“The first of all the commandments is,Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.”You are all familiar with the first commandment, the first great commandment. One cannot command love, but the experience of love is a natural one to everyone. Man, to be clothed and in his right mind, must necessarily experience the fulfilment of this first great commandment. Such an experience is the natural state of man. Obviously, it is quite useless to try to love God; we may awaken, however, to our own natural state.
We will not be inclined to awaken to that natural state if we do not allow our love to center in God; in other words, if we disperse it in other directions we certainly would not be in position to fulfil this commandment. As you have noted, it is an all-inclusive commandment: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all." As has before been emphasized, this does not leave any love available for personal application. I am sure that all of you have recognized this commandment and acknowledged the fact that it should apply, but, at the same time, I suspect that you have not allowed its completeness to engulf you. In other words, generally speaking, human beings are inclined to hold something out to one side, which they consider to be the natural thing. By and large, what is held out to one side relates to the male-female relationships.
Now, obviously, there is something right about male-female relationships; there is something right about the relationships between men and the relationships between women; but nothing of that rightness can possibly be known until there is the experience of the meaning and the fulfilment of the first great commandment. There are those who seek to find the meaning and fulfilment of that by reason of their relationships in the human sense, but it doesn't work that way. The second commandment, with which you are also familiar, but which I have not read because I do not wish to emphasize it at the moment, comes second; and, in fact, it is the natural experience when there is the fulfilment of the first. You have heard these words many times, but as long as they remain just words, just an idea, just a nice belief, without any actual fulfilment in your own experience, the meaning cannot be known, and the fulfilment of the second commandment cannot be known.
We recognize the need to move in a transitional experience from one state to another, from the state of the dying soul to the state of the living soul. We have to start from where we are, as all human beings do, and so there is of necessity a step-by-step movement away from the state of involvement with the dying soul. But as has been emphasized, we are considering a new state and not an improved or made-over old state. The old state of the dying soul might be described as a partial experience of life, a fractional experience of life. Fractions can be described in terms of the decimal point. “The Lord our God is one”—1, not a fraction of 1, not even .99. The fractional experience is the experience of the dying soul, and no matter how many 9's you may add, recurring infinitely, the experience will never be 1. It is a new state. The fractional state cannot ever become the true state. “Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord.” Human experience tends to see everything in isolation. Everything is observed through the eyes of separateness. We are inclined to consider ourselves as being separate individuals, and everything we look at takes on the same coloration. Oneness—what would that be? As long as we are thinking in fractional terms, we will never know.
This inclination—which is more or less inevitable in the human state—to see everything in pieces may be illustrated by the idea with respect to the atom. Originally the atom was considered to be indivisible, a little piece of matter, presumably, which could not be further divided. Of course, when the outlook is based in this view of separateness, you can never reach a point where something could not be divided. This was discovered in relationship to the atom, and further so-called particles were multiplied and are still being multiplied—all theoretically, mind you—more and more fractions. It's interesting, isn't it, that, moving in that direction, we are supposed to be discovering the wholeness of things; but the fractional experience can never be the whole experience. If one looks at things on the basis of separateness, seeking to understand things that way, there will come less and less understanding. Understanding is only possible in what may be described as the integral experience, the experience of the integer, the one.
How can we begin to see wholeness, oneness? The extent to which we can begin to experience that wholeness in our outlook and in our living will be the extent to which we know the truth. We could take the atom, I suppose, but this is, after all, not very real to us. Something that is more real to us is the solar system, and when we look at the solar system we are inclined to see it fractionally: there is the sun at the center and there are planets in their orbits around the sun. This is the way that the solar system is seen. Of course, there is more to it than that, but in simple terms these are the main points. But the solar system might be better described as a solar entity, because it is one thing. When we look at our own bodies we see one thing. We are aware of the fact that there are parts, but we are assured of the integral nature of the body.
Looking at the solar system and describing it, rather, as a solar entity, we may see an immense sphere. This immense sphere has the sun at its center, what we call the sun, a physical body of some kind presumably, very hot and very big, relative to the earth. But that is the core of the solar entity; it isn't anything all by itself. The term "magnetosphere" perhaps describes something which may indicate the extent of the solar entity. Perhaps we could not put any boundaries on it actually, but, for sake of a new vision of what we have called the solar system, we may see the solar entity as extending to and beyond the orbit of the outermost planet—Pluto, isn't it?—the sun's magnetosphere. Now, we don't see that physically. Our capacity to discern does not include, at the moment at least, the discernment of the magnetosphere. There are various ways that it can be discerned through instruments, but as human beings, in our present state, we cannot discern it directly. It is there nevertheless, just as real, just as solid, in a sense, as the sun itself.
Now, this wholeness of the solar entity certainly includes parts, but we need to see the wholeness of it, and the extent of our seeing the wholeness of it will be the extent to which we are beginning to awaken to the truth. If we merely see a system, with a sun in the middle and little planets whirling around on the outside, we don't really see what's there. It is a very restricted view, unaware of the reality of the wholeness. Obviously, the earth only exists as the earth in the solar system; in other words, because it is a part of the solar entity. There is a magnetosphere relative to the earth, which we do not see. Certain aspects of it have been described in terms of the Van Allen belt, which I think should rather be the Immanuel Velikovsky belt, because he was aware of it long before whoever Van Allen was put in an appearance.
The world of which we are aware is based in our ability to discern and interpret what we discern. We speak of physical substance, but apparently this physical substance is not so physical after all. It's composed of atoms, and atoms seem to be composed of vibratory factors, and physical substance vanishes into a vibratory pattern of some kind. The point is that all is of this nature. We have become aware of the vibratory nature of all things. There are various levels of vibration. We translate or interpret certain levels of vibration as though it was physical substance.
We do this because of our facility to discern it; we discern it that way; we interpret it that way. It isn't really that way; we make it that way. In other words, we can see our participation in the process of creation, because physical substance isn't really physical substance the way we imagine physical substance to be. It is of a vibrational quality, but we have certain facilities in our makeup which enable us to discern certain vibratory levels, and we discern a certain vibratory level which, in turn, is interpreted as being physical substance. But we interpret it as being physical substance. We make it that way, and we are capable also of giving it shape and color, and we consequently create what may be seen as a rich environment, based in our own discernment of it and our own interpretation of it. But what we are discerning and interpreting is all one thing, various levels of what we describe by using the word "vibration," and we create our own worlds.
Now, our ability to discern has tended to be emphasized at one end of the spectrum, so to speak, because of the fact of what we have called earthly orientation. The vibration which we interpret as physical substance emphasizes itself very particularly to us because we have been oriented in that direction. We have facilities to discern other things, but our discernment at other levels of vibration has suffered because of our hang-up in relationship to the physical level of things. And because of our hang-up with respect to the physical level of things, the appearance has been of separation. We look around and we see bits and pieces everywhere: the bits and pieces of our fellow human beings, the bits and pieces of all kinds of things around us. Now, there has been some sort of an awakening in recent years to what has been called ecology; in other words, there is some sort of a recognition that there is an associated pattern, but it’s still not seen in its wholeness, a wholeness which is the reality and which can never be shattered in fact. It's always there; it always has been there and always will be there. "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come." There is a wholeness.
Returning to a consideration of the solar system, we may begin to discern the wholeness of a solar entity. The earth is just as much a part of that solar entity as the sun is, or as any other of the planets are. They are all swathed in the same vibratory substance, a level of vibratory substance that, at the moment, we do not discern directly. Just because we do not discern it doesn't mean that it isn't there. This solar entity springs forth from what may be described as a centering point. Now, we think of the centering point as the sun, but the sun is merely something that we are capable of observing in various ways and is of the level of physical substance insofar as our direct observations are concerned—hot physical substance; we can feel the heat when the sun shines. But there is a centering point which is not physical substance, not that vibratory level which we interpret as physical substance. On occasion we have considered the matter of dimension and how all dimensions spring out of a point, a point which has position but no magnitude. In other words, a point isn't a dimension; it only becomes dimensional as something emerges, is generated, out of the point. And we have noted that the first thing to be generated out of a point is what is called a line. A line has length but no breadth—what's that? Whatever this solar energy is is generated out of a point; and if we want to give position to the point, we say it must be somewhere in the sun. It has position but no magnitude.
I was noticing the other day that the idea was beginning to percolate that somehow or other there was a black hole in the sun. Do you know what a black hole is? They have discovered black holes here and there in the universe into which what we interpret as substance may flow and vanish. Perhaps there's something coming out of a black hole too, which isn't noticed. But the idea of a black hole at the center of the sun is related to this matter of the initial point of generation. There is something emerging into what we call the dimensional world: various vibratory levels, one thin band of which we interpret by calling it physical substance.
It seems to be a peculiar world we live in, doesn't it? It isn't the way we have always thought it to be. If we begin to recognize this without getting bothered by it, it may be an indication of the fact that we are emerging into a state of greater wakefulness, where we see things as they are rather than as we have imagined them to be. Now, it might be said that if I am describing the solar entity, we are indulging in a little imagination; but, you know, all imagination is based in something that is true. You cannot imagine anything that is not based in something that is true.
You can’t pick something totally new out of the atmosphere, so to speak, and there it is! What would it be? There must be something first. We have noted that, in the creative process, God never makes something out of nothing, and if there is imagination, there is something back of the imagination. The point with human imagination is that whatever was real back of it is translated into distorted patterns insofar as human consciousness is concerned, and we have some pretty far-out things in imagination in consequence. But somewhere back of whatever it is, there is the truth, there is a reality, which is sensed but mistranslated.
If we imagine this solar entity as a vast vibrational sphere, that is an interpretation of something that is true, and perhaps it might be said that the interpretation in this fashion is nearer to the truth of the matter than some of the other separatist interpretations. We see how this separatist business permeates all areas of human experience. People want to maintain their state of separation, as though there is something valuable in it, as though “my” culture is better than “your” culture: “I need to make sure that my culture lasts; it doesn't matter so much if yours passes away.” But all of it is based in this separatist approach, so the true culture is never seen; because, after all, if there is human culture of various types, it must spring from some reality. The human culture which comes out on the surface is not the reality, because it has been misinterpreted by reason of the separateness which has now become so inherent in the state of human consciousness. We are concerned to awaken to the state of oneness.
Now, let's look at something else here, in connection with the solar system. It is said nowadays that sunspots have something to do with weather conditions on the earth. If we are aware of the wholeness of things, we could equally say that weather conditions on the earth have something to do with sunspots. Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? The point is that everything emerges out of that original point, and there is something back of the weather on earth and there is something back of the sunspots on the sun, and it's the same thing; there is no separation. Where people are polarized in the earth, they see everything in terms of earthly cause and effect, as it is considered to be; but this is a very superficial view, because everything that is happening is happening by reason of what is back of the surface event, or at the higher level of vibration.
If we see physical things occurring on earth—wars and rumors of wars, all the conflicts, all the things that are working out in various ways in human experience on earth—the concentration usually is upon how one thing that is working out is affecting another thing that is working out. In other words, it is a totally surface consideration. But there is something emerging through everything that is working out, and so one thing is not really a cause of another thing, in the surface sense. The things that are happening in the surface sense are simply reactions of various kinds, on the basis of this separate condition in human consciousness, to what is emerging vibrationally speaking, what is emerging from the original point.
This is particularly emphasized with respect to our solar entity. Obviously, the solar entity is not something separate from the rest of the universe. There is what might be called a galaxy entity, of which our solar entity is an essential element. We see, then, a much greater sphere of some kind, vibrationally speaking, of which we have an awareness because of the level of vibration which we discern as physical substance. We also discern, with our instruments, other levels of vibration which are included in this vast galaxy entity, but then the galaxy entity is a part of something else too. Our concern is to awaken to the awareness of wholeness, so that we don't merely see little bits and pieces of what we call physical substance spinning around here and there. That, indeed, is not nearly the half of it! If we look at it this way it certainly engenders a fractional experience, and in the fractional state we are dying souls.
The only way by which we can awaken to the truth is because we acknowledge in our living experience what is portrayed here as the first great commandment, so that we are centered at the point from which what is emerging may come forth in our own experience. Then we are not trying to adjust ourselves at the periphery to what is going on, but are simply allowing what is emerging—which is the cause of what is going on, anyway—to come forth through ourselves in our own particular field of function in the whole. It's coming forth through everybody else too. It is coming forth and is made evident through everything else! But if we misinterpret what it is that is coming forth, we get everything jumbled up in our consciousness, and everything, consequently, jumbled up in our world. How can the experience be a clear one unless we ourselves are clear with the point by reason of which the coming-forth is occurring? Then our movement will be in harmony with that coming forth; and while the movement of many other people may not be in harmony with that, nevertheless it is not outside of what we call the working of the Law. Now, here is another human interpretation of something. In one sense it could be said there isn't any such thing as the Law; everything is just the way it is, that's all. It works the way it works. It doesn't work any other way.
We tend to feel ourselves bombarded by what is going on around us and we have different kinds of feelings with respect to what's happening around us. Some of the feelings we have may be pleasant feelings, some not so good. But if we get all tied up in those feelings of what is going on around us, to that extent we are in no position to discern what it is that is happening at the focus point. Human beings are always trying to set up their little patterns out here on the periphery and, generally speaking, totally ignoring anything that may be emerging from the focus point. Until one pays first attention to the focus point, one cannot possibly know what it is that is rightly emerging on the periphery. But human beings get these things set up on the periphery, and then, because what is emerging from the center point can't actually be stopped—it's going to emerge anyway— they find that what they'd got all nicely set up on the periphery begins to split apart. What is emerging from the center point is forcing it apart, and that's a painful business. People suffer and complain in consequence. But it was their own determination that did it.
There is the endeavor to create a surface skin, so to speak, of relatedness between human beings, and between groups of human beings, between nations, what have you. We have the United Nations trying to do this thing. Obviously, not very successfully. There is a pressure underneath, all the time, splitting it apart because it doesn't belong together the way that human beings try to put it together. Hence, the first great commandment, the one important thing in all human experience. How carried away people are by what they feel with respect to each other! At one end of the spectrum, they think they hate this person; at the other end of the spectrum, they think they love this person; and there are all shades in between. But how utterly meaningless that is. That could relate to the second great commandment, but it never does because there is a failure, utterly, with respect to the first great commandment. There must be a Centering at the Core.
Now, the first awareness of that core is like unto our awareness of the sun. In other words, we see something. We don't need to try to analyze what it is, but that's a first awareness. The centering point is not the sun, as we think of it; it is a point, if we wish to give it position, at the center of the sun, a point which has position but no magnitude. That's the point of orientation. The sun is a very good illustration of the flaming sword, isn't it? You can't get to that center point in the sun without passing the periphery of the sun, which is pretty hot.
Only as we begin to awaken to the necessity of total centering, total love, for that point, toward that point, toward the quality and nature of that point which is revealed most distinctly the closer one is to that point, only as there is this total centering, can there then begin to emerge what should emerge on the surface. To the extent that we get hung up in the surface patterns, to that extent there will be a tendency to ignore the center point. This becomes most clear from the standpoint of a man and a woman who fall in love, as they put it—all wrapped up in each other. A little meaningless cyst! Because, whoever the individuals are, each one has a center point, the same center point, and the relationship there is the only thing that matters. “Oh, but I have this deep feeling!” “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all”—deep feeling, everything. Then see what happens! But, of course, most people, well, they think they're going to lose out. We are here to prove it out.
How much we have considered the Tone, the Tone which emanates from that point and with which we rightly associate ourselves, become familiar, discover what the quality of it is in relationship to this aspect of our expression and to that aspect of our expression. All this is primary, because we don't know, until we find out what that centering point is in relationship to ourselves, what our expression should be; so we don’t know what our relationship with others should be.
“The Lord our God is one.” That is the supreme truth. Let us experience that truth! Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. Thou only art holy. Thou only art worthy of our love. Only in love with Thee do we become aware of the truth of love. Aware of the truth of love, filled with the truth of love, radiant with the truth of love, then we know the wholeness that is the true state of man, and in that wholeness the specific patterns of relationship take form at the level of vibration which we call the earth. O Lord, how very thankful we are to have the opportunity to be awakened to the truth, in the Christ. Aum-en.
Using the solar entity as an illustration, we may be very much aware that the nature of this entity emerges by reason of the sun at the center. In this sense, this planet can be seen as a part of the sun, a specific means by which the truth which is present at the center may be revealed in all its glory. This is the challenge that is presented to us and to all the angels of the Lord on earth.
We have been going through the process of becoming oriented in relationship to some the obscurities of the past, the basic patterns which were involved in relationship to the fall of man, and we carried the pattern forward so that you could see that the period covered by Old Testament history was under a Water — Fire — Fire pattern.
You will recall that in days gone by there was a period when Mars, the planet, was worshipped as a god. And there was another period when the planet Venus was worshipped as a god. If you go out and look up at the sky at a time when either Venus or Mars are visible in the sky, do you see anything that should be so outstandingly different from the other planets, that the ancients would particularly pick out such planets as objects of worship? The simple answer is, you do not. There is not enough difference in relationship to the appearance in the sky, not enough obvious relationship to warrant any such adoration or concern or fear as was once shown toward these planets. We have, right on the face of it, obvious evidence that these planets were not always functioning in the orbits where they now are. We have obvious evidence that they were in some other position than they are in relationship to our own planet. Now we will not attempt to go into that extensively. We have some text material on this point, in relationship to what has been gathered on a very scientific basis as evidence, and in a general sense the outline as it is given is very good. Some of the conclusions drawn from the scientific evidence we cannot agree with, but the scientific evidence itself stands and is worthy of a good deal of consideration.
Perhaps we will have time to go into it somewhat later on, but going back for the moment to some of the things that worked out in relationship to the processes of the fall. Up to the time when the fall took place there was no disturbance in the patterns of polarity, the cycles were working normally, but it was through Man, the Focalization of Creation, that these currents were working in relationship to creation. When man was in right polarity the planet itself and the various levels of creation were held in polarity in relationship to the cosmic scheme of things. But when the fall had taken place, from the divine standpoint there were certain problems which were posed.
Those who did not fall, those who maintained the right pattern, were keeping the earth in right polarity and maintaining conditions where it made it seem that those who were functioning wrongly were not reaping any ill results of their wrong action, because the right pattern was maintained for them and all around them. And consequently they took the attitude, “See, we are doing as we please and the ill results which were suggested simply have not appeared.” Therefore they felt justified and were utterly unrepentant. Everything within that scope of the pattern was done to give them ample opportunity to return to the Divine Design, and it was not at all necessary that all these thousands of years of suffering and misery and sorrow and death should have followed.
To say that man turned away and that God could not do anything about it, that man then had to go through all this long cycle, and Jesus Christ had to come into the world, and all the rest of it, just because man originally fell, is utterly wrong. There was plenty of opportunity at that tine for those who had turned into the wrong path to repent. But the violent results did not immediately appear, not in the sense that would carry conviction. One of the points that we notice with respect to the outworking, as it is given in the blueprint which we call the Book of Revelation, is that there should come a point when there would be a basic recognition that “just and righteous altogether are Thy judgments, O Lord.” And as long as there was a pattern where it would appear that God's judgments were not just and righteous, the thing had to be proven out. In other words, merely because God could foresee such-and-such a result, merely because from the divine standpoint there was a definite recognition of what would take place, and that it would be justified to take such-and-such an action, those who were not functioning in relationship to that level of consciousness and who simply could not see that there was any justification in taking the attitude toward them that was taken, they felt self-righteous and took the attitude that God was not being fair, that His judgments were not right. I have had that same attitude displayed toward me many a time. Then what was to be done? The thing had to prove itself out.
It was not God's purpose or intention that death should appear on the earth, and all the miseries that produce death. There are those who believe that God created man and intended that man should fall; He did not intend that man should remain in some kind of a perfect state — that God was not fair to man; man at that time was just like a little child; he did not know right from evil and he made this mistake and then he did this, he did that, and so on. And God either condemned everybody just because one who was comparable to a child made a mistake, which would be unjust, or else God intended that man should fall. So man's rationalizations, attempting to work out an idea that would not make it appear that God was too unjust, have brought about a conclusion that God simply intended man to fall and that death is a part of the Divine Plan, a part of the school, or a part of an opportunity to grow or something.
So the concept that death is absolutely essential to life is widely held and the inevitability of death, etc., is greatly emphasized. As the pattern now stands certain substances of the body or certain parts of the body, or some body is going to die, as we say — but death is not at all what it seems to be to human beings, and that which is in the divine scope of things is not death. We have recognized that the Divine Design was birth and ascension, not birth and death. Once we begin to actually realize that, we can see that God did not intend that man should fall. All of this misery and suffering and sorrow has not been a part of the Divine Plan. It has all been contrary to God’s will, contrary to God’s plan, and when I say contrary to God's will, again we come up against one of the popular religious concepts, because there are millions of people who believe that everything that happens is God's will. God is all powerful, therefore nothing can happen without God's will, and if something happens to you, it is God's will. If there is a tragedy, a death, a suffering, a sickness, an illness, or anything else, it is God's will. And they take the attitude that it would be somehow blasphemous to suggest that anything on the face of the earth happened without it being God's will.
Carried out to its logical conclusion, you have to admit that everybody that lies, everybody that murders, everybody that steals, everybody that does anything evil, is doing God's will. You cannot be logical in that kind of a pattern without carrying it right on and recognizing that it includes everything. Very well, if everyone who does something wrong is doing God's will, then God is not properly going to punish the person that does His will, is He? He should reward. It gets back to the same point I made with respect to Judas, because if it were God's will that Jesus Christ should die on the cross in order to save people from their sins, then we must admit that Judas of all men, outside of the Master Himself, rendered the greatest service to each and every one. We cannot agree to that. No, it was not God's will. Judas was not predestined to do that. He was not acting on Divine Impulse. So we begin to realize, wherever we turn, there is evidence of the fact that it was not God's intention that all of this misery and suffering and sorrow should come into the world. We have had over twenty thousand years of a pattern on earth that was not necessary, that God did not intend, and that is not in any sense a fulfilment of His plan; and until we get out of it, we are not in position to continue on in the outworking of His plan.
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So the immediate goal is to get man out of the situation. That is merely an incidental plan to the situation. Man has come to act as if he believed that God's whole purpose and plan was to save man, and after that was done, there is nothing else. But God's plan did not include the fall of man. That was not the purpose or intent, and until we get back into that pattern that God did design, we will not be functioning according to our true purpose. So this work of bringing about the restoration is simply an interim plan and purpose in order to reinstate man in a position where he can function according to the Divine Plan. Once we begin to see that, we can begin to take the right attitude toward the basic facts of life as they relate to man's present situation.
Well then, we see, going back again to that original point, that those who had fallen were not producing the condition which their acts would naturally produce. Why? Because there were other people in the world who were not functioning in that manner, who were maintaining the polarity as far as the earth itself was concerned, who were maintaining a condition that let evil people — people that were rebellious and following their own fancies — have all the blessings, practically speaking, in an outer sense, of right function. Well, after a reasonable period of time given to those people to repent and return, God had to make a change. Now God is not a destroyer. He is a creator. So it would have looked unjust — the surface appearance, the evidence, would not have been present to have simply annihilated those people, to have said, “Well now here, we will just annihilate you and the rest of the folks will be all right, so we will go right on.” But that is not God’s way. And the evidence was not manifest.
The judgment would have been in the appearance of an assumption, because the outworking of the cycle was not manifest. God could foresee what the outworking would be, but to judge on that basis without the cycle actually having worked out would have made it appear that God was perhaps unjust. So the only thing to do, after a reasonable period of time, was to have all of those who were functioning correctly — except a few, very few, who were to remain as leaders and teachers to give an opportunity to man — to have everybody else ascend — a mass ascension of millions of people away from the earth's surface, leaving only a few to be leaders and teachers to whatever degree those who remained would listen, after they began to see the actual evidence of their wrong doing, the results in manifestation. There had been, to make it a little more exact, group ascensions quite a while before the final one, which allowed some evidence to appear, but it was not enough to convince the self-active minds of men. They took the attitude, “Well, you folks go on. We do not care. We do not need you. Look, we are getting along all right. This threat that you are all going to ascend and leave us, what difference does that make to us? Go on. We would like to have the earth all to ourselves.” They took that basic attitude. So the day came when there was a mass ascension of those who remained, and the earth was left to them with the few exceptions I have mentioned.
And so, what happened? Those who remained were out of polarity. The cosmic currents working in relationship to the earth had been moving through Man, Divine Man, in polarity. That body of control was removed and the control factors were consequently gone. So the cosmic currents which function in relationship to the earth, the solar system, and so on, had to be without any means of manifestation, or work through man who was out of polarity. Immediately then, the earth itself was thrown out of polarity. The polarity of the earth depends upon the polarity of man as a human family. Not just one or two human beings, no, but the whole human family. The polarity of the earth itself depends upon the polarity of Man — meaning mankind. So immediately the earth itself was thrown out of polarity. It was wrenched suddenly off of its axis, the subterranean supports under the earth crumbled, fountains of waters gushed out, flames of fire appeared in violent volcanic eruptions, and over a period of about seven thousand years after this real process of submersion began the Motherland or Lemuria was in the process of submersion — terrific earthquakes and all kinds of things. The earth was reeling to and fro on its axis much more than it is today, and it was thrown out of its orbit in relationship to the Sun.
Now, when we have a solar system, a sun with various planets around it, and one planet is suddenly thrown out of its orbit and out of its polarity, are all the other planets going to be unmoved by it? No, because they have an inter-relationship. Their particularized positions depend not just upon the individual planet’s relationship to the Sun. Our particularized position in the planetary system depends not just on the Sun and our planet as such, but upon the influences, gravitational and otherwise, of the other planets of the solar system. Do you see that? It could not be any other way, because no group of bodies in what would be called space, functioning in relationship to each other, can have no influence upon each other. They do have an influence, according to their mass and density and make-up, etc. There are variations of gravitational influence, just to name one thing, and there are many other vibrational factors involved. So when the earth was thrown out of its polarity and out of its orbit, it likewise threw other planets out of their orbits, and the pattern worked out so that the … well, there was a gravitational mess, shall we say. There were certain of the planets which, due to these factors … and they worked out in relationship to some comets. I am going to have to bring in the pattern of comets here, to make this clear.
The comets of which we are aware, the comets which come within the range of our vision so that we can see them and know about them and chart them and so on, are a part of our solar system. I do not know whether you knew that or not, but you can study into it if you wish, from the standpoint of astronomy. They have the Sun as their point of orientation — our Sun. And these comets which are a part of our solar system are likewise a part of the basic material factors of our relationship with the rest of the universe. A rather limited but suggestive illustration would be the fact that there are red blood corpuscles. Suppose you figure the heart as the center of the physical organism and we have various organs at certain distances from the heart, and certain members of the body, like hands and feet, which revolve in a sense around the heart, or function in relationship to it; but there is likewise something that goes to the heart and out to the extremities and back again, the circulation of blood, or the red blood corpuscles, etc.
Now, of course the application of the principle is different in relationship to you as a human being, but just exactly as that is true in you as a human being, the relationship of this planetary system with the rest of the universe had to be established on a basis that was not just purely spiritual, shall we say. There had to be physical factors. And the comets, of which there are many, are a part of this pattern. Now when things were thrown out of polarity and the comets were functioning as they did — they had a part in maintaining particularized balance and rhythm in the movement of the planets themselves —there were certain planets which were thrown into a comet pattern. I might mention that there is one of the planets which belongs in the solar system as a planet which is still to this day functioning as a comet.
Now, we talk about physical changes in the solar system, physical changes in relationship to the earth. These things do not come about all just because of what we might call spiritual means — the idea of changing the pattern in relationship to the earth. How is it that the earth itself is going to be caused to move in the future yet on a basis which makes it seem that the heavens are rolled together as a scroll? Suppose you are standing here on the earth's surface and looking up at the sky and suddenly, because of variations in gravitational pattern, the earth is thrown suddenly on its axis and rolled over the other way. You are used to it rolling one way. How about having it roll the other way on its axis, or north to south, we will say? If you are looking up at the sky under that circumstance, aside from a lot of other things that will be happening, it would appear that the sky was rolling together as a scroll. And if the earth is thrown into a serious wobble on its axis, as has been the case in the past and as will be the case in the future, we have some very interesting results.
Now the earth will ultimately, in the outworking of the Divine Pattern, one way or another be restored to its normal balance in the axis pattern. This excessive wobble that we have today will be eliminated, and we will be restored to our proper distance from the Sun. We are not out very much from that distance or human beings could not live. You see, if the variations were too much the conditions necessary for the life of man would be gone. So this is one of the factors which makes it impossible for man, under the present time, to live more than a hundred years or so, generally speaking. Because the earth itself is out of key, the vibrational factors of the solar system have to be changed — and just you and I, or a few human beings, this group for instance, even if we begin to function on a reasonably good basis, just that alone is not going to produce the conditions necessary to the perfect fulfilment of the plan. We have to carry on under these conditions until we become powerful enough in relationship to centering, in relationship to control patterns, to allow the vibratory factors to move through us as a means of establishing right polarity for the earth.
But it will be more than that, just as it was more than that at the time of the fall. For at the time this works out, our sister planet which is at the present time functioning as a comet — and because of that we have been able to maintain conditions in the solar system which would let man live even as long as he does now — is going to be restored to her position as a planet, and the vibratory balance will have to be worked out again. When that planet which is now acting as a comet comes back into the solar system, we need to be ready for it. We will not try to restore the earth to its right polarity until the right vibrational conditions have been reached in the sense of the creative processes. Even if we were ready today, and it would take at least one hundred and forty-four thousand people who were perfectly centered and coordinated as a control pattern to even begin to think about it, but suppose we were ready today, which we are not, we would still have to wait until the cycles of time worked out, the right vibratory patterns were developed, and the time had come in these patterns of movement for our sister planet to return to the solar system. But when that time comes, we had better be ready.
Now we do not have too much time. In other words, you cannot say, “Well, if that is the case, it does not make any difference what we do.” It does! And we had better be getting ready or we will have trouble. But that means that a whole new vibrational pattern will be re-established in the solar system and so in the earth, a vibrational pattern which would make it possible for man to actually do what he was created to do, equipped to do. We cannot expect now, under this vibrational pattern, to live for say five thousand years. That was what man was created to do — any length of time necessary, as I have pointed out before. But until we reestablish the right conditions, we are not going to do that. So we had better do our part toward re-establishing the right conditions. That is part of our job now.
And from the standpoint of what the Master did, we talk about the salvation of man. What is the salvation of man? It is the outworking of this whole Plan, so that the solar system and our planet can be restored to the Divine Estate, and until they are man is certainly not going to have the opportunity to live according to the full pattern of that Divine Estate. We can reach a certain degree of development and accomplishment under conditions as they are, far more than has been. There is no block ahead of you; do not worry about it. But that is as much a part of the salvation of man as anything that anyone can do. That is what was part of the program when our Master came into the world. The idea that it was all worked out when He died on the cross, as people put it, is so utterly infantile when one begins to see the truth of the matter. We see that the salvation of man requires the restoration of the earth itself to its proper point and pattern of function in the cosmic scheme of things. So just as the earth was thrown out of polarity, so will the earth be brought back into polarity, and the comets will have a part to play, other planets will have a part to play.
And there was a period during Old Testament history even when certain of the planets, Mars and Venus in the different cycles, were actually so close to the earth that they had the appearance of being much larger than our moon — and there was fire, the gravitational pulls involved between the two, electrical discharges manifesting between the two, and it is no wonder that the people then looked up in the sky and saw this great fiery monster as it appeared to them, and worshipped it. It was not in its present place in the solar system. Now if you have never heard anything like that before, it may sound a little fantastic to begin with, but we can look into it, we can examine it, because what I am talking about is a scientific fact — and there is a physical factor in relationship to all of these things.
For instance, you go back and consider some of the things that are spoken of in the Old Testament, and people will say, “Well, that is just a physical impossibility, the earth standing still, or this happening or that happening.” What was it that produced the peculiar conditions during the time when the Children of Israel were wandering in the wilderness? What was the manna from heaven? All right. The manna from heaven was something that was peculiar to that particular time and period when there had been a near collision between our earth and another planet, and there was a period of about forty years when they did not see the sun — the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. Is this just something fantastic that someone dreamed up, or is it something supernatural? No, there are sound, scientific, physical facts in relationship to every one of these incidents, and they are not just something imaginary or something achieved by some peculiar mystic means.When we begin to realize that there is a basic, scientific, physical fact back of every one of these outworkings, we will begin to see that we are not trying to do something that cannot be done; because whatever we do here, we are working on the basis of those scientific facts — not to try to achieve the impossible — out to set up vibratory conditions which will make it possible for us to utilize certain physical facts which are yet in the future. And if we are not ready when they come, it will be just too bad. So we intend to be ready. And all of these things are basic, and once you begin to see them — I think maybe I will have to take a little time, from the nature of the vibratory pattern here this morning, I think maybe I am going to have to take a little time to really study some of these things with you, just enough at least to let you see what I am talking about. But all of these things were working out during the period of the time of the Children of Israel; that is, certain of these things were, and some of them back beyond that.
But now I want to bring into focus one other point for you, to see what happened, because as I indicated the other day with respect to the graph of life, man went through a process of devolution or descending before he began to come back up to the level where he now is. He did not come out of oblivion, developing out of an amoeba or something. Man as a Divine Being was. Man fell. The graph of life went down very rapidly after the submersion of Atlantis, the continent that was on the earth's surface where the Atlantic Ocean now is. I might mention that the story of driving man out of the Garden of Eden, as it is touched on so briefly in the Bible, is the story of the submersion of Lemuria. And about a thousand years later there was the submersion of Atlantis, and that story is the same as the story of the flood in the Bible —the same story as the submersion of Atlantis. Driving man, as it is pictured here, out of the Garden of Eden — the submersion of Lemuria or the Motherland. And about a thousand years later, Atlantis went down.
We have recognized that at that time, or during those periods, there were vast portions of this continent under water. Plenty of geological evidence of it. You can find something that belonged at the bottom of the sea on top of our highest mountains.How did it happen? Well, I can tell you how it happened. Because until you begin to see how this old earth has been pushed and pulled and jammed and shoved around, you cannot understand it. And it did not take millions of years as some have thought, because those who developed those fantastic concepts — that is what they are actually — did not have any idea of what the physical factors back of all of this were, and so we will take a little look at it.
When the submersion of Atlantis took place — during that thousand years there was quite a development. Atlantis became the centering of world government after it was lost from Lemuria, and civilization began to pick up again — a thousand years. How long have we been on this continent? When was it that Columbus sailed the ocean blue? 1492. About five hundred years, would you say? And all of this, all of our great cities, all of the things we have done, our railroads, everything — in five hundred years we have accomplished all of this. Now, of course they were in much better position to accomplish things in the days of Atlantis, and they had a thousand years. Stop and look at it that way and you will begin to see something. Because in five hundred years, look what we have done in this day and age. Handicapped as we were, using ox-carts and all the rest of it, and look what we have done in this period of time. They had a thousand years in Atlantis. So when I say there was a considerable period of development, you should begin to understand that there was something really far superior to anything that we have today, even under that regime. But it was not what it should have been; and various factors worked out, and Atlantis went down.
Then there were so many changes in the earth's surface at that time, so many changes in climate, in atmospheric conditions. There were just a few people comparatively speaking, scattered, isolated. The sudden changes produced what we have called the Ice Age, because that water froze suddenly. We have plenty of scientific proof of that, have we not? — that that water became frozen very suddenly. How did it happen? Because of the fact that the earth was reeling to-and-fro like a drunken man, the wobble was terrific, the climatic conditions changed, and what was a comparatively lovely climate became extremely severe, much more severe than we have at the present time, in fact. And these people were isolated.
Suppose you — it is not a very nice thing to imagine — but suppose there were enough atomic bombs fell right here on the earth, on our country, to absolutely wipe out our cities, wreck our communication systems, and have just two or three people here, maybe three or four over there, hiding in the mountains, living in caves, no resources as we think of them today, no cars, no airplanes, nothing; just civilization wiped out and a few scattered, actually maybe over the whole earth, maybe a few thousand people. Of course, it is pictured here in the story of the flood, just as Noah and his family. Well, allegorically that is true, but there were several thousand people in different parts of the earth who were saved.
Noah is the story given allegorically with respect to one family, but there were other families who were saved. The point is that these people did not know whether anyone else lived on the face of the earth or not. They had no means of communication. The second and third generation — and generations would become very short there, would they not? — you would have to be using clubs to kill some animals to get some food. The earth itself was covered with a density of clouds and dust and so on until you could not see the Sun. You could not tell what the directions were. For a long time they did not know what was north or south, they could not see the stars, they could not see the Sun or the moon, and it was cold, bitter cold. They were living in caves, trying to find some wild animals, get their skins to clothe themselves and so on. Oh, there was a cave-man age sure enough, but it came on so suddenly.
And how rapidly under those conditions, when every resource had to be given to the preservation of physical life, how rapidly would the consciousness of things gone by disappear. A grandparent talking to his grandson, trying to tell him something of what was before, he would have nothing to go by; the child could not see it, it would sound like, “Grandpa is a little nutty, you know. He is a little cracked. He talks about such things as that. Why, we all know that such a thing could not be.” Grandpa saw it and grandson did not, and how quickly it is all turned legend and myth. Do you see what I mean? And in a few years, fifty years even, suppose our civilization was wiped out and there were only three or four hundred people left, scattered all over, they did not know that anyone else was left; perhaps they were the only survivors, each one thinking that, how long would it take? And, if going through the woods, Grandpa and grandson stumbled on something peculiar, grandson does not know what it is. “What is that Grandfather?” “That is what we used to call a railroad track. Here is a little part that did not get covered up, some old rusty rails shining through the weeds and the undergrowth. I will try to tell you what a railroad was like. Now let us see, how can I tell you what a railroad was like?” — a railroad engine, no way of telling; a railroad train, no way of telling. “Pieces of metal there,” and Grandpa gets dreamy and he tries to tell grandson about it, and grandson shakes his head. “Grandpa is sure just about gone.” Can you see the picture?
Well, that is what happened then after the submersion of Atlantis, and the earth was plunged into that particular state and man forgot all about everything except trying to survive in a few very widely scattered points, and he was living in caves. How quickly does he revert to primarily an animal pattern under those circumstances. He has no means but his own wit and strength and a club to kill wild animals to get something to eat, and skins to clothe himself. And so when I say in five hundred years — remember we accomplished all this building up in five hundred years — does it sound so fantastic then when I say five hundred years from the time of the submersion of Atlantis there were just a few scattered tribes, a few cave-men here, a few nomads there, and civilization as it had been known was gone; those tribes were in most cases enemies to each other; they did not trust each other, and so on. And there you see the picture of the low point to which man went down.
And gradually he began to come up out of that, and finally in the early dawn of history we see Egypt appearing on the horizon. We begin to see the Near East. We begin to see something of that development working out in the Oriental pattern, and going back we can see something with respect to what was the fact down here in Central America, what we call Mexico now, and on down into South America, the Aztecs, etc. — and all that you can do is go back five or six thousand B. C. in history.
So man was emerging for several thousand years to get up to the point where he reached a state of civilization that allowed him to begin to make a record of his doings. Is that not what we call civilization? — man reaching a point where he starts making a record of what he does, so you have history. He begins to have an organized society. And that was the dawn of history as we know it. But I have given you just a tiny glimpse of the history that went before it so that you can begin to see something of the influences, and we have not been on a long journey up from the state of an amoeba. We have the background of Divine Man, the fall of man, this plunge into the cave-man stage and the Ice Age, and so on.
Why did the great layers of ice come plowing down across the earth’s surface as they did? If I take you up I can show you territory right out here on our plains where you can see the edge of where a great glacier came plowing along, pushing earth in front of it, and then it got that far and melted. The edge of it is right out here. I have flown over it many, many times. Oh yes, glacial action and all the rest of it, things that geology has not been able to comprehend except to know that there had to be an Ice Age — and because they did not know about this sudden shifting on the earth's axis and all of these other things, they imagine it had to creep down there and take millions of years. “Glaciers travel so fast, do they not? Why it would take so many million years for that glacier to reach from the North Pole to right out there.” Presto-change-o, you have the millions of years of evolution. But that is not the case at all.
You begin to see how and why these things happened. And you begin to understand the sound, scientific facts back of them. And remember that only as we are scientific and fundamental in relationship to these things, can we cause spiritual understanding to have any real value in living.
Over the years, in essence, I have been saying what is represented by these words: “Be steadfast. Be strong and of a good courage. Be.” That is an interesting little word composed simply of two letters. It provides a form for the release of essences. Each individual is responsible for his or her own essences to be released. The word “be” itself carries no particular significance, except as it is the form properly clothing the essential essences. This is true of all words. Human beings are inclined to bandy words about without much consideration. Sometimes things are said that the person who said them would wish he hadn’t. But one cannot get them back. The only safety, in speaking words, is to BE, so that the essences are present in one’s own expression, and the form of the words will then clothe those essences. What is said will be fitting, creative, even beautiful. What an outpouring of verbiage there is the world around moment by moment, mostly form without substance.
We have form on earth to provide a facility for essences. If the form, with its mental and emotional abilities, takes over the task of producing forms of thoughts and words and deeds, then we have a chaotic condition—the essences are excluded. We are here to be, providing the form for the release and expression of the true creative essences of life. These are already present; we do not have to make them be; but the clutter needs to get out of the way from human minds and hearts if those essences are to take their fitting forms. And the fitting forms are thereby caused to be creative in nature, to be in fact what has been spoken of as the Word. All things were made by the Word and without the Word was not anything made that was made. This is the fact, regardless of the nature of the word.
We have become increasingly aware, I trust, that we do create our own circumstances, our own world, through the expression of whatever word characterizes us. This is an individual matter. We all live in the same world but each one has a different experience in that world and of that world, simply because each one determines the nature of the world for him- or herself. If the true essences of life are permitted expression, then the world, the circumstances, the unfoldment of experience, is accordingly. There is the availability of beauty, of heaven, because the essences of life are present. We have, in times past, wished for those essences to conform to our own personal determinations, based in human likes and dislikes, in the way that human beings would wish for things to be. But the same old words keep spilling out in the same old ways in expression of the essences, not so much of life as of the absence of it.
There is actually no reason at all why the world should be the way it is, except that human beings have made it that way, and we are individually included in the number of those human beings. Our concern is properly to discover what it means to be. The personal identification of that particular word is summarized in the two words, I am. If I am, that is evidence of being.
Do you need assistance to be? Of course not, you already are. Human beings are looking for assistance all over the place. Maybe there is a need for assistance, to allow a person to come to the realization that he doesn’t need assistance. That is about the only kind of assistance that is required. Unfortunately it is the human habit to want to pile assistance upon assistance, somehow imagining that along the way if you get enough assistance—part of this is usually called education but there are other kinds of assistance too—if you get enough assistance, then you will finally be. That is a ridiculous idea, because obviously one is. The whole view that one needs assistance keeps one locked in subjection to everything else but the experience of being.
No doubt most of you originally contacted the Emissary ministry because you wanted assistance. Some assistance was provided (because most human beings are incredibly dumb!) that all of us might come to the point of realizing that we already are, and we do not need someone else to tell us how to be. No one else knows anyway. One can only know for oneself. But the human mind-set has the assumption, to start with apparently, that one isn’t, and therefore one must receive all the assistance necessary, finally to come to the point of being. We are born with all this stuff cluttering up the personal experience so that the fact of being tends to fade into the background and the individual imagines that he has to become something. You don’t have to become anything, because one already is. Is a person to become more than he is? How would that be possible? Perhaps it could be described in other terms: an unveiling of what one is. It is all there already. It gets hidden increasingly, as time goes on, by all the stuff that is further accumulated, beyond the hereditary inheritance, during the course of a lifetime, until there is so much weight of material that the individual cannot survive and the fact of being vanishes. But there was a potential present during the course of the lifetime to allow the unveiling of the fact of being oneself.
You are the only one who can say, speaking of yourself, I am. One can only experience being for oneself. One cannot get it from somebody else. One cannot be filled up with what already is by devious educational and other means. It may be useful to develop some abilities to do this and that but the development of those abilities will never make you aware of the fact of your own true being. It is important that one should become aware of that before one covers oneself up too much with all these superfluous educational assistances that are deemed to be so vitally important in this world which human beings have made. Just take a look at the world which human beings have made on this basis. It doesn’t impress anyone, I am sure, with a revelation of beauty, peace, harmony, coordination, creativeness. There has been creativeness of a kind of course—in the ability to create nuclear weapons, for one thing. People are all hung up on those these days. Anyone who fights against nuclear weapons is contradictory. Ultimately if you really get into a battle about it you will have to use nuclear weapons! And that will eliminate nuclear weapons, probably, but it will also eliminate everybody that is around. So that is not a very sensible way to go. Fighting against war is the most ridiculous thing imaginable. Fighting against anything actually increases what you are fighting against, because you are pouring your life force into it.
Stop fighting and be, that there may be present a focus of essences—spirit in form, in the world the way it is; not trying to make the world be something else. It is exactly the way it should be on the basis of what has been present in human beings. It is exactly what human beings deserve. We have all had our part in producing this. How is it going to change? Presumably by letting our contribution change, as an individual. What needs to change is one’s own experience of being. “To be, or not to be: that is the question.” It may ultimately prove to be the question—it has proven that way in individual lives for countless millennia. But there is nothing in fact to prevent anyone from having the experience of being, except the insistence upon not being, upon imagining that one can somehow get what is needful through somebody else.
Many of those who came to participate in the Emissary ministry thought they were going to get something from me, I suppose. I have had some experience in assisting people to reach a point where they realize they don’t need assistance. That is a tough nut to crack! because it seems that people so easily revert. They begin to come clear, then: “Oh no, nothing is happening; this isn’t real.” But we have seen that what is needful is that there be a point of essences in form on earth, steadfast, consistent, so that there is a basis for change. Change doesn’t come by manipulating forms—we still do it. It comes because this focus of essences is being maintained, day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out, year in and year out, decade in and decade out, century in and century out. How long do you think that is required to be done? One can only discover the answer to that by doing it. The present human life-span may be inadequate. Insofar as the individual experience is concerned, what does that matter? Is being going to vanish? Of course not. To be, without thought of reward, without expectation of some idea of fulfilment, without anything—just to be.
Obviously it hasn’t heretofore been possible to find a sufficient number of people in the world to let this be so for the required length of time. We have had people who have associated themselves with our Emissary program for a while and then drifted away because they didn’t see happening what they thought should happen, or some other reason. But to find those who have what it takes to stay steady, to hold the line, to be—that is what is required. I am most thankful that it seems there are those who are proving this out. We are more fortunate than people who have lived in the past because it is clearly evident that something is really coming to issue in the world which never has so far. There have been those along the way who have understood something and held steady, regardless of anything that happened, regardless of the enticements of external forms, so that the world has continued to exist to this point—that is, the world of human beings. We have had the opportunity of clear vision in this regard, so that for oneself one assumes the responsibility. I am. That is all I know, after all. Do you know anything more? Do you know that your neighbor is? All you actually know is, I am. Your neighbor may be sitting there. You may interpret the electromagnetic aura that is next to you as a physical body of such and such a shape, and such and such a background, and so on; but all that is your interpretation contained in your own consciousness. The factual thing is that all you know is, I am. All any of us know, is that.
As far as I am concerned, I am. As far as I am concerned you are also contained in my consciousness. I suspect some of you may be real! But switch it around; from your own standpoint the same thing is so. You do not have to become what you already are. This is true of any of us. Get the baggage of human concept and belief, human emotional reactions, out of the way so that you are no longer governed by them, and what you are becomes apparent. So often the individual will qualify the statement, “I am,” with various words: “I am inadequate,” for instance. It isn’t true. It merely seems to be true because you do not know, yet, what it is to be. You are still hoping to be in the future. Never! You are now. We all are now. It is the only time we will ever be; not coming in the future. But people are hopeful: “Maybe tomorrow.” But tomorrow never comes.
It is now or never. That is true in every moment. To be—that we may participate in providing a focus of essences on earth—to keep the essences steady, to keep, in our own experience and expression of living, day by day, the clear release of those essences of the spirit of God. Let that be held steady. “Oh, that is impractical. Nothing would ever happen on that basis.” Something has already happened on that basis. We have the proof of it in our own experience; some things have occurred of which we have some awareness. The things that have occurred have gone into the past now. A lot of people have an airy-fairy awareness, hopeful that something might be better. But to actually find a new expression of essences in form is a modern-day miracle—the evidences of some things that wouldn’t exist except for the fact that there was something of essence held steady over the years.
From my standpoint, I have been looking for those who would be trustworthy, who would be there providing this focus of essences and not wandering out whenever they felt like it. If they found something particularly alluring, then over the horizon they might go. So far, out of the population of the world, we have possibly a few hundred who have a sufficient experience of being for themselves that they can be trusted. They will always be where they need to be. They can’t be distracted anymore. You can see that this has been quite a task. It has been the dilemma in the field of essences, to find human beings on earth who would allow this to happen, so that the mess might be cleared up. But everybody was still convinced that they could clear it up some way on their own; and so it got worse and worse and worse, because they can’t. It can’t be done that way. It requires the focus of essences. Only that will do it. And we ourselves, if we have been steadfast in this, know that this is the way it works. Things begin to come together, fall into line.
Things only begin to happen when there is that central focus of essences held in position. Then the creative action of cause may be present within the consciousness of mankind. When that is consistently there it will transform the consciousness of mankind. There are those who are not happy about letting themselves be transformed. Well the transformation then occurs in a different way, but it occurs. There is integration, there is disintegration, both. It is part of the creative process. But it only happens constructively, in the sense of fulfilling purpose, when there is this focus of essences held steady. We and others have awakened to that necessity and have done something about it. Some have done something about it totally, some three-quarter-heartedly, others half-heartedly, still more quarter-heartedly, and some went over the horizon.
My sole concern, and I am sure it is for many of you, is that this focus should be maintained. That is all. I am not going to tell you anything with respect to what you already are. You are the only one who can know that, and you know it by expressing the essences. When you express the essences, you are in this focus of orientation, of creative action; and you find yourself related to others who are expressing the essences, not because anybody forced you to be so, or made it so somehow. You just discovered suddenly that it was so. Here it is. Perhaps the cloud that has been mentally present for so long is thinned a little, so that we are not quite so unwilling to admit the fact that we already know—to admit it mentally and emotionally and physically. And behold, here is the facility, the means by which all things are indeed made new, because the consciousness of mankind is in the process of being transformed. Whether anyone likes it or not has nothing to do with it. That is the way it works. Here we are in the position of being. Let us be.
As you know, this will be the last time I will be present with you in the Chapel for a season. On such occasions I have in times past usually felt it to be incumbent upon me to leave some sort of pertinent message, shall I say. I have no intention of doing this. If there is any message to be delivered, you deliver it. I will give you opportunity to do this after I personally have left the Chapel. This is your job, not mine. There is something properly forthcoming in a straightforward, disciplined manner through each one. You would probably be here until the early morning hours if each one spoke. Maybe that would be all right too. Who’s going to say? I have tended to set a pattern of providing something for an hour at service time, but because I have done this does not indicate that this is one of the laws of the Medes and Persians. It might be fitting for somebody to get up and talk for five minutes and then suggest everybody leave the Chapel. Or maybe it might work out that there was something rightly to be said and considered for two or three hours. “Oh, but that would interfere with”—what?—“my TV, or whatever.”
My final comment relates to the matter of discipline. For a long, long time you have been very aware that the two essential characteristics of truth are design and control. Is that not a definition of discipline? There has probably been a sincere effort to express the truth without the benefit of discipline, and to the extent that this is true it’s all gone for nothing. There hasn’t been the experience of truth. Truth includes design and control—discipline. Truth is discipline. Human minds and hearts don’t like discipline very much; bodies too rebel. Is that not indication that we don’t care for the truth? Certainly. There is something absolute required, the absolute obedience of our equipment, so that there is no question that what is required will be done—no more fat and flab.
Over the years I have, I think, exhibited a quality which is looked upon by most as being something real, namely patience. As far as I am concerned that’s gone. I have no patience whatsoever for those who are in position to assume disciplined responsibility through their equipment, and haven’t done it. There is no problem about the discipline except in the equipment. From the standpoint of the one I am there is no difficulty: “I intend to do what I should do, and I am going to require my equipment to keep an eye on the ball and follow through.” I wonder how this has been done heretofore? Oh, I have nothing to say about that on this last occasion because that’s your business! You are going to be here after all—I’m not. I’m going to be someplace else. Maybe I will rightly have something to say there, and maybe I will still allow for a little patience with those who have not yet reached a point of having had the opportunity of knowing the truth.
None of us should have any more patience extended to the intransigent equipment. It doesn’t want to do what you know very well should be done. Who cares? Do it! So there is the matter of discipline, and the need no longer for patience in the sense of buttering each other up to give us excuse for not doing what we know should be done, for not requiring absolute discipline on the part of mind and heart and body. Then something can happen. During this process we don’t find ourselves between a rock and a hard place, because insofar as the angelic presence is concerned—and I look upon you all in that vein—there’s no question. I require to be done what is needed to be done, and you require to be done what is needed to be done. We are in agreement. Where’s the fuss?
But I do stand here—and over the years I have provided a point of focus, saying in effect I am. But not saying in effect, I am therefore you do not need to be. That would be kind of a lonely state of affairs for me, if everybody took it up on that basis. No. I say “I am” and I expect you to say the same thing. No doubt this has been done up to a point, but I’m not going to kid you anymore and say, “Well that’s nice and you have been doing so well, and isn’t it wonderful, and I’ll extend a little more patience.” But how long? Until when? As long as patience is in the picture with those who know what needs to be done, and haven't done it, that insures failure.
While you may not have realized it entirely, throughout I have expected you to do what needs to be done. You haven’t always fulfilled my expectations, but at times you did. So you know it can be done. But you reach a point where surely one can’t say, “Well it will be more convenient in 1985; something very significant is going to happen in 1985, and probably something even more significant in 1986.” What it is, you tell me! I think something significant is happening now! In this year of 1984, July 29, 9:11 p.m. Pacific daylight time, the most significant thing on earth is happening in my experience. How about you? Because I have, over the years, taken the stance that I am, and you have learned to trust that in some measure, and to feel that I’m not going to let you down, you must come to a point when you do not care if I let you down, because you have taken the responsibility yourself. Then regardless of what I do—I may duck out, or do anything—what needs to be done will be done. Isn’t that so? Isn’t that realistic?
So we share the same understanding, the same focus of identity, the same job; and all that centers in the one little word: BE. There is only one who can be. Why not accept that one as oneself: I am, and all things shall be done through my essential earthly equipment; it’s all I have, as long as it lasts. The job gets done in this fashion because each one may say, I am on hand to do it. I am not waiting for somebody else to do it. I am not offering excuses because I am still identified with my equipment, excuses which say, “I am not ready to do it.” Who isn’t ready to do it? The equipment? Are you going to insist upon identifying with that lie, saying, “I am not adequate”? Lots of people have said that.
It may have appeared to my equipment that it wasn’t adequate, but I know better. I know that what needs to be done I can do regardless of any concepts about inadequacy on the part of my equipment. I’m not listening to all that rubbish. I know what needs to be done. I know how it can be done with the equipment that I have. That can be said by each person. It doesn’t have to be a special dispensation that will make it possible for me to really take responsibility. You know that’s nonsense! Yet you have supported the nonsense for a long time, agreed with it. Each person has equipment that, in its own eyes, excuses itself as being inadequate. Who cares what the eyes of the equipment say? You have sufficient ingenuity, sufficient spiritual expertise, sufficient power, sufficient understanding, to use such equipment as you have to do what you need to do. We don’t all need to do the same thing. We don’t want any duplicates anyway.
We are providing what might be called the motive power. It keeps on rolling because we are there to see that it does. And we’re there to use our thinking processes to determine how we might participate in letting it happen. Why not use your powers of observation? Why not use the ability to think a bit? Why not use the ability to sense things, and begin to let it all come together because you are functioning from the standpoint of the one I am? Then you will find there are things to be done. You may originate those things in your own consciousness and include others in them; or someone else may originate them—but you are not waiting for someone else to originate anything. We are no longer inert, I trust, but at last the animating Spirit of the Living God is beginning to emerge through the substance of our own experience.
It is good to let a little fire come into this area. I am not just going to duck out of here and say, “You look after it”, because from my past experience I don’t think much would happen. Maybe my past experience doesn’t apply anymore. I trust it doesn’t. That would really be a gift! But here we are sharing one identity, one most varied but harmonious essence, one body, one job—the job that I am concerned to do. I shall find out whether you are concerned to do it too, as time goes on.
