Tonight our pattern of meditation centers in the essential processes of learning to know the Father. Continuing our general subject of Heavenly Magic, the magic of life, the magic of living, we would consider together the basic processes essential to coming to know the Father. [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/shekinah-magic-4seeing-father-john-14.html] Immediately the vital importance of this subject is evident to us, we remember the Master taught men to pray: “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is,” exactly as it is, “in heaven … For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.” In this beautiful and yet simple prayer the Master made a number of things very clear, which human beings have tended to forget.
“Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.” Our prayer is to the Father, and according to the Master the Kingdom already belonged to the Father at the time He spoke the words, “For Thine, O Father, is the kingdom, Thine is the power, Thine is the glory,” not something that was “going to be” sometime. There are those among the children of men who imagine that the kingdom in this world—the kingdoms of men, the kingdoms of man's affairs—belongs to someone other than the Father. But the Kingdom belongs to the Father, and the power necessary to the correct function in that Kingdom, and the Glory of Living in that Kingdom. And He did not suggest that we had to wait until some far-distant time. He suggested rather that His Gospel was, and is, that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, not merely because the Master walked among men. The Kingdom is at hand, and has been, every moment of time, through all history. It did not reach a point of being at hand only when the Master came. It was at hand before, and He revealed the truth that it was at hand then, that it is at hand all the time, for all generations of men. And that was His Gospel, and how few there are who give heed to His Gospel. They have manufactured a supposed gospel out of human concepts and assumptions and beliefs, disregarding His Gospel, the Gospel that declares, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
And He pointed us to the fact that when this Kingdom, when the Gospel of this Kingdom that is at hand, had been made known to all the children of men, the end of evil conditions in the world would come. Of all the fantastic concepts that have been developed this is one of the most fantastic: that human beings should expect the Kingdom to come floating down out of the sky somehow, to be arbitrarily imposed upon the children of men, and that human beings had nothing to do with the coming of the Kingdom into manifestation on earth. He said, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Once we begin to acknowledge His Gospel—and that His Gospel has always has been—we begin to realize that we, individually and collectively, have a responsibility, the responsibility of sharing the work of letting that Kingdom come into manifestation in our lives, in our bodies, our minds, our hearts, our affairs and circumstances.
How can we let this Kingdom come? In the first place the Kingdom belongs to the Father—it already does. The Master said, before the crucifixion, before any of the events which human beings have imagined were necessary to the victory, the Master said, “The prince of this world cometh and findeth nothing in me.” He made this statement very clearly, that the victory had already been won. He said, “Fear not, I have overcome the world.” It was not necessary for Him to be crucified to save man. He had already established all the things necessary to the salvation of man before that horrible atrocity, the mockery of the trial and the crucifixion. As long as human beings are deluded into feeling that the crucifixion was somehow necessary to the salvation of human beings, we cannot possibly understand the great significance of the life and teaching of our Master on earth.
We must begin to recognize that God did not require the crucifixion. The crucifixion came because men rejected our LORD, not because God required it. We must begin to see that it was not necessary, but that it was the greatest atrocity of all times. If we in any moment imagine that the crucifixion was necessary, then we must at the same time acknowledge that there was one man who rendered the greatest service to all men, next only to our LORD and KING Himself, and that man, the greatest of all men of all time, to render the greatest service for all people, was Judas. If the crucifixion was necessary to our salvation then the greatest man that ever lived on earth outside of our LORD Himself was Judas. Judas did not serve God by betraying our LORD. It was an atrocity, plain and simple—unnecessary.
According to the Bible there is not one word that can be properly understood as meaning that that atrocity was required of God. The idea of Jesus dying on the cross is something that human beings have manufactured. They have imagined that they could concoct out of their own hearts a gospel and substitute it for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Gospel of Jesus Christ was, and is, that the Kingdom is at hand and that the Kingdom belongs to the Father; that the world had already been overcome, that the processes of salvation had already been established, and the crucifixion was not in any sense necessary to the salvation of any human being on the face of the earth. Once we begin to see these things we can begin to take the correct attitude toward our LORD, and His life begins to take on far greater significance.
One of the points we begin to see is that He was revealing something of the Father. His greatest service to us was the revelation of the Father on earth. He revealed Deity; He revealed the processes by which Deity can work in every human life. He said, “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also.” And yet, under the pattern of the common concept of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, human beings have imagined that the power to do the works of God vanished with the disciples. They have imagined that we could not let the power of God manifest to heal the sick, to clear the problems of daily life, to meet the issues of life, and to accomplish our Divine Purpose on earth. And yet the Master said, regardless of all human concepts and beliefs, “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also.” And that statement is without regard to race or color or creed or generation. It applies to us tonight as clearly as to any human being ever born on the face of the earth.
“He that believeth on me.” Once we begin to see the Master's own measurement of belief we begin to recognize that there are very few people in the world who do believe on Him, and we need to begin to understand what it means to believe. Believe on whom? Upon whom should we believe? Upon Jesus the man, through whom the Father was revealed? He said, “The Father and I are one.” He said, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” He said, :The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father who dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.” Therefore who was it that said, “He that believeth on me”? Who is the me upon whom we are to believe? Not Jesus the man, but upon theFather. He revealed the Father, that we might know the Father; and until we begin to recognize that it is possible for us to know the Father ourselves we cannot possibly have the right attitude or understand the way by which we can approach the Father.
Not to believe merely upon Jesus the man. The body of Jesus the man was necessary to that revelation, and we do not detract from Him one iota when we recognize that all that He said and did was a revelation of the Father. We do not need to deify the body of the man. We do need to recognize the reality of the Father, and remember, He said, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” Those who think they have seen, recognized or believed upon Jesus, and who have not recognized, seen and believed the Father, show by their own attitudes that they do not know what they are talking about. It is only as we acknowledge the Father that we can begin to know that for which we are here on earth.
Blessed ones, He taught us to pray: “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come.” When? Did He add two or three thousand years from now? No, in any moment of time, in any generation, for any man, any woman, who would yield and let the will of God be done on earth as it is in heaven. How many there are who have imagined that we could not let the will of God be done on earth in exactly the same manner as His will is done in heaven. But we can. And until we recognize this basic principle of being, we cannot possibly know the Magic of Living, the magic of doing that for which we came into the world; for there is a Divine Purpose for each and every one. So we recognize the basic, fundamental truth of the Master's word, “The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father who dwelleth in me, He doeth the works.” Then let us begin to attribute the words to the One from whom they came, the Father. And once we begin to read the statements that came through the lips of Jesus to us, realizing that they are the words of the Father, they will begin to mean something to us, something that cannot be known as long as we are thinking of those words merely as the words of Jesus about the Father.
When are we going to believe on Him? The moment we do we are going to recognize that He and the Father were One already. He did not have to ascend into some heaven to be One with the Father; He did not have to go anywhere. He plainly stated that the Father was here on earth, and that the Kingdom of the Father was here on earth, at hand, within reach of every human being; and we need to begin to know the Father if we would let the Father control in our lives. “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also.” And what are these works? The revelation of the Father. The Father doeth the works.
We remember the passage in the 3rd chapter of John: “But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.” Here the Master plainly indicated that any human being, anywhere, in any generation, regardless of background, creed or color, could reach a point where he allowed God to do the works. And if God is doing the works, then you, the human being, are only the means by which the works of God are conveyed into the world. You are not doing the works. If you try to do the Will of God on earth you will fail. Only an egotist, who is ready to blaspheme the Name of our KING, would ever undertake to do the Will of God on earth. No human being can. Only when we reach a point where we are willing to let God Himself do His own Will in us and through us can we begin to accomplish that which we should. We must realize that it is the work of God in us, conveyed through us into the world of men, that counts. So we need to go back a little and make a new approach to a consideration of the Father, of what it means to know the Father.
What is the nature of the Father? In the same discourse in which He plainly stated, “The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father who dwelleth in me, he doeth the works,” we find these words: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” I am the way, the truth, and the life. Who is the way, the truth and the life? Jesus the man? Just the fleshly body of one individual, with a mind and a heart? No. As long as human beings try to imagine that somehow Jesus the man was the way, the truth and the life, they are going to fail to understand the teaching of our LORD and KING when He walked among men. He said, “I speak not of myself.” Who was speaking, then? The Father. And who was it who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life”? It was the Father who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
Now let us see how we come unto the Father. How can we approach the Father? How can we begin to know the Father? If we have paid any attention to all of the many words our Master spoke which were recorded and brought down to us, we should begin to realize that, according to His Word, there is nothing more important to us than coming to the Father and beginning to know the Father, to understand the Father, and to let the Father's Will be done in our lives on earth exactly as the Father's Will is done in heaven. We turn to the 1st chapter of the Gospel according to John. In the 14th verse we read: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth.”
“And the Word was made flesh.” What is the Word? We need to go back to the 1st verse to begin to see the answer to this question: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
Now it has widely been assumed, and it is only an assumption, that the Word simply meant Jesus Christ. But Jesus did not exist until He was born on this earth. The body of Jesus had its beginning in the womb of Mary and did not exist prior to that time. The body of Jesus lived on earth for about thirty-three and a half years, and the body of Jesus ascended into the Father. Once we begin to understand the reality of ascension we begin to see that Jesus as such does not exist now. Jesus was the form in flesh through which the Father was revealed, but Jesus did not exist before His birth on earth, and there is no such being as Jesus now. There are those who would assume that such a statement is sacrilege. It is simply a recognition of that which the Bible teaches, once we separate the truth from the fiction, from the assumptions, the imaginations, which human beings have added to the Bible. No, it is not sacrilegious. It is a recognition of the truth, a part of that truth which we must see if we are going to be made free by the truth. Just as human beings imagine that Jesus had to die on the cross and that He did die—imaginations of their own hearts, not supported by the Bible, not supported by a word of Holy Writ anywhere—so have they been deluded of the devil and led into bypaths where the power of God could not have any real meaning in their lives. Concepts and beliefs that are not based in truth cannot make men free; they cannot make them as a power to live and to do; they cannot permit them to reveal the reality of the Father on earth.
The Master said, “Follow me.” How shall we follow Him if we refuse to let Deity be revealed through our lives, if we refuse to let the power of God be made evident, if we refuse to let our lives be governed by the Divine Design for us? No. The greatest lie the devil has ever managed to foist on human beings is the lie that Jesus died on the cross, or that He died at all. He did not die, and it is plainly evident, if we begin to study that which is contained in the Bible. If He had died He would have failed. He could not die unless the prince of this world was able to find something in Him; and those who say that Jesus died on the cross are declaring that our LORD was a liar, and that is sacrilege, that is blasphemy; for He was not a liar. He plainly said, “The prince of this world cometh and findeth nothing in me.” He did enter the state of a coma, but He did not die. If He had died we would indeed be in a very sad state of affairs. But, Glory to God in the Highest, He did not die, and He came forth victorious from man's most evil efforts to destroy God. If He had died it would have signified that man had the power to destroy God and to destroy the manifestation of God upon the earth. Man does not have that power. Jesus did not die upon the cross. Men's most evil intent could not cause that atrocity to achieve such a vile result.
Once we begin to realize that our salvation, or the fulfilment of life, whatever we want to call it, does not in any sense depend upon the crucifixion, we can begin to understand the true meaning of the Bible. And this is not talking about Jesus. It is talking about something which was revealed through Jesus, but Jesus did not exist until His body was formed in Mary's womb and He was born on earth. When we see that, we can begin to see the great and glorious significance of what He said and did, which has been buried beneath all the imaginations of men's evil hearts—the assumptions, the concepts and beliefs, which have no foundation in fact or truth. “In the beginning was the Word.” And what was the Word?
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men.”
Let us go back into the Old Testament pattern, which the Master was revealing in His teaching. Human beings have imagined that Jesus gave something new to the world. He gave new light to that which had already been revealed, yes, but the basic truths of being which the Master Himself taught and exemplified had been given to the children of men long before. He vitalized them, He made them real, yes; but they were known to men long before, but men did not know how to function in relationship to them. Human beings still do not know. They rejected that which He taught. That which He taught allowed human beings to begin to experience the process of drawing near to the Father, of beginning to see something of the Kingdom at hand, something of the Power of the Father, something of the Glory of the Father, in what is called the day of Pentecost. But what did they do? Impulsive Peter, always tending to be disobedient, always refusing to let the Father's Will be done, went out and started using that power according to his own concepts, according to his own beliefs and impulses. He violated the laws of God and led the other disciples in that violation. And what happened?
The day of Pentecost was supposed to be the beginning of the manifestation of power which should increase and multiply until the Power of the Kingdom should be known around the world. But Peter and the others threw it away! They refused to let God's Will be done. They refused to let the Divine Purpose work out. And what happened? Instead of the power increasing, as God intended that it should, the power began to decrease. The first flush of heavenly power manifesting through the forms of men and they used their own puny human wills; they rejected the design of truth. And Peter led the way in bringing on a state where the light almost vanished from the face of the earth, where the power of God diminished until those who thought of themselves as Christians became martyrs.
Martyrs, why? Because that was the way it should be? No! The very fact that they became martyrs proves that they were not letting God's Will be done, or those who were in authority in Rome or anywhere else would not have had the power to institute such conditions as throwing those who called themselves Christians to the lions, or burning them at the stake, etc. That stands as an indictment against human beings. There is nothing glorious in martyrdom, absolutely nothing. It did not show the power of God; it showed the weakness of human beings who had violated the laws of God and refused to let God's Will be done on earth as it is in heaven. If human beings had followed the instructions of our LORD and let the day or cycle of Pentecost fully come there would have been a different story in history. The first faint beginning of that cycle of Pentecost and Peter and the others rushed out and started using it wrongly, violating the law, throwing it away; and from that day the power diminished and soon was gone, and has not yet been again made manifest among those who call themselves Christians.
Until we begin to realize that we have continued down through the centuries to violate God's Will, to refuse to follow our LORD's leadership, to refuse to let the power manifest, we cannot possibly begin to understand the teaching of Jesus Christ. His own disciples were so ignorant of the Father, so ignorant of the Divine Plan, had so completely failed to grasp His meaning, that which He taught and exemplified and that which He did, that after He had been on earth, after the resurrection, for forty days—doing what? Talking to them about His crucifixion? about how His blood was shed on the cross so that people could be saved? No, that is a human fancy; it is a delusion of the devil.
What did He talk about after His resurrection? “To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.” And where had He said the Kingdom was? At hand, on earth. Over and over again He said this Kingdom was to have meaning on earth. And here He was ready to go through the process of final ascension, and He had been talking to them for forty days about the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God, and they could ask this inane, senseless question: “When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” A complete failure to appreciate what He had told them about the Kingdom of God. “Wilt thou, Lord, at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” All they could think about was a little kingdom among the kingdoms of this world—the kingdom of Israel. And those are the disciples. The ringleader is Peter, who did not let God's Will be done, who was not a great exponent of the teachings of Jesus Christ. Peter led the way impulsively into those violations of the laws of God by which the power of Pentecost was quickly lost and has never again reappeared. And until we get back to the basic fundamental teachings that Jesus Christ revealed to the world, we cannot know that power and the churches will continue to be weak and helpless, vapid things through which the power of God does not truly manifest.
We need to begin to live. We need to begin to see that here and now there is an opportunity for the Kingdom of Heaven at hand to have meaning in our lives. We need to stop and consider what Jesus taught and forget about the human concepts and beliefs, and examine the Law of God and begin to realize that we can, we can here, begin to so function in relationship to the Father that we, if we will, can let that power of Pentecost manifest; not just to have some kind of an emotional spree, but to let the power manifest for the accomplishment of the Will of God on earth, so that we do not make it a mockery every time we repeat like parrots the words of the Lord's Prayer. “Thy kingdom come.” When, where? Someday? Now! “Thy will be done on earth” exactly as it is in heaven, with exactly the same results, for exactly the same purpose: “For thine is the kingdom, and the power”—God has the power and He is offering it to us—"and the glory.”
And if we think we must die to find heaven and to find God and find the power, we are wrong. It is in this world that there is the need. Here is the need, not in heaven. Here are the miserable conditions, here are the injustices, here is the suffering, here is the sorrow, here are the things the Master came into the world to do away with: to save man from all these things, that man might begin on earth to be what he ought to be, a Divine Man, a Divine Woman, living in the Kingdom at hand, letting the power of God accomplish all things needful in the affairs of men. If we say it cannot be done we make of our LORD a liar, and judging Him to be a liar we reveal and judge ourselves to be liars; for He did not lie. Until we are willing to stop and examine the fact that the Master was teaching men to know the Father, that He revealed the Father, and He was teaching men how they could follow Him and they too could reveal the Father, we cannot begin to leave behind the sphere of life in which human beings have shown themselves to be such weak and helpless things for so long.
And those who claim to be Christians accomplish little more than those who do not. They suffer from the same ills. They become sick with the same diseases, they have the same troubles, the same weaknesses, and they go about saying, “Oh, I'm saved, I'm saved. I can't expect to get away from the miseries of this world while we are in the world; but when I die I'll go to heaven and I'll be saved.” Of all the contemptible, blasphemous nonsense! It is here on earth that we need to let the power of God accomplish something. If we have to die to do it, where is it going to be done? It is here that the need is, and you are going to postpone it until some future event, when the Bible says, “Now is the accepted time”? Now! We can begin to do our part in it.
It takes many others, and there are earnest ones in every belief and church upon the face of the earth, every creed and color, earnest, sincere human beings who simply have never seen the truth and do not know it; but they are searching for it, they are longing for it. They have been fed the husks of human imaginations and concepts and beliefs for too long. They want to know the bread, the banquet of the Father's House, and if we begin to give them a chance to find it they will rejoice in it, they will recognize that there is a Way, that there is the Truth and there is the Life that is to apply here on earth. The mere fact that you may think that you are saved and that you are going to heaven means nothing here on earth. Here we need to clear away the miseries. Here we need to heal the sick. Here we need to soothe the troubled hearts. The Master said, “Let not your heart be troubled.” If the heart is troubled, the power of God is able to stop the state of troubled existence.
We could, if we would let the power of God manifest, bring godless Russia to its knees; we could solve the international problems. There isn't anything that God could not do if human beings would let Him. It is not His Will that there should be war. It is blasphemy to say, “Why does God let war continue?” Why does God? Because human beings refuse to let God have His way, because they refuse to let His power manifest on earth, because they try to keep His Kingdom in heaven and refuse to let it extend into the world. It is not God's fault that there is war. It is not God's fault that there is bloodshed in Korea or somewhere else.
The power of God is sufficient so that if there were a hundred and fifty thousand real Christians on the face of the earth all told, all put together, a hundred and fifty thousand could let so much of the power of God manifest that the Soviet program would crumble like dust before the breeze. It could not stand. The healing power of God could manifest, so that instead of having to build more institutions for the insane they could be healed, instead of having to build more hospitals for the sick and the afflicted they could be healed, instead of having all of these miseries in the world the conditions could be changed. And they will be. “Behold, I make all things new.” How? Through man. But man must first let himself be made new; he must first let the Will of God be done on earth as it is in heaven.
And what does God's Will produce in heaven? Misery? Heavy burdens? Death? Those who say that the working of God's Will on earth causes them to have heavy crosses, to be afflicted, to die—"Oh, it's God's Will that so-and-so die. It's God's Will that so-and-so have this heavy burden.” Is it? That is blasphemy. To attribute these evil things to God's Will is plain blasphemy. It is not God's Will, for the working of God's Will on earth produces exactly the same results as the working of His Will in heaven; and if we say that His Will in heaven makes the beings there miserable, makes them die, makes them suffer of all kinds of diseases and carry all kinds of heavy crosses, and you can prove it to me, then I will agree with you that His Will on earth produces the same sort of thing. But if we believe what the Master said, we cannot believe that God's Will ever made anyone die, that God's Will ever made anyone suffer, that God's Will ever inflicted any ailment, any handicap, any suffering of any kind.
Whom do we believe? If we try to make Jesus Christ a liar there is nothing left but the devil of man's own self-active mind. But He said, “Thy will, O Father, be done on earth as it is in heaven,” and if it be done on earth as it is in heaven it will produce exactly the same results that it produces in heaven. And if it cannot be done in us then He was making a mockery of us when He taught us to pray. Either He knew what He was doing, knew what He was saying, and He spoke the truth, or He did not. Whom do we believe? If we believe Jesus Christ, then we know that He was not making a mockery of us. He was not mocking us. He was saying that the power of God could work on earth, and that the Will of God was to work on earth and produce on earth exactly the same results that would be produced in heaven.
Well, why try to get into heaven, then, to get the results? Why not let them appear on earth, where they are so sorely needed? Can you by going to heaven improve heaven so very much? Why not live on earth and improve something on earth? Some people seem to think that they are so ornamental that God can hardly wait to get them to heaven; they are going to improve the place so much, they are going to heaven. I hope they do. They are no good on earth. Let us not be concerned about being an ornament in heaven; let us be concerned about letting the Will of God do something on earth; let us be concerned about learning to know the Father, draw near unto Him, and let His Will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And if we are to let His Will be done on earth as it is in heaven, then it will produce the same results on earth and we do not have to go to heaven to get the results. God's Will in action on earth can meet any situation, including the world situation.
Human beings have jumped to a lot of conclusions and they imagine that Jesus has to come floating down out of the sky somewhere, somehow, on a cloud, and then it will all work out. He is going to do it all. He will hand it to us on a silver platter. We do not have to do a single, solitary thing but just be sure we are saved, and then He will do it all. What a lazy attitude, to say nothing of its blasphemous expression! What a lazy attitude! He is going to do it all, is He? He is the KING, and if we are His servants we had better get busy and do something and not leave it all up to the KING. If we are His servants we will do something, and we will do it on earth or we will not do it anywhere. It is here on earth that the conditions need to be changed, that the Will of God needs to be done. And human beings talk about trying to find out what the Will of God is. It is so easy! The Will of God is that … what? Do you want to know what the Will of God is? Let us read it from the Book; for this is the Will of God.
“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” Now notice, this does not say, “And Jesus shall come down, floating on a cloud, out of the sky, with a whole lot of handkerchiefs to wipe away their tears.” It says God will do it. And how will God do it? Through human beings, through men and women who are willing to be citizens of His Kingdom, who are willing to let themselves be established in the pattern of the Divine Design. “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” That is what God's Will is. Are you going to accomplish it in human strength? No. But we can let the power of God accomplish it through us if we let the Father do it. If you let God act in you and through you, God will do it through you. You cannot do it alone.
Human beings have been trying to be as God since man first fell, and the so-called Christians of this day are not one whit better. Let us stop and consider. The so-called, self-styled Christians in the world, presumably following Jesus Christ, in the first place are not letting the power of the Father manifest, or we would not have these conditions in the world. The very situation in the world stands as an indictment against us all. And then what? So-called Christians are still looking for the Messiah to come and to fix everything up, and yet they become self-righteous in their attitudes about the so-called Jews who still say, “Oh, the Messiah is yet to come.” Christians and Jews alike, so called, are still looking for the Messiah to come and fix it all up.
The Messiah did come and He does not need to come again, and, according to His own Word, the Word of the Father through the lips of Jesus, “Lo, I am with you alway.” Not Jesus. The Father! “Lo, I am with you alway.” He revealed the Way, the Truth and the Life. What more do we want? To have it forced down our throats? Have it imposed upon us? It is a gift of God! When will we receive it and let that power of God have some meaning, let the Will of God do something? And God will cause the former things to pass away, the things that seem to rule today, in international affairs, in national and personal situations. God can cause these things of the unreal realm, the things of evil design, to pass away, if we let His Will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And only so can we share the victory.
Our gracious LORD and KING, we thank Thee for the holy privilege of coming before Thy Throne in the spirit of Thy Presence, to let Thy Will be done on earth as it is in heaven, to yield body and mind and heart to the working of Thy Will, that Thy power may accomplish Thy purpose and that we may let Thy Glory increase in the earth, that we may let Thy Kingdom come and extend into the affairs of men, that we may truly follow Thee, that Thy Kingdom may cover the whole earth, in form, to be seen of men; for Thy Kingdom is at hand and here, waiting for us to let it take form because we live, because we are willing to be Thy servants, citizens of Thy Kingdom, proving that Thy Kingdom is greater than all the kingdoms of the earth, proving that Thy power is greater than all the powers of the earth, proving that Thy Will can be done on earth exactly as Thy Will is done in heaven. And we do not need to try to get to some far-off heaven to let Thy Will be done. We thank Thee, Father, that it is so; for Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and Glory forever, in the Christ. Aum-en.
The world of Christianity has acknowledged that the One who was called Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Why was it that He could be called the Son of God? Simply because He revealed the Father on earth. He revealed the true nature and character of God on earth. He revealed the reality of Being on earth.
In the Garden, after He came forth from the tomb, He was speaking to Mary Magdalene and He told her to take a message to the disciples. This message is recorded in the Gospel according to John through these words: “I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.” It is obvious, then, that He made no distinction in this regard between Himself and those to whom the message was to be given. He provided the words of what we have come to call the Lord's Prayer, which begins “Our Father.” It is clear, then, that the potential of a son or a daughter of God is present in everyone. In His life on earth He revealed the truth of Being and is recognized as a Son of God, a Son of God revealing the truth of Being on earth. In effect He extended the invitation to all people to share in the revelation of this truth, for if His Father is our Father, then the whole body of mankind may share in revealing the Son of God on earth; in fact the revelation of the Son of God on earth is impossible without mankind.
By reason of the particular position of the One who came on earth and was called Jesus, and being Supreme in that position, He could reveal the essences of the Son of God for all to see and to share. His body as an individual represented the body of mankind, but it is the body of mankind that is the Body of the Son of God. In His ministry on earth, in all that He said and did, was conveyed the truth in essence, the truth which is true of man as a whole. The attitude that has been taken has been one which has caused Him to be isolated, as though He alone was the Son of God, but this certainly was not indicated by anything that He said or taught or revealed. He simply provided an exemplification in which all might share.
In later books which have been included in the New Testament, Paul provided some rather obscure dissertations with respect to the Law and what he called Grace. From what he wrote it is evident that he did not clearly see the simple truth. One aspect of the Law might be defined as the principle of cause and effect. As long as the cause is wrong the effect will be likewise. If man is in the position of cause and he is wrong, then the effects in his experience will be wrong. And as long as he remains wrong cause there is nothing he can do to change the nature of the effects. So it was indicated that salvation did not come by the Law, but the fact of the matter is that it does come by the Law; it couldn't come without the Law. However, the grace to which Paul had reference is really the opportunity that man has to let the cause, which he is, be changed, so that being right cause there might be right effects under the working of the Law. The experience of right cause and consequent right effects is salvation and is brought to pass by the working of the Law. However, without the grace, which is the opportunity for man to experience this essential change, the Law will faithfully reproduce in wrong effects the wrong cause, which man is. Human beings have been trying over the millennia to change the pattern of effects without exhibiting any willingness to let the nature of the cause be changed.
We begin to see that when the cause is as it should be, when man is as he should be, then the effects are as they should be; but there is no possibility of a peaceful, harmonious, satisfactory, healthy state on earth as long as man functions in a way which causes the Law to bring forth effects which are the result of his own wrong state of consciousness. It is possible for the state of consciousness in man to change. This possibility is the grace which is offered. It was not offered just by Jesus Christ. It was offered long before Him and it has never ceased to be offered. However we do have the clearest evidence, the clearest example, of the nature of that grace revealed through Jesus Christ.
His body was placed in a tomb, presumed to be dead, so that it was wrapped about with graveclothes upon which certain spices had been sprinkled; and His body thus bound was placed in the tomb. A stone was rolled upon the entrance to the tomb, so that presumably inside it was dark. His body represented the body of mankind. The condition of His body in the tomb represents the condition of the body of mankind in the world. In the darkness of the tomb there is no consciousness of the Garden; any consciousness that there is is of the tomb state.
The tomb state, in which mankind finds himself, is not the true state. His experience does not belong in that state; nevertheless the body of mankind has existed in this tomb, bound by the graveclothes, with a little sweet smell to cover up the stink, for thousands of years. The only consciousness that man has had has been that of the tomb state. The darkness comprehends not the light. He sees nothing else than what he is capable of observing in the tomb; he sees everything through a glass darkly; he sees nothing clearly. He does not see the way things really are, because he's in the tomb, not in the Garden. Consequently he translates all he sees on the basis of this obscuring consciousness which he has, and he lies there bound in the tomb imagining that this is the natural, or normal, condition. He has lost all memory of anything else and he tries to explain this condition away as though it were some inevitable experience established by ... God perhaps, or by the processes of his various theories of evolution, or what have you. But the working of the Law in the tomb state maintains the state a tomb, and as long as his consciousness is the consciousness of death he remains in the tomb. And man's consciousness is oriented to death; he sees this as the one inevitability. He has a death consciousness. He has tried in various ways to get rid of this death consciousness but the Law works inevitably to maintain the death state.
There is no salvation that way. There must be grace; in other words, a means by which his consciousness of death may be changed to a consciousness of life. This occurred insofar as our Master Himself as an individual was concerned. The graveclothes were laid aside. How? The Law worked to lay them aside. The stone rolled away from the mouth of the tomb. How? The Law worked to roll it away. The body of Jesus came forth from the tomb. How? The Law worked to bring it forth, and He stood, living, in the Garden. In what worked out with respect to Him the cycle was initiated with respect to the whole body of mankind.
First of all the body of mankind must reach a point where there is a consciousness of the fact of being in the tomb. There is no such consciousness at the moment in the vast majority of people. This is the only state they know; therefore it must be the state, the normal condition; but it is far, far from it. It is inconceivable to most that there could be any other condition, although they work desperately in the tomb to try to make another condition appear. But as long as one is in the tomb the experience is of the tomb state; it can't be any other way. The Law keeps it that way. The consciousness of man is death-oriented, and the only place for a death-oriented person is in the tomb. That's where he belongs, that's where mankind has belonged, and the Law has proved it out.
There is no salvation through the Law without Grace, but when the grace is experienced the working of the Law provides the salvation. It isn't as though the Law is going to be suspended so that we poor creatures who have been subject to the working of the Law for so long and been condemned to such misery by some ... evil God? ... might at last be released from His bondage. What nonsense! Man keeps himself in the tomb state; it is nobody else's fault, if we wish to place blame. And if we find ourselves at any time in that state we may know why. It is utterly futile to imagine that there are some evil people over there somewhere who are maintaining the ill condition with respect to ourselves. This is the popular viewpoint which man has held all down through the ages. He just had to conquer the evil ones and then, having done that, everything would be just beautiful. But it never was, because there is no salvation under the Law without Grace, without man himself changing position. As long as he insists upon maintaining his false position he stays in the tomb. The Law keeps him there.
But the cycle was initiated back there through what has been called the resurrection. Just as the body of Jesus was unjustly treated, tortured, hung upon the cross, pronounced dead and placed in the tomb, so is it true of the body of mankind. Human beings themselves have condemned themselves, have produced injustice which, incidentally, cannot be corrected in the tomb state. No amount of effort will make the tomb state a just state from the standpoint of a death-oriented consciousness. It is a just state from the standpoint of the working of the Law. Not one jot or tittle passes from the Law; all is fulfilled. One cannot escape the Law. One cannot be lifted out of the Law somehow into some imaginary perfect state. The Law works throughout the whole cosmos, eternally.
We need to accept the fact of the Law but recognize that we do have the opportunity to allow a change to occur so that our consciousness might be life-oriented. So the abuse and the injustice that was placed upon the body of Jesus by human beings has been placed, by human beings, upon their own body; and the condition which is therefore experienced is that of the tomb. This is the state that human beings know on earth. It is the tomb state. Very few have the fortitude, have what it takes, to acknowledge this fact, because they still imagine that somehow or other they are going to manipulate events and change the condition to the experience of the Garden. But as long as the body is in the tomb it's in the tomb, and the experience must be the tomb state.
Now this body of mankind has been bound about with the graveclothes. A good deal of effort has been put forth to raise the standard of living—which is really the standard of dying—and spices have been sprinkled on the graveclothes and it seemed to be beneficial for some, but the overall state stinks. And how shall the graveclothes be laid aside? By the working of the Law, when the state of consciousness changes.
There has been one very widely held belief incorporated into the doctrines of men that have been called Christianity, and that is that somehow or other our sins have been forgiven because Jesus died on the cross. This is a nice fancy if you can believe it, but it certainly isn't true. The creative cycle by which the salvation of mankind has been made available to mankind was opened on the basis of the fact of what happened to Him. Of course that needn't have happened to Him. It only happened to Him because human beings insisted on it. It wasn't something inevitable, except as human beings made it inevitable. It wasn't God's will in any way, shape or form. It was something that human beings imposed. But we may recognize that God is quite capable of using all things to advantage, and He used even that. He didn't design it to be that way—Judas certainly didn't do God's will—but seeing that human beings insisted upon making it that way it was used by God to advantage and the cycle was initiated by which mankind could experience salvation by the working of the Law.
Forgiveness, as our Master plainly stated when He was on earth, comes as one forgives. In other words, the Law works. “As you forgive, so are you forgiven.” It has nothing whatsoever to do with Jesus' dying on the cross. It is convenient to wriggle out from accepting the requirements by which grace may be accepted, may be experienced. Part of the acceptance of that is in the attitude of forgiveness, so that the graveclothes, the binding limitations, may begin to be removed from the body of mankind.
Most people are very much concerned about their own salvation. Why? Because in the tomb there is a self-centered state. The concern is not rightly for the individual, actually, except as the individual is a part of the body of mankind. The concern is for the body of mankind, because man was created in the image and likeness of God to be on earth the revelation of the Son of God in the achievement of the purposes of God for this world. Mankind is necessary to that; mankind is consequently important; and because human beings individually compose the body of mankind they are important. But for this, for nothing else. We have no slightest importance in the tomb, as long as we stay there. There is a potential of importance while we are in the tomb, because the body may come forth and we may share in the the resurrection on earth, not in some imaginary hereafter. We belong on earth. This is where there is the need to experience a change from damnation to salvation.
There is the stone upon the entrance, or the exit—both, you know—to the tomb, and that has to be rolled away. We may see this stone in various lights, but we may recognize that if there have been those on earth who assumed the responsibility for spiritual authority, in assuming that responsibility they could either open the door for others to come out of the tomb into the Garden or they could keep it closed. In view of the fact that we are still in the tomb it is quite obvious that this door has been kept closed. Those who have assumed the authority of what may be called the priesthood all down through the ages—no matter what the religion may have been called, what the pattern may have been—by assuming that authority accepted the responsibility of opening the door for mankind to come out of the tomb into the Garden. But they blocked the way rather than leading the way. I am not saying these things in condemnation of anyone, merely facing the fact. And in every generation there have been most earnest and sincere people who have participated in various ways in assuming authority with respect to others in a spiritual sense, but no matter how earnest and sincere they were, as long as they themselves remained death-oriented they remained in the tomb and they kept everybody else in the tomb. And this is the fact of the matter now.
What about all of us sitting here? Doi we presume to accept authority in this regard? If we do, because we have seen something of the truth, have we really accepted the responsibility of opening the door? Or do we stand as a stone on the mouth of the tomb, refusing to come out ourselves and consequently refusing to let anyone else come out through us?
The One who came on earth in the body of Jesus, and who has been called the Son of God, is not present in form on earth at this time. But we are. How shall He come on earth if not through us and through those who accept the responsibility of rolling away the stone from the mouth of the tomb that His Body may come out? When He has a Body on earth, there He is in the midst of it: but as long as the Body is kept in the tomb, what has been hopefully called the second coming of Christ, or Jesus, remains just a fanciful imagination; it has no reality at all. He comes on earth through His Body. If His Body is lying horizontally in the tomb, bound around with graveclothes, a stone upon the mouth of the tomb, how can He walk again on earth in His Garden? We presumably aspire to be the means by which the stone is rolled away from the tomb. If this is to be so it is by reason of the fact that we let the Grace of God work in us; that is, let our consciousness be changed and resurrected so that it is life-oriented rather than death-oriented.
Everything in the tomb insists that the consciousness of man should be death-oriented. That's a fact, isn't it? You must accept death. This is the inevitable experience! Of course ... in the tomb. But if you believe simply what you think you see in the tomb, then the Garden is denied. The Garden has been denied in fact. In imagination it may have been believed in: Perhaps we'll go to heaven after we're dead; perhaps we'll evolve to the point where it's heaven on earth—all sorts of theories. Perhaps we'll reincarnate a sufficient number of times so that finally we'll be perfect people and then we'll have a lovely state on earth. But what nonsense! All in imagination. What is the fact of the matter now? We're in the tomb, and as long as we stay in the tomb we experience the tomb state. We exist for a little while and then decay. Anyone who takes the attitude that this is what God intends is certainly playing with blasphemy.
Does God intend that man should be held bound in a tomb? Why was our Master's body in the tomb? Because man put Him there. And we have put the Body of the Son of God in the tomb and kept it there. We complain about all the injustices and all the diseases and all the troubles and all the miseries that we experience. We try to change it so manfully, without too much effect, because we're in the tomb and it can't be changed. The Law keeps it that way because we keep it that way. Our death-orientation, which denies the Truth of Life, makes it impossible for anything to be experienced in this world but damnation.
Was it man, having put our Master's body in the tomb, that got Him out? There have been some theories devised on that score, haven't there? Oh yes, somebody came along and dragged His body out, gave Him an attunement perhaps, fixed Him up, secreted Him away somewhere. Ugh! He came forth from the tomb all right—something that is incomprehensible to those who are in the tomb. How could it be? Silly human intellects try to figure it all out, or deny it altogether, while existing in the tomb. They know nothing, and all that can be known in the tomb is nothing. Oh, we have such a vast increase of knowledge, such tremendous progress—which is being called in question these days, at last, because it isn't anything of the sort. The knowledge has not contributed one iota to the true knowing of anything, because nothing can be known in the tomb. And that's what is known in the tomb—nothing. But it's counted in the world as being so tremendous. “Oh, the genius of man!” Only as there comes a recognition of the true state of affairs, and we're not afraid to acknowledge it, is there any basis for a change in consciousness, any basis for the experience of what has been called grace. But as we do come again to the point of honesty, to the point of being honest with ourselves, we see the whole disgusting mess produced simply by man in his death-oriented consciousness, his isolation from God. And the one who should be a revelation of the Father on earth—mankind—has been a body in a coma in the tomb, unconscious of anything else but the tomb.
And, you know, when the body is resurrected from the tomb, comes forth to experience the state of the Garden, there is no body in the tomb. Is it then a tomb? What is it that makes it a tomb? Because there's a body in it. So what has seemed to be a tomb is no longer a tomb. It is found to be a proper part of the Garden. But the Garden is far more than what was a tomb.
As we share this hour together now in the Chapel on Sunrise Ranch we may see the truth and accept responsibility for it, that we ourselves may let a change of consciousness be experienced to bring us to the fulness of orientation in life. Yes, we have to deny a lot of things that we have assumed to be true. Our Master said something about that, didn't He? “Deny yourself.” Deny yourself the pleasure, or what you think is the pleasure, of being death-oriented and enjoying that miserable state. People are so afraid to let go of it, thinking they are going to lose something. No, what we lose is nothing—the tomb state, that's all—because the Law works as it always has and it always will, inevitably, inexorably, to bring the resurrection, just as it has been working inevitably, inexorably, to maintain the tomb state.
Let us be willing to let it work as God intended it to work in relationship to this world, through man—through man, who is restored to the position of the Son of God on earth, the only begotten Son of God for this world. There is no other. Perhaps we are fortunate in this. If there were some other way of handling the situation than through man probably we wouldn't be here anymore. But it is the only begotten Son of God; man is this for this world and it is through man that salvation comes. It is through the Son of God that salvation comes; not as something separate from man, working on man, but it is the experience of man himself extended to all created things on earth, and beyond.
This is the meaning of Easter, something which may flower forth in our consciousness and understanding, in our experience, as we are willing to let it be so, restored to an orientation in life, that what has been blocking the mouth of the tomb may be rolled away and the Body of the Son of God, released from the graveclothes, may come forth to walk with God in the Garden.
O LORD, accepting the spirit of forgiveness which extends from Thee, we would extend that spirit to all who are present with us on earth, that we may impose nothing upon anyone which would bind them more tightly in the graveclothes in the tomb. We would release each person from the bondage of our judgments and condemnations, our attitudes of resentment and envying and jealousy and fear. We would let the Law working through us set the graveclothes on one side and we would do nothing at any time that would block the mouth of the tomb through which any person might emerge into the Garden.
Accepting the responsibility of representing Thee, O Lord, on earth, we would be true to the truth of Thy being, which is our own, so that all who touch our lives may be uplifted, inspired, blessed, encouraged to venture forth from the old state of death-oriented consciousness into the new state of orientation in life, so that the resurrection may begin to unfold in the creative cycle throughout the body of mankind and that body may stir in the tomb and in season, responding to Thy spirit, rise up and come forth, that once again there may be through the working of the Law the true state on earth, the state of the Garden, as it was in the beginning. All glory to Thee, O LORD, all love to Thee. This surely we would offer in this hour and every hour, that Thy will may be done on earth as it is in heaven, that the truth that Thou art the resurrection and the life may be the experience of all who are willing, in the Christ. Aum-en.
David— Good morning everyone. It is so good to be together, all of us this morning. I feel a crackling in the atmosphere, a sense of anticipation, and perhaps a wonderment of sorts. I'm going to begin by playing a short slideshow that we put together, but I want to first read these words from Ezekiel 43. Anne and I were talking this morning and there's something about the writings in Ezekiel, in a couple of places, that seems pertinent to our sharing this morning—and over the last several weeks actually, and leading forward into the future. So this is what Ezekiel had to say:
Afterward he brought me to the gate,
even the gate that looketh toward the east:
And, behold,
the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east:
and his voice was like a noise of many waters:
and the earth shined with his glory.
And it was according to the appearance of the vision...
And the glory of the Lord came into the house
by the way of the gate whose prospect is toward the east.
So the spirit took me up, and brought me into the inner court;
and, behold, the glory of the Lord filled the house.
This is the law of the house;
Upon the top of the mountain
the whole limit thereof round about shall be most holy.
Behold, this is the law of the house.
YouTube Video
David — I'm always deeply moved after looking at some of these images, and hearing the music. I find the power of the spirit evoked is deeply stirring.
About two years ago Anne and I began to pay close attention to what is developing at Sunrise Ranch through Emissaries of Divine Light and under David Karchere’s leadership, with his substantial core team there. Anne began reading service material and watching carefully, and she came to me and said, “I think you need to pay attention to this; it's getting clearer and richer, and it certainly correlates with what we're doing, and with what we observe and experience is happening through many other colleagues and friends. Something new is happening.” I kind of ignored it for a while and it got to a point where I couldn't anymore. Anne said, “I think you should take another look.” So I did. I'm talking about the spirit of the Word in expression through people in a particular location that we're all familiar with. I opened up a correspondence with David Karchere about a year-and-a-half ago, based on our mutual love for the Word, love and familiarity with the record left to us by Martin and Uranda. I hadn't seen David since 2003—21 years ago now, but I wasn't just trying to connect with an old friend. A regular pattern of communion in the current developed. It wasn't based on an interest in visiting Sunrise Ranch and socializing, or hanging out and looking at it from afar, but of welcoming a reconnection with an angel friend.
About a year ago David invited me to speak in a Sunrise service. I couldn't do it at the time. I said, if you ever come to BC, to Edenvale for example, let me know we'll come down and visit with you. So David was at Edenvale for some meetings, and he invited us to come for a couple of days. Again it didn't fit; it was midwinter. And then last June, David said he would be in Kelowna, about 90 miles from where we live, and he invited us to come down and have dinner with him and Keahi. So we met in Kelowna for three hours of walking, and sharing a meal. Not a lot of words were shared, but we sat close together, looked each other in the eye, and let everything be made new. Then, about two to three months ago we got a letter from David inviting us to attend the Server’s Council at Sunrise Ranch. The theme, the focus of orientation for the Council was “Sharing Attunement With The World”. So we went on the same vibration as was written about in Ezekiel, “He brought me into the inner court.” Not the outer court but the Inner Court and the Holy Place. We went on that basis. The communion and the communications allowed that to happen.
We really wanted to see a lot of old friends in the Loveand, Fort Collins, Denver areas, but when we got to the Ranch we found that it was total immersion in a pretty high vibrational current, focused and ready to do some substantial spiritual work together, and all thoughts of visiting had to be put aside, in order to fully engage with the opportunity that was present in that Council. Being on that most wonderful land we call Sunrise Ranch for the first time in 21 years was deeply moving. However, I don't think it would have been as significant if we hadn't been there because we were invited to participate in the Council. That allowed the voltage to increase. The enlivening current moving through mind and heart, and the central nervous system, brought a vivid sense of alertness and keenness to see and hear and listen anew. I'll let Anne pick it up from here.
Anne — I want to begin by saying that describing our visit to those gathered today, is not an insignificant matter. I feel very much the potency that is available in the substance of everyone here. I deeply honour who you are and what we have and are doing together. This time will require some spiritual perception and sensitivity in order for us to share at a level that we all love. Some new factors, plus some old factors made new, will be offered, and I hope we can do so from that level that we all love.
I woke up this morning and I thought about Ezekiel as well; a song about his words, “Them bones, Them Bones, Them Dry Bones!” When we lived at Sunrise, Grace Van Duzen used that story in a service, so it's interesting that that tune and story popped into my mind this morning, as a way to describe what happened for me. I think you know the passage but I'll give you a little reminder: Ezekiel 37 — The Valley of Dry Bones
“The hand of the LORD was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones,
“And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry.
“And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord GOD, thou knowest.
“Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the LORD.
“Thus saith the Lord GOD unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live:
“And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
“So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone.
“And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them.
“Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.
“So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.”
When we returned to Sunrise recently, I had the odd experience of seeing something that was both new and old. Looking at the design that's present there now, I felt I was now seeing the original design of the place, the spiritual bones of the original design. When I lived there from 2000-03, although the original design was there, I didn't see it as clearly then, not like I was seeing it now. My understanding is that there's been a process that has gone on at Sunrise that is akin to what I just read from Ezekiel. The flesh and the sinew have been laid on the bones in a clean fashion, you might say, as might happen at a time following a fast. It seemed that the original design was now more graphically revealed, now showing its true structure, just as a face shows the original structure when new flesh appears on the bones. I may speak in metaphors in order to describe what was for me very much a spiritual experience. But I will also describe the physical aspects, mainly to indicate the spirit that is behind the earthly things. To begin I want to give you a feel for what it was to enter into this particular geographical place on Earth.
The immediate experience of walking into Sunrise was that it is a place that has been pared down. There is a resulting stillness running through it that is perceptible, but it’s not an empty stillness. I felt I was entering into a Timeless Space. I now realize that when I arrived at the Gate, I was in effect dropping, forgetting, any memories or concepts, or even my life here in Salmon Arm. They were simply gone. I needed to be present in that space. That space was requiring that I enter in a totally innocent, open way. When I entered into that timelessness, I understood as time went on, why I was feeling being immediately present. Time was irrelevant. There simply was a new heaven to move into.
I'll continue with my description of some of the physical features of Sunrise Ranch. The Pavilion for instance, is very well-kept; the living room and the dining room; they've done renovations; it's clean, orderly, well cared for, very tasteful in the overall impression. The downstairs portion, called the Green Room, where the Council Sessions were held, has also been renovated. They've installed light coloured laminate, upstairs and downstairs and it's cheerful and bright. They've extended the Green Room out into the outdoors so that there's now a hardscape terrace surrounding the perimeter, part of the changes necessary for code reasons. But responding to code has liberated a whole new space outside of the Green Room, and the idea is to use it as a dining area. A lot of trees along the road were removed so that from the terrace there's now a view of the whole valley which includes the Reservoir; it's very beautiful. Contained in the view from the Green Room is the one feature on Sunrise that was built not for a specific use but for the pure enjoyment of beauty: the Calla Lily Fountain was also improved and tidied up, and of course it is a visible reminder of the vision of Martin, who conceived and designed it.
The Attunement Sanctuary is still a special place that probably many of you remember. It's well-kept, it's dignified, and it's filled with light that comes through those stained glass windows. You can tell it's used. The lights seem to be always on in there; I don't know if somebody comes and turns them on or if they are on all night, but it provides a welcoming space for meditation—still intact, filled with the substance of the past and present. The Little Chapel on the hill is a very full expression of what that facility was meant to be. Again, it's true to what it was meant to be. It's used in a very specific way; not used in any casual manner, but regularly, and as a place for chant over a consistent period of time, and you can feel that substance when you're in that small chamber of carefully laid rimstone rock.
The older buildings are a little rundown; they are a little scruffy; everyone's aware of it; and they're on the list. But it was a matter of first things first and addressing priorities.
I didn't mention the Dome when I was touching on the Little Chapel. The Dome is not being used at the moment. There are some further code requirements that need to be fulfilled, and this will be done. The requirements are not as drastic as maybe rumor has had it. It was a significant landmark for David and me, in that we kept circling around it on our walks. I really felt that the Dome is starting to bulk-up in substance, and I mentioned this to David Karchere. I said “I think the Dome is going to get used very soon!” and he just nodded. So we'll see if my prediction comes to pass! But the design of the Dome is such a symbol of what we were speaking of in the Council Sessions, regarding spiritual patterning, and the geodesic pattern was referred to a couple of times.
I want to describe the people I met at Sunrise. Roughly categorized, and this is not exactly the right way to say it, but, there are the older folks and there are the younger folks. Some of the “younger folks” are in their 40s and 50s and some of them have lived there for several years. Many of them were welcomed by people who are here on this Zoom call; some of you welcomed these people to Sunrise. They are present, fully given to the work, and working hard. The tone is lively, animated, humored, but there's dignity, purpose. There's an element of seriousness in how these people walk through their lives, and through the property, that impressed me. In short, what I can say is that they belong there. They honor what's there; they are very cognizant of the fact that much went before they arrived. They frequently refer to that, refer in thankfulness for those who came before. This was a comment we heard a lot.
The Council sessions held in the Green Room were facilitated by the inner core which included the Trustees. I'm going to use their first names only: Oren, Howard and David are the three men, and the four women are Jane, Keahi, Marilyn and Anne Lise. The Trustee team works very closely together, very unified, and moving with and sharing the leadership that's provided. The next expansion beyond the Trustees are those who, with the Trustees, facilitated most of the Council sessions. Notably a woman named Sece Foster, who runs the Attunement Programs. Sece is a trained minister from another church format, and she brought that experience into Sunrise. She is able to create a sacred atmosphere, and that is a real gift. As with others, her gifts have been offered into the mechanism that is operating, the functioning body that's operating at Sunrise. And noteworthy is a man named Gary Goodhue, whom many of you may know. Gary is a very talented speaker who was trained in metaphysics. He can speak extemporaneously with high power. And I'm not mentioned everyone. For example, a woman named Bexx—well, she is a young priestess. Those are some of the younger folks. The older ones of the community provide the ballast. They are present, given to the work occurring now, able to easily move with it. They speak with their own authority—Bob Ewing, Diana de Winton, John flood; they're all very much present and part of the whole configuration.
The sessions themselves were run flawlessly. Any little glitches that happened were quickly dealt with; someone would pop up and fix it pronto! They're all technologically savvy. The pacing of the sessions was full and brisk; they really kept it moving, moving, moving with a lot of variety. Presentations with PowerPoints were used frequently, so we had the visual as well as the spoken word input, and it really worked. I found the “small groups” format very interesting because in that Council setting, the small groups facilitated the speaking of the Word, and that vibrationally fed into the next session. The group discussions were small and very deliberately set up; for instance, in a series of sessions, using an audio excerpt of Uranda, followed up with a key quote shared by one of the facilitators, Maria Zayas, who understands the material and how it can how it can be a catalyst for discussion. There was always a focus provided in each group session on any topic or theme, making the format very effective.
All in all, I saw a living organism, at the Core of EDL Sunrise, which is pumping the bloodstream of the Word from the heart, from the timeless fountain, into associated organs and organized facets of the one organism. The “communication feedback loops” are ingeniously designed, in that what happens in the periphery feeds back into the core, to the center for the ongoing expression of the Word. From what I saw, the leadership was always positing a further, greater vision, always a little more, the next implication in the process of articulation, to which people are open, and ready to move in the next pulsation.
Now you're going to hear from a few people who were speaking in the Sunday Attunement Service near the end of the Council. We did have final session on Monday. You'll get a feel for the range of expressions at the core. There's no cookie cutter expression happening; people have their unique ways of presenting, yet they all speak in One Tone. Quite lovely. The story about the day of Pentecost came to mind—somebody used that analogy during Council—where there were different languages spoken, different ways people expressed their own personal spiritual reality, but though experience was expressed in different ways, the hearer understood it in their own language. Everybody heard, and what they heard made sense to them; there was a unified understanding. A fascinating telepathy was happening in the room. There was that shared spiritual space where people were plugged in; there was no resistance.
David — It is important to share a some video clips of our friends speaking in the Sunday service. They are us, we are them. I in Thou and Thou in Me. We are doing the one great work that we're called here to do together. So let's begin
Sece Foster, Keahi Ewa, Gary Goodhue
Jane Anetrini, David Karchere
Sunday Attunement Service October 13, 2024
Bexx Taran Shanti
Invocation and Prayer October 20, 2024
David — Love one another as I have loved you—that was a spiritual refrain that moved silently through our Council time. Many attunement sessions were held—group and one-on-one attunements were shared throughout each day as part of our sessions. There is a strong focus through David Karchere and the team at Sunrise—a strong focus of world service, a desire to serve the yearning and hungry heart of humanity, a desire in the heart of Mother God to welcome her children home. There was also expressed very clearly through David, awareness of a need to keenly focus more on what was described as capstone design, capstone substance and formation within EDL at Sunrise, and throughout the Emissary body, through all people around the world who love Martin and Uranda's work. Words such as “capstone”, “Shekinah Pattern of Being”, the “Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek”, “EDL the Door” to the great “Heavenly Temple” which is meant to extend into all the earth, so that there is One Temple with many doors leading into and out of many rooms, all lit up by Angels, by Emissaries of Divine Light, by the Nameless Reality that I am and that you are.
We have the experience of moving from womb unto womb, utilizing the substitute patterns of the moment to generate pneumaplasm, and connect with the design that is coming out of the undimensional into the New Heaven, to be brought into the earth. We must play our part, working within these substitute patterns, and allow our movement, and our progress, our growth and development as individuals and as a spiritual body, to take us from one womb into the next in this process of restoration.
I have to tell you—and I think a lot of you probably know this already—that David Karchere is quite an eloquent speaker; he has the ability to really deliver the goods in words. He has the passion in his heart. I never saw him speak from notes and he spoke a lot during this Council. Just as I have come to love you, I love this man. That's what we're called to do: Love one another. And I share with you, that I just flat out love this man, David. Just as he is; just as I am. I have things that are going to change and transform in me, and so do you. I have flaws, or voids, in my outer character, and so do you. We all do. And we are moving from womb unto womb, becoming new people as we do, and I want to emphasize this in our midst this morning: Love one another.
I've discovered that David Karchere knows his Uranda and Martin and Jesus as well as any man or woman on earth. He's developed a way of speaking that is unique to himself. As Anne said, “This is not a cookie cutter pattern” to be followed. All those who had opportunity to speak and present during this Council at the Ranch also are developing their ability to speak in the current of the spirit, and they are doing the work necessary to know their Uranda and Martin material. It's not forgotten. It hasn't receded. It's in the life and the atmosphere—just like it is with me and with you—to bring these things into the current pattern of possibility, where the reality of the past that we've all shared together is right here present with us; not the forms of the past, but the reality of the spirit is right here present with all of us. We have the opportunity to move together. There are many aspects to the One Body and we can see them developing and differentiating in our midst, around us, various organs and glands and formations of the One Body, with individuals taking responsibility for specific fields of function.
At this point, I want to read a few words that Yujin Pak spoke on September 15, 2024, from a Temple of Light service subsequently titled, “True Priesthood And Climax Times”.
“I know it could be a little presumptuous of me to say that perhaps there may be more coming to Zero for us to do. If you find it presumptuous, please forgive me. But to Zero we must come—we must come! Only as we are in that place of complete fluidity, at Zero, available to respond swiftly, decisively, may we provide the expression of the identity and character of the LORD, in the most decisive moments, the climax moments … I want to be more presumptuous yet … I want to touch on another coming to Zero, and this relates to the question, “What does the LORD need the most in these crucial times?” Would it not be a true pattern of agreement; not general agreement, long distance agreement, but close, unified agreement. What stands in the way of it? Patterns of experience, memory of one another that brings wariness. Some of it may be understandable, but what about coming to Zero? And I include in this Core Leaders and individuals in our extended Body. How about the possibility of coming to Zero? How about the possibility of cancelling debts of the heart, cancelling debts of hurt, cancelling prejudgments, cancelling positions, outer and mental? How about coming to Zero regarding one another, putting ourselves together on the altar before the LORD, coming to Zero together? Would this not rejoice the LORD, coming to Zero in such a way that spirit may have a way, totally unexpected. Well, climax points have a way bringing things to Zero. Some of it is forced. But the Priesthood are the ones willing to come to Zero without the stimulation of outer events. Come to Zero because of love for the LORD, where all is yielded, all is made possible, fluid, especially one's opinions are yielded to the LORD. True expression in climax times, bringing everything so that the unfettered expression of spirit may be possible through us. On this anniversary of this ministry, I'm happy to share this consideration with you of the true expression of Priests and Priestesses after the Order Of Melchizedek, those that are willing to come to Zero in passionate love for the LORD allow what usually is impossible to be possible, and thus allow history that would otherwise be impossible to be made possible.”
David — Coming to zero; purity of heart; innocence; come as a little child, open to share anew from this point on, with one another, wherever we are, whatever groups we find ourselves in—and let the children of Mother and Father come home through the Open Door provided by the Body of the Son consciousness.
Last year around this time, we gave a Temple service called “The Word Of Good Report.” In a way, this is what we bring today—a Word of Good Report, relative to the Archangelic Body that is forming. It was a treasure to have Yujin present on Zoom as part of the Server’s Council. He spoke substantially on two occasions, and he was welcomed; not only that, he was loved openly. There was a natural rejoicing to have Yujin and Anne and me there, as part of the gathering. It was wonderful to see the easy communion that was occurring between all of us, no barriers. We never had one awkward moment between us, while we were in the Council—no ill things, no ill vibrations, no judgments—just this rejoicing that kept on happening because of the building and blending together. Anne, over to you for some final words.
Anne — I want to add that the sessions facilitated some very deep work with two aspects: the aspect of design and the aspect of love.
We did three sessions on the “Shekinah Pattern Of Being”. Howard Goodman presented the first one; David Barnes the second; and Oren Yakovee the third. Each session was buttressed by an audio of Uranda, followed by small group discussions, so it was a very full penetration into design, as revealed through the Shekinah Pattern. There was a remarkable comprehension of the Shekinah Pattern experienced and expressed, related to three levels: from above, the higher pattern; on a personal and horizonal level; and below into the responsive earth and world. The design was described so that it was seen to be happening right there in the room. So we focused on the principles of design.
There was a penetration of the deeper meaning of love. Love, of course, keeps revealing itself to us. David's new book titled “Primal Christianity” deals with the deeper meaning of the power and presence of love, revealed by the Master. David is currently introducing his book in England, so unveiling his book was a timely presentation to Council. In our considerations on love, which has been a major theme in David's and others' services, the emphasis is on the actual experience, knowing and being known by love, by the Lord of Love—along with the experience of knowing truth, which sets one free and leads to knowing love. Knowing love is not merely an acceptance of concepts and beliefs, it's a reciprocated experience.
I saw that Sunrise provides a place for a demonstration of this knowing. I saw love experienced and truth comprehended. I hope you catch an essence of this, of people there who are doing this work with us, with you. It was significant to be there to share in this work, particularly as it was focused in a spiritual Council. And it is great to share this with you now.
David — You were all very much present there with us, and those people in Council knew it—we brought you with us. And any one of you could have been there and participated in that gathering—the only price of admission being a clear and open heart and sanctified mind. And any one of them could be here with us in this service. I want to mention this because there is a blending in the spirit of love, love for the truth and the life that we have an opportunity to magnify on earth together.
So, this is some of the Good News, the Word of Good Report. And yes, the spirit of purification continues to work—but actually, purity of heart is present. The spirit of purification will continue to work, but purity of heart is present, and we bring that to our services and to all our gatherings.
We won’t have a comment session today. Let us think, muse, on these things. Let there be a clear sense of protection for new patterns that are emerging in the Spiritual Body. Let’s enfold them with care and love and gratitude, and let the spirit of the womb contain what's been shared during this Council, and here today, and enfold all that will be shared in days to come. Let’s provide protection for these delicate new patterns that are emerging through those who are forming the Capstone aspect of the Spiritual Body, which must include the whole pyramid of the body of mankind. How that will happen in a direct and complete and final way, we don't know. But it is happening now, with evidence of tender new shoots and buds appearing on the One Vine.
While we were travelling, there was a pattern of enfoldment and attunement all the way, and we were held within that hedge, in that pattern of safety. And so, as this little heavenly adventure that we've shared with you was held carefully and safely and deliberately on earth, let's hold these things with great thanksgiving and care, in the Heaven and the Heart of God that we are, each one of us, and see what develops in the womb in days to come. Right now, it is good.
