Our Being Here Has Been Shared By Billions Of People
from Father and Mother of Life
Uranda August 16, 1953 Class
Once we begin to see God’s will and to accept it, to know something about it so that we know how to let God’s will be done, we begin to find more and more that all factors of our life become creative, begin to produce a blessing to others. Instead of trying to get something for ourselves we are giving, and we are constantly creative. Now, actually every human being is creative; either creating good things or bad, creating things that increase blessings or decrease blessings, that add to life or detract from life. We have the wrong pattern of creation then. We create our own illnesses. We create our own afflictions and difficulties and miseries in every way.
In the right pattern of function we learn to be thoughtful of others, we learn to respect the nobility and dignity of others, we learn to appreciate the rights of others, and we learn to lend ourselves to that creative work which makes it easier for others to do the right thing, so that we do not thoughtlessly, or inadvertently, increase the destructive, creative work of another. I wonder how many of you, looking back, would have to acknowledge that, perhaps inadvertently, unintentionally, you had a part in creating some ill thing that came to a head in someone else’s life, helping to produce, create, something wrong, something bad, something ill in some fashion. But vain regret does no good. If we can forgive others for that which they have contributed to our ill conditions, we will be forgiven for that which we may have done in contributing to someone else’s ill condition. Ill things cannot just be traced down, and say, “You and you and you are wholly responsible.” No. Any ill thing that has ever come into manifestation, sickness of body or mind or heart, any ill thing whatever it may be—part of it has been the background of the mass consciousness, part of it perhaps individuals who perhaps don’t have the slightest bit of awareness that they contributed to it, but many people share in the creation of every ill thing. Likewise many people share in the creation of every right thing. You cannot be good all by yourself; nor can you be bad all by yourself.
So we let ourselves be dedicated to God, dedicated to the Spirit of Service, so that having forgiven all those who have had any part toward producing an ill condition in our lives, we may be forgiven for what we may have done in producing ill conditions in other people’s lives, and we let ourselves be devoted to helping correct the ill conditions that may appear around us, wherever we can; and to creating the right conditions, where the dignity of man may be restored, where nobility of character, wholesomeness and rightness may appear, so that we can begin to do our part, with many, toward creating right things, bringing forth the created form of right things. I cannot do it alone. You cannot do it alone. All together we can do something about it—but just this little handful of people all by itself can’t do it. It takes hundreds, and thousands, and tens of thousands, and millions of others.
Could you have built the road by which you came to Sunrise Ranch, and then have come? Could you have produced the automobile? Could you have done all the things? No! Every time a letter is delivered—how many hands have worked? There was a railroad probably, an aeroplane, and probably a delivery truck. Different hands, different things, and all the people that helped produce those things. The gasoline—where did it come from? Who drilled the well? Who built the refinery? Wherever you turn! How do we have this electric light? Someone is sharing this Service, the blessings that appear through this Service, without knowing anything about it, because someone in some factory helped build a generator, that is working somewhere to generate this electricity, someone’s watching it, someone is taking care of all the things necessary to have electric light here. Someone keeps the road in repair, so that you can travel here or there and render your service. Someone refines the petroleum so that you have the gasoline. Could you have produced the gasoline and all the things necessary to come to this hour, to share it?
All of the people—I don’t care who they are or what they did; consciously they may not have the faintest notion that they have done anything—but if your life is a blessing, if the things of God appear through your life, and you are truly being creative, with God, sharing with God, then any person who had anything to do with making it possible for you to be here in this hour, will share, if he or she will receive it—that person may not know how it comes or why—but that person will receive a blessing, and share in the blessing that comes to focus in your life, because you didn’t produce that blessing all by yourself. I didn’t produce it all by myself. The Shekinah Pattern of Being, working through millions of human beings, many of whom do not have the faintest idea that they helped produce this hour, that they helped make it possible for you to be here—but because they helped, they share whatever blessing is produced because we are here. To whatever degree we begin to be creative, to let the Shekinah Pattern of Being have meaning in our lives, to that degree we bring forth blessing, and to whatever degree any person anywhere has had anything to do with the production of that blessing, he or she shares it, just as surely as the sun rises and sets.
You have had blessings come to you, unexpectedly perhaps, but you didn’t know how or why. Did you call it “good luck”? Perhaps ten years ago, who knows and who cares, but perhaps ten years ago, inadvertently, you helped produce a blessing for someone else, and the cycles work so that the blessing comes back to you. You have helped produce a blessing somewhere that you don’t know anything about, but a share of it reaches you, and you call it “good luck”—oh no! It’s the working of Law, absolute Law; there isn’t any such thing as chance, or accident—always there is a cause, and whatever is brought forth is created. If there is an accident, so called, that accident was created, not just by the individuals involved; they share in it, but there are others too. If an accident is avoided—did you ever have a share in avoiding an accident? I am sure you must have, many many times. Well then, it will come back.
We have the opportunity of beginning to realize that every time we speak we are to some degree creating something; every time we act we are to some degree creating something and everything we do is shared, not just by a handful of people. Our being here has been shared—shall we say by millions—our being here has been shared by billions of people. They helped produce the conditions that made it possible. Let’s go back—how far shall we go back? to the beginning of history? We have to go back further than that but for the moment that’s far enough—to the beginning of history; say to Abraham. Let us remember that everyone who had any part in bringing into manifestation the truth that is revealed here in the Bible, anyone who had any part in recording it and making it available to us all down through the centuries, those individuals were doing something to make this hour possible. The lives of untold thousands and millions of people have gone to the end that we could be right here in this hour—people back through centuries and thousands of years; people all over the United States and Canada doing things; our government in operation. Without our government, and President and Congress, without law enforcement officers, do you think we could have gathered from all over the country to come here without all of these things working? No! We wouldn’t even be able to be here. We would have to be guarding our little fort somewhere, and be ready to fend off the attacks of others—lawlessness and so on. Stop and consider how millions and billions of people have done things which make it possible for you to be here in this hour. If your being here has meaning then they have a share in what is accomplished through you. Perhaps you had a teacher back along the way; you learned something—all these things. Your parents took care of you, perhaps aunts and uncles, or grandparents, what have you, up and down the line.
Many have had a share in creating the ill things but many have had a share in creating the right things. And by the combination of right things, under the blessing of God, we are here—and we are here for what purpose? To begin to learn to understand how to work creatively in life. Without creative action in life there is no such thing as true happiness, true satisfaction, or accomplishment. We are not trying to get something. We are ready to give something—but what? You are giving something, whether you ever think about it or not. He who is just out trying to get something is giving something, but it isn’t very pleasant; he is giving something into life. And you are asking others to accept and receive, and share whatever you give into life. If it’s a temper reaction, a thoughtless thing; if it is cruel—whatever it is, you’re giving that into life. Every word we speak, every thought we think, every act, whatever it is, we’re giving something into life, either to bless or to curse.
And all things, all actions, all functions—you do not have a single function, you cannot do anything, without Shekinah. It is present in every person on the face of the earth, and does not leave the body until the body dies—when it does leave the body the body is dead. But it is there. All things are made by Shekinah, and without Shekinah is not anything made that is made. And Life—can you see it? It is a part of the spirit of God. Love—have you ever felt it? The Light of Truth—have you ever seen it?—intellectually? with understanding?—something that dispels darkness. These are the evidences of the Presence of God. Used to produce blessings they bring forth into form that which belongs in the Kingdom of God that is at hand, or the Garden of Eden, or the Promised Land, whatever we want to call it—makes no difference—names, as long as they signify a given thing; the name has meaning by reason of the thing that is named.
Your name has meaning by reason of you, by the meaning you give that name by the living of your life, by the things you do, by the things you give into Life—either to create or to destroy, to build or to tear down, to increase health and life or decrease it, to make things wholesome and beautiful or to make them ugly and sordid. Either there is wholesomeness or there is not—wholeness, the dignity of man, nobility. As we do those things that increase nobility in ourselves and in others, we have an influence which tends to cause others to be inspired to do the right things. Many people have ignorantly judged us as being this or that or the other thing—all kinds of ideas have been expressed by people who didn’t know what they were talking about and who didn’t want to find out. But what happens? Step by step—if we are living noble lives, if we are doing the right thing, if we are creative—step by step that which is false is revealed for what it is, and that which is true is revealed for what it is, and we increase nobility, we increase the wholesomeness of Life, we are creative, bringing forth blessings to the children of men, to the Glory of God—the Glory of the increased manifestation of God’s Life on earth in form—and that is the coming of the Kingdom; the Kingdom, the control, in forms on earth.
It is here that the need is; here that the misery is; here that the false things are, that need to be cleared away. When you get to heaven, can you improve heaven any? Will you be a special ornament in heaven? Or what will you do in heaven? Presumably heaven can get along without you, for a while anyway. Let’s do a job on earth, to remove the evil, to clear away the ill things, to help create things of the Divine Design and establish that Control by which all things are caused to work together to perfection, for all who Love and Serve the LORD. And the Shekinah Pattern of Being is used, rightly or wrongly, whatever is done. So let us serve God by letting Shekinah be used in us and through us, according to the Will of God. So shall the LORD’s Prayer be answered. Thy Will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And I thank God that it is so, and for the privilege of sharing that creative work on earth with you in the Holy Name of our LORD and KING.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
Letting The Father Live On Earth
Martin Exeter March 18, 1984 a.m.
There are two wonders, which have been a source of amazement to me over the years. One wonder is in heaven, the other on earth. The wonder in heaven centers in the fact of the truth, so clearly stated in the English language, contained in the King James version of the Bible. The statement occurs in many places, but the particular one I have in mind this morning is contained in the 14th chapter of the Gospel according to John. These words are available to anyone who speaks the English language, and in view of the fact that the Bible has been translated into virtually every language on the face of the earth it is presumably available therefore to all people everywhere. This availability is because the Bible is so widely distributed, and not particularly because of missionary activity, although this activity conveyed the Bible to many places and consequently to many people. What a wonder it is that there should be such an accurate statement of the truth as is contained, for instance, in the 14th chapter of the Gospel according to John. It has come to us out of the past, it has been translated for our benefit. But there, amazingly, is this straightforward and very accurate statement of the truth.
The other wonder, the wonder on earth, is that in spite of this massive availability scarcely anyone has understood it. There have been interpretations made, composing the doctrines of what is called Christianity. These interpretations have done little more than obscure the truth, in spite of the fact of the wonder in heaven: the accurate, straightforward statement of the truth. You have come to know something of this truth and have a certain understanding, which I suppose is also a wonder on earth, so that if I read, as I propose to do, a portion of this chapter, you will share with me this understanding, so that the way it had been translated—and still is in most human consciousnesses—may fade into oblivion and the truth as it is be stated and understood.
“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.
“Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.”
Jesus referred to Himself as the Son: the Son of Man, the Son of God, the only begotten Son. From what has been stated in these words which I have read, it is evident that the Son is the Father living on earth. There was indication that in this instance the One called Jesus was about to depart; He was about to make space for the manifestation of the Son, who is the Father living on earth through those who believed His words. How much belief would you say there has been in those words and in the One who spoke them? The evidence would indicate that there has been virtually none. The apparent foundation for what is called Christianity is based in the idea of belief, but what is the fact? The belief has been in certain ideas and doctrines promulgated by the Church, but what about the fact of belief in Jesus, the fact of belief in the Son, the fact of belief in the Son being the Father living on earth?
That is exactly what was here stated. “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip?”—known the Son being the Father living on earth? “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? ... Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.” I make space for the Son. As an individual, Jesus revealed the truth that the Son is the Father living on earth. Now space has been made so that that revelation may not alone be an individual one but a collective one, because each individual assumes exactly the same responsibility as was assumed by Jesus.
We speak of the man as having been called Jesus. What’s your name? We each have a name; we would probably call it a legal name. It could have been said that Jesus was the legal name of a person. This person is not the only one who has ever been called Jesus, and I suspect that there are others also called by your name. This wasn’t exactly the point. Here was a legal entity. It could be said of all of us sitting here that we are legal entities in this world; we have our birth certificates to prove it. It isn’t this legal entity, however, which carries the real value and importance. The legal entity isn’t the real person; it’s a make-believe person, one might say. Human beings look at each other and wonder, and they look at themselves in the mirror and wonder, who this legal entity really is. There is no substance at all to this legal entity—as seems to be proven out rather regularly in every generation—but there is substance to the one who is referred to as the Son, the Son who is the Father living on earth, when that is the case. Then there is someone there.
Now we have an awareness of these things that we might accept the true belief: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father,” thereby making space for the manifestation of the Son. The Son is not just one individual; the Son is much larger than that. Would it be conceivable that one individual could be, in total expression, the Father on earth? Jesus simply revealed what human responsibility is, and He removed Himself so that there would be space for this to be proven out, that the Son might be on earth and the Son is the Father living on earth. This is the reason for the existence of mankind—the only reason, the only excuse one might say, that human beings have for living on earth. If any other justification for being on earth is claimed, it is a lie. And which of those who are here present in this Chapel today, this morning, have and perhaps still do claim an existence other than that? Anyone who does that will prove out that there is no such existence.
There is only one life, and one must be a part of that one life in expression to know it. If one excludes it from one’s own experience, then pretty soon there is no existence. There is no existence outside of the Son. Mankind has, individually speaking, insisted upon being outside of the experience of the Son, thereby excluding themselves from that experience. And there isn’t any other; it’s a total blank otherwise. Who amongst us would be so foolish, understanding in whatever measure these things, as to exclude him-or herself from the only reason for existence? Surely we are more intelligent than that. The Son is the Father living on earth. The acceptance of the Son, that particular focus which came to point in the One called Jesus, requires that one be, in expression, the Father. Here is the source, one might say, the source for all existence, including human existence. Reject that source and there is no existence. Accept that source in actual experience and that is belief.
Belief, as it has been promulgated in the religious sense, maintains a separation between man and God. This seems to be something of an indictment upon religion in general and the Christian religion in particular, for this separation has been deliberately maintained. And this is the reason why there has been virtually no understanding of the truth that is plainly stated in the words which I have read from this remarkable book. It is something of a miracle, isn’t it, that these things should be available to everybody—not just available to us but to everybody and, in these days, in their own language. Should there be a willingness on the part of anyone to understand these words, I am sure that would suffice.
Philip thought what Jesus was offering was insufficient, and this is the belief that virtually everyone else has had. Instead of accepting what He said, doctrines have been invented to avoid accepting what He said, and so it has been, evidently, quite insufficient insofar as human experience is concerned. Because of this, of course, the sufficiency had to be directed toward the idea of some sort of life after death, which was going somehow to make up for all the misery while we were here. But the misery while we were here has been self-created anyway. Perhaps we have awakened to that fact and have been willing to accept responsibility for it, saying of our circumstances, “I did it; I produced the mess, the confusion, the tribulation. Of course I tried very hard to produce a little that was pleasing to me, and succeeded now and again for a little while.” But it is all worthless, all meaningless, all empty, all valueless. Only the life of the Father on earth has meaning. To exclude that is to become increasingly meaningless.
Above all people, we have had greater opportunity, probably, to experience meaning than any others. We could only avoid meaning by our own deliberate refusal to accept it. So we presumably have accepted at least some meaning, and at times we have a very keen sense of that meaning. At other times we may feel that we have been misunderstood by our fellows. If you feel that way, you certainly have been misunderstood by yourself. It isn’t a matter of what our fellows do anyway, not at all. Feeling misunderstood, of course there are those who then seek understanding from others: “I’m looking for someone to understand me.” Well as rather a young child I suppose that’s all right. There is a process, a creative process, obviously needful to come out of the meaningless state into the meaningful state; and one has to start where one is, in the state of more or less meaninglessness. To come out of that, of course one has to admit that one’s state is more or less meaningless. Perhaps we’ve had sufficient backbone to do that at some point; but there was the inclination to drag along some of the things which sustain meaninglessness, some of the defilements and abominations and lies, which characterize the meaningless state. And so a person, dragging those things along, says, "I need someone to understand me, to understand why I’m this miserable character and excuse me for it and make me feel better because I have agreement from another miserable character.”
The Son is the Father living on earth, the heavenly Father; that is, the Son of God is the heavenly Father living on earth. At the same time He is the Son of Man. We have our essential physical forms, our minds and our hearts, our facilities of consciousness, to allow the experience of the Father living on earth to be known. But, as in other places in this same collection of books, it was indicated by Jesus Himself that there was another father, I suppose you could say the earthly father rather than the heavenly Father. The earthly father was called the devil, for sake of a name, and human beings have brought forth in their living what was characteristic of the particular father that was accepted into expression. It was usually the earthly one, the devil himself. The devil is always conceived as being evil, a bad fellow. He doesn’t always appear that way though; he dresses up in garments of light at times. We have the good people and the bad people. The bad people are usually over there somewhere; the good people are where we are, except when we come down to personalities of course. But the good and the bad are the evidence of the wrong father, the father who is earthly in nature rather than heavenly. And there is a son there of course too: the son of perdition. The son of perdition is the evidence of the father springing out of the earth, the qualities and characteristics of human nature; and people display these very widely. They think they are justified in doing so; it’s a natural thing, they imagine. It isn’t natural; it’s familiar. So there is a father, whether heavenly or earthly, and there is a son, whether of God or of perdition.
Our concern simply is to participate in what is here revealed in the words which I read, so that the works that are needful may be done, the works which are the evidence of the life of the Father on earth. And if there are increasing numbers of people who are participating in this process, then the works become greater and greater, presumably. One man could only do so much. He could only do, in this instance, the essences of what was required, the essences which have been virtually incomprehensible to most people. This is why all these doctrines have been invented. But the essences only begin to become comprehensible as they are differentiated. As we do it, let it happen, then we know what they are. If we don’t let it happen, we don’t. So we are in the business of letting it happen, of doing what we are here on earth to do, and we become increasingly aware of the fact that we are indeed those who have been sent into the earth to do this. This becomes increasingly our consciousness of ourselves. The consciousness that we have had of ourselves heretofore has been of rather ineffective human beings. Perhaps sometimes through a great deal of effort we may have developed some expertise or other, and because of that expertise someone else may say, “Oh aren’t you wonderful that you can do this.” But that’s really not the wonderful thing at all. The wonderful thing is to be the Father living on earth. The evidence of that fact has been designated as the Son, the Son of God, the Son of Man.
As there is only one heavenly Father, even though that one Father may be seen as being universal, there is only one Son: one evidence of the Father living on earth. There is vast evidence of the Father living elsewhere. But on earth, this is our responsibility, to let this living be known. And we can’t have it both ways; we can’t bring our baggage with us, the defilements and the abominations and the lies. The eye of the needle is very real; there is no space for those things. If we hang onto those things, then we find ourselves disintegrating with them. And, you know, most people imagine that they enjoy some of the defilement and some of the abominations and some of the lies. How often do you think some obvious lie is required of you? It would be very, very uncomfortable not to lie in certain instances, wouldn’t it?
We are not thinking of lies so much in those human terms as in terms of something which is not the truth in expression, the truth of being, the truth of the Father, the truth of what we really are. But what happens when this truth finds expression, when the Son is present on earth and the Father is revealed in living? What has been called resurrection occurs. We’ve spoken of this in the collective sense as restoration, without really understanding what that might mean, because it is a transcendent experience that has never been known. How could anyone know what it is? This is why there has been so much theorizing about the resurrection of Jesus. What could it have been? People invent theories to explain it in one way or another, or you accept it on faith somehow as being true. But what is it? What was it? What is it now? What is it insofar as our present experience is concerned? Let’s find out!
We will never find out by theorizing about it. We only find out by being it, by being the Father living on earth; and that requires quality, doesn’t it? “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Be that! And yet there is hesitation, isn’t there? “Oh, how could I be that? I have all these human nature traits still, plaguing me.” Why do they plague you? Because you hold onto them, because you keep expressing them, because you let them live in you. That’s the wrong father, isn’t it? When we stop letting them live in us, they are gone! It’s not a great, long-drawn-out process in actual fact. Once we reach the point of having a certain level of understanding, once we emerge out of the childish state—and even out of the adolescent state, hopefully—to experience some measure of maturity, then there is no reason anymore to allow these things to live through us.
The things that defile, work abomination and make lies—there is no necessity for that. We don’t have to get hold of someone who is going to understand us in our insistence upon maintaining defilement, abominations and lies. We don’t need any understanding on that score at all. If you are still looking for understanding from someone, you are looking for an excuse for being involved in the state of the son of perdition, someone to justify you in that state. This may not have been true in the initial stages of movement out of the human nature condition, but somewhere along the way we take responsibility for ourselves and there is no idea at all that anyone should understand “me.” One must understand oneself; you don’t want anyone; you don’t need anyone. You know yourself when you are the Father living on earth; then you know yourself. You don’t need anyone to explain it to you. You only need someone to explain things to you because you are maintaining a state of defilement, abomination and lies. Then you are in a state of confusion and you need someone to come along and explain it all. No one can explain it; it’s completely nonsensical. Let it go. Let it pass away, that the Father may live on earth in the Son, because the Son is present, letting it happen. Do you expect the Son to come wafting down from someplace else? The Son is here!
We are all included in that state if we are willing to accept it Accepting it is believing in it. That is the nature of belief, according to the statements that were made by Jesus. Accept the truth! Don’t try to get someone to explain all the lies. This is the human approach, isn’t it, always: to try to explain why things went wrong. Well we know why things go wrong. Let’s let them go right. Let the Father live on earth and they go right, and everything that occurs thereafter is part of the process of resurrection. If we want understanding, we can understand that; and it’s not a personal, self-centered thing at all.
So we share this mature responsibility of letting the Father live on earth. But we’re not trying to let the Father live on earth through somebody else—how could we?—or through some remarkable collective body. I must do it; I must let it be. And when there are sufficient “I’s” doing this, the “I’s” have it!—and the Father is living on earth in the Son, collectively speaking. It’s a very natural, easy thing. The yoke is easy, the burden is light. Who would set that on the side and reaccept the tribulations which are the common lot, they say, of human experience? Rise up (that’s resurrection, isn’t it?), rise up, the Father is living on earth—and each one may say this—because of me!
Ginny Hogan — Martin, I know that I say that: The Father lives on earth because of me; and we each say that in our living. And there is a wonder in this moment, experiencing this with you; no separation. The differentiation of spirit is not a separation. And the wonder on earth is being with you and honoring our Father, and our Mother, our true Father and Mother, because this is our expression in living. It’s a joy to be with you.
Lord Exeter — There is a third wonder on earth then!—a wonder which we are all invited to share. We may know the wonder of these words and we may know something of the wonder of the ability of human beings not to understand them. But we also may know the wonder of the experience of them in ourselves, not only while we are here together in the Chapel but while we live. We’re not going to stop living, I trust, when we get outside the Chapel. There is no break, rightly; there is no distinction of the quality of living. If there is, seemingly, a distinction between what is experienced when we have the opportunity of being very specifically together in the spirit and what we experience when we are on our own, so to speak—or as we think of it, on our own; we’re never really on our own—then we’re not living, certainly not letting the Father live on earth. But we are here present for that purpose.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
Seven Cycles To Sabbath Rest
from The Magic of Creation #3
Uranda July 31, 1953 Class
We have opened the theme of the Magic of Creation. We have noted the Four Forces and something of the cycles of outworking wherein each of the Four Forces is dominant in its turn. All four always work together insofar as we are concerned on earth but each is dominant in its turn; and if you try to make one dominant when the other ought to be, it will not work. Man defeats himself so often because he does not recognize the basic principles of the creative action. It is only as we carry it forward in its proper sequence, proper steps, that we can experience the true pattern of fulfilment.
You will recall that while man was brought forth on the sixth day out of the earth, but particularly focalized in relationship to Air, we have on the seventh day the pattern of rest. The seventh day would be in relationship to the Earth factor itself, and the pattern of rest from the standpoint of the divine activity, letting the cycle begin in relationship to its own true nature, the cycle of creation continued, and the movement out of the process of being created to the process of sharing the expression of life from the Creator. Now the day of rest has been greatly misunderstood. Rest from what? Rest from all thy labors. Rest from all thy labors! That is not rest from the labor that is of God, or from the work, the action. It does not indicate cessation of movement, or cessation of living. God is not glorified by a cessation in living. “Rest from all thy labors.” The commandment there with respect to keeping a Sabbath day was given to a self-active and stiff-necked people. Human beings are, in their self-centered or fallen state, determined to function according to what they want. They insist on laboring according to their idea, for their own purposes; and this day of rest was emphasized in the commandments because of the necessity of man realizing that there comes a time when man must cease from all his labors, all his own self-active labors, and come into a state of Oneness with God, which does not suggest that he will cease functioning.
If we begin to reach maturity as men and women, we cease from all our labors and begin to rest in the Lord, which is to say Oneness, which allows the activity of God to manifest through us. As far as we are concerned we utilize every day as a day of attunement with God and, while we allow the pattern of Sunday, because it is the ordinarily accepted pattern, to be a day for a cessation from the regular work, that is not in the true sense keeping the Sabbath. No human being has reached a point of keeping the Sabbath until he or she has matured into a divine man or woman, so that that individual is no longer concerned with his own labors. "Thou shalt not labor"—in the pattern of his own, your own, cycle of function; your own purpose, self-centeredness. We are allowed six days, or six steps in the creative cycle, to allow us to move from the state of the fallen realm to the state of restoration. Six steps. But we cannot have the sixth day of fulfilment unless we let the first days have their true meaning.
Now with respect to the fourth day, let us remember that it was the clearing of the atmosphere around the earth that allowed the light of the sun and the stars to reach the surface of the earth so that that light could be seen. The sun and the moon and the stars were not created on the fourth day, as some have supposed. That makes it seem that the earth was the center of the cosmos, that it is the most important thing that there is anywhere, and that God, on the fourth day, decided that this earth itself needed some stars out there in the sky. That leaves us with a completely false concept. Actually what happened was that the earth's atmosphere cleared of the heavy cloud blanket, so that the light of the sun and the moon and the stars could reach the surface of the earth, and if man had been on earth at that time he could have begun to see these bodies in the sky; but they were there before that. But the light of them was brought in to the surface of the earth on that day, and the cycle began to move on the basis of the seasons: "And they shall be for days, and for years, and for seasons." So the cycles of the seasons began to open up on the fourth day. Everything began to fall into its proper place.
What is the right season? It is the season where there is the fitness of things, wisdom, the recognition of light, or God's love and creative power causing all things to work out in their season, according to the fitness of things. So when we let the cloudiness of the mind and heart be cleared away so that the light of the Son of God can reach us, we begin to reach a point where we can work in harmony with the days and the years, the seasons, so that all things may come in their proper pattern. The fitness of things—until we have that experience and let the Fire have meaning in us and to us and through us, we cannot move to the Fifth day, where we begin to let the reality of Life appear for ourselves and for others. We are still back behind the day of the clearing until these cycles work out. So our present purpose is to let the waters be gathered together into one place, let the atmosphere clear, and let the dry land appear so that the light of the sun can manifest on earth in relationship to ourselves.
We remember that the only begotten Son of God is everywhere, at all times. Some people have imagined that the body of Jesus was the only begotten Son of God, and we see how they have by reason of that superstition, that false idea, nullified their own lives. There was a revelation of the only begotten Son of God, but we are to be sons and daughters of God, and Jesus was not, in His manifest expression in form, the only begotten Son of God, in the sense of a Being. But He was revealing that which issues forth from God all the time. The only begotten Son of God—that which issues forth from God all the time—is the spirit of God, the reality of His wisdom, His intelligence, His understanding, all that issues forth from God at all times. That was revealed through our Lord on earth. But He as a Being was not the only begotten Son of God. He was the focalization for Deity in relationship to this earth, and He still is. So in that sense He could be called the only begotten Son of God. But the idea that He, as a separate Being, was the only Son that God ever had is an utterly fantastic superstition. We have to begin to realize that the only begotten Son of God is just as much available to us in this moment as it was to Jesus, which is to say that that which is issuing forth from God in this moment is available to us. When we let a clearing in consciousness take place on the fourth day, the light, the fire of God's love, that which is of God, reaches us. The sun in the sky is a symbol of the only begotten Son of God. Without that which comes from the sun we could not live. Just so, without that which is the only begotten Son of God we cannot truly live; we exist for a moment and die.
So now we are at the point where we can begin to let these things be a reality in us, if we will—if we will let the petty divisions be set aside, if we will reach a point where the water of truth blends the pattern of consciousness into one thing, so that we can let the dry land appear and the light of the sun reach the surface of our earth, coming from God through us into the world—not just coming down from the outside but coming through us, from the inside out. The Light of the Son, the only begotten Son of God, begins to reach the surface of us not from the outside, but from the inside expressing outward. Once we begin to see that and let the reality of the spirit of God, that which is issuing forth from God, have manifestation through us because we are sharing in the reality of the only begotten Son of God—which is not in any sense limited to Jesus Christ, although the God Being who was manifest through that body was and is our LORD of Lords and KING of Kings, the focalization of God Beings for us—but the moment we let that which is issuing forth from God have manifestation through us we become a son or daughter of God, and so our relationship with God is established and we can begin to move into the reality of the fifth day, and finally to the sixth, which leads at last to the seventh, the place where we come to rest in Oneness with God.
Now the Master said, “My Father and I are one.” We are One. And He said, “Follow me.” He, the outer, was completely at rest in the Inner Being, so that He was not laboring as a man; He was letting God do the works. “The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.” Until we reach the point where we have followed Him through these creative cycles to the point where we let the Father do the works, we have not fulfilled our initial mission on earth; we are not ready to begin to truly serve.
Let us correlate this with the basic, fundamental principles that are revealed in relationship to the day of Pentecost. We see that the Four Forces were at work in their natural sequence, and after ten days, “They were all with one accord in one place. There came a sound as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared as if it were cloven tongues of fire sitting upon each of them.” Now let us go backwards, so that we see clearly the pattern of manifestation in relationship to what our Lord pointed out would be the manifestation of power. For He said, “And ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you.” Mankind today does not have that power. It began to manifest, but they violated the laws, the cycles, and threw it away. They allowed it to come to the point of the fourth day; but they violated the principles of the first four days and refused to let the fifth, sixth and seventh days manifest; so it was not the fulness of the coming of Pentecost. They only thought it was. So the fifth, sixth and seventh days did not manifest in relationship to the disciples; they did not let it manifest. They threw the power away, and the churches since that time simply have not had it. Now it is time for us to let that power manifest. How shall we do it? By following out the cycles of creation. Let us note what they did do. The fourth of the Four Forces is Fire. “There appeared as if it were cloven tongues of fire which sat upon each of them.” That is the fourth step. Let us back up. Something filled the whole house where they were sitting—the house, the physical aspect of being, or the Earth. And then we go back of that: “And there came a sound as of a rushing mighty wind.” Wind—Air. So we have Fire, Earth, and Air. We are backing up now to find the starting point. “When they were all with one accord in one place”—“Let the waters be gathered together unto one place”—“there came a sound”; there is movement. Remember how it was in relationship to the beginning of creation: “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters; and God said, Let there be light.” So we have Water, Air, Earth, and Fire. The same cycle was used exactly.
Water—“With one accord in one place.” And the moving—“There came a sound as of”—what?—“a rushing mighty wind”—Air. (“And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters”) “and it filled the whole house”—Earth—“where they were sitting. And there appeared as if it were cloven tongues of Fire sitting upon each of them.” The Four Forces at work, clearly portrayed in relationship to the day of Pentecost. And they came in their right sequence: Water, Air, Earth, and Fire. But the disciples did not let the cycle continue; they did not even let these fully manifest. They did not go to the fifth day, and then the sixth, and then the seventh, at which point they would have reached a state of Oneness with God, which would have allowed them to carry on the work of our Lord on earth.
The work of our Lord has not been carried on on earth since He left. The disciples let it get partway, to the fourth day, and then they spoiled it. They spoiled it, and the work of the Lord has not been done by any of the churches, by any of the people of the churches. They have been playing children's games. The power of God has not been made manifest through any church, no matter what it was called. No one of them on the face of the whole earth is letting the power of God manifest in any real sense—not in the sense that the Lord intended. Why? Because they have not stopped to see the reality of the creative cycles, the magic of creation. They have not recognized our relationship to those cycles. They have not even seen how Peter spoiled it. The power disappeared almost at once, and yet they still imagine that Peter was doing a wonderful thing. He spoiled it—he did not do a wonderful thing. He led those who followed him into patterns which violated the laws of God and the creative cycle. And the power was lost, and man still does not have it. He imagined that he had it, but he did not. What he had was not the real manifestation of power, the power of God at work on earth. And it does not come until the reality of the day of rest—that is, when man goes through the cycle of restoration.
This creative cycle, then, is something which must manifest through us. It is not something we can ignore and have the power. If we follow Peter of old, and his impulsive nonsense, and his sacrilegious defiance of God's laws and principles which the Master had clearly revealed to him, we will not have the power. There is only one way that that power can manifest, and that is according to these laws and principles of being. And so we begin to give heed to them; we begin to realize that until we pass through the third day, and the fourth day, and the fifth day, and the sixth day, and come to the seventh, we will not have the power. We will not be in the Garden of Eden. We will not be letting the things which God prepared, in the future, come into manifestation through us. Man has wandered around in the wilderness, he has had all kinds of fantastic concepts, he has followed fanatics, he has been governed by prejudice and fear, and has failed to let the will of God be done on earth as it is in heaven. He has failed to let the Kingdom come. It is not here. They talk about a spiritual kingdom: “It is not supposed to be here; it is just a spiritual kingdom.” No, it is a Kingdom on earth. “Thy kingdom come” into form on earth. So until we realize these things and see what they did at the time of the day of Pentecost, why they failed, why the power was lost, we cannot go through the cycle successfully and let the power reappear.
This opportunity is open to any man or woman anywhere, at any time, if they will follow through in the cycle. But man has been trying to leap from the state of mere existence to the state of being a son or daughter of God. And since he could not do it while he lived, he did it when he died. It is just plain, simple foolishness. We must begin to realize that unless we individually and collectively take these steps we are not going to have the manifestation of power. Unless we see this cycle working in relationship to what the disciples did do, letting it start—they spoiled it, they threw it away, but it did start—we cannot possibly have any real hope for doing better. We should be able to do better than they did. If we do not, it is just too bad. Someone had better do better sooner or later, and if it is to be someone else, why are we here?
We have reached the point where we can let the waters be gathered together into one place; we can be with one accord in one place. We can yield to the spirit of God, let the firmament appear, to divide the waters from the waters. We can hear the sound as of a rushing mighty wind. We can let the water be in the sea and let the dry land appear, and it can fill the whole house where we are sitting, right here, just as well in this hour as any other. But I know you will probably postpone it a little longer. People always postpone it; they would not let it be today. But it could be now. We could let it reach the surface, we could let the dry land appear, we could let the light of the sun appear, and then we could move on into the fifth day, doing what has never been done by any group of people anywhere since man fell. Others have reached the point of the fourth day, but no group of people since the fall has ever passed through the fourth day—not one in all history, on the face of the whole earth. And of individuals, our Lord—He showed the way through the seven days of the creative cycle, and we are called upon to follow Him. People imagine that they are following Him when they say, "I believe that Jesus died on the cross to save me from my sins." That is sacrilege and blasphemy. They are not following Him.
We do not follow Him unless we go through the seven-day cycle and finally come to rest in the Father, as He prayed: “That they may be one, as we are.” But no one knows that Oneness until he reaches the seventh day—the seventh day in the cycle, where you come to rest in God and cease from all your labors, and you do not wake up a few hours later and plunge back into your own labors. Once you leave your labors behind it is forever. And the days of the week have been here to remind man of this down through the millennia and man has ignored the plain, obvious truth. The day of rest has not been kept. It is not what day in the week you have for rest, if you do not reach the seventh day—and it has to be the Seventh Day; the sixth day will not work; the first day will not work—come to the seventh day in the cycle of creation, the seventh step, the point of restoration to Oneness, the point where we begin to truly let the Garden of Eden appear again on earth. That is what the Master did, and He said, “Follow me.” Until we begin to actually see this, and know it, we will keep on deluding ourselves. Whether it takes six months or six years to get through the first six days for any individual, he will come to his day of rest when he lets himself be restored to Oneness, when he reaches the point where he ceases from all of his labors and lets the Father do the works from then on. And there will be no return to doing your works on Monday morning.
The cycle was not completed by the disciples; they spoiled it; they did not let it appear. Man has thrown it away time after time down through the ages, and he is doing it still. Of all the millions who think they are following our Lord, unless they are moving through that cycle to the day of rest from self-activity they are not following Him, no matter what they think, or what church they belong to, or anything else. The smug self-righteousness which bars the way of man if he would really move forward! Until we come to the day of rest—rest from all our labors, rest from all self-activity—and from that day on let the Lord do the works, we have not kept the Sabbath. A day in the week can be used as a symbol of the Sabbath, but a day of the week is not the Sabbath. The commandment is not talking about the days of the week. “Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the sabbath; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, or any of thy family.” No. The six days of creation, which are not twenty-four-hour days for us, fortunately—if you had to do it in six twenty-four-hour days you would not have a chance—but the six days of creation must work out through you if you are to come to your day of rest, rest in the Lord, Oneness, letting the Father do the works from that moment onward.
Unless we go on through the days of creation, individually and collectively, we will not come to the day of rest; and unless we come to the day of resting in the Father we will not have the power. The power started to appear so that they could have their fifth day and their sixth day and come to the seventh day, but would they let it come? No. Impulsive Peter, and all the others that followed him, went out and started dissipating it, violating every law of God and throwing away the rich blessings which would have changed the world nineteen centuries ago. It was not until after that—after all of this waste, after they had failed to let God's will be done on earth as it was in heaven—that the Book of Revelation was written. The cycle was opened so that man would have another chance, and we are living in the days of that chance. That is why I am here.
That is why you are here. One more chance. If man does not take this one he will destroy himself—not because God so ordained it, but there is no other way of reaching man. All of the religious concepts in the world mean nothing from the standpoint of the coming of the kingdom or the fulfilment of the will of God: the outworking of the seven days of creation in man that we might come to the Sabbath. The Sabbath is that step in the creative cycles where you come to rest in God, where you have finished all of your labors and from thenceforward you let the Father do the works.
So the question is, What will we do about it? What will you do about it? How important is it? Is something else more important than going through this creative cycle and reaching the Seventh Day, the Sabbath, where we come to rest with one accord in one place? I could not begin to describe to you the joy and the glory and the wonder of that privilege of coming to the Sabbath, the real day of rest, the things of God restored on earth, and you restored to the state of Divine men and women. But you will never get there unless you take the path that leads through those six days of creation, unless you let the Creative Magic have meaning in you. Otherwise you will go the way of all the millions that have existed on the face of the earth for a moment and died. What shall it be? The way of God or the way of man? The way of life or the way of death? The way of failure or the way of victory? Only as we go through the cycles and come at last to the Sabbath can we know what it is to be what God created us to be.
© emissaries of divine light
