I Ascend to My Father and Your Father
Uranda April 9, 1950 11 a.m.
It is a glorious day and already we have had a glorious outworking and now we are privileged to gather again to share in a further communion in the Spirit of God's Love and Truth and the expression of His Life. “And when he had opened the Seventh seal, there was silence in Heaven about the space of half an hour.” You have been sharing this morning the unspeakable beauty of that silence in Heaven, that which cannot be expressed in word, that which must be lived to give it meaning in the unfolding cycles of time.
Easter Morning—we have felt this day something of the feeling which pervaded Heaven that first Easter morning when our Master established the Victory. Usually, in thinking of Easter, the thought expressed is that our Lord was resurrected from the tomb. The fact is that our Lord was never subject to the tomb, but His Body was. It was our Lord's Body that was resurrected, not the Lord Himself, for man could not touch Him. The Lord Himself, men could not crucify; the Lord Himself could not be placed in a tomb and sealed there—it was His Body against which self-active human beings took action—it was His Body that was placed in the tomb—and it was His Body that came forth in the Resurrection and the Life. So is it today—it is not the Lord who has stood in need of the Resurrection and the Life, but the body of His Faithful Ones on earth, the body of His Children everywhere that has stood in need of the Resurrection and the Life.
You have today tasted something of that Resurrecting Power by which the Members of His Body are set free from the darkness of the tomb, that, entering into the Garden of God, they may know that it is futile to look in the tomb to find the Lord. Too long have human beings looked into the tomb, but, as the Angels said, “He is not there.” No, it is not in the tomb that we will find our Lord although He sends His Angels to bring us forth from the tomb of this world's darkness into the Light of an Easter Day.
It is in the Garden, you will remember, that Mary, when she first recognized the Master's Presence, supposed Him to be the gardener. He was, and is, but not in the sense she thought. No, first perceiving Him, she did not see Him as He was; she did not recognize Him, but He was there in the Garden beyond the tomb. Her fear was that they, persons unknown, had taken her Lord away. How many times since that day have human beings imagined that someone, somewhere, what someone else did, what someone else said, had taken their Lord away. Human beings with their puny activities cannot take the Lord away—it cannot be done. How should the Lord be taken away? No, He was not in the tomb; it was futile to look there and it still is, but they, persons unknown or known, have not taken Him away; they cannot—He is there in the Garden of God.
When her name fell from His blessed lips, “Mary,” the sound of His Voice awakened her from that trance of sorrow that had engulfed her. She was awakened so that she could see that which was before her. The Master was there in the Garden—she knew someone was there but she had not recognized Him. How often human beings have been like that. But the wonderful thing is this: that when he called her name she did not just go blindly on; she was not so deeply engulfed in her own thoughts and ideas that she did not hear; no, she heard Him speak and knew His Voice and answered, “Master.”
There was acknowledgment; there was recognition; there was the depth of love response, uttermost devotion according to the Law of the Kingdom, “Thou shalt love the Lord Thy God with all Thy heart and mind and spirit and soul and with all thy strength.” Yes, in that answer that came forth from the depths of her heart, you can see and feel and know her fulfillment of the Law, and she saw her Lord. How many times the Master, walking in the Garden of God on earth has called the names of those who did not hear, those who went blindly on, immersed in their own ideas and concepts and their own anguish and human desires, so busy looking in the tomb, so busy worrying about who they might have been and what they might have done to the Lord that they could not hear His Voice.
In time past, you recognize, He has called your name, for today is not the first time He called your name, but you never answered Him as you did this morning. When the anguished heart grows still, and when the mind is quiet, when there is the fullness of love response to Him, then can the human being hear the Call, for He has called your name as surely as He called the name of Mary long ago. We have known something of His Presence; we have sensed it; we have recognized it; so have tens of thousands and millions of others. It is not that we have forgotten the Lord.
Mary was searching for Him; so are tens of millions of others searching, looking in the tomb when He is not there; but in the Garden of God He is walking, and He calls the name of each one who searches for Him. You know that He has called your name, and hearing, you have begun to see and hear truly that wondrous Voice of Love—that Love that will not let you go. Mary answered, “Master.” What do we answer when He calls? If He is our Master, then let us so function in our lives that we prove that it is so, in the fullness of devotion, obedience and trust—in that faith that springs from love for God that cannot be shaken by what any may think or say or do or be, or by what may take place in the world around us, faith that springs from unshakable love for God, that God's Love working through us may have meaning on earth.
That Easter Day set the pattern and opened the Way for this Easter Day which we are privileged to share. What greater honor, what greater privilege could God bestow than this? Our Lord came into the world because God so loved the world and He brought the message, “Repent and be baptized, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” We have found it so. In our lives we have proven His Words are true—true and righteous altogether—the Way, the Truth and the Life. As we meditate upon that Easter Day and see the outworkings of this Easter Day, in our own hearts and minds we know that we have begun to taste, begun to see, that we have begun to feel—but it is little more than that—the Victory of His Kingdom, the Eternal wonders. We have just begun. He opened the Way; He set the pattern for this Easter Day.
After He spoke to Mary, He said, “Touch me not for I have not yet ascended unto my Father.” Having brought His Body forth from the tomb, His first business was to ascend to the Father and what did He say? He told Mary to go and tell the other disciples, saying, “I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.” His instruction was and is to follow Him—follow Him in the Resurrection and the Life, follow Him in ascending unto the Father. His first business, His first fulfillment of responsibility after the Resurrection of His Body was to ascend unto the Father. It was after that that He met with His disciples and talked with them concerning the things of the Kingdom. First, he ascended unto the Father, and following through, following Him, we must do likewise.
It is not enough merely to taste of the Resurrection and the Life; we must together ascend unto the Father. The only way we can know that fulfillment is by following our Master in the expression of His Love for the Father. His Commandment was: “Follow me.” That is His Commandment to each one of us—follow Him. We have seen how that following must lead to the crucifixion of that human self that is not of Him, how it must lead through the tomb, through the Resurrection and then, if we are to follow Him all the Way, the next step is to ascend unto the Father.
What was it He said unto the one who saw Him in the Garden, what message did He give? He said, go and tell them, “Behold I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.” He made it very clear that He was not ascending to some High Heaven denied to those who should follow after Him. He was ascending and as He said before, “Whither I go ye know, and the Way ye know.” He had prayed and given assurance to those who followed after that “Where I am, there ye may be also.” He expected His followers to follow Him all the Way, including the ascension to the Father. We thank God that it is so.
As you continue to let the Cycles of the Spirit work in the silences of your soul, holding true under the Law of the Kingdom, abiding in the attitude of the Angels’ Song, you shall surely find the processes of ascension working in and through you to fulfill His Word even as He said, “And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.” He made it clear and plain that as He ascended unto the Father, He expected those who followed Him to let themselves ascend unto the Father. “And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me,” and so we are to let the process of ascension work in heart and mind and body and soul that we may share that which He established then, that which He made possible for the children of men.
This is our opportunity, our privilege, our sacred responsibility on this beautiful Sunday, this Easter, Nineteen Hundred Fifty. The Peace of our Lord, Jesus Christ be with you now and forever. Aum-en.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
Watch and Pray While I go Yonder
Uranda April 28, 1946
In the past weeks and months you have been making progress toward letting your minds relax in the spiritual current, and more and more your minds have ceased being what I would call noisy. We can relax on the vibration here almost at the moment of gathering together and have a quiet, peaceful, harmonious, blended vibration. That is excellent, but if we went no further than this point the greater works would never be accomplished. When the mind becomes still before the Lord it comes to a point where it seems that there is emptiness, nothingness and silence, and yet there is a sense, perhaps more or less vague, of something dynamic in creative activity on beyond. Because you have an intellectual understanding of the principles involved, and you have considered responsively the outlines presented, in the School, that which is of the next step is not foreign to you and it does not seem strange that it should be so. Nevertheless the human mind must now so function that it begins to let the flow of the spirit work in the earth more effectively. You have been given the keys with respect to response to the Lord, the attitude of praise and thanksgiving, etc., but now you are drawing to a new realization concerning the application of these principles. The outer mind is inclined to TRY to think spiritually. Your minds know that such effort cannot produce the results that we anticipate and yet you realize that thinking spiritually is necessary. How can this process of thinking spiritually be engendered in you without the outer mind TRYING to think?
You remember that the Master, when He went into the garden to meet the focalizations of evil in the world, left certain of His disciples at one point and took three a little way beyond, and then, leaving them with a request that they pray with Him, He Himself went alone a little further on. There you have a pattern of the outworking vibrationally in the world: the LORD of Lords at the apex of the pyramid and the manifestation in the negative triune world, as a whole and individually, reaching out into the world of responding ones. But the vibrations were so strong, the current so deep, the river so wide, that the disciples did not have the capacity to contain it or focalize it. They were enfolded in it without experiencing the focalization of it. With respect to the trinity, only one remained awake in the current of spiritual expression vibration. The one representing the mind, James, and the one representing the body, Peter, slept in the current, and those representing the body of responding ones likewise slept. And we see that that pattern which was set by the disciples insofar as function is concerned, in relationship to the pattern that was set by the Master insofar as cycles were concerned, has been made manifest in the world, and for two thousand years the cycle of sleeping in the garden of Gethsemane has continued. Only in the third plane, only in the holy place, did consciousness remain active, with spiritual thought manifest, and by reason of that cycle extending out into the body of unconscious responding ones the spiritual influence in the high focalization of world events down through the ages has been possible where devotion to God permitted the vibration of wakefulness to appear.
We see, for instance, as an illustration of this, the influence of the divine in the Declaration of Independence, in the Constitution of the United States of America, the choice and design of the Great Seal, and suchlike things. I do not say that these are the only ones that illustrate the principle, for there are illustrations to be found in all nations and in many seasons. But the time has come when, in the trinity as to the individual and as to the negative triune world, sleep in the garden of Gethsemane must be overcome. The focalizations of mind and body must be awakened, first in the focalizations of the trinity, and then in the body of responding ones. You begin to see that the pattern established by the Master in Gethsemane has been followed faithfully in the current development of the Third Sacred School in the earth, and that you here have been called with respect to the world body of responding ones to function in the world garden of Gethsemane on the vibrations represented at that time by Peter, James and John, and you see that those who are out in the School represent the world body of responding ones symbolized by the rest of the disciples. When the Master returned and found them sleeping He said, "Could ye not pray with me one little hour?" And He returned to the point where He was alone and prayed again. That garden of Gethsemane has expanded and grown until it fills the whole earth, and every person in every nation is now in the garden of Gethsemane.
It is of no use to speculate as to what might have been; for as the poet said, "Of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: 'It might have been!' " Had the disciples faithfully remained awake that night so long ago and prayed with Him... But they did not. It is well that we note the fact that something else might have been, that we may see the connection now, and in the days to come we shall not look back with sorrowful hearts and say, "It might have been." Now, we see that the world became a garden of Gethsemane because the disciples slept in the garden of Gethsemane of old, and the spiritual currents that were focalized there in that awful hour found release in consciousness in only one point instead of twelve. And now, as the Christ Body becomes manifest on earth, in effective function in the garden of Gethsemane, the manifest formation releases the current in the same pattern as the days of old and you are the three, individually and collectively. The greater works must be done in the garden of Gethsemane, for the world moves on apace to the day of its own self-crucifixion.
As I speak to you through the Word within the word, you find that the sense of heaviness and sleep is lifted from you and you have become awake, awake to the currents of divine power which flow forth into the world, accomplishing that whereunto they are sent, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. You know that that power is real, and you know that this power is that which is necessary in the resurrection, which is the emergence from the tomb period for the faithful ones; for the garden of Gethsemane and the tomb are one. And you begin to let spiritual thought flow more readily through your mind, not in trying to think, but in letting the mind that was in Christ Jesus be in you, that you may be awake to that which is. You begin to know of a surety that if the greater power were released through you now you could not yet function correctly in it. You begin to more deeply appreciate the grace of God, which gives you an opportunity to grow into your full stature in the Christ, which is to say, in the One Christ Body, that the power of the Christ made manifest in the earth through the Christ Body may accomplish that whereunto it is sent.
"Watch and pray, while I go yonder." What fateful words were spoken, and how sad the Master was that night when He saw the twelve setting a pattern that doomed this old world to the cycles of sleep in evil for another age, for two thousand years, because eleven men slept one little hour.
He had come into the world, He had gone through all the experience of life, He had performed the works of His ministry and He had taught the word of truth. And that life ministry of the LORD of Lords and KING of Kings came to the hour of climax, and instead of the glorious victory that might have been, the results of all that He did, and of the death He faced, hung by one little thread, that the world might be saved from its well-deserved doom. But that one thread held and comes down to this day, opening the way for you and for all who are ready to awake to the resurrection morn. Now the focalization of the trinity in you must not sleep but be awake to the currents of divine power, in conscious understanding of that which is taking place in the world. The gift that the Master of us all offered to all the world that fateful night was rejected, but He wrapped it in His love and preserved it in the world, that by the hand of His servant it might be given to the world now, that the gift of His victory might manifest through those who let themselves be focalizations of the pattern in the world body of Gethsemane. The pattern of world events was shaped that night in one little hour by men who slept, condemning tens of millions to lives of misery and suffering and sorrow and death—a pattern that had to be held for an age, because until another age had rolled around it could not be focalized again.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
How Would You Have Recognized Him?
Uranda April 2, 1952
We remember, in the Master’s prayer, as recorded in the seventeenth chapter of John, that He plainly signified a recognition that he had been with the Father from the foundation of the world. In other words, the Christ Spirit was in expression from the Father, through the body that was called Jesus. Man used his mind to spoil the pattern of things Divine on earth; that is to crucify the lamb. And remember that the crucifixion of the lamb began in the moment of the fall, and continues to this day.
Every man, woman and child upon the face of the earth who has ever functioned contrary to the Spirit, the direction, the will, of God, has shared in slaying the lamb, has shared in the crucifixion. The crucifixion, in the absolute sense, was not limited in the realm of action to those who took part in nailing the body of our Lord to the cross. That was merely a focalization of this action that had been going on for thousands of years, and which has continued until this day. We must begin to realize that anyone who is self-active at any time, under any circumstance, is sharing in the crucifixion of the lamb, slaying the lamb. The lamb is the Christ Spirit, which is of the Father.
The prophecies of the Old Testament portrayed the fact that the Kingdom of God could be restored on earth without Jesus Christ going to the cross. There was the recognition from the Divine standpoint that because man was so self-active it was possible he would reject even the LORD of Lords Himself. There was a very difficult problem involved here. How many human beings would have the perception to recognize Him for what He came on earth to do? The human mind, looking back today, is inclined to say, “I am sure I would have recognized Him.” You would have? How would you have recognized Him? How would you have known Him? Looking back, you have certain ideas as to what you think He was like, but if you were attempting to recognize Him on the basis of what most people think He was like, you would not have recognized Him.
Speaking from an inner standpoint, how about my own manifestation at the present time? How about recognizing that? How did you recognize it? What is there to cause you to do so? Some people have difficulty in seeing it, and in line with that I would like to emphasize: If you wish to serve effectively with me, if you wish to let the Christ Spirit have real meaning on earth, do not go out there anywhere and try to tell people who I am, or who you think I am, or anything about it. If you try to convince somebody that Uranda is thus and so, a manifestation on earth of this or that, whether you are right or wrong you will be doing harm. If the time comes for anyone to clear that point in his consciousness, that is my responsibility.
I am in the earth without many people knowing anything about me, and the less the people generally know about me, the better. Actually, I never touch the subject unless I am forced to by various ideas that are engendered. Such things are supposed to be perceived by the Spirit. Such things are between myself and that individual. If you wish to truly serve, do not talk about it, even though you may know. Just to illustrate the importance of this point that I am making, I am going to read to you from words which the Master spoke with respect to my service on earth: “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive.”
As long as any human being is primarily focalized in the world pattern and the world spirit he cannot receive that focalization of Spirit which I offer in the world, that Spirit which is available to every man, woman, and child; for as the Master came, providing a focalization of the Spirit of Love, and each one of you can share in that Spirit of Love, my responsibility is to provide a focalization of the Spirit of Truth, but every man, woman and child on the face of the earth can share in that Spirit, and is supposed to share in it and let it manifest.
“Whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” (John—Chapter 14) He made that a present-tense statement. Looking at it, we see that it had to be one of the disciples of whom He was speaking, and we know that to be true. Since this is true, how futile it is for you to try to ignore these basic statements which the Master spoke. “Because it seeth him not”; that is, the world consciousness cannot see it. Do not try to get the world consciousness to see him. It is futile. “It seeth him not, neither knoweth him.” You cannot get the world consciousness to know him. It is futile to try. “But ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” That is, “As you yield to that Spirit of Truth which is focalized in one who is with you, that Spirit shall be in you; so that as My Spirit of Love is in you, so shall His Spirit of Truth be in you.” It is not for you, as human beings, to try to tell somebody these things.
I want to give you an opportunity to see it as it is, because, just as surely as the world becomes convinced that I carry a particularized focalization of the Spirit of God on earth, the world will do its level best to crucify this body. The less the world knows about that which is within, the more completely the world thinks I am just another man on earth—maybe a little bit cracked—the better. I am not interested in the world knowing me as I am. I am interested in conveying the Truth to those who respond, so that they can begin to know that which they are in relationship to our Lord and King. Let the Spirit of Truth work through you. But if you think the Spirit of Truth can be on earth and work through the children of men without having a central focalization, you are wrong.
Just as Jesus Christ provided a central focalization for the Spirit of Love, so did He provide that there should be a central focalization of the Spirit of Truth. Remember, your job in serving is to let the Spirit of Truth work through you, as well as the Spirit of Love, while you point constantly and consistently to the Lord of Love, our Lord Jesus Christ. Why is my service of value to you? Why is the Truth of value to you? Because it makes it possible for you to begin to know and understand our Lord, the LORD of Lords and KING of Kings, and that is all that is important. The Truth is essential to that understanding. The Truth makes possible that understanding. The Spirit of Truth must be in you and work through you, but there must be a point on earth where that Spirit of Truth is centered, and that centering is provided in the Comforter, that all who will may receive it.
From the standpoint of the inner reality serving through this body form, I have carried that particular focalization in relationship to our Lord and King since long before the beginning of the creation of this world. It is not something that is new, or particularly worked out. But, to illustrate the point now, how are you going to recognize me? You say, “By the Truth you express.” Yes, that is the point exactly; but if you tend to be a little rebellious, skeptical, etc., etc.—which you have been and still may be somewhat—the point is this: If you are skeptical, if you are inclined to judge, and say, “If he were that, he would be this way, that way, and the other,” with what words would you have me come? In what body? How would you have me appear? How would you change the form? How would you change the pattern? If you feel you are in position to judge and question this fundamental point of Truth, just exactly what changes would you work out? How would you have me be different? Do you see what I mean? You cannot tell. In what body shall I come? By what means, in what channel, and in what place on earth shall you find me?
Remember, then, that human beings had the same problem when our Lord was on earth, exactly the same problem. Remember that, when you go out there as a focalization of the Spirit of the Living Christ, there are going to be plenty of people who say, “He has some funny ideas; maybe he has some Truth, maybe not. You feel some love, but I don’t know.” There will be plenty of people to doubt you, to criticize you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, but if you let it bother you, you will be wrong, and if you do anything foolish which will deliberately engender that vibration of thinking, you will be wrong. You must be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. You must do your best to avoid the appearance of evil. But if you are controlled by what people are going to think, you will not be controlled by God. You should avoid putting a stumbling block in the path of your brother or sister, but you will not become subject to such things because you are controlled by the Spirit of God if you are a true Server, and not by what people think. Such things are beside the point.
Our Master was up against that same problem, and all self-active human beings have shared in the crucifixion and are still sharing. It was at point there, yes—but what was the life? From the day of the beginning of the fall of man, until this day, what is the life that has been shed? It has been the life from the Spirit of the Living Christ, which manifested on earth, only to be slain by man’s self-activity.
If man, in the days of the Old Testament, slew an ox and made a sacrifice it symbolized the fact that he was supposed to yield his self-active mind to God and let it be received in the fire of God’s Love, so that his mind would no longer be slaying the lamb, no longer spilling the blood, the life stream of God on earth, in a meaningless, senseless, fashion. The blood of Christ is the life stream of Christ which has been shed “from the foundation of the world”—not the foundation of the earth. Do not get that mixed up. This does not mean the beginning of the creation of the earth, but the foundation of this self-active world. It was the fall of man. The fall of man began the process of developing this self-active world in which we find ourselves on earth. “The blood of the Lamb,” which was “slain from the foundation of the world.” So, man began to slay the lamb, and to shed the blood of the lamb, the minute he fell. He continued to do it through all that time, and what was it? Shedding the blood of the lamb, spilling it on earth, making it of no avail, so that it was not a means of the resurrection and the life but a means of destroying man.
We must realize that, in these things, until we know the Truth we cannot be set free. As long as we allow ourselves to be held in bondage by human concepts and ideas that have been developed by limited man down through the centuries, we cannot even understand the significance of the cross, what it means to come to the foot of the cross, yielded, and letting the life stream, the blood of the Christ, wash us clean. Is that not interesting? That blood is to make us white as snow. Obviously, if it were the physical blood it would not make us white as snow; it would make us red. The way it is worded, over and over again; take a look at it: “white as snow”—the Spirit of the Living Christ which shall make you white as snow, the blood, the life stream of the only begotten Son of God, which is present here with you, the Spirit of the Living Christ which is available to every man, woman and child. And he who yields to that Spirit becomes a member of the body of the only begotten Son of God on earth.
That is the story the Bible tells, and until we begin to see it and to know it we will follow in the same old futile paths which so many earnest Christians have trod before us. It is not for us to condemn them. We rejoice in what was done, which makes it possible for us to share this hour, but let us not cause that to be in vain. If we cannot do better than they, there is no excuse for our being. Unless we can understand more fully than those who have gone before us, there is no excuse for our sharing the privileges and opportunities which their living made possible.
Let us be sure that our Lord Jesus Christ did not live and suffer on earth in vain, that you, each one, may come to the foot of the cross and receive the blood of the lamb in the true sense that truly makes you white as snow. You begin to see that man’s concept about the blood is that which keeps man from having the power of God made manifest in and through himself here on earth. Let us let the works be done. Let us let the light so shine that men may see our good works, the results that appear out here, and glorify our Father which is in Heaven. Our Father in Heaven is the Lord who manifested through the body of Jesus; our Lord and King, our Father, who was manifest on earth.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
