxins. The cells, apparently, at some point proclaim that they have had enough and proceed to eject some of this toxic substance. Then we claim that we are sick. “Poor me! I am sick. This is an increase of the discomfort that I knew before I was sick. Now it is compounded in the physical realm.” And we look around to see who can do something about it. Of course, in the general pattern of things, I suppose the doctor, of whatever ilk, is sought out and the individual says, "Free me of this trouble."
While the trouble has all kinds of fancy names in the medical dictionary, it is all basically the same thing. Of course the variation comes, at least partly, because of the particular cells in the body which are crying out in their discomfort. The cells may be in one of the organs of the body, they may be in the throat, they may be in the chest, they may be in the intestinal tract, they may be almost anywhere. So we have various varieties of so-called flu, for instance, but the cause of the trouble is always the same; at least it springs out of the same place. The trouble is invisible, and the poor cells of the body eventually have to be crucified if the body as a whole is to continue to live. So human beings, ourselves included, get sick—probably feel inclined to complain about it. We may not rush immediately to the medical doctor as heretofore, but we call on somebody, I am sure—the ever-willing server, no doubt. If we do this, why do we do it? “Come on, server. Help to clear the cells of my body of these wretched toxins.” Well of course people do behave unwisely; the truth doesn't control in their living as a rule; so they are inclined to eat what they feel like eating and do what they feel like doing without regard to the fact that this may intensify the troubles in their cells. Maybe that's a good thing; it makes them aware of it at least, if there is trouble there.
But we ourselves, I am sure, are concerned to allow essential transformation to occur in the invisible realm of the origins of so-called illness and disease. This is the realm of the subconscious corruption which has dictated to human beings how they should behave. As we have noted many times before, the conscious mind then comes along and justifies the behavior. Human beings are well fooled in this regard, imagining that the conscious mind was there first and decided upon the behavior. No, all the conscious mind does is to explain the behavior, to justify it, to give reasons for it. It sprang out of the realm of corruption. Seeing that it sprang out of that realm, there is no way by which it can be justified. Nevertheless the conscious mind has become expert in this field of justification. Virtually anything can be justified by the conscious mind; it has had long centuries of practice. But the fact of the matter is that what occurs erupts out of the corrupt state of the subconscious mind. The conscious mind is uncomfortable about that and so it has somehow to explain it away. Obviously the detoxification of the cells of the body is important, but they are going to be retoxified unless something happens in the realm of the corruption, the real corruption, the invisible corruption.
We have had, no doubt, the theory about disease being a means of healing, but you would have to admit it has been mostly theory. There is one way by which everything can be detoxified very quickly: thermonuclear war, it is called. All cells would rather rapidly be detoxified; at least it is heading in that direction. This has it backwards however, just as the nutritionists tend to have it backwards. They want to detoxify the cells through physical means, by diet, etc. However, one can never keep up with the retoxifying process as long as the invisible corruption remains. It brings it back faster than the diet can get rid of it. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but” by the process of invisible detoxification, “by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
In this process of cleansing and purification of the invisible substance, which we would perhaps refer to as pneumaplasm, it is achieved by reason of attunement—here we are back to attunements again—by the vibrational Tone of the Word. However, the vibrational Tone of the Word in oneself must proceed from oneself. It may be inspired perhaps or encouraged by somebody else, but unless it proceeds from within oneself it doesn't work, or it only works momentarily.
We have the record of many healings at the hand of Jesus. He was present with the people. He didn't heal everybody indiscriminately. The fact is He didn't heal anybody. They either came into a level of agreement with Him, subconsciously mostly, or they weren't healed, because the healing proceeded from within themselves. We have often referred to that poor gentleman who had been in a sad state for a long, long time, lying by the pool, hoping for somebody to put him in—to get washed up I suppose. The word of Jesus was—having asked the man whether he really wanted to be healed, he professed that he did—“Take up your bed, and walk.” Get up! Stop lying around! And there is obviously something present in a person, revealed through that man, which agreed with the point. So he got up. How long he stayed up is another question. We do not hear particularly of any who in fact did stay up. Something happened momentarily, there was momentary agreement with the truth; but, as is customary with human beings, they usually revert into the old state. So the troubles reoccur, because there was no adequate cleansing and purification of the heart, of the invisible level of corruption.
Human beings for a long time have had many self-improvement programs. These have been emphasized in recent years, but they have been present in every generation all down through the ages. There have been many theories, many techniques, many methods used, but human beings quite evidently, while they may have benefited momentarily I suppose, did not succeed in what is clearly required in human experience. This is about as far as anyone has ever gone: improvement. There may be some value to human improvement, provided a person doesn't become self-satisfied in it. It may open a window to the awareness that the true state of man resembles not at all the state in which human beings now exist and you can't improve the state in which human beings now exist, so that that state becomes the true state. It simply cannot be done; it isn't the true state, no matter how much it is improved. The true state is something entirely different, entirely unknown, insofar as human memory is concerned. Because of the substance of corruption that is present, any conceivable memory of it can't get through. But it isn't really such memory that is required anyway, because each moment is sufficient unto itself. This was just as true of the moments of the past as it is of the present moment and of the moments of the future.
So it isn't a matter of repeating something out of the past. This is the habit that human beings have gotten into, isn't it? They are repetitious creatures, constantly repeating the things that kill them. There is really no sense to that. It takes a lot of conscious mental effort to justify it. This has apparently been successfully done over the millennia, even to this very hour, but what's the point? The conscious mind is not there to justify the corruptions of the subsconscious mind. That's a vicious circle, isn't it? It just maintains the corruption. The conscious mind is always justifying that corruption by trying to make it look as though it is very commendable. Of course there are those things which are not commendable, and the conscious mind will not hesitate to point to all the terrible things, particularly if they are present in other people. But this is not the purpose of the conscious mind. It's a purpose in which the conscious mind has become trapped. It has become so habitual that it is not noticed anymore. And all its brilliant ideas are brought forth by reason of the corruption in the subconscious mind, in order to explain and justify that corruption, make it look as though there was something right about it.
Here we have the dichotomy of good and evil, don't we? “Well there is a good side. There are some good things about human beings in their present state. There may be some bad things—we'll admit that—but there are some good things too.” As long as you can justify this corrupt state merely by pointing to what are supposed to be good things there is the maintenance of the corrupt state. In fact it is this that has maintained the corrupt state more than anything else. It hasn't been maintained by the bad people; who are they anyway? Maybe there are a few of those who have, as it is said, committed the unforgivable sin, the unpardonable sin, and therefore they are really bad. But did you really come across any such? Oh there may be some historical figures. Hitler is usually a pretty good scapegoat in that regard. We can get all our corruption out and put it into Hitler. Well maybe he had few redeeming features as it turned out.
But it's none of our business anyway, to judge other people—just to permit something to happen here in ourselves because we stop trying to justify good things. You don't try to justify bad things, do you? You say, “Oh no. They should go away. They should be somehow cured.” Let's not have any cured bad things around; that's preserved bad things, isn't it? People are always wanting to cure their diseases—what a horrible thought!—preserve them indefinitely. Of course you can't do it. No. No more justification. I heard that before somewhere. Maybe it was in the teachings of the Third Sacred School. It's wonderful to have teachings, isn't it?
No more justification, no more judgment. “But this, after all, is pretty good.” Well it may be deemed to be good in this state, but what about the true state? It wouldn't be there at all. It's a different state, it's a different experience. This seems so revolutionary to most human consciousnesses that they won't even look at it; but we recognize that the former things must pass away if all things are to be made new. And this is the creative process. It is more profitable to be aligned with the creative process than to resist it. Resisting it is done very largely by attempting to maintain what one deems to be good, and of course you can't do that without endeavoring to get rid of what is deemed to be bad. But you have both of them; they are both present, as the two ends of the same stick. You don't need the stick!
There is a true state, the state which comes as there are those present who are willing to allow the ascending flame to rise up and to burn the invisible corruption. As the invisible corruption is burned, that purified state is reflected then at the visible level. This is the way it should work, the way it was designed to work. It can be done the other way around, as we noticed. You can dissolve all the visible corruption, and that would take out the invisible at the same time. But then there would be nothing left! So the invisible corruption is to be purified by fire. And we find that various things rise up into our awareness as this process proceeds. But having accepted the truth, we no longer try to excuse ourselves by projecting what is simply coming up in ourselves out into our environment, onto other people, onto the circumstances there. “These are at fault.” Never! Here is a beautiful restoring process occurring. The fire is rising up. It is disposing of the corruption in the invisible sense, and that will be reflected in the visible sense, so that the toxins in the cells, for instance, may be released.
Of course, because the truth is controlling in your expression, you will not deliberately bring into your body again physical elements that could become toxins. You will be cautious about that. It's not too easy these days, mind you, but there will be some thoughtfulness, in the assurance that what is coming forth by reason of the purification of the invisible corruption will be clear insofar as the cells are concerned, so that when the toxins go out there will be a clear cell there. You welcome that experience! You give thanks—we heard something about that too, didn't we? In all things give thanks, because it is the creative process by which all things are made new. We never look upon illness as an enemy. If you look upon illness as an enemy, that's what it is to you, and sooner or later, out you go! Your enemy prevails—triumph! It's not the right sort of triumph. Illness is a friend. It gives evidence of something creative happening, if you will let it happen. If you interpret it as disease, then it is terrible and awful and you shouldn't be suffering this way; you need to find someone to make it all better. That's a childish sort of approach, isn't it? “Kiss me and make me better, so that I can still maintain my corrupt state”—that's what the individual is saying—“so I can still enjoy my corruption.” But then it's not always enjoyable, is it?
So we let it clear out because we are willing once more to assume the position where we belong, here and now, upright in the air of the spirit, standing upon the earth—the connection, the point of union, the point of blending between heaven and earth—so that all in the earth may be cleansed and purified to reflect perfectly the beauty and the order of the heaven. Here we are to let this happen, because the fire from above allows us to maintain steadfast polarity and attunement in the fire, the same fire which is working from below. And it is all to the glory of God.
There should begin to be a basic
realization that in attunement we can share attunement. He who is out of
attunement with the divine source can share the state of being out of
attunement. With the world as it now is, those who are out of attunement,
generally speaking, can find people who are more willing to share their state
than can those who are in attunement. Of course it is changing here a bit. It is as we abide in attunement that if anyone gets out of
attunement he cannot find anyone to share his state, and then he more quickly returns
to the pattern or fold of reality. This is what is called the hedge. I believe you have studied
something of this with regard to the text from Job, but we might make brief
reference to that again at this point, where satan, or the self-active mind of
man, was trying to argue with the Lord. Of course the Lord does not argue. But
the self-active mind of man said, “Doth Job,” the spiritual phase of Being as
it was then made manifest, “Doth Job fear God for nought?” Here
we see the attitude of the self-active mind, that anyone who does anything must
have somewhere, somehow, a selfish motive, and if that selfish motive cannot be
seen on the surface, it is automatically supposed that it is hidden, and if it
is hidden it is immediately classified in the world mind as a racket. Human beings, generally, are not going to do anything
unless they can get something out of it; some pattern of greed or selfishness. Always there is an ulterior motive ordinarily, in
the world. But set up a situation where the
human mind cannot see what the motive is, there is
nothing of personal gain or selfishness in any way, and immediately the concept
is that it is there; it is hidden, therefore it is a racket and it is no good. You will run into
that sort of thing over and over again; you may do whatever you can to correct it, but if you allow it to upset
you, make you resentful, you will be in attunement with that and you will
defeat yourself.
So, “Doth Job fear God for nought?
Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that
he hath on every side?”—about all that he hath on every side. “About him, and
about his house, and about all that he hath… Thou hast blessed the work of his
hands”—the realm of doing. “Thou hast blessed the work of his hands.” Now we
have a great deal of significance there that applies to this matter of
attunement technique. Satan goes on to say, “But put forth thine hand now, and
touch all that he hath,” to take it away, destroy it, “and he will curse thee
to thy face.” There is the typical human attitude. Of course satan takes the
attitude that it is the Lord that is going to put forth His hand and disturb
things. Of course the Lord does not do it. The Lord gave satan permission to do
something to Job, anything he thought he could get away with, except to take
his life. There was just one thing: not to take his life. That was the one
point on which the Lord did not relax the regulation. “Take things away from him, make
him suffer, if that is going to please you; and if you think you can make my
servant Job break the pattern, go ahead and do it; but keep his life sacred.”
We know what happened, according to the portrayal. “In all this Job sinned
not.” Even his wife said, “Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God,
and die.” Now there is the point. God had so established the pattern that satan
could not touch his life. Regardless of anything else he might suffer, satan
could not destroy his life. But Job's wife got right down to the point. “Curse
God, and die.” That is what it takes to nullify everything. But Job pointed out
she was being rather foolish. He didn't follow her advice, fortunately, so he
didn't die.
“Thou hast made an hedge about
him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side, and thou
hast blessed the work of his hands”—Thou hast increased and multiplied that
over which he has stewardship, and Thou hast blessed the work of his hands. We are devoted to doing things on
earth; not just sitting back and talking about it, but actually doing it—the
work of our hands. There is the work of right speech, the work of right
attitude, etc., in our Father's business. But it comes down to the work of our
hands—that we do something. When you are giving an attunement it is the work of
your hands. In attunement technique it is the work of your hands. Now if there
is an hedge about you and about your house—that is, the attunement sanctuary—and
about all that you have on every side, that person who comes to you for an
attunement cannot get close enough for you to give the attunement in the
ordinary fashion without coming inside your hedge. It is there, and whether he
knows that it is there or not is beside the point. If he comes to you he has to come
inside that hedge. Now he can go back out again. He can come and go; it is no
wall either way as far as he is concerned. But he begins to find that inside
the hedge where you are he begins to be comfortable—there is a certain peace,
he begins to relax, and his troubles do not look so big. A certain subtle
change begins to come. He doesn't know how or why, and doesn't need to. He will
just say, “Well I always feel better as soon as I walk into the room,” or “If I
can just be with you for a few minutes I feel better.” I think everyone that
has really served in the field in any real sense has had that type of
expression come to him or to her. So what is it? It is the hedge that is round
about him or her, round about the house, the place where he is, round about all
that he hath on every side.
There must be the hedge, and
unless there is the hedge, so that those who come to us have something into
which they may enter, we are not going to be able to give an attunement with
God, because these things precede the blessing of the work of the hands. The
work of the hands that is blessed is not mentioned first. “Thou hast made an
hedge about him, and about his house.” It has to be about you first, and then
it is about your house, and then it is about all that you have on every side,
and then there begins to be an increase in multiplication and the work of your
hands is blessed. Of course the multiplication, the
increase, comes about as a result of the blessing of the work of the hands. You
are not going to have an increase in the expression of life without this process
of the work of the hands being blessed. So this is attunement technique, and if
you do not have that attunement yourself, if this is not true about you, you
can do no more than share an attunement with that with which you are in
attunement, whether it be of God or of satan—the selfactive mind and life of
humanity. So the blessing of the work of the hands. Some people will not feel
this hedge when they come into it. Others will sense the peace, the fact that
troubles begin to fall away, and they begin to relax, they begin to feel safe
and secure. They will not call it the hedge, and you probably will not say what
it is. You will just thank God, or praise the Lord that they feel it, or
something like that. You will not try to explain it all to them. You will just
let them enjoy it, and when it comes time for them to have the attunement the
Lord will bless the work of your hands.
In giving an attunement we have to
do something. It is not merely a matter of holding up the hands and allowing
some radiation to go through, in the hope that the power of God will take care
of it. You are not a servant to men if you are working with me. You are a
servant to God. A servant, yes; a server serving God, not human beings. You
cannot serve human beings in any true sense unless you are serving God. If you say, “Oh I'm not doing
anything, I'm just letting God do it”—letting God do it! You are not letting
God do anything. Twiddling your thumbs, that's all. It is no good. You have to
do something. Not in the ordinary sense of what human beings imagine. No, you
are not doing anything according to the patterns of what human beings would do
or what they think you will be doing, but you will still be doing something.
You must have the work of your hands that is controlled by the working of
intelligence. Thinking. You are not just drifting. And you will do it the way
that is best under the circumstance. You have the responsibility of helping him
cease attunement with something over here, so that he can be in attunement with
God; and if you are just going to hold your hands there and say, “I am letting
God do it,” and do absolutely nothing outside of that, what is going to happen?
He may feel a little bit of peace or he may not, and he will go away and say, “Oh,
that is bunk. They don't do anything. They even say they don't do anything.” Of
course you may say, from the standpoint of the Law, in the sense of
manipulation or adjustment or something, that you are not doing anything, and
that will be true. You are not in the pattern of the usual approach; you are
not doing anything in that sphere. But if you say within yourself that you are
not doing anything, you are wrong, because you have to do something in order to
let God's power have any meaning on earth.
If you are in attunement with God,
and if you are going to help the servee come into attunement with God so that
the healing may develop within himself, you must find some legitimate means to
begin to establish a pattern of attunement between that servee and yourself;
because here you are the instrument of God in action on earth—and if God is
going to do it, you are going to do it. God cannot do it unless you do. God
cannot do it on earth unless you do, or someone else, some human being. So you
are not going to let God do it in the sense of, “Well I'm not doing anything.
I'm going to let God do it.” That way, you are preventing God from doing it.
You are doing something all right; you are preventing God from doing anything.
If you let God do something, it means that you do what God does—it means
action, it means thinking, it means the expression of that which is of God. If
you think you are just going to let God do it and not do anything, you are
wrong. That is not letting God do it; it is preventing God from doing it. If
you let God do it, you do what God does, and God does only that which you let
Him do in and through you. God in action—then there is the beginning of an
attunement.
Now if you let that attunement
carry you into a pattern where you are feeling all of his aches and pains,
etc., you are wrong. You are not under any obligation to subject yourself to
that. Remember this: You are not trying to get into attunement with his aches
and pains and ill conditions. In his mind he is identified with his aches and
his pains, and if in your mind he is identified with his aches and his pains,
you are not giving him an attunement with God. There is the difference. You are
not trying to get into attunement with his aches and pains, with his diseases,
whatever they may be. You have no business being in attunement with those
things. What are you establishing an
attunement with? You are already in attunement with God. It is up to you to
establish the attunement with him. Not his aches, not his pains, not his
sufferings, not the things that he thinks are wrong. Those are all foreign to
you. They do not belong to you and as far as you are concerned they do not
belong to the person who is before you; for if you have his aches and pains
identified with him in your own mind you can supposedly give an attunement from
now until doomsday, and you will share his doom sooner or later. It will not
work. This person who sits down before you is not identified in your mind with
the things which he is identified with in his own mind, and there is your great
opportunity.
You are establishing an attunement
not with the ill conditions but with the person, who is a living entity before
you. Satan may have touched him and given him boils, satan may have taken
certain things away from him, satan may have caused that person's husband or
wife to say, “Curse God, and die,” satan may have taken away some of his
children or something else. In one way or another, that person is in the state
of Job when he walks in before you, and there is some integrity left—“Dost thou
still retain thine integrity?” There is some integrity left or he would not
walk into the room and let you lift your hands to give him an attunement. You
don't have to ask him. You know that there is some integrity left or you
wouldn't have the opportunity, and that is all you need to know. That is your
starting point. I don't care what satan may have taken away from him—satan, the
self-active mind. What is the one pertinent fact? This person is alive. “But
touch not his life”—if that person has not cursed God, that is, broken his
contact with God so that he is on the verge of death, or moving toward death in
that sense. If that person has done so, that is called, in the New Testament,
the unpardonable sin. The point is: This person has not cursed God if there is
any integrity left, which must be the case if he comes to you for an
attunement.
Your job is to establish an
attunement between yourself and this Being who is alive, disregarding his
ailments, his sufferings, his difficulties, as far as you are concerned, inside
yourself. Outside, you will say a little bit about this and maybe a little
about that, just so he will not think you are completely heartless; but inside
there is no identification in your own mind between this Being and the things
he is suffering. They just do not belong to that person as far as you are
concerned, and your attunement is with the Being who is not identified with his
difficulties. Now it is perfectly easy to do that. It is a very simple process,
but you have to do something, and the first thing you have to do is to
establish an attunement between this living Being and yourself, without
allowing an attunement within yourself to his ill conditions. There it is. When
you have done that you have taken the first real step in giving an attunement.
If you have not done that you are not giving an attunement, period.
I told you plainly enough, but it
didn't mean anything to you that you were going to be an instrument for God to
act on earth. Well, you would not find God unless you found God through me, and
when you find God through me you have found God with me. You are not responding
to me as a man. How many people there are who have been befuddled, and they
have pulled this way and shoved that way and said, “I'm not going to respond to
a man. Uranda expects you to respond to him and I will not do it. I'm going to
find God all by myself.” Okay, go ahead. It will not bother me any if that
person wants to waste the rest of his life. I am too busy helping people who
are willing to be helped. When you have found God through me you have begun to
find God with me, and we will be in agreement on earth as touching these
things. We will be working as members of One Body, each doing his or her part
toward the expression of God on earth, so that when someone comes to you—he or
she will not know it, to begin with anyway—but he or she will be responding to
God in you, just as you learned to respond to God in me. That person begins to be in
attunement with you—not somebody else; perhaps in relationship to you with me,
yes, but you—you are the instrument of Divine Action here. You are sharing it
with me. If you try to go off on a tangent, share it all by yourself, you will
find it will not work. Others have tried it and failed. But you are then with
me—which means agreement, doesn't it? And you are the instrument of God's
action, and this person is responding to God in you, and in me too. He doesn't
know that, but you do; but that is beside the point. You are not going to try
to tell him. You are going to use that attunement that you have established
with the living Being, that in which there is still integrity retained.
It is this attunement between you
and the Being, the living Being, without regard to all the things with which he
has identified himself and with which others have identified him. You refuse to
do it, right from the start, and then the power of God working through you
begins to express out to him, and changes come. What was it the Master said?
“Thy kingdom come,” the control come. And when you begin to give an attunement,
that is the first thing you feel. After the reality of this begins to work out,
the control begins to get through. That is the first part, isn't it? You know
the Father in heaven, you feel His name is hallowed, and you do not have to say
it. The point is that you are in attunement. You have found a basis of attunement
with the pattern of Being in this person. You refuse to accept all of his
limitations into identification with that person, and so you begin to feel the
control come—“Thy kingdom come.” The control factor begins to manifest and you
can feel it and you know it. You are not just trying to imagine something. It
is there. Then what is next? “Thy kingdom
come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” There is the great
attunement secret. And through whom is this will to take place? Are you going
to try to will a person to be well? Oh, if you do you will fail. Sometimes
people say, “You know, I just try to see everybody in perfection.” Such
foolishness. I have had people say, “You know, Uranda always sees everybody in
perfection.” It is ridiculous. I don't. That person doesn't know what he or she
is talking about. No. And if you say, “Now I am going to give an attunement
here and I am going to use God's will. Here is this disease, here is this
difficulty; I am going to start using my will.” To do what? “I will drive this
disease out. I will do this, I will do that.” Oh no, no, no, no! If you start
trying to use will in that fashion you will fail. You might seem to get a
little ways for a little while, but it will not work. It is not God's way. But
you have to do something. There must be the work of your hands, the work of
your mind, the work of your heart, the work of the spirit of God in you,
manifesting through you—the work of the will.
Now I doubt very much if any of you here,
even the most advanced of you, could give me a satisfactory answer to the
question: What is will? or How can you let will work? “Thy will be done.” Oh,
we will try to do Thy will? Will doesn't work that way. That is not will. “Thy
will be done." Will does not try; will does. Will has no need to try; will
just does. “Thy will be done in earth"—right here, the earth of this body
of the human being who has come before you. Are you just going to be repeating
the Lord's Prayer, trying in some sanctimonious fashion to make it work? No, if
you do you are not serving God. No. We will have to take some time later on this
particular subject. Will. “Thy will be done in earth”—not trying to do it.
“Thou hast blessed the work of his
hands”—doing. And if you abide in this pattern—not trying, not struggling with
it, just letting it work out; because what human beings think is will is not. “Thy
will be done.” Be done, not try to be done. “Thy will be done.”
Instantaneously? Oh, not necessarily. By the most natural means in the cycles
of time. If it takes a day, a week, a month, a year, what difference does it
make? It is nine months from conception to birth in the normal pattern. “Thy
will be done”—a nine-month cycle there. Human beings try to make it
instantaneous and they don't know what they are doing. It is not will; it is
fantastic imagination. The imaginations of men's hearts were only evil
continually. Don't let it be so with you. And you will begin to find that when
you give an attunement you do something.
