The first Sunday in 1987 has been brought to us. Entering a new year, there is always the expectation of something different occurring, a hope perhaps. But what is expected in this regard is usually some sort of improvement to human behavior, maybe one's own in particular. There are those who indulge themselves in New Year's resolutions. However there is a real validity in the recognition of an opportunity, not so much to experience an improvement of human nature—there seems to be faint hope for that—but the recall and the possibility of experience of another state altogether.
As the sophistication of civilization has unfolded over the centuries the idea of some different state of human experience has tended to be set aside in the hope that somehow or other an evolutionary process would produce something better as we continue in what is euphemistically referred to as “progress.” Where there is less clutter in human consciousness there may be some sort of a memory more easily stirred of a different state in the far-distant past. Obviously in our civilized condition, so called, there is a great deal of clutter in consciousness. Ideas concerning education and their application keep filling up the space of human minds with more clutter. The thought is that this will somehow produce progress, or is producing progress, and that we are, in the civilized sense, a progressive people.
There are others of more simple ways who do not see this as progress. However no one really understands, nor certainly has the experience of, what a truer state of human experience might be. The native people of North America had some consciousness of something which has been largely lost in this progressive civilization; not that what was known by these people was anything more than a vague memory, but nevertheless it could serve as a reminder of the potentiality of another state. Looking at the present state I don't think most would be too assured that it really did indicate progress. There is a great deal of corruption and violence, a great deal of apparent disintegration. There are those of course who are valiantly trying to get it all together again—if it ever was all together in human memory. But the more effort that is put into this, the more the chaos increases.
Recently at an event in the New York Center in Garden City, Tina Kafka read and enacted some Native American writings taken from a book called Touch the Earth. I thought it might be profitable to read one of these, and a sentence from another. This first one says:
“On June 17, 1744, the commissioners from Maryland and Virginia negotiated a treaty with the Indians of the Six Nations at Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The Indians were invited to send boys to William and Mary College. The next day they declined the offer as follows.”
“We know that you highly esteem the kind of learning taught in those Colleges, and that the Maintenance of our young Men, while with you, would be very expensive to you. We are convinced, that you mean to do us Good by your Proposal; and we thank you heartily. But you, who are wise must know that different Nations have different Conceptions of things and you will therefore not take it amiss, if our Ideas of this kind of Education happen not to be the same as yours. We have had some Experience of it. Several of our young People were formerly brought up at the Colleges of the Northern Provinces: they were instructed in all your Sciences; but, when they came back to us, they were bad Runners, ignorant of every means of living in the woods … neither fit for Hunters, Warriors, nor Counsellors, they were totally good for nothing.
We are, however, not the less oblig'd by your kind Offer, tho' we decline accepting it; and, to show our grateful Sense of it, if the Gentlemen of Virginia will send us a Dozen of their Sons, we will take Care of their Education, instruct them in all we know, and make Men of them.”
And here is the further sentence: “The relation between death and nature is described by Bedagi, or Big Thunder, in early 1900…” The sentence I propose to read has little to do with death.
“The Great Spirit is our father, but the earth is our mother…”
These two basic elements seem to have been largely forgotten by the educated and sophisticated citizens of this advanced civilization. Obviously the earth is the mother of mankind. The flesh bodies of human beings are composed of the dust of the earth; they are indeed taken from the earth. There would be no flesh bodies of human beings without the earth. So mankind has been born out of the earth. There is, however, no birth without conception. The essential conception springs from what is here referred to as the Great Spirit.
The Great Spirit is our father, and the earth is our mother. This has been the view of these native people. It may be a more accurate view than the rather strange and fantastic concepts that have come from delving into the pit of knowledge by supposedly civilized human beings. In fact it was such delving that produced what is called civilization and the complexities of human culture and society. There is so much clutter in the minds of—the white man, shall we say? Of course it includes the minds of other colors now, including the native people of North America, at least some of them. All the clutter has excluded the awareness of basics, one might say, of the fact that human beings do not exist of themselves but are the product of something else—something else perhaps describable in these terms of the Great Spirit and the earth mother, which gives some restoration of memory to something other than the present state of human experience.
The more development of knowledge there has been, the less natural has been the experience. It is often said in these days that we live in a plastic world, as though the earth wasn't necessary. The idea seems to be that what human beings want for themselves can be made: “We have the knowledge to do it, and if there is sufficient money it is possible to do anything.” Maybe, up to a point at least—up to the point where human beings cease to exist. Human beings cannot really exist in what could be describable as a plastic world, because the earth is the mother. The body of mankind soon disintegrates and passes away if the creative process is ignored, and the foundation of that creative process is well described by these two elements: the Great Spirit, the father; and the earth, the mother.
The body of the mother is the physical planet. The physical planet therefore symbolizes the mother. The body of the father is the sun. The sun symbolizes the father. Neither the sun nor the earth are the father and the mother, but they are forms representing them, just as human forms represent something. That something has been almost totally forgotten. Minds and hearts have been so filled with the clutter of civilization that the truth has been absolutely squeezed out. The truth isn't knowledge, and knowledge can never find the truth. The truth may be said to be experience, the experience of the way things really work and the way things really are. And that's the truth.
The way things work is distorted by human endeavors to make a world which is pleasing to themselves, while ignoring the fact that the earth is part of the solar system. The earth has a proper relationship with the sun—and with the other planets, as far as that's concerned—just as the solar system has a proper relationship with the galaxy, and the galaxy with the whole universe. There is a design, there is a way things work, there is an ongoing creative process, completely ignored by the arrogance of the human intellect which thinks to make a world for itself, for the benefit of human beings: “To hell with the universe!” Well I think what has happened is that the universe has continued quite well, and to hell with human beings! As ye sow, so also shall ye reap. That is a very true statement. And so there is the reaping. Nobody cares much for the reaping as it puts in an appearance, for the most part at least, but seldom does anyone recognize personal responsibility for the sowing. As we know, it tends always to be somebody else, somewhere else. We are all so innocent, in the human sense.
Anything that has been made on earth becomes more and more obviously human creation, the plastic world, the world in which finally human beings can no longer exist. The end of that existence may come in a variety of ways, but it comes. As we know, it has come individually and in every generation, but it is bound to come collectively somewhere along the way, as long as this arrogant state continues and as long as human beings think that the increase of knowledge will produce a state of affairs exhibiting peace and fulfilment for mankind. Never! It is absolutely impossible. All it produces is what seem to human beings to be insoluble problems; and they are completely insoluble, insofar as the human state is concerned. As we know, there is no answer.
Gradually some of the more intelligent people are beginning to realize that there is no answer. No matter how much effort may be put into it, no matter how much knowledge may be unearthed, it does not produce any answer. All it produces is this plastic world in which human life at least, and many other forms of life too, can finally no longer exist. We see many forms of life in nature bowing out because of this arrogant creature, this arrogant human creature, who insists upon having his own way and ignores the ways of life. However one cannot frustrate life forever. For the individual human being it takes probably a little less than a hundred years to find out that you can't frustrate life. But when you ultimately have found it out, it is of no more value, is it?
Isn't there something rather stupid about all this?—supposedly intelligent people with all the massive education, unable to see the simplest truth and determined to continue in the way of total self-destruction. If that is the attitude then I suppose you could say, in a larger perspective, “Good riddance!” We are aware for ourselves that there is a reason for our existence on earth, and it is not to get our own way, it is not to fulfil our own expectations, it is not to drag out of our environment all the things that we think we want. It is to participate in the natural unfoldment of the creative process as it operates throughout the whole universe, including this solar system, including this planet. What arrogant stupidity to imagine that one could take this planet out of that whole and use it for human purposes. That is courting disaster—and disaster will come, at least disaster insofar as human experience is concerned. That may not be so disastrous insofar as the universe is concerned; as I say, it may be good riddance. But there is a reason for mankind on the face of the earth.
These things have to be seen before anyone is liable to let something be done about it. Unless these facts are acknowledged there cannot be what is called repentance and we are aware that repentance is absolutely essential—repentance for filling ourselves with all this clutter, this human-nature clutter, thereby removing mankind, oneself in particular, from the universal creative process so that man ceases almost entirely to be a participant in it. Acknowledging the fact of human failure is an essential element. Of course where people are all hyped-up about the progress they are making they are not liable to entertain the idea of failure. Oh no, they have not failed! They are really going ahead and getting on and doing something worthwhile. Individually speaking, it all ends in nothing anyway. Isn't that failure?
I suppose one could say that death, as human beings experience it, is the ultimate failure, the ultimate evidence of failure. One could say of oneself, “I have become quite useless on earth so it's time to be eliminated,” and out that particular focus of human nature goes. This has seemed like a terrible fate to many, and all sorts of hopeful ideas have been put forth that, somehow or other, this peculiar character could be saved from destruction. Why save it? What for? It was useless on earth; it's going to be useless anywhere else. Let us find out what our use is on earth, so that there need be no failure, so that there need be no elimination in this fashion. As we have noted before, death has been a wonderful provision. We talk of overpopulation these days, but if there were no death what would it be? I think mankind would have eliminated itself long ago. No death? What a fantasy! I think we live in a fantastic state as it is.
As was suggested relative to Babylon in the Book of Revelation, “Come out of her, my people.” Come out of this state, this state which is doomed. Come out of it before the sentence is passed, the death sentence for humanity. The sentence has been stayed for quite some time. It's rather remarkable that, for instance, no one has yet pressed the button for thermonuclear war. I wonder why. Could it be that there is still some hope for mankind to be restored? It seems like an interesting contradiction that it is necessary to let go of the past, on the one hand, but it is also necessary to recall that there is another state, a true state, what to human beings would be a new state, available, which has indeed been known in the past. But you can't recall that state; you can't go back into the past. What that state would be now remains to be seen, if there are those who are willing to accept it.
In the religious field, particularly the one called Christian, there is the idea that there is something at hand, something available: “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Okay, wonderful. But let's not ignore what went before that statement: “Repent.” You can't have it both ways. You can't have the human state and the true state at the same time. There must be movement from one to the other somehow or other; and yet it isn't movement, because the true state is everywhere, except right in human experience. If a change is contemplated it is thought to be such a vast thing, but it isn't. The vast thing is the true state, everywhere throughout the universe. The little thing, the little fleck of dust, is the human state.
In the human state of course people look out and they see everything round about, the world and their fellows, as being hostile; everybody is trying to destroy everybody else. Well that may somehow be true in the human experience, amongst themselves, but it certainly is not true anywhere else. What human beings see as disasters looming all around are simply a reflection of what is present in themselves. The human state is a disaster area. The internal state of human beings is a disaster area. And if it's reflected externally, well that's the working of the way things work. What is inside human beings is revealed outside. I have to face up to that fact and take responsibility for what is revealed outside—not take responsibility somehow just collectively speaking: “Well I know I'm one of five billion people who have produced this state on earth.” No, I produced the state on earth. Until someone, somewhere, assumes that responsibility there is no repentance. One is waiting for somebody else to repent, somewhere else, stop doing all the terrible things they are doing. Well the muck and the mire is in oneself. So there is the necessity to face up to this fact. There is a great reluctance to do this.
Human nature resists the emergence of the spirit of truth into expression. It always does this. I don't care whose human nature it is, there is that resistance. I'm sure we all have had experience of it. Something comes up and we object to it. Recently I have been saying some things—where do you think they came from? did I generate them out of my brilliant mind? of course not—but I have been saying some things that, according to the refined view of human nature, I shouldn't have said; somehow it jarred them. Of course! Human nature is going to be jarred. It must be jarred. If it isn't, there is something wrong. If what is said is popular and everybody agrees, “Isn't it wonderful!” you may know for sure that it's wrong, it's false, it's not true. Wherever you see massive movements of people it's not based in anything true. Human nature goes along with human nature. Human nature objects to and resists the truth. Could one be so arrogant as to imagine that all of human nature has now been dissolved and one is completely open and available to the expression of the spirit of truth? I'm sure not. There are things of human nature still around resisting the truth, and you will discover what they are in your own individual experience.
This can only happen as there is a focus of the spirit of truth present to provide the current of that spirit as it is emerging, to be shared by all who will relinquish human nature. They find it works; it brings everything together. In spite of all the resistance that has been present in you, for instance, you are all here together this morning. What an extraordinary thing! How did it happen? Because you felt obliged to be present, it was part of your duty? I trust not, but because you couldn't be anywhere else, in spite of continuing resistances here and there.
Human nature will always resist the spirit of truth, because the spirit of truth will reprove it, dissolve it, dissolve human nature. Most people, thinking of human nature being dissolved, think of themselves being dissolved. “Oh I don't want that. I want to hang on a little longer.” The usurper, which has occupied human minds and hearts and bodies for so long, may pass away without human minds and hearts and bodies passing away. If the usurper does pass away it presently takes human bodies, minds and hearts with it; and out they go. That is the regular human experience in every generation. It has become so customary that everyone imagines it is inevitable. It seems like a fantasy to consider the possibility that the truth is true and that the human view is not.
We share these moments with the opportunity of allowing the past, the old, to pass away, that the new may be experienced. You can't have both. It seems that human nature doesn't like the idea of passing away. And as most people are identified with human nature they think they don't want to pass away either. But what is not human nature doesn't pass away. Only human nature passes away, and always it's good riddance. Isn't it amazing that there is so much weeping and wailing about human bodies dying? Thank God for it. It takes out of the picture what doesn't belong. I trust that the whole human race need not be taken out of the picture because they finally prove that they don't belong. But that could not happen if there are individuals here or there who awaken to the truth and are willing to accept the truth, and they are willing to allow their hearts and minds to be occupied by the Great Spirit, so that what has been born out of the earth might once again have meaning.
“Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” That is one of the ten commandments, as I recall. It doesn't refer so much to earthly parents as to the Great Spirit, father; and the earth, mother. The earth has certainly not been honored by human beings, has it? There has been an awful rape of the earth, incest. Thou shalt not commit adultery. But human beings do it all the time—a great deal of finger-pointing at people who don't behave the way other people think they should. But the whole human race has indulged in the rape of the earth, either directly or indirectly. It's obviously so.
Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” And what is that land? It is the surface of the earth, the whole surface of the earth. That is what we are upon, isn't it? Our feet are on the earth—not these days; the soles of our shoes upon the plastic floor!—and our heads are in the air. We need oxygen to survive; there is less of it around these days and will be much less, shortly. Our contact with the earth and our contact with the air are very fine symbols of the positioning of man: between heaven and earth, between the Great Spirit and the mother, providing the point of blending, unification, between spirit and form. This is the reason that man appeared in the first place, to provide that blending point so that the control and the design out of heaven might be conveyed directly, with understanding, into the earth. Man is not supposed to be subject to the earth, which he now is of course. He is subject to his own world, the world that he has created in the earth. He reacts to that and behaves accordingly, and destroys himself.
But standing upon the land, as stewards between heaven and earth, we may be Man again. And that is a new experience, the experience that might be referred to as rebirth. Human beings have got hold of that idea and made it meaningless. There are a lot of people these days who imagine they are reborn but they are still subject to human nature, still subject to their environments; they are still reacting to everything all over the place. They try to be good of course, but what is “good”? Who knows? “Good” is to be a part of the creative process; I suppose one could put it that way. “Bad” is not to be a part of it. So all human beings are bad. Wickedness is great in the earth, and all the thoughts and the imaginations of human beings are only evil continually in that human-nature state. That's the way it is, and nobody can make it any other way, in the human-nature state. You can't make the human-nature state over to be something else. It has been generally recognized that you can't change human nature. Of course not. Who wants to? Let it pass away. Let it pass away while the Great Spirit is still present in experience; and the fact that the Great Spirit is still present in experience is known by reason of the fact of life.
We share the responsibility as individuals of letting our bodies and minds and hearts be made available to the Great Spirit, the spirit of truth, by which all things are made new. Then there is a new creation. The old creation, the way it is now, came by man in his state of separation from the truth of himself. The new state, the true state, also comes by man, standing in the point of blending between the Great Spirit and the earth. There is no answer other than that. No amount of effort, no amount of learning, no amount of education, no amount of knowledge dug out of the bottomless pit will set things to rights, so to speak—only when the Great Spirit controls, has dominion, because of man.
That dominion could never occur if it is being resisted all the time: “I know better, I have all this knowledge. Do you mean to tell me that all this education which I have had is useless?” One could come right out and say, “Yes.” Or one could say, “Well it is not to be expected that a person will immediately relinquish all that, because he has no experience of anything else but that.” If you relinquish all that, you're dead; but that it must go is a foregone conclusion. It's going to go anyway. Obviously, individually speaking it's going to go. All the things we have achieved on earth, all the great things we have done, all our knowledge vanishes.
In one of these writings by the native people the thought was expressed that if you put all the books in all the libraries of the world, all the knowledge that there is in that way, put it out in the open, let the rain fall on it, let the sun fall on it, let the insects get at it, it would all be gone very shortly. But the earth would at least remain. Life would still be present. There is the wisdom, the wisdom which comes when the Great Spirit and the earth are unified because of man. Then there is the true dominion and things work the way they work and the earth is restored to be a part, a functioning creative part, of the universal whole. So let it be. That is our only purpose as members of the body of mankind.
Dorothy Hughes — Martin, the Great Spirit has invited us all constantly to return to the place where we belong, to fill the position between heaven and earth. And in opening our hearts to the great spirit of truth we find that we cannot resist any longer to allow in this moment the repentance that is needed and to return to the place that we have been invited to be, standing here on mother earth, respecting what she has provided. Everything has been provided. The Great Spirit and the Great Mother have provided a place for the Son to accomplish what is needed in the earth, as it is in heaven.
Martin Exeter — Let us honor the Father and the Mother. You must honor the Father first before you can honor the Mother. The attempts, the futile attempts, that have been made in human nature to honor the Mother reveal themselves as being just that—futile—because the first order of business is to honor the Father, to accept the control and the dominion of the Great Spirit into one's own thinking, feeling, acting. That cannot happen as long as one insists upon behaving according to the precepts of human nature. It's one or the other. One means life; the other means death.
In this hour, if you will, I should like very much to give you an opportunity to have a deeper knowing, a clearer vision, of my King. I have presented you before Him, and according to your response He has received you; and now I would let you know something more about Him.
In the world it is considered to be a great honor to have a moment in which to meet the president of our great country and perhaps to shake his hand, or to be presented at court before some king or queen. And I would not detract from that. But if that be an honor, then the privilege of presentation before the KING of Kings is far greater still. And perhaps one of the greatest impressions of this hour is, and will be, a deep spirit of thankfulness for the reality of eternity; for it will take that long to come to know all that He has in store for you. There may be many wonderful and great impressions to begin with, but he who sees and knows enough to have any real impression will not have the impression that he knows Him fully. I have served our King for many, many thousands of years and more. I have served with Him, in the particular capacity which I have at the present moment in His Court, since long before the beginning of the creation of this earth. He was gracious enough, and kind enough, to grant me the privilege of serving in a responsible position in His Court, long, long ago. There is no need for the mind to speculate as to what the pattern was before that. You could not comprehend it, in any case. But some of you have sometimes wondered, perhaps marveled a little, at my personal attitude in relationship to my King. Every sort of human pressure in circumstance and in loss has been brought to bear to make me, or try to make me, violate my agreement with Him. When I talk to you about creation I may be using Biblical texts to help you to understand, but I was there. I remember it and know it as you remember the things of yesterday. And I came into the world at this time to offer assistance to any man or any woman, anywhere, of any race or color or creed, who might be inspired to want to know and serve my King.
Yes, to know Him is to love Him, and to love Him is to begin to know Him. But the human mind tends to run into certain patterns of limitation in consciousness, in concept, idea. If you try to picture Him as you would a man, the vision will fall short, and yet we saw Him on earth a little while ago as a man, and in our hours of togetherness we have meditated often and much upon the words He spoke, upon the life He lived, the things He did. We can see Him to some degree as He was made manifest in the form of a man, and the life He lived engendered a very great love response in the world, and even though it be on a distorted pattern, the influence of His presence on earth is extended into all countries, all places. And to some degree there is love for Him, but all too often it is love that is easily forgotten under the pressure of the circumstance of some moment in life, something that for the moment is crowded out of consciousness, and the individual may in such a circumstance speak or act without regard to that love, without regard for the King. But as we learn to truly love Him we find that there is nothing that can make us forget. No pressure of circumstance, no pain, no sorrow, no loss that can come to man on earth, can make us forget, not even for a moment.
When I approach such a presentation as this I feel very keenly the limitations of words, the limitation of the symbolical means of portrayal. I have heard it said, more or less facetiously, with respect to the possibility when I may run out of words and wonder just how to say it, “That will be the day.” Well this is the day. This is the day, because no words of mine can adequately portray. So we must be in communion in spirit, that through the spirit of the word you may perceive to some degree that which I would portray for you in this brief hour. There is one thing to remember: One cannot live and move and have his being on the basis of a citizen of a kingdom unless one is keenly conscious of the king. If you are a citizen of a kingdom and you are not conscious of the king of the kingdom, having love, loyalty—not just admiration, not just respect, but deep devotion—you cannot possibly function in relationship to a kingdom; for there is no kingdom without a king. And the meaningfulness of a kingdom depends upon the king, and if there be no awareness of the king there is no awareness of the kingdom. Our concern in this hour is that there should be, now and forevermore, an awareness of the King of the kingdom.
It is not that I would attempt to describe Him to you. I could describe perhaps, in limited words, the manner of His appearance when He walked among men nearly two thousand years ago. Some of the pictures give some little idea, but none of them are true. They are the imaginations of human beings. But He carried not a pompousness but a simple dignity which portrayed, for those eyes which could see, a true greatness. He never acted, even when man was rejecting Him, as if He was less than Himself. He had no need to try to exaggerate the appearance of Himself, but He never depreciated it: His bearing—not as of a king according to the concepts of men, but always the King as revealed from the standpoint of heavenly things—a ruggedness, a gentleness; unassuming but powerful. I have seen strong men wilt before a single glance of His eye, and I have seen those who seemed to be weak thrill and be uplifted by a look. I have seen patterns of attunement established in a few seconds, in an instant it might seem, whereby one word in form meant more than could ever be spoken in words—by reason of the spirit of the word, by what was conveyed in just a word or two.
So often human beings are inclined to try to analyze the words He spoke according to the record on the basis of simply thinking of them as words that any man might have spoken, just as one might read a story; but it does not work. The words have meaning as one finds attunement with His spirit, and then one begins to have a feeling as if the words were almost unnecessary; just a gentle, gracious touch to make it easier for finite human minds to grasp. Over and over again certain of His disciples tried to establish, with their talk to others, an idea, an attitude, which would promote Him as a king according to human concepts, and it always grieved Him. And He would by some gesture, some word, make all the talk seem to be as chaff before the wind, to be blown away. Over and over again certain of His disciples tried to establish an environment, a pattern, which would show Him off to advantage according to their ideas, and by a gesture or a word He would make it seem to be as nothing, and oh they would be hurt. They were trying to do something for Him because they loved Him, they said; but they were trying to decide what the setting would be, trying to shape it according to their ideas, and over and over again, because they did not learn easily—some of them never learned—He made all their labors to be as nothing. And they could not understand why He should be so heartless, so cruel, why He would hurt them so, because, after all, they were trying to do something for Him. Some of them never got the idea that He was not concerned about trying to be a king of some little earthly kingdom, that He was KING of Kings and that His kingdom included all the kingdoms of this world.
Sometimes human ideas have pictured somehow that He had a whole host of angels and faithful saints and one thing and another trailing around behind Him in heaven, and everywhere He went in heaven He would be followed by this vast host of angels and saints, all shouting continually some sort of praise or the idea of glory. I can think of nothing that would tend to turn heaven into hell for Him more quickly than that. It is developed out of a misunderstanding, a misinterpretation of something, it is true. Follow Him, follow His lead, follow out the vibrational pattern; but not a physical following, to be crowding around Him every minute, as if He just could not be left by Himself. Well probably He is not too much by Himself, but following Him in that heavenly sense does not mean just tagging along like a puppy dog, just to be physically there. It means functioning in their place in the pattern of the kingdom, so that if the cycle be initiated through Him, if something is opening up, then they are with Him, they follow His lead whithersoever He goeth; which is to say, in the cycles of the unfolding of time, in the determination of the patterns of creation in the processes of living. The coordination, the harmony, is being pictured, not of a vast group of saints or angels hovering about and trying to crowd in close and hoping, just hoping, that Angel So-and-So would get out “so I could get up there. Oh, Saint So-and-So, when will you ever move? You've been there such a long time; I'd like to get over there.” No, no crowding; no need of it; no pushing, no shoving—to follow Him as the King because He is the King.
And how did He become the King? Oh I could tell you something about it, but not too much of it can be put into human words. But I will tell you this. He became the King for two reasons. We all wanted Him to be the King, and His King, His point of focalization in Deity on beyond, selected Him—not just arbitrarily, but He selected Him; for He in turn has a King, you know. In any case, from above and from below He was selected. Why? Because we all loved Him. Because it was His right and His place. From the standpoint of the divine design there isn't any question about “Well now, how long is He going to be King? Maybe I can be King someday. Maybe we'll depose Him and put somebody else in.” No, from that standpoint we might say that it is completely autocratic—completely autocratic. We do not cast votes in heaven and say, “Well now, I'd like to have a new King.” He is there, and from the standpoint of those who know Him there is never any question about wishing someone else could be King for a while. Why? Because He fits; because it is a perfect place for Him.
The vastness of His love, the wonder of His patience, all of the things that enter into it—I cannot begin to describe them all. But He is a KING of Kings. Those who serve with Him never wonder, “Now do you suppose that He'll back me up, that He'll help me see this through, meet this situation?” There is stability. We never think, “Perhaps the King will have some vagrant fancy this morning and turn things upside down.” No, we can depend upon Him, and He acts as if—in relationship to some, at least—He can depend upon them. It is a good feeling. If we can depend upon Him, then He should be able to depend upon us; and if we are ever to know how true it is that we can depend upon Him we must reach a point where He can depend upon us, and make it stick. We never wonder if He will have power enough to do what needs to be done, if He will be patient enough, or if He will love enough. Those who serve with Him and are aware of Him know that He has the power; there is no question but what it is His kingdom. They know the power is there. They do not go forth from His Court wondering, “Now do you suppose it can be done?”
If He gives a commission, as He has given one to me, for instance, it never occurs to me to waste any time wondering, “Do you suppose it can be done?” If the King said to do it, well then we just do it. That is all. And no ifs, maybes about it. We just do it. How? Well then, that is our business; it is my business. Do you think He tells me every turn to make? No, if He gives a commission it is given, and then, in this instance, it is my business. If someone thinks that he or she would have done it in some other way, probably that person doesn't know anything about nine-tenths of the factors involved. But when it comes down to it, it is my business, a commission, a job to do. So we do not question and say among ourselves, “Do you suppose it can be done?”—argue the thing pro and con. We don't have that kind of a king. We would not have a commission unless it could be done. And for those who know Him truly there is just simply never any thought of possibly disobeying Him. He doesn't make life miserable, setting up a lot of dos and don'ts, trying to tell you how to turn around, what to do on every occasion. No, His commands are simple, His expectations just; and if we really know Him it simply never occurs to us that we might disobey. Disobey? What would that be, to disappoint Him? Well, for myself, I would rather cease to be for the rest of eternity than to disappoint Him. No. Some of you have seen it put to the test. There is never any question that enters the minds of those who know Him, “I wonder if I can get out of it? Do you suppose I just have to do that? I don't want to do that, but I guess I'll have to; it's my duty. I'm serving the King, so it's my duty now; I'll have to go out and do that, but I'd rather not.” No, any person who talks like that has not come to know Him, because if we know Him there isn't anything that we would rather do than what He wants us to. It doesn't make any difference.
You may say, “Well, then, His slightest wish would be command?” Well, as far as I am concerned it would—His slightest wish an absolute command. And it would never occur to me to wish something else. “But what about this matter of free choice? What about living an individual life? That must mean, then, that you're just sort of an automaton. If He wishes that, why, without any questioning, without any anything, you just go do it?” Wait till you start to do it and then see if you don't have plenty of chance to live, plenty of chance to use all your intelligence, plenty of chance to express your individuality. We do not try to express our individuality in the sense of arguing with the King. If He gives a commission, well then that is the commission, and it is not a matter of “I'd rather do that”; because if it were, you would not have the commission. And as long as you have a case of “I'd rathers,” you will never have a real commission. You may begin to move toward it, but one of the most devastating things is a peculiar disease that tends to show up around the borders of the kingdom—you know, sort of a no-man's-land there where you are coming across the border. People very often get an attack of “I'd rathers.” “I'd rather do that, I'd rather do the other, I'd rather do something else.” It is a funny thing, there is an absolute quarantine at the border, and those who have “I'd rathers” cannot get in. It is an absolute quarantine, and anyone afflicted with “I'd rathers” has to stay out until he gets well—or dies, and then he stays out of course.
Once we begin to be citizens of the kingdom, servants of the King, there is just one thing. We have found that the greatest pleasure that we can know, the deepest satisfaction, the highest ecstasy, the greatest fulfilment, comes as we serve with Him—not against Him. And if you think He doesn't give us plenty of chance to exercise all of our capacities and to prove ourselves as individuals you are very wrong. No, He doesn't try to think for us, He doesn't try to act for us. He gives us a chance to be and to do, if we are ready—if we are ready. But in this we have learned, speaking from the outer standpoint of consciousness, that man's idea about opposites is so false. So many people have the idea that you cannot have pleasure without some pain. Self-active pleasure does bring some pain, that is true, but heavenly pleasure, the joy, the satisfaction, does not have an aftermath of pain. And there is no joy that a human being can know, or think that he can know, in disregarding the things of God but what he can know fulfilling the things of God. God made the body and all of its parts. God gave us our various capacities. There is not one single thing that man might call pleasure, that he wants to do self-actively, but what he could do creatively in the kingdom. He does not have to lose. God does not take away the pleasures. He gives us an opportunity to have pleasure without pain, joy without sadness, life without death, victory without defeat. You do have to have defeat before you can have victory, but He does not rub it in. You find that the moment you let yourself be defeated in a contest with Him, you share His victory, because He is that kind of a king. The moment you let Him win, you become the honored guest. You may say, “Well I'd like to be the honored guest without letting Him win.” It will not work, I might as well tell you. It just will not work. And it doesn't mean that you have to have some of that characteristic that emerges in the patterns of distortion, of licking someone's boots, so to speak. No. Human beings sometimes assume that that is what it is. But you see, my attitude is taken from my King's attitude; I have the same pattern to go by. And when you acknowledge defeat you have won, and then you do not have to be defeated anymore.
But there isn't anything more futile than trying to defeat my King. He lives in an absolutely impregnable place where human beings cannot get to Him. Their guns and their bombs cannot reach His castle; they cannot fly there in an airplane; they cannot die and go there to try to get the job done. They cannot reach Him—impregnable. And another thing about it is that trying to wait until He dies, so that you can work out a change of situation, will not work either, because you will die first. Trying to defeat my King is absolutely the most futile, foolish and senseless business I can possibly think of. He is that kind of a king. If you destroy yourself—no matter how much misery you put yourself in and say, “Well if I suffer enough maybe He'll yield then”—oh no, He won't. I don't care what you do. Millions and billions of human beings have tried it before you and never succeeded. He is that kind of a king. It doesn't make any difference how much you make yourself suffer, how much of a martyr you make of yourself, or how sorry you are for yourself. You either do it His way or not at all. And He will not change one tiny, little law for you. It is absolute. He will not change one tiny, little law, no matter how much you suffer, no matter how you try to persuade Him, begging or anything else. It makes absolutely no difference. You can go through a life of misery and die, or millions like you, or billions like you, and He still would not change a single law. Sometimes people imagine that He had one set of laws a long time ago and He has a different set of laws now. No, that is not true—exactly the same set of laws that were established in the beginning when man was first created. And they are at work now, the same laws, the same circumstances, the same situation. We either obey or we do not; and if we do not, well then we bring the consequences on ourselves. And we can suffer as long as we can continue to exist and He would not change one tiny, little law to get you to stop suffering. No, you will have to change to fit the law, because He will not change the law to fit you. He is that kind of a king. If that were not so, the rest of us would not have anything to depend on.
Suppose you did petition Him to change the law a little bit to fit you, and the rest of us woke up the next morning and we were going to do it this way, but now, “Oh that law is changed, is it? How come it's changed?” “So-and-so prayed to have that law changed and I thought I'd just let so-and-so have his way.” Oh, who is King, after all? Who is? We know where our King is, and we do not have to wonder if He is going to change the laws overnight because someone thought they prayed a prayer and asked Him to. So you can wear yourself out contending with Him if it pleases you, but it will not do you any good. No matter how much you suffer, no matter how much you wail, no matter how much you fuss and fume, you know it will not make Him change anything—not anything. That is why He is dependable, because the rest of us know that we can depend on His laws to work. And as soon as you realize that, you can let yourself change, stop fighting with Him, and begin to enjoy the blessings of those laws. And you will not say, “Well why does God permit war? Why does He permit the other thing?” “Oh, because human beings are contending with His laws. They refuse to let His law control, so let them suffer.” He does not want them to suffer. He is offering the love; but no matter how much, how many people suffer, He will not change His laws one iota. They are absolute, and there is nothing more futile than trying to get Him to change a law or to contend with Him or fight with Him in any way. He is that kind of a king. He is my King, and I would advise strongly that you begin to realize that working with His laws you can have every blessing in heaven and earth. Work against Him and you will make yourself miserable, until your body turns to a corpse, and you will gain nothing.
You see, actually, when there was war in heaven and man's consciousness was cast out of heaven here on earth, I had something to do with it. And my King did not have to fight, He did not have to raise a hand, He did not have to brandish a sword. He did not even have to say, “Get out of here,” to the dragon and his angels. It was all done for Him, absolutely. He did not have to turn a hand over. He doesn't have to fight, He doesn't have to contend. And in fact He does not—He is that kind of a king—because whatever needs to be done someone does it for Him. And it wouldn't make any difference if it took the death of ten billion people, or any other number! No, or any other number. No! A hundred billion—let them die if they refuse to learn. God has no pleasure in the death of them that die. My King doesn't. But your suffering and your dying, your doing anything, your complaining, your fretting, your stewing, will not change Him. But you can let yourself be changed and begin to enjoy His kingdom. And it is a wonderful place and He is a wonderful king. What I have said cannot be anything more than just the faintest of a suggestion. I cannot tell you what a wonderful king He is. But if you stop fighting with Him and begin to work with Him, after enough time in the cycles of eternity has gone by, you will begin to know. And I thank God for the privilege of serving Him by serving you who turn toward Him.
So let us serve together. As we truly serve together here on earth, serving our Lord and King no matter what the limitations, no matter what seems to be against us, we know that it will be done. We can afford to wait. Of course we have plenty to do, but it doesn't have to be just so today. If someone has not learned a lesson yet, let them suffer it out a little more. Let it be stirred; perhaps they will wake up. We can wait. The human being in self-activity cannot. He cannot afford it, so he tries to rush things. But you cannot rush heaven and you cannot rush my King. It will not work. But there are plenty of things waiting to be received by you, and by all who will become worthy, dependable, loyal citizens of His kingdom. God bless you and keep you in the Way, and let us serve our King forever. Aum-en.
My Ministry is His Ministry Continued
Uranda March 26, 1947 Riverside, California
This excerpt is from a Service that concluded the Special Session held on the evening of the Third Day
after the Ordination of Martin Cecil as the Second Bishop of the Church
In view of this fulfillment of the focalized manifestation of the results of my Ministry through the years which you have shared with me in the past few days, and of your sharing of that Ministry with me in the years that have gone, and all the others who have shared it on a constructive basis, perhaps I might make bold tonight, (from the standpoint of that Center made manifest which contains many things which have not yet been seen by you) to express or to talk to you from what I might call a personal standpoint. You will observe—from what I have said before, the Services I have read to you, and our association in the past—that it is not usual for me to talk from what I would classify as a personal standpoint, but rather from the standpoint of the Truth as it relates to you and to the world.
I wonder if you can appreciate the joy that is mine in sharing a consideration of the focal vibrations of this Ministry as I have been privileged to share them with Martin. It has been a joy which, at least to the degree made manifest, had been denied me up to this point—but the sharing of this fulfillment is something that to me is, comparatively speaking, a small matter, because my greater joy is in the joy of my KING that it is so. His joy in this fulfillment is greater than our joy in it ...
This Ministry that we have shared is, more truly than many have yet realized, His Ministry continued on earth. My KING is your KING also or you would not be here, but perhaps it might be said that by the Grace of the Almighty I have had a rather special privilege and opportunity in knowing Him, and perhaps through my eyes tonight I can let you see Him a little more fully than you have ever seen Him before. No matter how I may say it, it must be recognized that my words are inadequate, but to whatever degree my words and my life and my Ministry reveal Him, or make Him known on earth, I am privileged in that to experience fulfillment of my greatest longing, of my heart's deepest desire. I have known Him for so long, and to me He is so wonderful; that no matter how the story is told I can never finish telling it, and when I seek for a point where I may properly begin there is no beginning, just as there is no ending—and that is one of the joyous things which we are privileged to recognize when we think of our KING. I have called Him my Friend, your Friend, our Friend; I have spoken of Him as my Master and my LORD, and perhaps to the human mind these terms seem more intimate than the term, “My KING”, and yet it really should not be so—and it is primarily as My KING that I wish to picture Him tonight, to whatever degree I may do so in word and in vibration made manifest.
There would be nothing gained by going back much further, in that Eternity that has been, beyond the point of the beginning of the creation of this world, but the story does not begin at that point—that is only a chapter in the story. I wish I could adequately convey His joy when the time came when we might properly consider that world, that planet in the Cosmos, which he wished to create that it might be His home. As the time drew near we considered the plans, the patterns and the cycles, by which it might be established.It was with joy that the plans were made, and it was with joy that the fulfillment of those plans was undertaken, and the joy of working with Him in that undertaking cannot be described. I think, tonight, for the purposes that I have in mind, we need not dwell over-much on that period.It would require a consideration of technicalities that might, in some respects, be difficult to comprehend, but we may come to the joy of the completed Creation, and the Crowning Creation—Divine Man—insofar as the manifestation in the Negative Triune World was concerned.Man only knows half of that Creation—or really less than half, but to illustrate at least, we will call it half—because he is not aware of the Positive Triune World, but that is part of the Creation too.
Those who so faithfully serve with me now, served with me then. There was what has been called in the Book, war in Heaven. If He whom I love had not restrained the hand of Michael and His Angels, there would have been no place found for the rebellious ones, but He, in His mercy, decreed that, while the rebellious ones must be cast out of Heaven, they should be given another chance in the world. Then, as now, we marveled at His love, and Adored Him in His Majesty, but the rebellious creatures mistook the Graciousness of His Love for weakness, and because they were shown mercy they imagined that they were secure in their rebellion. As, under His Mercy, various opportunities to repent and return were granted, and were scorned, it became evident that drastic measures would be necessary, but always we sought a means by which we might bring before Our KING evidence that His Mercy had been appreciated—and thus far there has been so very little evidence!
Finally, He Himself came into the world, to walk among men. He accepted those limitations that man had brought upon himself. He labored. He shared the fallen world with man, and He sought to tell the world something of His Kingdom. He searched for those who would let themselves come to understand Who He was, and why He was here on earth—and finally, He wept over Jerusalem. In the expression of His Love and Mercy—the Graciousness of Our KING for these wayward creatures—He wept, and then, in the Garden of Gethsemane, no words can tell the agony of Our KING, not because He feared the cross or anything that man might do, but because, in His Love He subjected Himself to the powers of evil that He might gain a Victory over evil that would open an easy Way for any who would answer His Call, “Come unto Me.” And the forces of darkness brought all their pressures to bear upon Him when He stood alone—as He had to stand—as He chose to stand—but there was one who did not sleep in that awful hour. And then, after He had met the forces of evil and their vibrational currents, the instruments of defeated darkness came in force—the one who betrayed Him with a kiss, and the soldiers, the clanking arms, the spears, the armour and the swords—a display of man's strength, a display of man's puny nothingness, a display of man's gross denseness. They prided themselves on their own wisdom, and did not have sense enough to keep their hands off of Our KING! With a word and a gesture He could have annihilated the lot of them! In the Garden He had already gained the Victory over all the forces that backed that puny show of man's arrogance and impudence.
I have Love, first, last and always, Love for My KING and abundant Love for those who identity themselves with Him, but not one single iota of Love for those who do not—not even compassion for those who do not! So, that which we do for the Glory of Our KING is worthwhile, and the only way we can Glorify Him is to let His Glory appear on earth. His Glory is in Heaven, but His Glory shall fill the earth as the waters cover the sea. And so it is established, and no man can alter or change it. Therefore, in His service on earth, we may truly say, as He taught us to pray, Our Father which art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven, for Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory forever. Aum-en.
Martin — And so we come to the day of fulfillment of these things.
Uranda — Right you are. So we praise the Lord, and thank Him for the fulfillment, for the setting up of His Kingdom here on earth and the bringing in of the New Heaven and the New Earth in which dwelleth righteousness, and we know that God’s promises are all sure—and that this special one in which He has promised the Kingdom of Heaven on earth shall be brought to fulfillment, so we stand steady together in full Response, letting Love and Truth have their way with us. And so shall the Kingdom grow and expand through all the earth. We praise God that it is so.
The Tabernacle of God is with men. Holy, holy, holy, Lord of hosts. When the cells of your individual body are holy, when the organs and parts are holy, when your expression of life is holy, when all the levels of your consciousness are holy, the Lord of hosts is present in His Holy Place. If there is no Holy Place He cannot be present insofar as the experience of the individual is concerned. The hosts are what you are in the external sense: cells, organs, systems. The hosts are also present insofar as mankind is concerned: individual human beings, nations, operating systems, a quality and expression of life in the overall sense. Here are the hosts, but where is the Lord? Here is the Tabernacle, but where are the Priesthood?
Mankind composes the hosts which make potentially possible the presence of the Lord. If we see this, then it is evident that just as there is a sense of self in the individual, there is also a sense of self insofar as mankind is concerned—not only a sense of self but the reality of a self rightly identified by the words I am. That self, insofar as mankind is concerned, has been referred to as the LORD of Lords and KING of Kings. A self insofar as the individual is concerned may be referred to as a Lord, over whom He is LORD. This does not exclude the female aspect of the population, but there are certain limitations with respect to words.
When we are aware of the spirit of the words, and we begin to understand the meaning of the words, then the resentful attitudes of human beings, whether male or female, pass away. It is only because human beings do not know, that they become involved in contentious attitudes. If we see such things proliferating we have the clear evidence of ignorance. Human beings think of themselves as being highly educated and, therefore, presumably knowledgeable or wise, but all the evidence points to abysmal ignorance.
Holy, holy, holy. When the body is holy, and the mind is holy, and the expression of life is holy, there is a Holy Place on earth. The Tabernacle of God is then with men, and the Lord of hosts is known to be present.
The LORD of Lords, the true self of mankind, was present on earth in the individual body of Jesus. The statement I have just made is true but it certainly doesn’t mean that I am propagating what has come to be called Christianity. The LORD of Lords was present on earth in physical form and that physical form was called Jesus. This physical form, in the individual sense, was not His true body; it was a substitute body, for His true body includes the whole of mankind.
Within the body of mankind there is rightly another body, which could be referred to as the Body of the High Priest. This body is composed of many individuals. Included in it are groups of individuals, taking form according to the design of that body, and there is the quality of an expression of life natural to the High Priest. Again, we use words which tend to have pre-established patterns of concept in human minds, but what I am talking about is not pre-established in any human mind. If it is translated according to the concepts that may now be held, that will not be the truth.
The truth is a matter of living experience, not of the theoretical ideas of the mind. The mind is incapable of encompassing the truth; the truth encompasses the mind. It would be extreme arrogance on the part of a human mind to claim that it could encompass the truth, for the human mind itself is one small evidence of the truth. How ridiculous to try to bend the truth to the ideas of the mind. Immediately the attempt is made, the mind proceeds to exclude itself from the experience of the truth.
If we do have a sensing that mankind is rightly included in the hosts of the Lord, then we behold a form, a body, which has the capacity to reveal the reality summarized by the word Lord—in this instance we are thinking of the LORD of Lords. When He was on earth in His individual body He referred to One whom He spoke of as His Father. We have a dawning consciousness of that reality relating to what is back of the whole cosmic creation. We have used the symbol of the capital letter X to convey an understanding of how it is that what is back of and above all things, in the spiritual sense, is drawn to a point of focus where the two lines of the X cross. The Father is above but the Father comes to focus in the Son. The Son is at the crossover point between what is above in the spiritual sense and what is below in the material sense.
There is a very specific crossover point for this aspect of the cosmic creation with which we are immediately related, and that crossover point is the point of identity of the body of mankind. That point of identity we can refer to as the LORD of Lords but we don’t know what that means simply by using those words. We only know what it means to the extent that we ourselves, as individuals, find our own identity at the crossover point in the individual sense. Then we discover that we are one with that greater crossover point relating to the whole body of mankind: I Am That I Am.
This seems always rather mysterious to the human mind, because the human mind has gotten itself into a state where the principal sensation is one of isolation. It is because of this that human beings, identified with their minds, always are on the defensive. They sense the smallness of themselves which could so easily be swept away. This is the smallness of the human mind in its state of isolation. The mind of man was not created to be isolated. The final isolation is called death, when there is isolation from everything and consequently there is nothing.
The LORD of Lords incarnated on earth in the individual personal body that was called Jesus. Fundamentally, it was the only way that He could incarnate—the body of mankind was not willing that He should, and no particular grouping in the body of mankind was willing that He should. The only possibility was on the basis of an individual body, and so this was the way it was worked out. At that time His individual body was the only point on earth that was willing to let Him incarnate. Even those whom He called to follow Him did not exhibit any particular willingness to allow an expansion, differentiation, of what remained throughout the period of His presence on earth—merely His own individual, personal body. No one on the face of the earth accepted the challenge which He brought. Even those who were closest to Him scarcely recognized what it was. There was nobody to share, and He remained alone. When the picture is really seen, what a sad, sad thing it is—not because of the wicked rulers of the Jews or the Roman government, but because of the self-centered ignorance of human beings everywhere. And has the picture really changed any?
We are beginning to sense a change in our own experience, but we would have to admit that this change which is coming, as we have known it thus far, has not been brought to pass by any endeavor or direction provided by the human mind. It happens to the extent that we are willing to acknowledge ignorance. Many people are willing to acknowledge a certain amount of ignorance in a more or less general sense. There are certain areas where people are more or less willing to say that they don’t know, but there are some areas where they think they know. If the suggestion is made that even in those areas they don’t really know, then the reaction rises up: “You may not know, but I know!” Really? Do our individual lives portray, in no uncertain terms, the depths of our true knowing? I doubt it! The lives of human beings everywhere, even our own, portray mainly ignorance.
The acknowledgment of ignorance may be a first step in repentance, and let us remember that there is a vast difference between confession and repentance. Human beings have been very much engaged, all down through the ages, in confessing their sins but they never repented. They may have received absolution at the hands of another unrepentant human being but never knew what it would be to repent. Confession has been used as a substitute for repentance, and a very poor substitute at that. We may finally come to the place where repentance is possible; and that is exactly where one is oneself, because any person is only capable of repenting for himself. So, accepting the responsibility of repentance for oneself, we may see the requirement in relationship to the hosts of our own individual bodies and minds and expressions of living.
We finally come to the point of acknowledging our own personal responsibility, and only when this is done can any real change possibly occur. If the change begins to occur in one person, it at the same time is beginning to occur in the whole of mankind. Because of the concepts of the human mind, this matter of starting with one person looks as though it could lead nowhere. Why? One person can do what needs to be done, and it is only as one person does it that what needs to be done is done. This does not deny the fact that there is more than one person on earth, but it does initiate a starting point for what needs to be done.
Human beings have been so aware of their own littleness, of their own pettiness, of their own meaninglessness, that it seems impossible to conceive that one might be personally responsible for the world. “Oh, no, not me! I’m a very humble person.” Oh, no, you’re not, if you take that attitude; you’re a very arrogant person, because there is a rejection of the Lord, a rejection of the truth of yourself. There is always only one starting point for every person on the face of the earth—namely him- or herself—where one assumes the total responsibility oneself. In the assumption of that responsibility is the power by which others may be brought to assume their responsibility too; but we never see the assumption of responsibility on the part of others without the assumption of responsibility on our own part first.
When there are those, as there indeed begin to be on earth, who move toward that crossover point where absolute responsibility is taken, the Hosts composing the Body of the High Priest within the body of mankind begin to become the Hosts of the Lord, because, indeed, what needs to be done is done by reason of this collective body. But there is no collective body until the individuals who compose it have themselves come to the crossover point and assumed for themselves the absolute responsibility.
At that point the individual can rightly say, as did the High Priest in His own individual body, “No man cometh unto the Father, but by me”—by me because I have taken the responsibility, not in arrogance, not on the basis of the human mind’s idea, but because there has been repentance in that regard and the real quality of the living truth has been accepted, and is then in expression through the hosts of the physical body, through the hosts of all levels of consciousness, through the hosts of that capacity by which the creative expression of the truth pours forth in living.
When there are those who know this, then the Body of the High Priest takes form and the identity of the High Priest is shared by His Hosts. It is not a separate identity. As one of those who compose the Hosts of Heaven, there is the consciousness of meaning, the consciousness of purpose, the consciousness of being, and we do not have to go anywhere to find it. It is present exactly where we are in any given moment, and when we learn what it means to repent we discover the truth of that. The High Priest must be present on earth, incarnate on earth, within the body of mankind, if the body of mankind is to come again to provide the facility for the creative action of the Son of God on earth.
The One who is the true self of mankind said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” the crossover point for mankind, the point of identity for mankind, the point of identity to be shared by all the hosts composing mankind. From the standpoint of the mental idea, that is simply a theory. It only becomes a living reality to the extent that there are those who take individual, personal responsibility to stand at the crossover point in themselves so that there is nothing above other than what comes down from God out of heaven, nothing higher in the individual’s experience than that—and by higher I am referring to what governs or controls, because whatever governs in one’s own experience one has placed at a higher point than one is oneself.
What will be placed at the higher point? What are we willing to allow to be there? Most people allow some pretty coarse, low things to be at the higher point, so that they are pushed around by all kinds of rubbish, and human behavior reflects it. If there is selfishness, greed, fear, all these things, motivating a person, then that person has chosen to put those low, coarse things at the high point in his own existence, and he is rightly called an idolater; he is worshiping false gods. He may not like his gods very much but he worships them just the same. There is no need to. We can repent, and repentance simply means you stop doing it, that’s all—one chooses to stop doing it.
There is what is rightly above us: the true quality of the character of God which makes it possible for us to experience what it means to be a son or a daughter of God. That is our inheritance. Our inheritance rightly stems from our true, heavenly parenthood, and when we are willing to acknowledge it, agree with it, then it happens; but as long as we are looking around to be troubled and disturbed and judgmental of all the things that are going on in the world, we have false gods and we die in our sins. The choice is an individual one, but when the right choice is made individually, then there emerge the Hosts which compose initially the body of the High Priest—for the Body of the High Priest must be present, the High Priest incarnate, if there is to be the essential point of orientation for the whole body of mankind.
Mankind as a whole is not going to become correctly oriented spontaneously. The correct orientation comes with absolute certainty when there are those individuals who take responsibility. Then the High Priest incarnates. Then the point of orientation is present for the body of mankind, and those who compose mankind make their choice. Each one must be allowed to make his or her choice. The choice is meaningless unless one makes it for oneself. Each individual must say, “I take absolute responsibility for my world,” and the only way that that can be done is to accept what is coming to point from above. When one accepts that absolutely, one has absolute responsibility for all that comes to point out of the world in oneself.
So, the Body of the High Priest takes form, and those who compose that body are the Hosts of Heaven. They share the character, the quality, of life that is natural to the High Priest. There is no distinction. It’s all one thing, even though it is differentiated through many people. It is not differentiated to be something else. It’s simply differentiated to be an expansion of what is present in essence at the true point of identity in the LORD of Lords. It’s all there, and what a delight it is to come again to that crossover point and to share that quality of character which is the natural expression of the One who gives us identity.
Let the Word be made flesh! That’s the only way it has meaning. It is because the Word which was spoken by the LORD of Lords on earth has not been made flesh by human beings that it has remained only with potential meaning and the world itself is unchanged. But changes come as the Word is made flesh in human experience. It is made flesh first in one person, always in one person. The question arises as to who that one person is. It is always the person who says “I.”
