Life It Is!
Martin Exeter June
21, 1981
As there are those who awaken from
their slumbers, questions begin to form in their minds. One of them might be
couched in the terms presented in this translation of the Bhagavad-Gita:
“By what force doth man
Go along his way, unwilling;as if one
Pushed him that troubled path?”
Where there is a valid question
there is always present at the same time a valid answer. If the answer doesn't
seem to be present it is either because the question is not valid or because
the discernment of the answer is inadequate. The answer comes here:
“Life it
is!
Life's urge it is! used in darkened understanding,
Which pusheth him.”
Of
course it is used in darkened understanding by human beings in the world. The
result of this might be summarized by using the words: Life will be the death
of me! And it is in the world as it is now known.
Inherent in life is purpose. If that is so, why should human beings imagine
that they have to superimpose upon their own experience of life personal
purposes of various sorts? The purpose is present in life itself. The purpose
of life might be defined by using the word truth.
If life is purposeful in fact, then there is some means of achieving the
purpose. That means of achieving the purpose is truth. There is a design in the
purpose to be achieved, and even a design by which it may be achieved. There
must also be the essential control to make this achievement possible. Above and
beyond this there is necessarily what might be referred to as the power of
achievement. We have defined that by using the word love. There is a reality back of that word, a reality largely
unknown in human experience.
But power is an apt description of
at least one aspect of the reality of love. It is the power of achievement. It
is also a cohesive power. It is the basis for the fact of oneness. In fact it
might be said that oneness is another way of describing love. Here is the
unifying power, but also the creative power, the power of achievement, the
power of achieving love's purpose by means of truth, by means of the essential
design and control. The achievement itself is life, universal life. Because
life springs from the reality of oneness the nature of life is unity. We speak
of the universe. Here is an indication of oneness, and yet obviously there is
apparent a great diversity. But this diversity springs from the central core of
oneness.
We ourselves have awakened in some
small measure to the reality of this love—to the reality of oneness. Life is
present throughout the universe. This is what makes it a universe. This life,
omnipresent in the universal sense, is drawn to point in a particular way in
this particular planet. Beyond the planet, human beings in their darkened
understanding are not inclined to see the reality of life. They may look
around, trying to discover reproductions of what they consider to be the forms
of life on earth, but the reality of life itself is not recognized as being a
universal condition. It is not recognized as life until it begins to be drawn
to focus relative to this planet. It is so drawn to focus particularly on the
surface of this planet. A variety of forms reveal life unmistakably. This is so
because, being drawn to focus, it is concentrated, so to speak, and unavoidable
even to the darkened understanding of human beings.
So the fact of life revealed in
form is acceptable to the darkened human consciousness. The ultimate focus of
this appears rightly in man. Here is a purposeful focus then, with the
essential design and control inherently present, together with the power of
creative achievement. If this begins to be understood from this perspective,
then it is easily recognized that man has significance. Here is life spread
throughout the whole universe, being drawn to a particular focus in this
planet, relative to a great variety of forms and ultimately that of man, where
the supreme focus in this regard comes to point. This significance can be seen
locally: what human beings do has considerable effect in their environment. The
environment these days is seen as extending a little further than the surface
of the earth even. There is a lot of junk in space nowadays, and instruments
have been sent out to visit the moon and various planets. One of the
instruments visiting the moon was man himself.
So there is a recognition that the
significance of man could relate to more than this planet as such, but I don't
think the present view goes much further than the solar system. But life does
not stop at the edges of the solar system. However, here we have an awareness
which emphasizes some sort of significance to man. However extensive that may
ultimately prove to be, it is at least seen as being a very virulent factor in his
immediate environment. I suppose presently man could be looked upon as the
cause of a diseased world. If you subscribe to the germ theory, then man is the
germ! But equally, if he can be and is a destructive element in the scheme of
things, he might well be a truly creative element. The power is evidently
there. One might well anticipate that greatly more power would be available if
man's actions were actually creative. Fortunately it seems to have been subdued
somewhat, so that to this point he has not as yet entirely eliminated life from
the surface of this planet. He seems inadvertently somehow to have
proliferated forms of life, particularly his own. I don't know that that was so
inadvertent, but it causes some problems.
In any case, life is here, moving
with purpose, even though human beings try to use it on the basis of their own
darkened understanding. I am sure we would all agree that life is not really
for human use. If it is spread throughout the universe it is for universal use
on some basis other than the ideas of human beings. If that is so into the far
reaches of the universe, it is obviously so in this little corner of it. Yet
man, as we are well aware, has diverted, or attempted to divert, life to his
own uses, and it has been the death of him.
Seeking to use life for human
purposes does not nullify the purposes of life. It merely temporarily
superimposes something on top of those purposes, hides them for the moment. But
they are still there as long as life is there. And life is universal, so those
human purposes are inevitably set aside. Life's purposes prevail. We say,
“Unconquerable life prevails.” No matter how seemingly good our human ideas are
as to the way it should be controlled and for what purpose, life isn't really
interested. It goes along for a while, but those who attempt to turn it from
its true purposes into their own gradually find themselves with less and less
life to turn, until in their own experience it has vanished away. But life
didn't vanish away; it is still there. The person who was seeking to turn it
into foreign directions passed away. Life remained, but no longer in that
particular form.
It appears as though the more life
is diverted, or the more human beings attempt to divert it, the more life puts
in an appearance, as though it was saying, “You're not going to get away with
it.” Of course not! There is a larger and larger spate of life, and human
beings find it more and more difficult to keep it diverted into their own
particular designs composed for their own purposes. It keeps slipping out of
them, and the designs perish. And so more and more designs have to be thought
up to try to provide the control to keep life sustaining human purposes. The
attempt to keep life sustaining human purposes produces decay. On every hand we
see decay and, consequently, the greater effort put forth by human minds and
hearts, rebellious human minds and impure human hearts, to keep life somehow
upholding the desires and the designs of mankind, of individual human beings and
of various groupings of human beings collectively.
I reemphasize these points so that
it may be clearly seen as to what it is that is happening in this decaying
process. Life is the death of the purposes of men, and if we associate
ourselves with the purposes of men it is the death of us. Yet life's purpose is
present and will have its way. It is present in this setting, now, here,
because of us who are here primarily, delighted to have its way to the extent
that there are hearts and minds that are willing—actually willing, not just
theoretically willing. There have been gatherings here over the years of many
theoretically willing minds and hearts, but the actuality has been somewhat
restricted, because those concerned were still intent upon maintaining, sustaining,
their own purposes, based in what was present in their subconscious minds and
hearts primarily. And of course whatever was present there emphasized
consciously the seeming direction that should be taken, and then there was
consequently a certain amount of deliberate, conscious action based in that
which was at variance with the purposes of life. And we find troubles still
persisting.
There is the necessity of taking
into account the fact that life is not merely an individual affair but moves
through the whole of humanity; and not only the whole of humanity but through
all the kingdoms of this world; and not only through all the kingdoms of this
world but through the planet itself; not only through the planet itself but
through the whole solar system; and not only through the whole solar system but
through the whole galaxy and the universe beyond. We cannot as individuals lift
ourselves out of this totality and live. This is the attempt, of course, that
has been made by mankind: to lift itself out of this totality and have a little
state of delight upon this planet, presumably served by everything round about,
particularly by the sun—we need that. Of course this is entirely contrary to
the true purpose of life, which had no intention of isolating human beings from
the whole.
Awakening to our association in
the whole, we become aware of the reason for oneness, which is love. Now here
is a key which has not been accepted too well by most, because human loving
tends to be rather selective and indeed exclusive. That is not love; that turns
the creative power into something destructive. Love is the basis for oneness,
the way by which the whole universe is unified. The lack of love in human
experience is the reason for the divisions and the state of isolation in human
experience. We may see that insofar as human minds and hearts are concerned
love is rightly the motivating power. Each individual here has a mind and a
heart and is capable of considering the extent to which love is the motivating
power. Most consider that someone or something else, environmentally speaking,
is the motivating power for their experience. I am sure that all of you have
had this habit of attitude.
As long as “they,” for instance,
are the reason for one's own discomfort or for one's own necessary action, to
that extent of course love isn't the motivating power. Do you ever have the
niggling idea still that they are
somehow producing your difficulties? They
take all kinds of different forms, don't they? And you can find they almost anywhere! But life doesn't
come from they, does it? If you
suspect that you are still alive, you also are aware of the fact that the life
which you are experiencing did not come from they. Right? Of course. It did not come, in Emissary circles, from
the focalizers; it did not come from the finance committee. It did not come
from any of these they but is an
experience that is one's own, springing forth from within oneself. In the
individual sense this is the only source for one's own experience. There isn't
any other. Take that source away—life—from your mind and heart and there is no
experience.
So the source of motivation, true
motivation, is only present in oneself. It isn't anywhere else insofar as one
is concerned oneself. And that applies to each person. No true motivation
springs from anywhere else. If you find other motivations determining your
attitudes and actions, then obviously they are false motivations. They are all false motivations. If life
is characterized by love, and that is the truth of the matter, then love must
be the experience with respect to one's own momentary living, as the motivation
thereof. Rather simply described, this could be put that you love to do
whatever you do. Right? If you take the attitude that “they are making me do
this,” they are your motivation—it
isn't love, and you won't love to do what you do. You may try: “I know I should
love to do what I do, but they are
making me do it.” No they are not! That is your own self-deception. You are the
one who is doing it, not they. Why are you doing it? Well if you sink into the
stupor which blames they for it, you
have, to that extent, rejected life. You say, “Life is not my motivation. Life
is characterized by love; love is not my motivation. They are. They are making
me do it.” One can very simply solve that problem by loving to do what one
does. They are out of the picture. They is a good name for the devil, I
suppose, the devil which is self-created. They
may be this person or that person in your consciousness, but if you give them
the power to motivate you, you have created the devil out of them. Well that is
not what we are here to do, create devils all around us, and yet it is what
everyone does.
Here we see there is the power to
create. But life springs forth from within our minds and hearts, may flood our
minds and hearts, and when it does we find that the motivation for everything
we do is love. We love to do what we are doing. That is heaven, you know. If
you are pushed reluctantly by life, because you are accepting environmental
motivations—other people, things, circumstances—you are trying to use life for
a false purpose. And life goes along for a while, but not forever.
How beautiful to awaken to what
has always been present with us and accept it. Let God's will be done. Let
love's will be done. Let motivation be love, and when it is, you love to do
whatever it is you do. And they are
never responsible. It is true that life is one, so we move together; but we
move together because we are all moving with life, moving in love, loving to do
what we do. If we love to do what we do, then the experience is a joyous one.
Joy is the result. Love is the miracle worker, the creative power. If we
exclude it, woe unto us. But love is not exclusive. It is not
selective. The sun shines on all, and so is it with love.
Human hearts and minds can be the
children of love, that that creative power may fulfil the purposes of life.
Those purposes are beautiful, and indeed perfect. Why would anyone wish for
anything else? Yet we can sit and theorize about it, claim to know the truth
but not know it. Life is here with us; the purpose of life is here with us; the
power for the achievement of that purpose is here with us. Why not accept the
experience of the achievement? We do it individually, and consequently we do it
together. We love what we do. We love what we do because we awaken to the
purpose of what we do. And the purpose of what we do is not an isolated human purpose.
It is not merely what is pleasing or satisfying to me. What is truly pleasing and satisfying puts in an appearance
only when life has its way with our minds and hearts. We do not try mentally
and emotionally to maintain the habitual state which has frustrated life
heretofore. Actually it does not really frustrate life; it frustrates our own
experience of life, because life keeps moving. Here is a mighty flow, one might
say, which certainly no man could stem. It is fatal to try it. Indeed, let us
live. Let us let life be the life of us, to the glory of God!
© Emissaries of Divine Light
National Destiny
Individual Destiny — Divine Destiny
from Year of Destiny
Martin Cecil July 1, 1967
If there is to be an awareness of a national destiny, there must be a
nation to start with. If there is to be a nation, there must be a unity of the
people who compose it. For there to be such a unity the individuals who do
compose the collective pattern must have found an adequate unity within
themselves. For a nation to be unified the people in it must be unified within
themselves, and for a nation to have a destiny the individuals who compose it
must have a sense of destiny. All these things are related to love. God is Love. If we consider God we may recognize that the word refers to
something greater, higher, than we ourselves are. Very often God tends to be
thought of as an undifferentiated being spread out everywhere, somehow, but we
have come to recognize that for anything to happen there must be a point of
focus by reason of which it happens. It must come to point somewhere. Anything
to be done requires a point of focus.
If we speak of God as being love, love is so often considered to be an
undifferentiated experience as though it had no design to it, just a haphazard
affair as though it had no control to it. Human beings are inclined to take the
attitude that they cannot help themselves in the matter of love. There is so
much vagueness with respect to this experience. There is the popular notion
that we should somehow get busy and love everybody; the world is full of people
and we should love them all. Perhaps this is true, but how? It is mostly an
imaginary thing in the experience of human beings; we may have a warm idea that
we love everybody, we love all our fellows on earth, but when it comes down to
the person who is in the immediate environment, something else occurs which all
too often isn't love. Love has a design to it; love operates under control.
This relates to God. There is a pattern, and there is a government related to
love. It isn't a haphazard thing. God is Love.
The structure of a pyramid provides a very wonderful symbol of the
reality of God. We might well recall that man is made in the image and likeness
of God, so the pyramid will relate to the structure of man. If we are examining
it in relationship to either of these two apparently separated states, the
divine state and the human state, we see that the pyramid has essentially two
parts. There is the body of the pyramid and there is the apex. Without the apex
the pyramid is not a pyramid. Reference is sometimes made to the Great Pyramid
of Gizeh. It isn't a pyramid. I think the correct term would be a hexahedron.
It has no capstone and therefore no apex; it isn't a pyramid.
Perhaps this symbolizes the state of mankind. There is a grotesque
figure, a hexahedron, lacking a head; it does not come to any proper apex. We
have many nations vying for this position, but if mankind is made in the image
and likeness of God truly, the apex point on earth corresponds to the apex
point in what might be referred to as heaven, in the divine state. God is not
simply a vague, undifferentiated being of some kind but may be seen in
principle as corresponding to that which is portrayed by the pyramid. There is
a body and there is an apex. Now, of course, this is not all there is to a
pyramid; the apex must somehow be connected up with the body. There is a design
to the body, and as we have noted before the apex point is in essence a pyramid
itself. So the body of the pyramid is a reflection of the apex, or an
expansion, a differentiation, of the apex. Here we have a very beautiful
portrayal of what we call God—what we call love.
For the state of love, which is the divine state, to be experienced on
earth requires that God, or love, be revealed on earth. If we have the
experience in the world of a lack of a sense of divineness on the part of human
beings, it is in fact a lack of the experience of love. If love is to be
experienced, there must be a reality
which we call love. We could not experience something that does not exist. Love
exists! God exists! I suppose there might be those who say, “Well, for hate to be
experienced, hate must exist”; but we recognize hate is not so much something
of itself as the evidence of the absence of love. Where life is still in
operation to some degree and love begins to be absent, then the direction of
that life may produce what is called hate, but fundamentally it is simply the
evidence of the absence of love. It may produce other things too, such things
as jealousy, for instance, fear, resentment. Perhaps we could find many rather
common human experiences of this classification. These simply give the evidence
of the absence of God, the evidence of the absence of love.
Without love the experience of unity is impossible, even though unity is
already a reality. We may observe something of a unified state if we look at
the solar system, for instance, or if we look at the larger galaxy, or perhaps
the cosmos as a whole. We see something of a unity here. We don't really know
what it is, but we sense a unity. This unity exists because of love, because of
God. There is no unity without love. If we find ourselves, within ourselves, at
sixes and sevens it is because there is an absence of the experience of love
within ourselves. If we see around us, in our environment, a state of turmoil and conflict
it is the evidence of a lack of unity, a lack of the experience of unity, and
that occurs because love is, to whatever extent, absent. I think it should be
obvious that there is some experience of love; otherwise we would have ceased
to exist, because there is no being outside of God. We live and move and have
our being in Him and if we manage to extract ourselves from Him, completely
obliterate the experience of love, we are dead. We then have no being; we are
outside the state of being. Well, is it possible, really, to be outside of the state
of being? There isn't anything; there is nothing.
Unity within a person and around a person, individual unity, collective
unity, is absolutely dependent upon love, and love is not a haphazard thing. It
is very specific; it is very definite; it has a design; and it works on the
basis of control. When we begin to be aligned with love we have the experience
of love, and because of love we become aware of the state of unity which
already is. We do not need to make it so. This is the fallacy into which human
beings fall, because of their lack of experience in this regard, when they
imagine that we have to build a state of unity on earth—we have to organize it,
we have to get busy and establish something like the United Nations in order to produce a state of unity. Well, obviously it has not
produced a state of unity, and it is a very arrogant attitude on the part of
man to suppose that there cannot be unity unless he himself makes it. Unity
already is. It only seems to be absent from human experience because human
beings have extracted themselves from the state of unified being, or the state
of the experience of love. The human determination to have his own way
according to his own ideas merely removes man from the experience of love, and
disunity in himself as an individual and also collectively speaking, results.
Where there is no unity there is no sense of destiny. This pyramid structure to which I had reference has a
point of apex as well as a body. It is not complete without both of these. God
is a unity. The control of the divine structure centers at the apex. The
control is not generated by the body; the body gives evidence of the
differentiation of that control, the control which already exists at the apex. Presumably
human beings have a recognition of these principles. Why would this nation or
that nation strive to be the apex if there were no recognition of the fact that
control stems from the apex? This principle is seen but the application of it
is on the basis of humanly designed purposes without regard to the purposes of
love, without regard to the purposes of God, which stem from the divine apex.
We could say, looking at this from the standpoint of what is experienced
here on earth, that the proper point of control for human beings is a spiritual
one. Perhaps this word is not too meaningful to many people but there is a
pattern, a design, evident in man composed of the physical body, the mind and
the spirit. Human beings think they know quite a bit about the physical body,
they are seeking to develop a greater understanding of the mind, but with
respect to the spirit there is very little awareness as to its true nature.
Nevertheless there is a rather general recognition of this triune nature of man
and there is with many an assumption that there is a triune nature, somehow,
with God. This would be logical if man is made in the image and likeness of
God, but what that triune nature of God is has been more or less an unknown
quantity. Insofar as man is concerned with his triune nature, the control
point, the apex point, centers in spirit; not in the mind, not in the body; and
until this control is allowed to operate in the individual there is no basis
for unity.
It is the apex of the pyramid that makes possible the formation of the
pyramid. The apex can be seen as containing within itself all the essences of
the whole pyramid. It is because of the apex that there may be a
differentiation which permits the formation of the pyramid itself. The control,
the design, the nature, of the whole structure of the pyramid centers in the
apex. The body of mankind or the body of the individual may be symbolized by
this same pyramid, and there is a point at which all the essences of the whole
body of mankind or of the whole person come to focus. This is the true point of
spiritual identity. It is, in fact, a
divine identity. Now most people identify themselves with their intellects, or
even their physical bodies. The intellect has been projected as being the most
vital thing but it is contained, in fact, in the body of the pyramid. It is not
the apex. The apex is in spirit. In spirit is the essence which is
differentiated through the body of the pyramid composed, insofar as man is
concerned, of his physical form and his mind. So, spirit is first; spirit is
the high point; but it has been practically ignored insofar as human beings are
concerned.
If we examine the structure of a nation, for instance, we do not find
that the governing factors center in the Spirit of God. We have what is called
a government and it governs after a fashion in certain fields. We have noted
before that actually the area where this government does control is rather
limited because the government itself has other controls which restrict its
operation and in certain respects dictate its operation. If we begin to trace
these controls back we do not find that they center in the Spirit of God.
Generally speaking, we find that they center in the realm of finance, not the
Spirit of God.
There is a destiny awaiting a nation. No nation, thus far, on the face of
the earth has ever accepted this destiny. I am speaking of a divine destiny, a destiny which relates
to this matter of unity and the experience of love. We have certain so-called
great nations, the United States, Russia, China perhaps, vying for the position
of leadership. If one nation cannot have it completely it is seen as better to
maintain a certain balance. It would be too dangerous to let any one nation
have complete control, and yet the general movement seems to be in that
direction, although a balance of power, as it is called, is maintained. But the
true state, the divine state, comes to focus in a point of apex. But this point
of apex is not in government as human beings know it now. The government of our
country, Canada, attempts to extend control on the basis of the determinations
of the human mind. The human mind is not the apex point, is not the proper
control point. If it is allowed to have its way it produces disunity and destroys
the true sense of destiny. It may whip up a national fervor, to go forth
conquering and to conquer, and this has happened over and over again in the
world, and still does; but this keeps the world, the state of mankind, far from
being divine. It maintains a condition of hell on earth for the vast majority
of people.
We here have it pretty good, relatively speaking, but I suspect some of
you at certain times have taken the attitude that your experience is hell. Why?
Because you have lost your internal unity—in other words, there is a state of
conflict inside, a battle going on inside. That state of unity has been lost
because what should be at the apex of your being was not. You are endeavoring
to control your life on the basis of the determinations of your own mind and
the desires of your body. These things are spoken of as the world, the flesh
and the devil, and good human beings think, “Oh, no, that's not true of me”—but
it is. If a person is honest he recognizes that he does things that he feels
are going to be satisfactory for his body according to the ideas of his human
mind. He tries to figure it all out and the mind, then, is put in the position
of the apex, where it does not belong, and it produces hell; it raises hell, or
it lowers the individual into hell.
The apex is in spirit and this is the position, the opportunity, the
challenge, that is available to any nation on the face of the earth, but one
doesn't see many aspiring to this point. Perhaps in rather a confused way
Canada has some aspirations in this regard but the country is disunited because
all the various humanly generated and developed patterns of tradition,
language, culture, etc., tend to be projected into the forefront instead of
recognizing that the point of unification is in right spirit, the Spirit of
God, the Spirit of Love. The controlling influence, the apex point, for mankind as a whole
properly centers in spirit. That nation which begins to experience true unity
and consequently to touch the real sense of destiny is the one which moves into
the position of leadership, the point of apex, insofar as the world of mankind
is concerned. We may recall words written long, long ago in the Old Testament, “Not
by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord”; not by physical
might, not by the power of the mind, but by the Spirit of the Living God. The
provision is made, the pyramid can take form. There is no possibility of its
taking form on any other basis. As long as the apex is not there it isn't a
pyramid and it can never become a pyramid. Human beings cannot arbitrarily put
an apex there because the apex already exists.
It is a spiritual apex well symbolized, I think, at the present time by
the absent capstone of the Great Pyramid in Egypt, because spirit to human
beings has been such an absent thing, an unknown thing; that is, the Spirit of
God. We might say some other spirits have been rather prevalent but unless the
Spirit of Love, the reality of this which includes design and control, which
has contained within it all the essences of everything that is needed, is
allowed to come to the point of apex, there is no answer, there is no solution;
it doesn't matter what human beings do. They may cause this grotesque figure
that has been created—it isn't even a hexahedron—to take all kinds of different
shapes but it will never become a pyramid, and if it is not a pyramid it is not
a reflection of God. It is the reflection of God that is the true state.
Insofar as creation here on earth is concerned, man is properly at the
apex and the whole of creation here in the world must remain a distorted
manifestation as long as man is out of position because, again, we could take
the whole of creation here on earth as a pyramid structure. It is a further
differentiation of the apex. Man is at the apex, man is the capstone, insofar
as the whole of creation here on earth is concerned, and man to be man, rather
than this peculiar, odd sort of creature, must be the evidence of God on earth,
the evidence of love. When that is so, what else is required? It is not to say
that should that occur nothing would happen. God is a creator, after all; He
never stops creating; and we are privileged to have the opportunity of sharing
in that creation. But if we are thinking of a sense of national destiny I would
suggest that here is the challenge offered to this country. Why look at some
other country? We are here, after all, and that destiny can be fulfilled to the
extent that there are those in this country who have the sense of destiny
themselves as individuals, who have the experience of unity because the
Spirit of God is at the apex of their own identity. When we accept identity in
that spirit, when we accept that spirit as our identity, then we begin to have
the point of control established in our own living and our minds will come
under that control, as will our bodies also, and there begins to be the
evidence made manifest of God in action on earth. This is the challenge.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
