Essences of the Edenic Programming
from Take Up Your Soul And Walk
September 12, 1982 p.m.
Martin Cecil — I'm going to invite Hugh Malafry to participate in the beginning part of our service hour this evening.
Hugh Malafry — You see before you living proof that things can hot up in an afternoon. Much more heat to come as we put ourselves, each one, on the threshold of our own experience and take the steps necessary.
I have been thinking of this matter of extrinsic and intrinsic factors in the makeup of man and finding, in a sense, in the extrinsic factors quite a level of superficiality which, nevertheless, tends to beguile human beings with their significance: matters such as race and religion, cultural factors and of course the more personal factors of having survived childhood and gone on to not-so-comfortable teenage years—and so it goes. I think we are sometimes a little beguiled by those of other cultural backgrounds, thinking that somehow perhaps the secret is there in that culture: black is beautiful, or brown, or whatever. Is it really? Any more than white is beautiful? Superficial factors! Back of the colors and the cultural traits and the atmospheres in which these things exist is the same old intrinsic human nature with its fears and its appetites. No matter where we go in this world we find fundamentally the same intrinsic fallen human state.
And then again, while that intrinsic state is more inward and in a sense more difficult to put one’s hand on, is it not, too, just a program that derives from aberrant cultural function; that is, the affairs of human beings as they try to manipulate the ways of God into some kind of pattern suitable to themselves? Is that not also fundamentally superficial compared to the deepest levels of an intricate and inward design? Even in the realm of memory, is there not deeper memory? Where does the passion for justice come from, the love and yearning for home in human beings? There are yet deeper memories throughout the human family. I doubt that one could go anywhere in the world and find a group of people who knew what was required in an external sense to let the fullness of man, the man of truth, emerge. People juggle patterns, juggle programmings; but as it was very accurately put, there is nothing new under the sun, just different clothing for the same old human nature.
It occurs to me that one of the most stunningly beautiful aspects of this ministry is that the extrinsic patterns of function and education that it provides are in fact one with the intrinsic nature of man. That doesn’t mean that as things heat up there are not educational structures to flow and make available more malleable, shapable substance in the current of the spirit, But it does engender in me, and I feel it must engender in our hearts, the deepest sense of respect for the extrinsic patterns of programming that are provided by this ministry. If there should be disrespect in that regard, or failure to appreciate, that would in itself be an evidence that the intrinsic hereditary structures of man were blinding one to the provision at hand. But, given that, given that threshold, that culminating quality of our momentary experience which places us on the edge of the unknown constantly, is it not with a combination of respect and appreciation, thankfulness for what is and has been, coupled with a sense of adventure and wonder, that brings us beyond the mess of human appetites and fears into the quick of the fire of the spirit in this moment?
I’ve been thinking, too, about the structures that pass away and the substance they release. We can see a world held in irons by prejudice, by fear, by concept of all manner of description, locking up substance in patterns that say, “If you will express anything, it must be expressed this way in order to be acceptable on earth.” Human programming: taking care of us it seems, these days, from the cradle to the grave—and they’re not so far apart sometimes. We have our own educational structures. And as they begin to pass away, what is it that is really happening? As they begin to pass away from filling our consciousness with concepts about being right to our highest understanding, and doing the best we know how in the moment with right attitude, and so on, what is actually happening? Is it not that this programming is becoming simply unconscious to us, that the structures which represented the deepest levels of programming—the Edenic state, the Edenic programming, the nature of man, the Man of Truth—is it not that those are simply providing a foundation for something emerging which can be fluidly trusted?
When I was learning to drive a car, I recall how painfully self-conscious I was of every action. But then I learned to drive a car and there was something to do with the car: drive it down the street, go wherever you had to go. There were purposes to be fulfilled by using it. It came alive in a sense, because the act of learning what it meant to drive that car had become spontaneously available in a formation of skills that are appropriate to the moment.
Life is more important than the body, but the body is essential to life. Is this not something of the threshold on which we stand as the deeper levels of the intricate, the intrinsic nature of man begin to find expression? We may be delighted to the very core of our being that extrinsic and intrinsic factors for us are one. The structures give way to free the substance up for use. Deepest of my concerns at this point in my own experience, and in working with others as that is fitting, is what happens to that substance.
There is a fashionable rebelliousness that comes when one graduates from school: “Oh I don’t know that I’m going to go out into the world and do it the way everyone else has done it. Maybe I’ll knock around for a few years or maybe I’ll just see how I can slip through the system untouched by the professional requirements of that system.” Also, there is the kind of rebelliousness which says, “Now that the substance is being freed up we'll just do whatever we need to do”—whatever that is! Well what do you do, all dressed up and nowhere to go: fritter away substance: in a sense let the life essences bleed away? I've watched people follow their own substance into oblivion.
We think of the fire as having color and texture. One of the things I was noticing about fire recently is that it ascends; it always points up. Even if you turn a burning log upside down the fire points up; it burns upward. There is radiant fire, and fire that naturally burns upward; it refines, it lifts up. As the fire burns brighter and hotter the responsibilities become increasingly more specific, requiring finer containment. Nothing that we have learned has actually passed away in the sense of the spirit of the Law, the spirit of truth. The man of truth is more on hand in fact because the noisy outer man is less on hand, and there is something to ascend before the throne of God.
That’s where the substance belongs. It takes a certain level, texture and fineness of substance to come into the presence of God. Man is here to let that refinement occur in the substance that needs to come into His presence. And we may think of this in terms of the intrinsic factors of our spiritual expression or we may see them as being one with the extrinsic factors of the provision of this ministry. Really, what is the difference ultimately if the true man is present, provided we are responsible for our spiritual expression, each one of us? This substance, this fine atmosphere, is not here to follow out reasserted factors of human nature or to flush out some as yet impure element of the intrinsic or extrinsic programming of man, but to be available to the deepest sensibility of all, the sense of truth, the essences of the Edenic programming, the essences of the Divine state, and to flesh that out. That places upon us, more than ever, the responsibility to be absolutely precise in an orientation from which emerges every thought, word and deed of our lives for the greater generation and the purification of the whole earth—this by reason of the fact that there is an angel on hand, whose environment is fire, living through the body of the living God.
Martin Cecil — There is an angel on hand to do what is required. That doing is only made possible because there is a human soul present. All human souls have been intrinsically and extrinsically programmed in the earthly sense. This programmed soul has assumed an identity, as though it really were something of itself. That identity is called by your name.
I am reminded of an occasion recorded in the Bible of a fellow who was found lying on his bed by a certain pool which was reputed to have healing waters. He had been lying there a long time, because he assumed that his healing required that somebody should put him in the pool. Nobody had done it for thirty-eight years, so he was still waiting. This is rather a good picture of any human being. Regardless of how physically healthy a person may imagine that he or she is there are always factors of personal experience about which to complain. Everyone has his or her personal limitations. Most people try to fool themselves into believing that by playing certain roles they can transcend their limitations. People everywhere aspire to these roles, imagining that by playing them they are going to be more important, more worthwhile, more fulfilled. Game-playing, isn’t it? Children playing games. The world as it now is operates on this basis.
There is one present who says, in effect, as it was said to the man who was lying inert by the pool, “Take up your bed and walk. Get up from that supine position. Take up your bed”—what heretofore you’ve been lying on, namely the programmed state of human nature which tells people how to behave. It tells people that they are sick, that they are getting older, that they are dying. Take up your bed and walk! Stop believing all the lies and rationalizing them so that they appear to be true. There is someone present, real and true, who is capable of taking up that bed and using it to advantage. It’s not a matter of trying to pretend that one doesn’t feel so good, or whatever it is, but the question always arises as to whether that is going to dictate to you what your behavior should be. Take up your bed and walk!
Who are you? I can ask that question and I’m sure you could give me a glib answer. “I am an angel”—that’s a good one. Is that the fact or are you a player of games, a role-player who puts weight and meaning in the role that is played? If there is any purpose to the role that is being played, the weight and the meaning is there by reason of the one who is playing the role. The role itself is a husk. Mind you, there are some roles that are significant, needful. But how easily those concerned slip into the programmed state where the role is the thing, so that a person feels that if he isn’t playing that role he’s ceased to have any meaning. I think it’s most useful if a person loses the particular role in which he has put so much store, that is if the person has been doing that. I don’t say it’s necessary that everyone should lose their roles, but certainly if anyone has put his meaning into the role so that if the role was no longer necessary he would feel meaningless, then obviously that individual is in a bad way. The role is running that person’s life.
Take up your bed and walk! Take up your soul, in whatever way it may have been programmed intrinsically and extrinsically, and be about the Father’s business. The one who takes up the soul and walks is the angel of the Lord. The soul is for use, and in that use roles will be played. But the role does not change in any way the one who has taken up the soul and walked into that particular role. There are many roles that are useful, but only when these roles are played by a true person—by the angel. Closeness is primarily in spirit, regardless of the geographical position of souls. If it is useful for souls to be together for some particular creative purpose, then the angels concerned may let this occur, but only because it is for a purpose, not because the souls imagine that they would feel better if they were closer together.
This is the last service I will be present at in the Dome Chapel for a season. I am taking my soul elsewhere. I delight that we have these times when our souls are in close proximity. But that is only valuable to the extent that there is the unification known in spirit. We are close in spirit. But the fact that our souls may be in the vicinity of each other is not the cause of the closeness in spirit; it may be the result of it. Presumably it is in this instance, because the gathering of these souls together is for a creative purpose. If we really participate soulwise in that creative purpose it is enjoyable to the soul. It is delightful to the one who is incarnate, relating to the specific needs of the administration of the creative cycle on earth. So we bring our souls along into the Chapel this evening. That’s fine. I will not have this pleasure and opportunity for a while but this doesn’t mean that we cease to be together. We cease to be together soulwise maybe, but that isn’t the important thing anyway, except as it is useful in some creative purpose that is being undertaken. From the standpoint of spirit I am not going anyplace other than where I am. Isn’t that true of you too? We are all where I am—there ye may be also.
I have a soul, you have a soul, and if these souls could usefully be put together in some configuration, as this evening, then let’s do that and participate in the creative process that is thereby made possible. But if we are not participating in that specific aspect of the creative process, each of us is still himself and we are still in place—that one place which is the place of spirit: I am. Each of us could say, “I am incarnate on earth and delighted to be, because my soul enables me not only to be on earth but to play a part with other angels and their souls in the creative requirements which are presently on the move.”
We are aware of the clamorings of the soul, present because of prior programming in the human state. We need to be in position to stand aloof from it so that we’re not involved with it even though it is there. People find themselves with what might be described as human nature traits and people struggle with these traits all their lives and never get anywhere. They know that because of these traits maybe they lose their jobs or they get in trouble of one sort or another. A lot of people will never admit that it was their own traits that got them in the trouble. They say it was somebody else’s fault. No, it wasn’t somebody else; it was our own human nature acting up that caused the trouble. I am sure everybody has had experience of difficult times, uncomfortable times, painful times, which later were seen to be most valuable. We may run into trouble—I don’t know anyone who hasn’t; some make a big deal out of it, some learn something from it and go on their way rejoicing. But we come to the point where we behave, soulwise, according to the heavenly programming, even though there may be some lingering programming out of the past. We are able to observe it and give it no weight.
The human traits with which a person struggles just simply drop away when they are given no more life through struggling with them. Life is to reveal the Truth, the glorious Truth, and the soul learns to come along with that willingly, happily. We might stress that word happily—not grudgingly. The old traits from human programming pass away. They die because they are given no more life. If such things have life in our experience it is because we give them life; nobody else does. We’re here to take up our bed, our soul—it’s been a sleeping one—take up our soul and walk, stand erect and go where we need to go, do what we need to do! Certainly it isn’t lying around by a pool hoping to be healed. Take up your bed and walk! There is one present—you—who is capable of doing that. Whatever may be the state present in the soul may be used to advantage in the creative processes.
So we express strength, for one thing. We express the Truth; and because we express it we know it, the only way it can be known. We know what we express. All right, if you want to know the truth, express it. Simple. Where is the problem? When the Truth is known freedom is the experience, the freedom of the one who is incarnate on earth to play a creative part in the greater fulfilment for which each one is incarnate. And as that fulfilment comes there is joy unspeakable and full of glory. There is happiness. The creative process is perfect—give it form. Whatever is needful soulwise will put in an appearance, not for the purpose of satisfying the soul but for the purpose of letting God’s will be done, for the purpose of allowing the creative fulfilment to be known.
We discover as angels moving along the way just how that is possible, what souls are available to participate in the process, what souls are being held out too. We can only use the ones that are available. And as angels we bring them to where they need to be. But whether one soul is next to another soul or far-distant from another soul makes no difference from the standpoint of the angel of the Lord, from your standpoint as the one who is present, because there is no separation in spirit. Once such a big deal ceases to be made of the spurious requirements of the soul then the emphasis comes where it is rightly put in spirit, and we become aware of the heaven. That’s where we dwell; that’s where we abide. And because we abide in heaven, heaven comes into experience on earth.
So with these particular words I conclude our evening hour together in person soulwise, but we remain together in spirit. Let that be so. That is the most important thing. Then whatever needs to happen from the standpoint of the souls involved can be handled quite easily to the glory of God.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
A Period of Intensifying Fire
from Programming and Reprogramming
Martin Exeter September 12, 1982 a.m.
Human beings, ourselves included, have found themselves programmed into an earthly state which has excluded heaven. All people are thus programmed from the moment of conception. The initial programming may be described as intrinsic. It is present in the very flesh of the fetus, stemming from parents, forebears and the experience of the human race itself out of the past. This is usually thought of in terms of genes, but there is obviously more to it than the physical genes. There is this intrinsic program present in each developing form, but as soon as there is conception something else comes into the picture as well as what is intrinsically present at that point—an extrinsic influence, imposed upon the developing fetus.
During the time of uterine development the extrinsic is more or less indirect, but as soon as the baby is born then direct influences begin to be brought to bear, so that the extrinsic programming continues. All people are programmed in this fashion with these two components, intrinsic and extrinsic. We may see that the intrinsic is more basic, deeper, one might say almost untouchable. It is there—we all know it is there for ourselves; no one is exempt; it is a carry-forward out of the past. It has been described in the Christian religion as original sin, an intrinsic programming coming out of the earthly experience of the past. Superimposed on top of that is the extrinsic programming which subsequently ensues. This is a more surface programming and is capable of being manipulated to a certain extent. All of us have been programmed in this fashion, together with our fellows in this human world; and the state of the world itself is simply a reflection of this fact. It is brought forth by reason of the programming of human beings. This programming, the surface aspects of it, can be manipulated and changed somewhat as influences of various kinds are brought to bear, but the total package is hardly changed at all. Certainly the intrinsic aspect is not changed; it sits there in the very flesh of the individual, which includes mind and emotions.
We are all programmed. The intrinsic program—the main part—requires that human beings die. Everybody is programmed to die; that's why everybody dies. As long as that program exists there is apparently no escape, and of course there is whatever leads up to that ultimate point, which may come speedily or more slowly, as the case may be. But the programming is set, and the result is consequently inevitable as long as that program is there. We have become aware of the fact that man was not originally programmed that way. It is something that has been self-induced back along the way. We don't need to go into that; we can't do anything about it anyhow. The state of affairs is as it is. We have to deal with the situation as it is.
The original programming could be described as the Truth, with the elements of heavenly design and heavenly control. The manifest body and mind and heart, the human soul, is designed to be programmed. There is nothing wrong with the fact that there is a program in operation—there should be a program. We are aware that the program presently in effect is a substitute one; it is not the right program. You can't tape a new program without obliterating what is on the tape in the first place—so, clearly, there must be some mechanism by which this may occur if human beings are to be programmed once more by the Truth.
That program was described as being made in the image and likeness of God. That was the original program, and as long as that prevailed the fact of that particular program was revealed in the experience of man. Now there is another program in effect, and what is revealed is certainly not the same as the original program, which allowed for the reality of God to be made known. The reality of God is not made known by man. Something else is made known, and it has been described in various ways: that old serpent, the devil, and satan, great red dragon—the human state, a destructive experience, because man is in this state programmed to die. He goes about it in ingenious ways, but he ends up dead because of the program. What is it that ends up dead? The thing that was programmed. If something is programmed to self-destruct it self-destructs, and it is the human soul that has been programmed to self-destruct. Faithfully over the ages this program has been carried out, generation after generation. It has become so customary that while there may be some imagination about another state it has never been much more than fanciful imagination.
Fire represents the means by which one program may be eliminated and another one established. It would be useless just to eliminate the first program, because then there would be nothing, a blank. We are not concerned with trying to get rid of the first program—there is concern for reprogramming. Our concern has been to allow the real program, which is the Truth, to replace the false program, which incidentally must be a lie if it isn't the Truth. One could say then that death is a lie, a very popular one apparently. The false program has been much more popular than the real one. It has reached a state where there is no awareness, for the most part, that there is a real one available. If we see these things in terms of programming we recognize that there must be certain facilities available to allow the real program to be reestablished. It doesn't happen by magic, in the ordinary sense at least. It doesn't happen because somebody would like it to happen, because one consciously is desirous of being made new. There has been a very firm and persistent objection to this experience, because it requires the Fire—it looks dangerous. Of course the Fire does consume the old program, but at the same time there is the availability of the True program, and the Fire is not separate from the True program.
We have described the spirit of God as being triune in nature: Love, Truth and Life—inseparable. So if you have the Fire the Truth goes along with it and is available for the reprogramming process to be experienced. But the Fire is not the first thing to be brought to bear in its intensity. It should remain in the background for a while. Whenever things have started to hot up a bit the human tendency is to duck out, to seek cover, to jump into the foxhole. When the Fire comes along, the individual needs to be on hand, not hiding.
There has to be an introduction, somehow or other, to the possibility of true programming; probably it hasn't been described that way heretofore, but an introduction to the Truth, because that is the True programming. It is a heavenly programming. It doesn't originate in the past, out of the earth; it originates now, in heaven. To experience it one would have to be in heaven. It is impossible for this spurious self to be in heaven. It needs to pass away, and we have become aware of the fact that it does pass away anyway; you can't stop it passing away. But there is the possibility of knowing the Truth, of having this real program reestablished. As the real program is reestablished, the self that is known is the real self, the real person, the person who is present in the facility that heretofore was wrongly programmed. There is the necessary period of time for transformation to occur, so that the individual comes to the point where there is a genuine and factual willingness to relinquish the false state of self, the spurious self. Most people are inclined to cling to that till the last gasp. There is terrible fear of losing oneself. How much effort is put into the preservation of the ego by most people, thereby ensuring their own demise, because the ego is going to vanish away sooner or later.
There is this reprogramming necessary, and this requires what has been referred to as baptism—water—the symbol of Truth with which a person must become acquainted. Four barrels of water poured over, three times: twelve barrels of water. A soaking in the Truth, that's baptism. It seems to take a little time to go through the process. There is an increasing acquaintance with the symbol of the Truth. It is not the Truth yet; it is the symbol of the Truth. We have been considering many, many things in a new and changing light over the years, because it wasn't the Truth yet; it was simply varying levels of the symbol of the Truth. The symbol of the Truth comes in words, for instance; but the Truth isn't words. The Truth is the real program with which man needs to be associated, so that that is established. And that program provides the basis for the creative expression of the One who now is aware and known on earth, the heavenly One incarnate and in expression on earth once more. So there is water.
If we stop supporting the old program by giving our life into the expression of it, then there begins to be space for the experience of the new program. The old program is still there; certainly the intrinsic aspect of it is still there. We may have experienced some changes in the extrinsic aspect of that false program, but if we could see the picture as it is we would find that it was really very little.
There is a new program, but it takes the Fire to reprogram and to, at the same time, dissolve the remnants of the old program all the way through to the intrinsic aspect, all the way through to the factors of earthly heredity, that these may be replaced by the True elements of heavenly heredity. It comes with the Fire. We have before us a period of intensifying Fire and we have the opportunity of letting it be used to advantage, so that the bonds of the old program are burnt, consumed, enabling us to walk in the Fire. The True program is present once more: the Truth. “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”—to walk in the Fire, to walk as an angel incarnate and in expression on earth.
At this point, there is still present the old programming; it persists. But we discover how to live without feeding that old program with our Life force anymore, because we are aware of the right use of our Life force in the expression of spirit at the level of which we are now aware. It is all that is necessary, but it is necessary to be true to that and consistent in the expression of it. Doubtless there are those things which arise emotionally, mentally and physically which would distract us into the old programmed state if we would allow it. All of you have had a tremendous amount of opportunity to be aware of what constitutes that old state, and yet I observe occasionally those who are distracted back into it and begin to give expression to that old programming. Repent quickly! This has been the element that the old programming has been most resistant to: repentance. “I am damned if I will!” Yes, you're damned—you're damned if you don't! Repent of the old programming. Stop giving it Life force and allow the Life force to pour increasingly through your present experience of spirit in action. You have enough awareness of the Truth, you've been dunked enough, to know the quality and nature of that spirit—and the quality and nature of the old programming.
So we have brought to focus something with respect to another point of transition in the intensifying Fire, and I trust that all are happy because of it, are delighted to let the Fire burn, to let it be intensified. Oh yes, it will uncover some things that would, if they could, take charge of you again, demanding your Life force. Don't fall into the trap but stay true to the Truth in delighted experience of the intensifying Fire, which comes individually, and it comes for all of us collectively also.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
While Any Are Bound None Are Free
Uranda June 1, 1947
We have been, and are, passing through a period of orientation in relationship to the New Cycle that is before us. From time to time we have considered Services that have been held in the past, and we find there the expression of the Word which makes clear the Path along which we are moving. Wherever we turn in the Bible we find that we have considered the passages together that relate to our present time in the outworking of Cosmic events. I am not saying there is nothing new, nothing more for us to find in the Bible, but I am pointing out that that which is sufficient unto us for this day, according to the Word that has been, and now is, has been revealed and considered, and these things are intellectually recognized. When they are uttered they are perceived to a degree in Spirit, realized to some extent as Truth, and gradually the Life Pattern begins to conform with the fundamental Realities, so that we may not simply walk upon a meaningless round in this outer world, considering intellectual preachments as a salve to the spirit that we may be content with our lot under the conditions of the fallen world.
If that which we do is to mean more than that which others have done, we can not walk in that broad way that has been trodden by the millions, nor yet can we be content with the levels of Spirituality that have been attained by those who have served nobly and truly in the Harvest Field of God in time past. In my travels about the land, I have been deeply impressed by the fact that wherever one goes there are good people and fine, there are those who are expressing a high degree of nobility in their daily round of life. And yet, seen from the outer round of expression, these things tend to appear as ineffectual, futile, and sometimes the serpent tries to whisper that, just as there is the vanity of human pride and the vanity of possessions and the vanity of position in the world, according to the ideas of fame or power, just so is there a vanity of the spirit which, having found a certain degree of communion with things that are recognized as being Divine, becomes more or less content therewith, and finally, becoming to some degree smug and self-righteous, brings forth a vanity of nothingness which appears to the dimmed eye of outer-world-seeing as nothing more than that which all the mass of human beings experience.
With what shall we be content? Rising to what level do we find that which satisfies our appetite, our longing, our hungering and thirsting, so that, at that level we become surfeited, satisfied, and undertake to dwell there as if in some such place we might find an Eternal habitation? We climb to the top of a mountain in the experience of life, and attain to such and such a level. The human tendency is to pause there to admire the view and then, being satisfied that it is lovely, to build a house, as it were, to dwell in, thinking therewith to be content. It is lovely, and there is a beautiful view, from such a mountain height, and there is much to commend the progress of the one who so attains, but if we have the boldness to suggest that such attainment is not enough, if we suggest to such an one that pausing too long at that level of consciousness is failing to utilize the blessings of God that have been provided, he is inclined, in self-righteousness and a certain smugness of attainment, to take the attitude that we are seeking to deny the blessings of God by which he has attained to such and such a place. Actually, we seek only to awaken him to a realization that, no matter how good and no matter how wonderful, no matter how commendable the attainment, no matter how beautiful the view, no matter how Truth has been recognized and realized—it is not enough.
If, at any given level, we become content at that level, we accept disintegration, decay, retrogression and finally, obliteration. The human tendency—and it is very human, because human beings have bodies which are so inclined to inertia—is for the individual to forget that he is supposed to be a Temple of the Living God, and to be inclined to settle down at some level. Those who never rise above the dregs of humanity are looked down upon by those who have attained to some scale of life expression above them; but those, in turn, are looked down upon by those above them, and those who have attained to some point higher, actually or in imagination, look down upon them in turn. Yet the same end comes to all, the same turmoils and failures and the same futility, in the final reckoning. It is not enough. When the human being remembers that this human body, which tends so toward inertia, is actually the Temple of the Living God, which was so designed originally that it might express the fullness of Deity on earth and must of needs be rejuvenated, reborn and transformed, until that original potentiality shall have been made manifest in fact in this present time, we find that there is no specific level of attainment recognizable from an outer standpoint to which one may come, and say, “Here I have achieved, here is the goal, now I may build my house and abide. I need go no further.” When there is the true vision, when there is the true realization, there is a recognition that every tendency to settle down and be content at any level of consciousness at any time, is a snare of the serpent which, if one enters into it, leads most certainly to that subjection which holds all human beings who are enslaved to the prince of darkness.
The prodigal son said, “I will arise and go unto my father's house”. We, likewise, having tasted of the husks of the outer world and determined to arise and go to our Father's House, coming near to the Father, find that He recognizes that we are His House. We then need to remember that it is not essential that we should, at any time, build our house, to dwell therein, at some specific level of consciousness, as if we had arrived, but to remember that we are the Father's House, and that our LORD and Master said that He would go and prepare a place for us and assured us that in His House there are many Mansions, and that we must arise and go to our Father—and when we do, we find that we are our Father's House. Then, if we are the Father's House, we are to be in that place which He designs for us according to those Mansions that are Eternal. While there is yet misery and suffering and sorrow and death in this world, while there is yet oppression, and the seeming victory of evil, and the tyranny of power, while there is ignorance and prejudice and subjection to superstitions of all kinds, while our fellow men are subject to these things in all of their manifestations we cannot say, “We have arrived, it is enough”. Always we must remember that there is more for us to do—that it is not enough.
Our LORD and Master came into the world, not just to save one or two or three, here and there, but for the sake of the whole human race, without respect to color or race or creed. He came into the world to reveal the Fatherhood of God and thereby to give meaning to the Brotherhood of Man, that as man, recognizing the Fatherhood of God, should let himself be reborn and transformed, he might come to the realization that they who are the Children of God enter into the Glorious Liberty of God and are not separate from God, the Father, and that, being near unto Him, there can no longer be subjection to the chains that have so long bound human beings in the valleys of despair all over the world. No matter how good, no matter how fine, no matter how wonderful, no matter how true, no matter how high, the attainment, to each and all there comes the Word, “It is not yet enough.”
O LORD of Lords and KING of Kings, we thank Thee for the Holy Privilege of Serving Thee and of having a share in the outworking of Thy Will on earth, that Thy Kingdom may truly come on earth and that all who will may come to know the Way, the Truth and the Life, and enter into the Realm of the Prince of Peace, IN the Christ. Aumen.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
