Heaven and earth are one. Heaven and earth have always been one. If it was not for the fact of the oneness of heaven and earth, the earth would not continue to exist; neither would we as human beings be able to live on the surface of this planet. God never created anything other than heaven. If God is a God of love, if that which He does is characteristic of His nature, then all that He creates is perfect. Possibly we need to understand a little more clearly what perfection is from the Divine standpoint, but the condition of evil, unwholesomeness as it is known in the world, was not created by God. It is entirely something brought forth by man, contrary to God's will. God never created anything else but heaven.
At every level of heaven there is the earth. As human beings we are aware of an extremely limited vibratory range of being. We can see certain wavelengths of light. By the use of other instruments man becomes aware of a range of vibration both above that which is discernible by light as light and below that range. We are capable of detecting various substances within the vibrational range in which we live as human beings. But the actual range of his perception in relationship to the sum total of God's creation is extremely limited, just a narrow band of vibration. All these levels of vibration insofar as God is concerned were created as levels of heaven. In relationship to each vibratory range there is that present within the scope of that vibratory range that which makes possible the development of form. We have heaven and earth in relationship to every level, the earth being the form aspect of heaven. That which God created at this level where we are is just as much a part of heaven, just as spiritual, as any creation in any other heaven anywhere. The materials of which we are aware in this vibratory range are just as spiritual as the things and formations at any level in any heaven anywhere. And there is form at every vibratory level. The mere fact that man is incapable of perceiving that which is at higher vibratory levels than the field of his own function does not indicate that nothing exists there. Man's capacity to perceive is very limited. But the form aspect of heaven at any level is the spirit aspect of heaven at the level below it. I would like to read something to you from the Book of Revelation.
"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband."At the very beginning, the first Book of the Bible, we have the statement, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." And we come to the last Book in the Bible, almost the last chapter, and we find something with respect to a new heaven and a new earth. That which is contained between these two points is concerned simply with letting that which was in the beginning be reestablished again. God created that which was perfect in the beginning; He created man in His own image and likeness. Man fell. Man left his position in that state of being in which God first created him and he brought about, consequently, in this vibratory range of being where it is supposed to be heaven, a state of affairs which is a far cry from heaven. Most people are aware of a certain amount of hell. God's immediate purpose has been to bring man back to the place where he ought to be, that there may be a new heaven and a new earth, a different manifestation in relationship to this realm of being to that which is now present. This that we know as the first heaven and the first earth is not of God's creation but of man's creation, and God's immediate purpose is to bring man back to the state of being in which He first created him in His own image and likeness.
"John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." The holy city. Here is something coming down from God out of heaven, a form, the earth aspect in the heavenly range immediately above this heavenly range of being, the form aspect, and the form of that heaven provides the spirit of this heaven where we live, properly speaking. This same principle operates all the way through from level to level, so that there is an unbroken chain and we, as human beings out here on earth, are not cut off from God, as so many are inclined to think. Man has never been separated from God, as long as he remains alive on earth. An aspect of the spirit of God is life. As long as man has life he is certainly connected up with God. Man has never been separated from God except insofar as his own vision was concerned. Heaven has never been separated from earth except insofar as man's vision is concerned, and consequently his action has brought forth many things that are not true to the spirit of that which is coming down from God out of heaven.The form of the heaven above provides the spirit of the heaven below, and this holy city is the spirit of that which should be brought forth in this heaven below, within the range where we live, providing the pattern, the design, the essential control elements, for the bringing forth in form, in manifestation at this level of being, that which God intended should appear; for this is heaven, right here. We do not need to go anyplace else to get to heaven.
Man cannot in fact go anyplace else. Man cannot live anyplace else except right here on earth. True enough, when the human being dies, something leaves his body which is capable of moving to a higher vibratory level; but that is not man. Man was created to be here on earth; he was not created to be anyplace else. God put him here because that was where he was needed. If God had needed man in some higher heaven He would have put him there. The revelation of the fact of heaven at this level is absolutely dependent upon man. Here is the place where man was created to be. What is it that makes a place heavenly? What is it that would cause any vibratory range of being anywhere to be heavenly? Simply the presence of God. Where God is in manifestation, there heaven is. God is in manifestation at every heavenly level but this one, consequently every heavenly level of the whole cosmic scheme of things is heavenly except this one where God is not in manifestation. Man was created in the image and likeness of God so that God might be in manifestation at this level of His heaven, and until God is in manifestation at this level of being, heaven cannot be known at this level of being. And because man cannot live in any other level of being, he excludes himself from knowing heaven. Man is the means by which God can manifest at this level of being. Man was created in the image and likeness of God for that purpose.
"Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men." That tabernacle symbolized that which is the dwelling place of God on earth. God does not live in temples made with hands. The tabernacle of God is with men, and God cannot have any dwelling place on earth without men. "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men." It always has been. Insofar as God's dwelling place at this level of being is concerned the tabernacle of God is with men. It has never been taken away; but men have never allowed God to dwell in His tabernacle. "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God." Doesn't that indicate clearly the manifestation of God at this level of being? It is not talking about getting up into heaven somewhere. It is talking about something coming down from God out of heaven into the earth, so that God may be allowed to dwell at this level of His heaven, from whence He has been so surely excluded for so long.
The manifestation of God is a reality at every level of Being but this one where we are. Because it is so at every other level of Being, there is no place anywhere in all the Cosmic range of Being which is not heaven. When we begin to recognize the continuity of Divine Being, we may begin to sense that which is back of us. At the beginning of this Book of Revelation, John made mention of the Voice which spoke behind him, and he turned to see the Voice which spoke with him and he began to recognize that which was back of him, that which was back not only of himself as an individual but was back of the manifestation of everything that is here in the world.
When we look up into the sky on a clear night and see the stars, we recognize that this Solar System is a part of what might be called the Milky Way Universe, a Universe in which there are millions of suns and solar systems like unto our own, greater and smaller, and that this is just one of such systems of which there are millions more; it begins to make this little Earth seem rather an insignificant place. But what of the little beings that walk to and fro upon the surface of the planet? When we begin to recognize the vastness of the Body of God, recognizing that that which we are capable of observing is only that which comes within the limited range of our perception, that it is only a fraction of that which actually is, then as human beings we might tend to feel pretty meaningless. Human beings do feel somewhat alone. And yet man is not separate from God. When we begin to recognize that which is back of us, when we begin to recognize that we, properly speaking, are just the form aspect of God at this level of being, then we are a part of all that extends back into the central essences of Being in God, and that which comes to focus in each one is a part of the wholeness of the Being of God. The Being of God is such a tremendous thing that it staggers human imagination, and yet that which is back of us is a part of the Being of God.
Human beings have so little faith in relationship to God. They look around in the world, in this little speck of dust in the cosmic-all-that-is, and they see manifestations of what is conceived to be great power—the power of evil, the power of the hydrogen bomb, the power of masses of human beings—and it is considered to be such a tremendous thing, the power appearing through human beings who have segregated themselves in their own consciousness from God, stealing some of God's power, utilizing it for their own ends. That is considered to be such a tremendous thing. How does it compare with the Allness of God? How does it compare with that which is back of those human beings who begin to let themselves become the form aspect of God at this level of Being? For in relationship to each one there is a focalization brought to point of the Whole Being of God. There is that which is back of the individual; there is that which is back of that which is back of the individual, and so on, all the way to the Central Being of God, the Central Essences of God, providing such a tremendous Wholeness of Being that it is beyond the understanding of the human mind. But it is there, whether we can understand it or not. Whether we can comprehend it or not, it is there, the Being of God. Nothing could have any being anywhere but for the Being of God. Your being as a human being is absolutely dependent upon the Being of God. You have no being separate from God, and those human beings who ignore God and who do not let themselves come to the point of acknowledging the Truth in relationship to themselves, that they were made in the image and likeness of God to provide the form aspect of the Being of God at this level, discover sooner or later that they do not have any being of themselves. Man cannot be anywhere else but where God put him, and if man does not come to the point of letting God be here at this level of Being, man can never know God anywhere.
Mankind was created to provide God with the form aspect of His Being here at this level of His creation. Man has refused to let himself be that which he was created to be, consequently he has separated himself from God in his own consciousness, and finally he separates himself from God in fact, and he ceases to be anything and his body returns to the dust from whence it came. This is not what God intended for man, for man was created in the image and likeness of God to be the form aspect of the Being of God at this level of God's creation, that God might be here on earth. "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men." Let us acknowledge the fact; let us accept it. "And he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God." Where? Up in some far-distant heaven? No, here on earth. If you do not see God right here on earth, through the form aspect of His Being right here on earth, you will never see Him anywhere else, because this is the only place that man is capable of seeing. "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." It did not say, "after you are dead." It did not mean "after you are dead." It means right here and now, as long as we have the capacity to see. God is made manifest at every level of His creation through the forms provided for His manifestation at the particular level of His creation—and man is the form at this level. If God is not revealed through man He is not revealed at this level, and because man cannot be at any other level, man does not know God, cannot know God. There are those who have had what they presumed to be visions; some have thought that they saw Jesus Christ. But they never did, except those who were here when He was made manifest in form on earth. If we are to see God, if we are to know God, He must be allowed to find manifestation in form through that which He provided for that purpose—mankind; for He created mankind in His own image and likeness as the form aspect of His Being at this level of His creation. And when God appears through man at this level of His creation, once more it is seen as being heaven, heaven made manifest through the forms of earth.
“And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament.” What is seen in His Temple as it is opened to you? The Ark of His Testament. The Ark of the Testament has reference to what we may call the mysteries that are to be unfolded. In the Temple, at the time the Master was crucified, the veil separating the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies was rent in twain. In Solomon's Temple, and in the Tabernacle which preceded it, we have some of the most marvelous symbolism, the most marvelous revelation of truth and the principles of reality, and of the laws relating to the individual, to be found anywhere. If we were to take time to consider all of it, I think our whole session would be devoted to the Tabernacle and the Temple—the meaning of its various services and vessels in relationship to us, individually and collectively. We will not do that, but let us review a little for those who have not heard me speak upon this subject before.
During the wandering in the wilderness there were thirteen tribes of the Children of Israel. The Bible always lists only twelve at the time, but you will notice always one is omitted. There were thirteen, and the thirteenth was the tribe of the Levites. They encamped round about the Tabernacle in the center. There were four camps of three tribes each—four sections, each meeting at the central point. That makes twelve, but still the Levites were encamped in the center. We have the same thing with reference to Jesus and His twelve disciples, with Himself making the thirteenth. The Priesthood is supposed to represent the Divine in the earth, just as Jesus did represent the Divine in the earth. The four encampments relate to the firm foundation and all that that implies, which we do not have time to consider fully tonight. The Children of Israel were encamped round about the Tabernacle, and directly surrounding it was the Outer Court, into which people could move more or less at will. How many basic organic minerals are there in your body? There were twelve tribes—there are twelve basic organic minerals in the physical body. Then that Encampment represents your physical body. The Outer Court represents the human mind. The Holy Place represents the spiritual expression, and the Holy of Holies represents heaven within. The High Priest entered into the Holy of Holies once a year, indicating that that is the place of abode for the God Being. As to the expression “once a year,” that is as near as they could make it in symbolically expressing the fulness thereof.
In the Holy of Holies we find the Ark of His Covenant, or the Ark of His Testament, as it is called here. Who can describe the Ark as it was in the Tabernacle? It was carried on two rods; it was foursquare; it had the Mercy Seat over which the Cherubim faced each other; and then the Ark—you might today call it a chest of peculiar construction. Below the Mercy Seat there was a measure of Manna. The Manna, under normal circumstances, became putrid overnight. We have Aaron's Rod and the Tablets of Stone, or that which represented the Laws of God written upon the tablets of your heart. Aaron's Rod which budded symbolizes the individual contact with the Divine expression of Eternal Life through the endocrine system, or the Seven Seals. The Rod itself represents the spinal column and its connection with the nervous system and the Seven Seals or the seven glands; and Aaron's Rod which budded indicates that as the individual responds in attunement to the Lord and lets the Temple of God be opened in Heaven within, the manifestation of Eternal Life comes forth through that which, to outer appearances, is either dead or subject to death. The measure of Manna represents the Bread of Life, or the fruit of the Tree of Life. Why was the Law, commonly thought of as the Ten Commandments, written upon Tablets of Stone? Because man in the fallen state has a rather stony heart. The Tablets of Stone represent the stony nature of the heart of fallen man, rebelling against the way and the will of God, and as Moses broke the stones the first time, so does man constantly break the Laws of God, to his own detriment and self-destruction.
Upon the Ark of the Testament we have the Cherubim facing each other, indicating the positive and negative factors involved in the expression and manifestation of the God Being. And the Cherubim faced each other above the Mercy Seat. The Mercy Seat represents the Fourth Plane of vibration. The three outer planes to which we are naturally, in the outer sense, attuned—body, mind and spiritual expression—provide that which enables us to lead up to the Fourth Plane. And here, in the 1st chapter and the 12th and 13th verses of Revelation, we read: “And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.”
“In the midst of the seven”—the four is the connecting point, that point which provides the possibility of man's complete attunement in and with the Divine. It is the Mercy Seat, the connecting point between Heaven and earth. Therefore the Mercy Seat represents the Fourth Plane, and above it were the Cherubim, but below it was Aaron's Rod that budded, the Manna, and the Tablets of the Law. Now if these things had been kept above the Mercy Seat we could have properly felt that they were beyond our attainment, something impossible to us in our daily lives; but because they were under the Mercy Seat—and it is under the Mercy Seat that we are living, from an outer standpoint—so it is that as we let ourselves partake of that which comes through the Mercy Seat, from the Cherubim into the Ark of the Covenant, we begin to experience the release of Life from Aaron's Rod as it begins to bud forth, from the Manna (the Fruit of the Tree of Life or the Bread of Life from Heaven) and the true expression of the Law—the Law which becomes the controlling factor in the heart, symbolizing the emotional expression of the individual's activity.
It is in the emotional field that most people most frequently break the Law, because, getting bound up with various emotions, good, bad and indifferent, the individual ceases to recognize or to see the Law. Therefore the first point in which we must individually let the Law be effective in our lives is in the realm of our emotions, establishing tranquility of spirit, serenity of attitude, letting perfect love cast out all fear, and beginning to abide under the Mercy Seat so that we are no longer breaking the Law. Then, having begun to harmonize with the Law, not only from the standpoint of the emotions but from the standpoint of the function which naturally follows in body, mind and spirit, we begin to partake of the Bread of Life from Heaven, the Fruit of the Tree of Life, and then forthwith the manifestation of Divine Life from Heaven above begins to manifest through this physical form by means of the Seven Seals.
There are many details in connection with the Ark that our time will not permit us to go into tonight, but to the degree that we begin to realize what naturally follows from what has been said, we begin to find ourselves polarized as connecting links between Heaven and earth. And that is what? The Ark of the Testament. What is a testament? It is something that declares something, reveals something, provides a means by which someone else may know of something. Is that not so? Previously it was called the Ark of the Covenant. It is a Divine record, something that Divinely manifests as a sign, or evidence, of a promise. All right, the Ark of the Testament—it tells, doesn't it, what we as human beings are supposed to be. We have portrayed here the fact that when we begin to live in the Holy of Holies, that is, from the standpoint of proper attunement with God, we become, individually, the Ark of the Covenant and of the Testament.
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,
the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
What is man, that thou art mindful of him?
and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels,
and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands;
thou hast put all things under his feet.
Psalm 8 Verses 3-6
This is speaking of man, not of cultic man but of true man. Indication is offered in these verses that man has some significance, certainly more than has been known by human beings in their cultic state. And this significance is related to what is beyond the earth itself—the heavens, high heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars. We have some awareness of relatedness in this regard, that we're part of a whole cosmic circumstance. So the questions that are asked here are comprehensible to us because we begin to know from our own experience what man is. The scope of his operations is vast. The encompassment of his vision is immense, rightly. It is so when man is on hand.
This of course does not mean that individually speaking we have a complete rundown on everything. If that was the case there would be no need for anybody else, would there? It needs all of us to encompass what needs to be encompassed. We begin to find our areas of responsibility, so that we cease trespassing upon the areas of others. Mind you, some of these overlap, but we each have unique responsibility in our own part. We have a certain comprehension of the parts of others as those are close to our own, but we also may be aware that there are many who have other fields of responsibility of which, directly at least, we know little. We know they are there; we know they are a part of the whole of which our field is a part. And there may be times when we are introduced to such fields—on a conducted tour, shall we say?—but we don't trespass: “Forgive us our trespasses.” And I'm sure you all recognize that in the cultic state we have the inclination to trespass, to try to mind other people's business.
If we occupy positions of focus, as we do, we are aware of what is contained in our area of focus and we are aware of those who are present there, but we refrain from trespassing in that sense also. We give everybody space to handle their own spiritual affairs. Those spiritual affairs may be a part of our encompassment but we don't try to do everything ourselves. And as been noted several times, we may find that other people handle these things a lot better than we could personally. They are there to look after the details; we are not there for that purpose.
We may have in the past functioned on the basis of substitute patterns of function, but as soon as someone comes along who can handle those we are happy to give them to such a person, even if that person is going to have to learn to handle them effectively. Perhaps to start with he doesn't handle them as effectively as we were, because we had experience in the matter and this is something fresh for someone else. But pretty soon we find out that they become capable of doing it a lot better than we could. And we are quite happy to admit that; we don't try to uphold our so-called positions by putting other people down. We find ourselves actually exalted when we appreciate what others are doing.
And so in these verses of this Psalm the statement is made, “For thou hast made him”—man, that is—“a little lower than the angels.” Well, we understand this. There is man, the material aspect of the whole, and there is the angel, the spiritual aspect of the whole. And when these two are unified, are one in experience, then it may be said that there is a living soul present. A soul—that is a facility for the action of life, for the achievement of whatever it may be. As we see, we all have our individual parts to play in a whole body. “For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels”—the heaven is higher than the earth, but heaven and earth are one. Heaven is is a higher vibrational state than the earth vibrational state. To put it another way, the earth state is a coarser vibrational state and the heaven is a finer vibrational state. And the heaven interpenetrates the earth. So the heaven is present with the earth, and the greatest consequent experience, the greatest range of experience then, is available. In the human state now, the cultic state, the endeavor has been to function just from the standpoint of the earth, where there was rather limited range, and whatever range there is available with the earth when it is one with heaven is not known. In other words it's restricted to the very coarsest levels, if the experience is that of the earth with scarcely any heaven at all. And this is the cultic state.
So the earth opens up considerably once there is the experience of a living soul. We do not restrict ourselves anymore to the very coarsest levels of material existence. You know this to be so in your own experience. Something opens up, and you may observe in other people that it just simply isn't there for them. They're fiddling around in some coarse level, without any consciousness whatsoever that there might be something more. And I would suggest that in our consciousness there is something more, that is restricted as yet too—there is far greater experience to come.
So the human experience is a little lower than the angel's, but it becomes the angelic experience when there is unification. And in the state of the living soul, Thou “hast crowned him with glory and honour.” Well here is the glory of life of course. Glory is a word, as we know, that provides understanding of the characteristics of life—“…and honour”—I wanted to look at this matter of honor a little. We may say that, functioning from the spiritual standpoint, we are always honorable. This may mean different things to different people, but we have a sensing, I'm sure, of the nature of what it means to be honorable.
We have noted these two aspects: spiritual and material. Now, with the material separate from the spiritual—which is cultic human experience—there are many things which seem to be dishonorable. We are accustomed—as Adam and Eve initiated the cycle—of eating of the forbidden fruit, of judging some things to be bad and some things to be good. If we recognize that man was made by God in His own image and likeness, then he is totally perfect from that viewpoint. It hasn't seemed so to him because he lives in an unreal state of mistranslation. He has mistranslated his own experience, so that it seems that his own experience is often dishonorable, or at least he has honorable phases of it, but some aspects are not so good. Now we may think of this just from the standpoint of the operation of the physical form itself. As you are aware, Paul was inclined to get things rather mixed up, or at least those who interpreted Paul have got them mixed up—mistranslation upon mistranslation. But he said something about this in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, and he put it this way—now of course what he is saying here relates to one's own individual body, but it also may be seen in the light of the body of which we are all parts, that larger composite body—but for the moment I'm thinking of it more from the standpoint of the individual body, that we may have a base for right translation here:
But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body,
as it hath pleased him.
And if they were all one member, where were the body?
But now are they many members, yet but one body.
And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee:
nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.
Nay, much more those members of the body,
which seem to be more feeble, are necessary:
And those members of the body, which we think to be less honourable,
upon these we bestow more abundant honour;
and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness.
Corinthians 12: 18-23
Well this is the way Paul put it, or at least the way his words were translated. But we are interested in right translation, right translation of spirit as it has taken form in our own individual bodies and as it is in the process of being revealed in the collective body of which we are a part. We, individually, in the flesh sense, are composed of many parts. Now we need to be able to see that because the body is a whole and is designed to make possible the right translation of spirit, every part of it is essential. We can't say, “Well I'm going to make right translation of spirit, therefore all I need is my brain, perhaps my spinal cord too.” We wouldn't be much if that was all there was to us. We need the whole business, don't we? Every part. Now of course it may be that some of us have lost parts at times along the way. I don't think that's going to prevent us from achieving what we need to achieve now, as long as we are capable of operating in conjunction with spirit. The ingenuity of the Lord is great, we have noted. And sometimes He achieves marvelous things by reason of the presence of physical forms that are extremely handicapped. Oh this is the way they describe it these days. Well we are not all that handicapped. We have sufficient to get on with the job or we wouldn't all be sitting here.
So we have our physical forms, which are a translation of spirit; they wouldn't exist if this was not so. From the standpoint of our own experience there has been considerable mistranslation. In other words we have had experiences, physically speaking, which could not be classified as true translations of spirit. We might take the matter of pain, for instance. Obviously if there is pain in the world—and there certainly is—suffered by human beings, ourselves included at times, this must be a false translation, a mistranslation somehow of spirit, because spirit is not the author of pain. It becomes that way when there is a mistranslation of spirit, so any sickness, disease, physical trouble that may put in an appearance, gives evidence of some sort of a mistranslation.
Now we see this, I'm sure, clearly enough individually speaking but we also recognize that we are not merely individuals. We are not isolated individuals, even though most human beings, ourselves included, particularly in times past, have made that mistranslation, saying, “Oh I'm just me. I have a right to live my own life”—one of the attitudes that springs out of this—“because I'm an isolated person; what I do is nobody else's business.” Well it is other people's business in the sense that what we do will have effect on other people. It may be that other people may interfere in our business, which they have no business doing, but we at the same time must recognize that we can't lift a finger without affecting other people. And I just lifted my finger—did you see me? I affected you! So being very conscious of this we are aware that our function must be right, and the only way it can be right is by making a true translation of spirit. We can't figure it all out with our minds and be right. We must be on hand to make a true translation of spirit.
Now man is made in the image and likeness of God, and in his true state therefore is a true translation of spirit. That's what that means, isn't it? To be made in the image and likeness of God is to be made in the image and likeness of spirit. And the only way that could happen is as there is a true translation made of it. Well of course there have been people on earth, cultic people on earth, for millennia, who have been making mistranslations, and we have all this backlog of human nature heredity, as we call it, present with us, but that not only includes such physical idiosyncrasies as we may have—the cast of our features for instance, the color of our hair, etc, the color of our eyes and all this, and sometimes tendencies toward difficulties of various sorts—all this coming out of the past of mistranslation upon mistranslation. Well we are not trying to retranslate that. Of course many people are: “I was a ninety-pound weakling; now look at me!” Well that is a retranslation of a mistranslation, but whether the retranslation is better than the mistranslation is another question. In any case it's a mistranslation also.
So we have the equipment we have and we understand why we have the equipment we have, and this is not going to be a barrier to our function based in right translation of spirit in this moment. The translation which has appeared physically speaking is likely to be much the same as it was when we begin to allow a right translation to be made in the initial stages, because our translation relates to consciousness, relates to attitudes, to feelings—the way we look at things, the way we feel. Of course this will have an effect; it will have an effect on what we call our health, or perhaps our ill health. We find when we begin to allowing a true translation to be made in our living, regardless of whatever mistranslations may have been present in our bodies, our health is affected and we become more healthy, I suppose you could say, properly speaking, by reason of the translations we are now making.
We need to see our bodies, as individuals, and our body collectively, as being essential to the creative work that we are here to do. Clearly enough we understand this in a general way, because we wouldn't be here at all to do it if we didn't have a physical body. But we need to see that it relates to every part of the body, every cell in the body, if there is to be a right translation, which allows the resurrection of the body. The resurrection we think ofas the collective body, but includes the individual body. When there is a resurrection occurring for the collective body it's also occurring for the individual body. But you can't pick yourself out and say, “Now I'm going to experience resurrection. That'll be a wonderful example for everybody else.” You would thereby be separating yourself from everybody else. But the way it is, we are all in the same boat—and we can allow some changes of attitude, some changes of outlook, some changes of understanding, with respect to everything. But now we are thinking of it with respect to the individual body, our own individual bodies, because there certainly has been a judgmental attitude with respect to the body.
Shame is an evil spirit, we say, because it's actually the central evil spirit which put in an appearance when the spirit of God no longer was being rightly translated. The first mistranslation of the spirit of God, we might say, produced shame—the sense of shame. And the sense of shame has been present in people in numberless ways, but very particularly, obviously, with respect to the physical flesh body. There are those who have a sort of a sensing of this and they think they are going to dissipate it somehow by establishing nudist colonies. Well conceivably action at this level, at this physical level, this earthly level, may loose something on earth which looses something in heaven.
The point is to loose something in heaven, and one necessarily does something on earth to let that happen: “Whatsoever ye shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven.” If you don't loose it on earth it won't be loosed in heaven. When it is loosed in heaven then there is something available for expression on earth, but we have to loose it on earth first. This is why I am bringing into your consciousness now the physical flesh body. It certainly is bound on earth, it's bound by earthly heredity. But it is bound also—and this is the important aspect of it—by our view of the flesh body, by our sense of shame, by our judgment, that this aspect of the body's function, for instance, is good and this aspect is bad. Well we know, theoretically at least, that every aspect of the body when it is in health is necessary—all aspects of it are necessary.
Now I'm thinking particularly at the moment of the excretive aspects of the flesh body, which we would all no doubt admit are absolutely essential to good health. And yet there is a very peculiar attitude toward these, which, I suppose, if we were using Paul's language, we would say that these processes are uncomely. But the fact of the matter is that they are part of the creative process, not just that we might have good health. It's not a self-centered thing, rightly. Because it is taken as a self-centered thing, constipation is one of the major problems in the world, of human experience, and all kinds of other troubles.
Now of course we need to recognize that there are various facilities available for excretion, some of which we don't think so badly of. We don't mind perhaps going out on the tennis court, or jogging on the road, and perspiring heavily. It's a healthy practice, and we don't swathe ourselves in a blanket in order to hide the fact that we are perspiring—we really would be then, wouldn't we? I'm not saying that all these necessary functions of what may be thought of as dispelling waste are for public display. No, there is what is fitting. But I'm not speaking of that so much as one's own personal view of the situation. And for most it's a very restricted view, a very distorted view, based in a firm mistranslation. We need to see this process as relating to creation.
Some of you may have read The Triune Ray of long ago, Uranda's work, in which something was said about the creation which was initiated at the highest and finest levels, and what was incapable of right function at that highest level automatically got pushed down into the next level. Now that's excretion, part of the creative process. And what couldn't operate at that level was pushed down to the next lower level, and so on down the line until finally there was the earth, which was the ash of everything that was left. Then provision was made by which this ash could be transformed and transmuted in the resurrecting cycle. There are two aspects of the cycle—we're aware of that. There is what is coming down from God out of heaven, that could be correlated with the excretory cycle.
Now most of us in the human state would be horrified at the thought that this was so. Why? Because we have a horrible attitude toward our own experience and we have not had any consciousness at all, virtually, of the creative nature of this part of the creative cycle that is operating in our own individual flesh bodies. It's just as important in the creative way as any other aspect of it.
Now of course there is the air we breathe out. There is a good deal of concern about bad breath, and various substances you are supposed to be able to rinse your mouth out with—it's probably worse than the bad breath by the time you've done it. But here is something being offered out from the body because it no longer belongs in the body. We breathe out a blessing. Now that’s easy, isn’t it? We can see that, quite obvious. After the Master’s resurrection, when He was with His disciples, He breathed upon them, and said, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” It was a blessing, obviously, a blessing offered from another level. The blessings are offered from the higher level.
Now in all the excretory functions of the human body, whether through breathing out, whether through the pores at the surface of the body, or through the eliminative tract where there is the solid waste or liquid waste—it is all part of the same thing. It is all part of allowing what is not properly capable of operating at the level where we are living to move in blessing to another level. All this has been blotted out of the consciousness of human beings, as evidenced by their problems in the world now of what is called pollution. There is no clear awareness of the possibilities, the creative possibilities, of waste. Well there is a little on the farm, for instance, where there is, as we have here, a compost heap. But think of all those eyesores where the carcasses of automobiles are stacked. Now of course they're beginning to squeeze them together and use the metal over again. But there is far more being excreted from human civilization than can be taken care of because much of the excretion in this sense is so unnatural. All kinds of substances have now been made which are not included in nature; they're not biodegradable, as they say. But no thought apparently was given, in making these substances, as to what would happen when they needed to disintegrate; no provision was made for it.
Well from the standpoint of the true translation of things, provision is made all the way. It is made during the creation—which continues, by the way—where there is that which is descending from level to level, that which is being excreted from level to level, and that which is being lifted up again. The cycle works from the standpoint of God, but obviously human beings have thrown a monkey wrench into the works.
We need to begin to allow a true awareness to be experienced in a very personal sense. It is not just a matter of having a large view and being able to expound on the principles of the thing, but of knowing the reality of it in one's own experience. And in various ways we excrete every day. “Well let’s not talk about that; let’s not even think about it,” is the inclination of the human attitude. That's saying let’s exclude a primary aspect of the creative process from our consideration. This is an honorable function. It is somewhat seen now, that what is thought of as sexual function is honorable. This is a field that, in the consciousness of vast numbers of people, particularly in the past, has been very dishonorable, something that might be described as animalistic, or beastly—in the view of many, many people.
Now, from our standpoint at least—we need to consider what our experience is—we have an awareness that it is certainly an essential part of the creative process, with which we are concerned—you can't exclude it and live. So this begins to be seen. We are more delighted about this perhaps, first of all because it seems to open up some possibilities to human nature. But it is not for opening up possibilities to human nature. It is for right use in the creative process. Well it is interesting to note that, insofar as the flesh body is concerned, that the primary creative organs are closely associated with particular aspects of the excretory experience. We may recognize at this level—we sometimes refer to this general area by using the words the first seal—that the first seal is the crossover point where the change occurs. It is the point through which what is descending moves on out and the point through which what is ascending returns. There is a very close association here. We know that physically speaking. We can’t do anything about that—there it is. Well, it is designed that way. There is nothing wrong with this, once we have a conscious awareness of the real nature of the creative process which we ourselves as living souls focalize—it comes to point in what we are as living souls. There is life and there is the soul. They are one. And the soul includes all the equipment necessary to permit participation in the real creative process.
Now we don't have physical bodies made the way they are by mistake. I don't think anyone who has any appreciation of beauty would take the attitude that the physical form of male and female is not beautiful. It seems that some, of course, have taken that attitude, but if one has an appreciation of beauty it is beautiful. We have many examples, of course, from the standpoint of art. The human body has been used as a form of beauty in art, very much so, because there is a consciousness of the fact that while this is not the whole picture, nevertheless the flesh body of human beings is rightly made in the image and likeness of God when the correct translation is there. Well the correct translation from our standpoint now is not to try to do something to the physical body—we wouldn’t know what to do—but to allow our attitude to be clear in relationship to its operation, so that we have a consciousness of blessing from the standpoint of what it is that is being offered from us in this creative cycle into our world. It is nourishment.
The carbon dioxide that we breathe out is nourishment to the plants—we know that. And in actual fact, except for the blindness of human beings in their ridiculous ways of handling things, all the other excretions that emerge from the human body have a right use. We might say, “Well you can't follow that out very far because it goes down the sewer into the aerating pond down below there and is broken down.” I think we can follow it out a little further here than you can in the city, for instance; they have treatment plants there. You can't see perhaps the end result of the blessing the way things are set up, but that does not in any way change what rightly should be our attitude in the matter, because the spirit of blessing needs to be present if there is to be a blessing—spirit and form are one. That is a living soul insofar as man is concerned. And if one has no awareness of what one is really doing in these various fields, there is no participation in any real sense with the creative cycle. And that is exactly what we're here on earth to do.
We may see this most obviously as we are gathered here in this Assembly: something needs to happen in the creative sense, a right translation, for all that is beyond us. We at the moment provide an apex point of focus, and something needs to be released because of us. Now you may not have thought of that release as excretion, but it is, once we experience an awareness, spiritually speaking, of what it is that is happening. And we can correlate our function in all its various aspects with what is actually happening, so that we don't have our bodies over here—“Well it is going to take care of things there, but I'm a spiritual being here and I'm going to radiate something out into the world.” How is it going to get there? It requires the flesh body to get there, and the actual function—not the imaginary function—of the flesh body is the way it goes.
There has been so much imagination, a living in a fanciful world, that somehow we are going to let some marvelous emanation go forth; it's going to uplift everybody—but factually what is happening? Maybe we are struggling with our digestive system, or we are not breathing properly, or we never undertake exercise to let us sweat a bit. What are we doing to see that the kidneys work as they should? They are a marvelous mechanism, if you stop to think about it. Well there are so many peculiar attitudes toward such things, that stand in the way here. And in a general sense, most people find great difficulty groping their way through these things in order to find the beautiful reality that is the other side. It has always been there. There has just been this thick veil of human ignorance in between.
Every aspect of the function of the human body is beautiful—beautiful—even the most seemingly uncomely ones. And we need to be so clear within ourselves that we know this to be so in our own experience. It must be in our own experience, not just thinking about it but sharing the actual operation of the creative cycle, so that we are keenly aware of the opportunity to allow a blessing to be released because something is in fact occurring. To put it in a very specific nut shell for at least one area with which you are all familiar, it is not a matter of going to the bathroom and saying, “After I've been to the bathroom then I will be in position to release a blessing.” No, right there! Is there any area so uncomely to you that it would be impossible to release a blessing through?
Here we begin to see a whole free area. I'm not suggesting that there isn't something that is properly comely with respect to all these operations—there is what is fitting. I'm talking about the way we see the thing, our own attitude, and our own actual experience here. And if you have had some troubles with your eliminative processes, maybe you may recognize a key to clearing the situation—not that you are taking this attitude in order to clear the situation, but it automatically follows through. Human beings have been thoroughly self-centered in these things and inherited all kinds of ridiculous attitudes which didn't exist at all in the true state, when the true translation was being made—everything was beautiful. There is nothing that is uncomely. All is a part of the means for the expression of righteousness, after which we hunger and thirst. So I appreciate the opportunity of speaking of these things in an open manner to the extent that you have allowed me to do so.
