Glory To God In The Highest—Shekinah Magic

Shekinah  Magic

Uranda  June 26, 1953  Class

This is our GPC Servers’ Training Class of June 26th, 1953, carrying forward with the basic theme of Heavenly Magic and considering specifically Shekinah Magic. Gradually the pattern is unfolding so that you can begin to perceive with the eye of your heart the beautiful reality of the Divine Design, and seeing it, you begin to relax into it. You begin to let its control have meaning. You can, on the basis of faith—not seeing clearly—when there is trust, begin to let control have meaning, but the fulness of control in the reality of Truth appears when you have begun to see for yourself the beauty of the Divine Design. Until you do begin to see for yourself, there tends to be a feeling that you are going to lose something, that something, somehow is being taken away from you, or that you are being forced into some type of pattern where you will lose your independence. Independence to be a dying soul is not of much value. When we enter into the glorious liberty of the children of God as living souls, we find that we have the privilege of living in the Kingdom that is at hand, and are no longer enjoying(?) the seeming privilege of being independent in a prison cell from which the only release will be death. And so, you are beginning to see the beauty of the Divine Design, and relaxing into it you begin to let control have meaning. And you’re finding that gradually your questions are either answered or they tend to become unimportant. Have any of you noticed that? The questions are either answered or they tend to become unimportant. In season all things are made clear. But you must learn to see for yourself, and you are learning to see with the eye of the heart, with the Guardian Angel of the mind, the conscious mind, at work in you.

This morning I would like to direct your attention to one of the outstanding keys to a realization of reality that can be found in Scripture or Holy Writ anywhere, an outstanding key which has from the standpoint of its true purpose and meaning been virtually ignored. As long as we ignore the keys, we cannot use them to unlock the doors and let the things of God come in. It is not a matter of you climbing up; it is not a matter of you opening your prison door and going out of it. It's a matter of opening the door—you have to do that, you have to use the key—but you let the Master in, and when He comes in He begins to prepare a place for you; He begins to make the place over, not just an ordinary remodeling but the former things are caused to pass away. Behold I make all things new. Instead of imagining that you must somehow escape from a prison, you let the prison be rebuilt into a mansion, a mansion of the soul in which the things of heaven are present and made manifest.

This particular key was given to man at the time our Master's body was born on earth in the form of a babe. There were many remarkable revelations of the reality of Shekinah at the time of the Master's birth, but the central key is the Angels' Song. The central key is the Angels' Song: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” Let us look at this expression from the standpoint of reality, with the eye of the heart. Glory to God in the highest. What is the Glory? The Shekinah Cloud of Glory. Glory to God in the Highest. That carries to the Highest Focalization of Deity, going beyond the range of human consciousness or awareness. Glory to God in the Highest. And the expression was made in relationship to those who dwell on earth.

So, if there was a recognition of Glory to God in the Highest, we see with the eye of the heart how there was a Great Cone, shall we say—or what we have illustrated by the use of the word “tent”—a Great Cone, allowed to settle down over the earth, the base of it enfolding the earth as in a net, and the point of it extending upward to God in the Highest. And what is it that shapes this; what is it that gives it form? Glory—the Shekinah Cloud of Glory. And it was brought to the earth, enfolding man, centered on earth in the babe that was born.

And, Glory to God in the Highest, signifies that the Cloud of Glory, made manifest to man through the form of the babe that was to become a Man, extended to God in the Highest—that there was no break, no point of separation, no veil, except the inability of human beings to see the Cloud of Glory, the Shekinah, extended to the earth, enfolding the earth and carrying to God in the Highest. Glory all the Way. The Shekinah Cloud of Glory here, and all the Way to God in the Highest. And then following, when that is a reality, what does follow? “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth”—enfolded in the Shekinah Glory, something begins to manifest—peace on earth. “Peace on earth, good will toward men.”

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Now, the coming of the Master was the supreme gesture from God, the zenith of God's Gift of Love to man—and only in relationship to love can there be peace—and it is clearly indicated it was on earth, and the supreme gesture of good will—good will. Instead of seeing God as an avenging god, seeing God as a blood-thirsty god, seeing God as one who was always looking for a chance to torture human beings, instead of seeing God as One who had somehow conceived in His own mind the idea that He wouldn’t forgive human beings until His own Son was sent into the world and slain on the cross, we see that at the time of the Master's birth the Divine expression, the Angels' Song, conveyed to man the supreme gesture of love and good will. If there is good will, can we say that in the pattern of that good will there is a desire to get even, to make people pay for their sins, to make people suffer, etc? No. What is the natural result when human beings allow themselves to be enfolded in the Shekinah Cloud of Glory that extends all the way to Highest God?

First there begins to be a sense of peace—peace on earth, from which peace had been banished for so long, and from which it was again banished—peace on earth, the result of the working of God's Love within the Shekinah Cloud of Glory. And then good will—good will from God in the Highest, through the Shekinah, to all the children of men. Good will—the willingness to let all differences be past, to let all wrongs be as if they had not been. This is not the message of a bloodthirsty god through his angels, his avenging angels, to the cringing cowards dwelling on earth. This is the message of a God of Love, who does not require any blood sacrifice. This is the message of Highest God to the children of men through the Shekinah Cloud of Glory made manifest on earth, and centered on earth in the body of a babe. Peace on earth.

And the Angels sang the Song even though there was no room in the inn for Him; they were so busy there, celebrating; they were so busy with such important affairs that there was no room in the inn, no bed available to Mary. They were busy with such busy business! And the Angels sang the Song. Even though they had to move the ox from the stall, and put in a little fresh hay in the manger to make a place for the birth of the babe—the lowliest place. And still, even though that was all that man could provide for the coming of the LORD of Lords and KING of Kings, there was still the Angels' Song, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” No judgment, no condemnation, the open invitation to come, to come and let the beauties of the Kingdom of Heaven be revealed in the lives of the children of men. In conjunction with this there were other evidences.

This Song the Angels sang was heard by the shepherds who tended their flocks—and there we have again the Pattern of the Shepherd. Suppose a good shepherd is herding his sheep and one of the sheep wanders off a bit, gets over in a dangerous place, and the shepherd brings it back. Suppose one of the little lambs straggles, is straggling behind, does the shepherd come along with that staff and start beating it, and say, “Get up in there where you belong, or I'll beat you to death. I'll have your blood if you don't get in there”? And one of the sheep wanders aside a bit. Does he beat the sheep with the rod, or send his dog to chew it up, to make it bleed? We would take the attitude that such a so-called shepherd ought to be confined somewhere. We would say that that shepherd was a brute.

And yet we take the attitude that that was what God did. He wasn't content unless there was some bleeding. He was going to beat them up, have their blood, and the only way, supposedly, He could set aside this dogmatic attitude—“I'll have your lives for this”—was for Him to send His own Son into the world and say, “Now, I'll torture you. I'll have your life. I'll spill your blood. And then I'll take that as a substitute for the blood of all these other critters.” That is supposed to be the religion of the so-called Christian world. That's what they say, exaggerated a bit maybe, but that's what it is. No, God is not like that. Human beings have attributed to God their own dastardly attitudes and conceive God to be as limited as they themselves are, and they have built their concept of religion on that basis.

So instead of seeing the glorious significance of the Angels' Song, they have continued to weave the patterns of assumption and belief on the basis that prevents God's Love from being received, His Power from manifesting, His Truth from being known. And so human beings have continued to die, not because God cursed them and required that they die. No. How were they cursed in the beginning when man fell? They cursed themselves. Did God curse them? Human beings have consistently assumed that God cursed man, that God cursed woman, that God cursed the serpent. No, He did not. God did not curse anyone. They cursed themselves. They brought the curse upon themselves. And God did not say, “Now for doing this, because you did this, you've got to die.” No. He said, “If you do this you will die.” He didn't require their death. He only recognized that if they violated the laws of Life they would die.

If I say to you, “You go out here on one of these high points on the Rimrock and jump off, it'll kill you.” Now does that mean I'm going to take a club and drive you up there and force you to jump off. Certainly not. I've merely acknowledged that if you do violate the law of gravity, and jump off of that point, there won't be anything but crushed flesh and bone at the bottom of the cliff, and your life will be finished. Just so, God acknowledged, God told them, “If you do this you will die.” He didn't force them to die. He didn't compel them or say, “Now that you've done this, I'm going to make you die.” And it’s this distortion pattern in consciousness which has kept human beings from even beginning to see what the Master was talking about when He said, “I am the resurrection, and the life.” Remember, God did not curse man. God did not require that anyone should die at any time, under any circumstance, and least of all did He require that His Son should die.

Let us remember that the Master said, before the betrayal, before the mockery of the trial, before the agony of the crucifixion, before any of that, He said, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” Before any of this pattern of atrocity had appeared, Jesus said, or the reality of our LORD through the lips of Jesus, “I have finished.” He didn't say, “I have almost finished. When I've died on the cross, and the blood has been dripping from my hands and feet and side, then I'll have finished the work.” No. Before the betrayal, He said—and if we deny it we make him a liar, or try to—He said, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” And once you begin to see that God did not require the death of any human being anywhere at any time—God did not produce the condition which would cause death—that He did not require the death of our LORD on earth, or His body; once you begin to actually see these things, the truth of the matter, you can begin to have a new attitude toward life and towards God. But as long as you imagine, which is again an assumption, as long as you imagine that you are under sentence of death from God, what can you do? God does not require your death, or anyone else's; your suffering, your misery—it is not required.

Now carry this a step further, a point which we have noted before, but let’s have it clearly established in consciousness, with spiritual vision of the Truth. If God required that our Master's body had to be crucified on the cross, or that He had to die, if that were required of God, as some assume, then those who carried out the conditions or produced the conditions necessary to the crucifixion were serving God; they were preordained by God to do that, if you are going to carry out such a concept, if you are going to say that God required that they should do that so that man could be saved. And when spineless Pilate washed his hands and said, “I don't know. I don't find anything wrong with this man, but if you want to take Him out and crucify Him, all right, I guess it’ll be all right”—spineless Pilate.

But that was after something else. Let us clearly understand what was at work in Judas. Let us understand Judas. Judas was the treasurer. He was inclined to be over-fond of the monetary aspect of the program. And he conceived himself to be rather smart, politically minded, and he had the idea that they were going to set up an earthly kingdom, to restore the kingdom to Israel, and that Jesus was going to sit on an earthly throne, and they were going to drive the Romans out, and they were going to re-establish the pattern in Palestine. But he felt that the Master was not taking adequate advantage of His opportunities, His political opportunities. He felt He was wasting His time and effort, and was not getting the job done. Now he knew something of the Master's power, and ability. He had seen Him disappear from the eyes of men. He had seen Him do all kinds of things. And so the reasoning in his distorted brain, his distorted mind, was this: “I see an opportunity here, to take advantage of something. I’ll force the issue with the Master. He is so powerful that if He gets in a corner He will have to use His power. We’ll precipitate the thing a little. He is letting it drag on too long and He is missing His chance to become king. So I will do a little conniving. I am going to set the stage that will put Him in a position where He will be forced to use His power, and the thing will be opened up and then He will carry through, establish the victory, and we’ll have the kingdom, the kingdom of Israel on earth again.”

And in his distorted mind there wasn’t the slightest concept but what Jesus would do just that. He never dreamed for a moment that the Master wouldn’t resist, He wouldn’t use His power under that circumstance. And so he undertook to set the stage, and that was his reasoning. And when he found that the Master wasn’t going to use His power to establish an earthly kingdom, when he saw all that he had hoped for crumble, and realized that it was too late to do anything about it, he went out and hanged himself. He couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t face it. It wasn’t just regret—he loved the Master in his fashion—but it wasn’t just regret over what he had done, in that sense. He had seen himself as treasurer of a kingdom, collecting taxes, making the wealth roll in, having political power, the power of life and death—if someone did not do just so, he could put the squeeze on. He had seen himself as a political figure of power in an earthly kingdom. That was the reason why he did what he did. And he saw all his dreams fade and he knew that it would never be, and he couldn’t take it, and he went and hanged himself. Now, that is the fact of the case, that is the way Judas felt and reasoned, if you could use the word.

Let's see it as it is, and stop assuming, and begin to recognize that the death of our LORD on the cross was not something required of God. It was an atrocity pure and simple. And he did not actually die. He went into a coma. He went into a coma, but He did not die. Once we begin to see that, we can begin to realize the truth of the matter, that God did not curse man; man cursed himself. God did not require that you or anyone else should die. Human beings produced the conditions which brought on death, and God simply said, “If you violate these laws you will die.” They violated the laws; established themselves in the pattern wherein they would bring on death; and consequently they cursed themselves.

The Angels’ Song to the children of men was, “Glory to God in the highest and on Earth peace, good will toward men.” And where is there in that, the death sentence for God's Son on Earth? It isn't there! It never has been there. Human beings have believed a lie, a falsehood, an assumption, and until we begin to accept that, and realize that the greatest lie, the greatest and most dastardly lie that the devil has ever succeeded in establishing in the minds and hearts of men, was the lie that Jesus died on the cross, and that He had to die to save us. As long as the devil can keep human beings believing that, the Kingdom of God can be kept out of the world. God's control cannot reach into the world, because human beings are believing something of God that is not true. Their pattern of religion and belief and worship, and their supposed way of salvation—all figments of fancy! Assumptions pure and simple, deluded human beings! Now, don't go out and try to tell them that, but you must know that if you are going to serve God, and not be trapped into serving the devil. Remember that there are good people in all these religions and beliefs, and don't try to change their religion, whatever you do. Never proselyte, never condemn the religions. I do not. But I have to point to the truth of the matter if you are going to know the truth and let the truth make you free. And in season there will be those who are willing, of their own volition, to draw near and begin to see the truth as it is. “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”

The shepherd—the Pattern of the Shepherd—not concerned about punishing the sheep. What was the parable the Master gave? The ninety and nine that were safe in the fold, and one had wandered away, and the shepherd went out and found it, and carried it back, to bring it healing and restore it to its place in the fold. Do you suppose he went through all that just to give the sheep a good beating when it got he got it back in the fold, to beat it with an inch of its life? No. How senseless to attribute such dastardly things to God. No. Those who say that because man fell he either had to die, God couldn't do anything about it; or His Son had to die or we couldn't be saved. That isn't reasoning; that's assumption pure and simple. And we cannot understand life, the Magic of Life, the principles of living, or even how to give an attunement, until we see that.

Seeing it, we begin to recognize that the Wise Men who followed the Star came to the place where the Master was born, directed of the Spirit of God. And what was the Star? First we have the pattern with the Shepherds—the Glory, the Shekinah Cloud of Glory. And then come the Wise Men—wisdom, the sense of the fitness of things, a function in relationship to the mind, to the Truth. And what do we see? The Wise Men following the Star. And the Star is what? The Light that Glows. The Cloud of Glory, the Light that Glows, and then the Fire of Love. And within the Fire, One like unto the Son of God. The Shekinah Pattern of Being was established in relationship to the Master's birth, and He used it all the way through His ministry.  He talked about it. He revealed it over and over again.

And when He came to the point of the conclusion of His work on earth, before the pattern of the atrocity had taken form, before the betrayal, He prayed a prayer.  And in this prayer we find a glorious portrayal of Shekinah: “These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come.” What hour? The hour that He had to be crucified? Because He was crucified, human beings have jumped to the conclusion that He meant, “Now the time has come for me to be crucified.” He didn't say it. It's an assumption, pure and simple. The hour is come for what? “Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee.” Now in order for God to glorify His Son, He had to put Him through the mockery of a so-called trial, the misery of a crucifixion, and all of that was necessary to glorifying the Son so that the Son could glorify the Father. Not at all! Only human assumption has connected up those ideas and assumed that, well now, Jesus said, “Now is the time for me to be glorified, for me to glorify Thee, Oh Father.” And what happened following that? He was betrayed. He was crucified. He went through all of the ignominious experiences involved. And what happened? Human beings assumed, “Well now, this is the way God glorified His Son. Because He came forth out of the tomb, that means that He had to die. He had to do this; He had to do that.” Assumptions! Assumptions! No. How is He glorified? Not by the crucifixion on the cross—the cross of your body. You can crucify God and the things of God on the cross of your body too. There has been enough crucifixion. And it wasn’t required. If it was required that Jesus should be crucified on the cross then it's required that you should crucify the things of God on the cross of your body; God intends that you should do evil, so you might as well go out and do a good job of it.

And He said, “As thou hast given him power over all flesh.” As thou hast given Him power over all flesh. Well then, He could have used that power to do what? He had power over all flesh. But who is it that is speaking the Word? The man Jesus? The man Jesus was One in it, not to be separated from it. But remember that it is the Shekinah that has power over all flesh. The Shekinah Presence of the One Who Dwells has power over all flesh. And entering into the Cloud of Glory is the Way by which the Father glorifies the Son. He was talking about the Shekinah Pattern of Being here. And then He continued on, “I have glorified thee on the earth.” How? By letting the Shekinah Cloud of Glory have meaning, by letting the Shekinah Power manifest, by letting the Shekinah Light shine. “I have glorified thee, O Father, on earth”—the revelation of the Shekinah on earth.

And then He said, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” Now, is that a true statement or not? That is where the thing finally hinges. What do we believe? Whom do we believe? He said, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” He had some other things to face, but they were things that human beings forced upon Him. He had already completed all that God had given Him to do, before the atrocity. Seventeenth Chapter of John, the Fourth Verse, if you want to read it and look at it yourself. “And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.” Here we have the description of Shekinah, and it’s working in relationship to heaven and earth. “I have manifested thy Shekinah unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.”

But those who thought they were following Him, who called themselves Christians, forgot that, “All things are of thee. For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me.” Specifically, “I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me … and they have received, and have known surely that I came out from thee.” And that is all they did know, surely. The pathos in this prayer is something that must surely touch the awakened heart. He couldn’t anywhere through it say, “My disciples have reached a point where they can carry on.” If you read it with understanding you will see that the only thing He could say that they knew surely was that He had come from God. But how it worked, what it was, the reality of Shekinah, all the rest, they did not understand. “… and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.”

“I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.” How? When the Shekinah Pattern of Reality works through them, the Shekinah Cloud of Glory, the Light that Glows. He said, “Let your light so shine before men”—the Light that Glows. “Love the Lord thy God”—the Shekinah Fire, the Light that Glows, the Shekinah Cloud of Glory. Let these things manifest in you. He said it so many times, so many ways.

“And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own Shekinah those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy Shekinah: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition, that the scripture must be fulfilled.”

Now, human beings again assumed; they jumped to a conclusion that meant Judas. “And none of them is lost but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled.” And immediately busy minds jumped to a conclusion, an assumption, that means Judas. It didn't mean Judas any more than it meant any man or woman. What is lost? The son of perdition. Is Judas the son of perdition? He may have been a manifestation of the son of perdition, but the son of perdition is the whole devil pattern as it works through man, the whole fallen sphere—the son of perdition in any generation. Every human being who defies God and refuses to let God's Will be done is a member of the body of the son of perdition. And the son of perdition is lost. If you are not a member of the body of the son of perdition you are not lost, but if you are a member of the body of the son of perdition and insist on staying there, you are lost. The son of perdition is lost; yes, that is true. But to say he meant Judas is an assumption pure and simple.

“And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.” Here, at the conclusion of the Master's ministry on earth, He was talking about joy: “That they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.” Does that mean that they have to go and be crucified? No. No. That wasn’t the working of God's Will. That was man violating the Will of God. “I have given them thy word”—I have given them Thy Shekinah—“and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world.”

Well, most of those who conceive themselves to be Christians are very much concerned about getting out of the world and into heaven where they will be safe from the devil. And the Master in His prayer which concluded His ministry on earth said, “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” Thy Shekinah is Truth. Sanctify them through Thy Yruth; Thy Shekinah is Truth “As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.” Now let’s stop and look. If God sent Jesus into the world to be crucified to save people from their sins, then He sent you into the world on exactly the same basis. You were sent into the world on exactly the same basis that He was sent into the world. “As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.” Was He sent into the world to be crucified? If He was, then you were too; if not, then you are not. You were sent into the world on exactly the same basis, the same laws, the same principles, as the Master was sent into the world.

“And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth”—through Shekinah. “Neither pray I for these alone.” Now the Master recognized that in all likelihood there would be those who would rise up and say, “Well now, He was just talking about His disciples, the twelve, and Judas was gone; but just these men were going to have power, not us down here. We cannot expect it. We’re just poor, weak human beings. We can’t have the power of God. He was just talking about His twelve disciples having the power.” And there are churches that actually believe that rot. That's all it is.

What does He say? “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word.” I do not know how He could have made it any plainer, that everything He was saying in His prayer applied to any man or any woman, in any generation, of any color, regardless of background, socially or by creed or anything else. No limitations. It applies to you. His prayer applies to you just as much as it did to anyone, anywhere, at any time. “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory”—and the Shekinah Glory—“which thou gavest me I have given them.”

Now where are those who have received the Glory? Look in the world—either God didn’t give our Master very much Glory, or else those who were supposed to receive it haven’t received it. “And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them.” And it applies to us in this hour. When are we going to receive the Shekinah Glory? When we let it appear. “And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are.” Now human beings have assumed that we had to be One with the Father on some other basis than Jesus was. Now He was One with the Father for this reason and that reason, and the other reason. Now we are not going to be like that; we'll be some other how. We'll be One with the Father; we're going to go through some other channel. Assumptions. If we do not say that Jesus was a liar when He prayed this prayer, we must accept the fact that we are supposed to have Oneness with the Father on exactly the same basis that He had Oneness with the Father. And how was it? Through the Shekinah. It has been called different names, but human beings have forgotten what it means; they don’t know. “That they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me.”

I, Shekinah, in them, and Thou, the One Who Dwells, in me, Shekinah, that through Shekinah we may all be one. Not until you begin to understand the principles of Shekinah can you really understand the Master's use of language here. “And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me—Shekinah—and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.” That the Father loved them—you, in this hour—as, in exactly the same way, that He loved our LORD when He was on earth. “As thou hast loved me. Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am.” Not where I am going to be. They have jumped to the conclusion that that meant He was going to take Him up into the sky somewhere. Where was He when He said these words “Where I am.” He was the manifestation of Deity on earth. He was the focalization of, the revelation of, Shekinah to the children of men, and He said, “I pray that they shall be with me where I am,” not where I am going to be. But assumption again has said, Well, He really meant, “I want them to be where I'm going to be, and I'm going to be up in heaven; so, come on, little chillins, come on up to heaven.” No. Where I am—the manifestation of the Power of God on earth.

“Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory…” What Glory? Do they have to go to some far heaven to behold the Shekinah Glory? Certainly not. “… which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them thy name”—I have declared unto them Thy Shekinah—“and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.” The Shekinah Fire of Love in the manifestation of the Divine Pattern on earth.

Here we have the words of the Master Himself, in His concluding prayer. If they be the words of Truth, the words of our LORD in fact, then let us give heed to them and stop being concerned with all the assumptions. Let us “soar to high neglect of what's denied or said, this way or that, in Holy Writ”, on the basis of assumption, interpretation, belief, and all the rest. The Master said, “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”—free to live, and move and have your being in the Shekinah of our God. And so shall you share the Victory and do your part toward finishing the work which you came to do.

© emissaries of divine light

Christmas Meditation—Evidence Of The Presence Of The One Who Dwells

Christmas  Meditation

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Evidence Of The Presence Of The One Who Dwells

Uranda  December 6, 1953

We come to the hour of our evening meditation, this Sunday, December 6th, 1953. I thank God for the privilege of sharing this hour with you; and inasmuch as I will not be with you in person until just very shortly before Christmas, I think we ought to have a Christmas Meditation tonight, as we’re approaching the Christmas season. Shall we have a moment of devotion: Our Gracious LORD and Holy KING, we thank Thee for the privilege of serving Thee on earth, letting Thy Kingdom come on earth, letting Thy Will be done in earth as it is in heaven, that in this season when the thoughts of the children of men are turned to Thee, there may be a still greater outpouring of Thy Spirit, a manifestation of the evidence of Thy Presence on earth, to the end that all who will may share and know Thy Kingdom and Thy Power and Thy Glory, now and forever, in the Christ. Aum-en.

In this season the old, and yet ever-new, Christmas Story is being retold many ways in many places. This afternoon when we listened to the beautiful music that was presented by the choral groups up at the college at Fort Collins, where I had the pleasure of escorting our choir from Sunrise Ranch, we touched something of that general pattern of the Christmas presentation; and as far as the ministerial participation in the program was concerned I was constrained to feel that while the spirit of human beings turns anew to the Christmas Story, there is a crying need for a deeper understanding on the part of those who present that Story, so that it may not be merely words but a living expression of Divine Reality on earth in our hearts and lives at this present time. And so tonight let us consider some of the significant things in this Christmas Story.

We cannot in the time we have together tonight cover all parts of it, but there is so much that we can consider to great advantage, in radiation to the world, that the hungry ones may be filled, and in deeper realization for ourselves, to the end that the Christmas Spirit may truly manifest here. There are parts of the world where Christmastime is taken as a period of setting aside all those things which have tended to accumulate and distress one during the year; a period when, in the spirit of the babe that was born in the manger, the ill feelings of various kinds, the stresses and strains are set aside on a deliberate basis and cleared from the life pattern. And I was wondering if some aspects of such stress factors might yet remain in any of us, it might not be well in this Christmas season to take particular note of the fact that if we are to share the spirit of the babe who was born in a manger it is vitally important that we experience a clearing, a cleansing, to the end that we may be ready for the New Year, in a larger service than we have yet been able to render to our KING. Remembering the goal, we realize that nothing is important except as it relates to the reality of our service to our KING. Only as that service is promoted in the earth, to His Glory, can it be worthwhile.

And so we recall that Story, of how Joseph and Mary were journeying to Bethlehem to be taxed according to a decree that had gone out from Rome, the Roman Empire. Caesar had decreed that all the people should be taxed; and to make it nice and convenient, everyone had to return to the place of his birth to pay his tax—he couldn’t pay it where he was. And so there was a great shifting about of the population, and everyone was journeying to the place of birth. This made good business for the innkeepers, but it was hard on almost everyone else; and even the innkeepers found it rather difficult because if they happened to be some place other than where they were born they had to leave their profitable inn and go somewhere else, in order to be taxed.

Now it’s interesting that a decree by Caesar in far away Rome should be the means by which the parents of our LORD on earth were compelled to be in Jerusalem at the time of his birth. Under ordinary circumstances they wouldn’t have journeyed anywhere. Joseph was considerate, as husbands are today, and under the circumstances he wouldn’t have required that his wife should travel, especially under the crude conditions that were then available. And so they set out to return to the place of their birth, and Mary was riding on a donkey, moving with the throngs which were journeying in the whole land, going to be taxed.

Sometimes we today think taxes are a bit on the difficult side, and they are, but we cannot have a government and the services of government without taxes; so under the present world situation a certain amount of tax, at least, is very necessary. And at that time Caesar considered it to be necessary when he made the decree. It has always seemed to me to be a very arbitrary thing to require that every one should return to the place of birth to be taxed. It has always seemed to me that it was a very arbitrary thing to require that every one should return to the place of birth to be taxed. His idea was, of course, since it was easier to check up on the birth records than it was to try to get everyone cornered in the land otherwise, to be sure that the tax gatherers didn’t miss anyone Their inconvenience, and the suffering and the misery, and those that died along the way, made no impression on that Roman Emperor.

In any case, Joseph and Mary had been traveling for some little distance. Mary being great with child, was riding on a donkey. And they came to Bethlehem, and there they sought admittance at the inn. But because the potential tax payers were journeying in such huge numbers, the inn was full—there was no more room, and they were attempting to make the best of the situation, tending toward a bit of revelry. But there was no room in the inn, and finally a stall in a stable was cleared, the animals were taken out of it, and Joseph and Mary went into the stable to find shelter from the cold of the night. And there was fresh hay, and the manger—the mangers then were not exactly like they are today, but something similar. Generally speaking, pictures portraying this scene suggest that somehow there was a cradle in the middle of the stall, but that wasn’t the case—in a manger in a stable. And there was a place where the animals could be moved aside, and the parents of our LORD on earth could be given shelter from the cold night air. And it was there, in the stable, that our LORD was born—no place for Him in the inn.

Regardless of any other point that may be drawn from this particular part of the Story, we are reminded that we, as human beings, are supposed to be, individually speaking, an inn. Man is supposed to be an inn, providing a place for the Lord on earth. But generally, human being are so full of their own business, so full of their own affairs, that the Lord is kept out of the inn. And when the Lord is kept out of the inn, man is as an animal, sometimes even lower than the animal. The stable is the place of the animal, and all too often man has been the place of the animal. But it was in the stable, in the place of the animal, that our LORD was born on earth, and with His coming the stable became a Holy Place. This baby, so tiny, so helpless, in a cold, cruel world, protected by its parents, born in the stable, cradled in a manger, was the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells—God the Father. And the evidence of His Presence was first made manifest on earth in this particular cycle of outworking, in the form of a babe, a tiny babe. No doubt to many passing by it was just another tragedy of the throngs who were swarming this way and that along the roads going to be taxed. Many, seeing the parents, seeing the babe, did not have eyes to see or comprehend the basic truth that here was the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells.

The tiny form—how could man then be expected to know that in that babe there was the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells? But in any babe that is born in the pattern of the Divine Design we have evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells. And when you were born on earth, when you issued forth from your mother's womb, you came into the world as evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells. And yet, how long did you remain such evidence, how long did it take until even the tiny form of the child began to give evidence of something other than the Presence of the One Who Dwells? The inherent longing in you kept you searching and seeking; else you would not be here tonight, longing to return to the state of being the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells.

And later on in His ministry our Master took a little child and set that child before His onlookers, His hearers, and He said, “Except ye become as a little child ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.” And what is it to be a little child, to become as a little child? There are those things wherein the human being must acknowledge his helplessness, his need of a father—many ideas can be properly drawn—and yet what is the basic point? The little child is the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells, and unless you become as a little child, unless you become the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells, you can in no wise enter the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

And so, we are to follow Him. Our Master said, “Follow me.” And many ideas have been taught as to what that means, but to my mind, one of the things it means is as a child, a little child of God the Father, to begin to be the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells. And here we are constrained to pause and consider: What evidence do we make manifest day by day as we move along in the Way of Life? And the words you speak—they form the evidence of what? They carry the nature of their source. The words you speak—the evidence of the presence of what spirit? The attitudes you reveal—the evidence of the presence of what spirit? The deeds you perform—the evidence of the presence of what spirit? The thoughts you think—the evidence of the presence of what spirit?

Blessed Ones, when we begin to be, in body, and mind and heart, the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells, we begin to follow Him. Human beings have tried to follow Him without beginning at the beginning. They have been inclined, having become adults physically, to say, “Now we will follow Him according to such and such an idea”; but they neglected to follow Him in the initial aspect of His manifestation in ministry—for He came into the world the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells. And that is important. We must follow Him in this before we can follow Him in other things. His first step must be our first step if we would follow Him. And His first step in manifestation, even as a babe, was the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells.

Now, the shepherds upon the hills, watching their flocks, heard a song—they heard the Angels’ Song, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” And by reason of the fact that they heard the Angels’ Song they went into Bethlehem and saw the babe. They saw the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells, they recognized, and acknowledged, and accepted—and responded. But they were the ones who heard the Angels’ Song. And they were the ones who, keeping watch over their flocks at night, were ready for the message that the Child was born, that the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells would be found in a manger in a stable—not in some fine mansion, not in the most luxurious inn to be found in Bethlehem, not in some warm and comfortable home, but in a stable. Some of you here have been living for quite some time in a barn; of course we have taken the stalls and the mangers out and made some rooms, so it’s more like an inn.

But when the message came that when the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells was again made manifest on earth, where was it to be found? Not in the places where human beings might ordinarily look. That evidence of the Presence of God was to be found in a manger, in a stable, from which the ox and the donkey had been led away. A few short hours before it had been occupied by animals; it had been cleaned up a bit, a little fresh straw put in, a little fresh hay in the manger to form the cradle for the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes. And the shepherds heard, and they went into Bethlehem and found the babe, and saw and recognized the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells. And they went back rejoicing. So here we have one classification of those who have the capacity to see, to recognize, to acknowledge, and respond to the manifest evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells—the shepherds, those who were keeping watch over their flocks by night, those whose lives were given to service, even though they were simple folk. They were not learned, according to the worldly wise, but they saw and recognized the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells.

And there is only one other classification mentioned, outside of those who provided for the birth of the Child, the earthly parents, Joseph and Mary. They recognized, they were the ones through whom this evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells had come into manifestation. Mary could hardly believe that she would be the mother of the babe—that she should be so honored. And yet, the Child's parents saw the evidence, and accepted it, and acted accordingly. You, here, are supposed to be as the parents on earth for this Holy Manifestation that is coming from God—the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells. You, here, are supposed to be as Joseph and Mary, giving birth on earth to the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells. Not just a babe, some particular baby, but the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells in the baby manifestation of the Kingdom of God on earth. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things of Heaven shall be added unto you. And so, you are to be as Joseph and Mary. And even though it be in a stable, even though it be in a lowly place—and it is better so—we can let the baby manifestation of the Kingdom of God on earth appear right here, so that it may grow in stature and in grace, and fill the whole earth. So, there is this classification—you, who let yourselves be of the body of Joseph and Mary, for Joseph and Mary symbolize exactly the same thing as Adam and Eve did in the beginning Adam and Eve, Joseph and Mary, providing the means for the manifestation of the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells.

So, those who are the shepherds, the simple folk, who hear the Angels’ Song, and who come and hear and know—one classification. You who share here in providing for the manifestation. And one other classification, just one more, the wise men—the wise men who came from the east, and each tomorrow dawns from out of the east; the days of our tomorrows come to us from out of the east. The wise men from the east, coming out of the future, they followed the star, and came at last to Bethlehem town. And they came bearing gifts—frankincense and myrrh and gold. It was by reason of those gifts that Joseph and Mary we able to go down into Egypt and escape the wrath of the wicked king Herod. By reason of those gifts the Ministry of our LORD on earth began—the gifts of the wise men. The shepherds had no gifts to give except their adoration, their response. But the wise men came bearing gifts, and those gifts made it possible for Joseph and Mary to journey down to Egypt, and to live there for some little period of time before finally returning to Nazareth. The gifts that were given to make possible and to maintain the service of our LORD on earth. They were the gifts of the wise men. They too brought the spirit of devotion, of adoration, of acknowledgment, of recognition—of response. They, too, could see the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells. But others passing by only saw a babe, and nothing more. They did not see in that tiny form the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells.

Finally, then, the wise men came bearing their gifts, and generally it is recognized that there were three of these wise men. And to me, they tell the story of any individual, any man or woman, who can be counted wise; for as far as you were concerned, before you touched the sphere of this Service consciously, you were coming to this Service from out of the east, from out of the future. Name the day when you first touched this Service by reading something, or by hearing a word; or the first time you met me, or one of those who serve with me. Up to that time you were coming out of the east, out of the future, to the contact when we should meet. And, what gifts did you bring? Three wise men—your body, your mind and your heart, and if in your body, and your mind and your heart you saw, and recognized, and acknowledged, and responded to the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells made manifest through this Service, then you, man or woman, you came as the three wise men came. You were following a Star, a Guiding Light—perhaps you knew not what it was, or where it went, but you were following, and you came. Body and mind and heart, you came. And what did you bring? Or did you come, saying to the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells, “I need this, and I need that; please make me well; please give me this?” Or were you among the wise who came bearing gifts?

Let us consider these gifts—gold. Gold, the symbol of God’s Love, the gift of the wise heart. The gold, the gift of love, is the gift of the wise heart. And frankincense, and myrrh—they are the gifts of the wise body and the wise mind. Those gifts are not limited to three wise men on that Christmas Day so long ago, for if you, this Christmas Season, come before the LORD, the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells, bearing gifts, revealing that you have a wise body and mind and heart, and you give the gifts of love, and responsive attention, and responsive expression, then you too are counted among the wise, the wise men, just as surely as any who walked into that stable over nineteen centuries ago. The wise in heart, the wise in body and the wise in mind—they come bearing gifts, bearing the gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. The gift of the sweetness of being—a sweet, pure body and a sweet, pure mind, and the gold of the wise heart, the gold of love, given as gifts to the manifestation, the form of the manifestation of the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells.

The wise men—they did not go back to Herod. They were warned in a dream and they returned into their own country another way. Have you ever noticed that once you begin to really see and know, and accept and respond to, the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells, you may journey to your own country but you will go another way—for the way of your life is changed. You will never be the same again. The path of your life has changed its course, and it does not return by the way of Herod, the king of the self-active mind, according to the concepts and beliefs and ideas of the world, but by another way, according to the direction of the Spirit of God.

You yourselves know what it is to have life changed. Your lives were changed by contact with this Ministry, else you would not be here tonight. I can look at your faces one-by-one and remember the story of your coming, of how your lives were changed. We can speculate as to where you would probably be if it were not for this Service, and some of you, I know, as far as the physical form is concerned, would be resting beneath a tombstone by this time. There is no use speculating where you would have been. I can look out here and see bodies that, if they had yet been living, they certainly would be crippled and distorted, and filled with misery and pain, and yet I see happy and healthy human beings dedicated to the service of God. Others, perhaps not in such dire need physically, but a change in life. Your lives were changed when you contacted this Service, and you are here, and I thank God for you who share the responsibilities of this Ministry with me. And to some degree you have learned to be wise men and women, seeing, recognizing, accepting, acknowledging and responding to the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells, and giving your gifts, the gift of love from your heart, the gift of responsive centering in your mind, and the gift of the yielded flesh in your body—the Temple of the Living God, made sweet in mind and flesh with frankincense and myrrh.

The three wise men are the three phases of your own being, as you let it be so. And only those through whom the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells is made manifest, and those who are capable of hearing the Angel’s Song, “Glory to God in the Highest and on earth peace, good will toward men,” and those who are wise in the true sense—only these three classifications—three you will notice—can see, recognize, and accept the evidence made manifest in form, the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells.

Glory to God in the Highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. Blessed ones, we have another Christmas Season to share; and while I must be absent from you in person for a little time, it is nevertheless the Christmas Season for you, wherein you may hear the Angels’ Song, you may be the wise man and the wise woman, and you may let the place of the animal, the stable of your own body be the place of birth on earth of the Presence, the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells. This is my Christmas message to you.

It is a Christmas Message to be transferred to other tapes and sent to all of our groups who have recorders, to hear. It is a Christmas Message to go far and wide, to all who will receive it. It is a Christmas Message to be transcribed into printed form, and made available to the far places in the earth. And to each and every one who shall hear this Word, by tape, or read it, or hear it read by the lips of another—to each and every one I say, “A joyous Christmas”—knowing full well that you can have joy only as you receive the joy of the Spirit of God, in the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells. As the Master Himself said at a later time, “My joy I give unto you, that your joy may be full.”

A Joyous Christmas to each and every one, that each may be keeping the flock by night, and hear the Angels’ Song, that each and every one may prove to be a wise man and a wise woman, bringing the three phases of being before the Throne of God and giving the gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh, that the stable which was the place of the animal—you, your body—may become the means by which the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells may be revealed on earth—the Shekinah of our KING made manifest, the manifestation of the Christ Spirit this Christmas Season, that in truly giving yourself to the KING you may be open, as the stable was open, to receive the KING’s gifts to you. That you may not be as the over-full inn, having no room to receive the gifts of God this Holy Season, but that the gifts of God made manifest in you may fill the cup of your life and overflow, causing the desert places round about you to blossom as the rose. That the Wonder of God’s Love may fill you now and always, the Beauty of His Truth may be established in you and made manifest through you, and the Glory of Vibrant Life, Life in the expression of health and strength may manifest through your body—the gifts of God to you as you give the gifts to God, the gifts of body and mind and heart, of gold and frankincense and myrrh. That this may be a true new birth to you, and through the year at hand you may let the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells, the Shekinah of our KING, the Shekinah of our LORD, be made evident for all who have eyes to see. Peace be unto you. Glory to God in the Highest, and on earth Peace, Good Will toward men.

This is Uranda speaking in the Chapel on Sunrise Ranch, Eden Valley. A joyous Christmas and a Happy New Year—but your New Year can be happy only as it is creative, and your New year can be creative only as you let the evidence of the Presence of the One Who Dwells be made manifest in an through you, every part of your being And I thank God for you, continuing ever with you in the Holy Name of the One Whom I serve, our LORD and KING. Peace be unto you. Good night, and God bless you, each and every one.

I thank Thee, Heavenly Father, for all who are responding and turning to Thee, whomsoever, wheresoever they may be, that in this Christmas Season human beings may let Thy Spirit overleap all boundaries of race and color and creed and draw Thy Children everywhere into that Oneness of Being and Function by which Thy Kingdom may come, and Thy Will be done in earth as it in Heaven, for Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory forever. Aum-en

© emissaries of divine light

New Heaven—Fine Substance

New  Heaven — Fine  Substance

Martin Cecil  April 18, 1980  Assembly

I think you may be aware that there has been a certain sluggishness about assuming responsibility for the creation of the New Heaven heretofore. The generation of fine substance—I wonder what that has really meant in the consciousness of most. Some sort of an imagination; but that generation relates to factual experiences. We may speak of refinement, possibly seeing it in terms of social behavior. There have been a lot of forms developed by human beings, which if they are adhered to, is considered to establish the fact of refinement. The forms do not make the refinement. Because this has been recognized by some there has been a tendency to pitch out the forms; but there was no refined spirit present, so you lost the form of refinement and became aware of the lack of refinement, because there was not any fine substance.

We have been concerned with the generation of fine substance, and this is what is required in the creation of the New Heaven—a level of substance which has been unknown for a long time in human experience. Yet there are those things which have been known. If forms of refinement have been developed, it was because somewhere, originally, there was the spirit of refinement. One cannot say that that spirit has been entirely lost, but the forms have tended to be emphasized rather than the spirit. We are concerned with the spirit. If there is the generation of fine substance the forms will reflect it. The forms may not conform to the ritualistic patterns that have been produced on earth, but they will never violate the reality of refinement, they will never appear as something coarse. This usually happens with human beings who are rebelling about the status quo. They don’t offer anything higher; they offer something lower, more coarse, as though that was going to improve the situation. Well, it takes it down the scale a little further.

Our concern in the creation of the New Heaven is in the creative cycles which raise things up. We are interested in ascension and what may be done in our association with the creative cycle already operating, which also is interested in ascension. In fact our interest in ascension, if we have it, has been produced by this creative cycle. We have become aware of the fact that there is this power at work to raise things up. Some people react to that by attempting to tear things down. Maybe we ourselves have done a little of that at times, perhaps with respect to each other, not thereby giving much evidence of love one for another.

By the way, when we are handling the particular responsibilities that are brought to us and we find people in difficulties of various sorts, we never rightly indicate that anyone’s difficulties are someone else’s fault. It has nothing to do with somebody else. One can offer what is needful to assist that individual to assume the right attitude and the right responsibility. But you never do anything that would justify that individual in imagining that he was really right with respect to the bad behavior of somebody else being the reason for his own bad behavior. It never is. We are responsible people. This keeps the heat on a person too. And while there needs to be care taken as to how much heat is generated, so that you don’t burn the individual up entirely, nevertheless it is by reason of the intensification of the working of the spirit of God that the creative achievement occurs. This may remind you of something else. It is not by much talk in and of itself. You do not really have to bend somebody’s ear. That is not what is going to get the job done. The less talk there is in such situations the better. There needs to be substance present.

We are responsible in this gathering for the generation of fine substance which will produce fine behavior. And this substance, which should be already present with us to the extent that that is true—then we have this unified substance, refined substance, which enables the action of spirit to occur. Spirit has a medium of expression, and it is our acceptance of the responsibility of providing the essential fine substance that enables spirit to do what needs to be done. It is done by the power of God and not by our own magnificent efforts. Any self-esteem in this regard should dissolve. Self-esteem relates to roles, the ones that we are leaving behind—the idea “I am important because I have this position.” True position is not external. True position may reveal itself in external ways, but one must be an expression of that true position for this to happen. Then something emerges in external form, but the nature of the form will be fitting to the occasion and it will not be a permanently established structure. Perhaps some of you on occasion may have built the structures for yourselves, and then you feel uncomfortable and you blame other people for it. That is not true behavior. We are here to generate the refined substance and let it be blended together, so that we can provide what is necessary for the action of spirit. But it is the action of spirit that does what needs to be done. And we can forget about our self-esteem in this regard.

So we have this fine substance blended together, and the beginning action of spirit—which we have seen in terms of a rider on a white horse, and of the creation of light, the tool that is needful for what subsequently occurs as the creative process continues. And the creative process is described as the firmament, the New Heaven. The composition of this New Heaven is fine substance, a fine atmosphere, a clear atmosphere, a sea of glass clear as crystal. Now this extends beyond us to the extent that it is already present in us. Our responsibility relates to what extends beyond us, if we are participating in the creative process.

Our concern is that there should be ample fine substance into which others may be invited, at the level that is suitable for them. And we are not in the business of judging anymore, so we are not saying of anyone that he or she needs to be at this or that particular level. We don’t know. We are going to find out. And the only way we can find out is to let the creative process work. If we have some pre-established view with respect to people, taking the attitude that “here is a good prospect for the Holy Place”—of course we wouldn’t have couched it probably in those terms, but there is a good Emissary prospect—we immediately put that individual in a structure of our own making. We have so much self-esteem that we imagine that we can determine these things. Well, if we have self-esteem we are playing a role that is not genuine. So we do not structure anyone into anything. Everything is permitted the freedom of revealing what it is. If the revelation is of something very fine, we rejoice. If the revelation is of something very coarse, that does not belong in the New Heaven, in the atmosphere which we are providing, we rejoice too, we let it go. Our concern is with the New Heaven—with this atmosphere, the clarity of it—recognizing that there are properly levels in this substance to which people may rightly relate.

In handling people it may seem on the surface, at times, that we relate to them. It may appear that way to the individual who is being invited into the fine substance which we are providing, because we invite them into a level of that substance where they can feel a sense of relatedness. It was said of the Master, when He was on earth, that he consorted with publicans and sinners. That does not mean that He was a publican or a sinner. It merely meant that those with whom He associated felt comfortable with Him because He provided the substance that was natural to them on the basis of such response as they had. There was no judgment. He was not interested in putting people down. Certainly this is not what we intend at any time. And we need to consider our attitudes and our actions with this in mind.

We have no hesitation about putting the devil down, and sometimes we can do this by talking in general terms. Now, I have done this, certainly, over the years in my services, when I have not zeroed in on any particular person but have spoken of the devil in general terms. When doing this, it may make certain ones who are rather closely associated with the devil in the particular field of which I am speaking uncomfortable. Well that is all right. You are not zeroing in on the person. He has his discomfort all to himself. Of course, very often a reaction may arise and what is being said is rejected, but for those who are in any degree honest, nothing which is offered in this way can genuinely be rejected. A person has to be dishonest to do it. Our concern is not so much with those who are dishonest but with those who give some indication of potential honesty, and we provide space at whatever level is necessary for such, so that they feel a sense of relatedness.

Now obviously, no matter at what level a person may relate, there are always factors, in everyone, of association with the devil, and these things will necessarily need to be dealt with, whether the individual is at the level of the Encampment or the Outer Court. These things will need to be dealt with. Even if a person is going to stay naturally at a fairly low level in the Encampment, these things have to be dealt with if there is to be the experience of the New Heaven insofar as the individual is concerned. One certainly could not hold on to the state of the old heaven and experience the New Heaven.

So there are always things to be relinquished. There is always essential creative change to occur. And while we do not anticipate either inviting or expecting everyone to come into the Holy Place, we also realize that no matter what level they find to be natural to themselves they will necessarily have to come clear at that level. In other words, we are not going to leave a mass of people in the Encampment who are still subject to the devil. “Behold, I make all things new.” This is the creative process. There is a New Heaven, and while there is time given—maybe not all that much more, but time given—for those concerned to come clear within themselves at the level where they are, they most definitely must come clear. Then there is the occupation of the New Heaven; there are people in it. We can provide an atmosphere, we can provide rich substance of a fine nature, but if no one accepts the invitation to come into it the New Heaven remains empty and to that extent remains meaningless.

There are those, obviously, who are responding to the invitation such as it has been thus far. Maybe many of these have been overlooked because there were too many concepts around as to what would indicate here was an emissary. Well, how are we going to define an emissary? Are emissaries those who are of the Priesthood, standing in the Holy Place? Or does the term relate to those who are even in the Outer Court, or perhaps still further afield in the Encampment? I suppose we need to come to the point where we either decide that the emissary relates to everybody within the Encampment, which would include the Outer Court and the Holy Place, or whether it only includes those that are in the Holy Place. From our standpoint everyone who accepts the invitation to come into the New Heaven, at whatever level, is included in the restored state. Now they are not yet restored. There is much to happen yet before that would be true. It is even possible that there is something to happen in us yet.

As we consider these things the distinction between people begins to dissolve. We may have a line around the Encampment, and there are those outside of the Encampment as yet. But if there were not those outside of the Encampment, how could there be anyone to invite in? So that line of demarcation is only a line in the sense of providing a safe place into which people may be invited. It is not there to keep anyone out, or on the other hand to keep anyone in. There is the choice to come in, and if one chose to come in, there is also the choice to go out. Now we have seen this at work in our own small program, ministry. People have moved in, people have moved out. Our attitude rightly is, “Let them come in, let them go out.”

But there must be somewhere to come into, and this “somewhere” is the New Heaven, a real place filled with real substance, but substance which is not all of one level. There is a complete spectrum—the bow, the total spectrum of life. And there is immense detail in that spectrum. This is what makes everything so exciting, doesn’t it? The idea of everyone being equal as meaning that everyone is the same is awful, isn’t it? We all equally have the opportunity of being wherever we might belong, but that does not mean we all belong in the same place. And there are distinctions in this regard. There must be distinctions if there is any design, and we are aware that there is a design. I don’t mean just from the standpoint of the fact that we have physical bodies that are designed in a certain way. But from the standpoint of the whole universe there is a design there of some kind. We may not as human beings understand the significance of it entirely, but there certainly is the evidence of a design. And there is a distinction between the sun and the earth. We should be happy that there is. And there is a distinction between person and person, between angel and angel, and we should be happy that there is. There is a distinction between male and female, and we should be happy that there is this distinction. Nobody can be happy separate from the design as it is in reality. Our happiness, our contentment, our delight, is consequent upon the fact of this design of which we are a part.

Human beings are manipulated in the world as we know it by stirring up their destructive emotions, and there is an inevitable going-down in the process. Our concern is going up. Some considerable consideration was given to this matter of sowing and reaping. Right sowing is important. We have seen this as it relates to the right handling of whatever situations come to us, so that the right seed is sown. We are immediately looking for results. We are going to let the garden grow. But we want to make very sure that we plant the right seed so that what should emerge will. Now this sowing and reaping, cause-effect state, in the earth has been at a very low or coarse level. It has been disconnected from heaven. That is why we are concerned with creating the New Heaven, so that there may be a New Earth connected to it. The New Heaven is not connected to the old earth. There are those who try to make it work that way, but it does not. The New Heaven allows for the emergence of the New Earth, which is not the old earth made over.

In this movement of cause and effect, as true seeds are sown the whole cycle is lifted to a higher level, so that when the harvest comes it will be at a higher level. This is the ascending process—a spiral going up; but it is the whole movement being lifted to new levels, the sowing and reaping going on within the movement. From the standpoint of the human state it is going down and down and down. Cause and effect, sowing and reaping, are going on, but the whole thing is going down, the first heaven and the first earth are passing away. And this can be allowed to happen now because there is, as yet in embryonic form, but nevertheless a New Heaven, with a New Earth relative to that New Heaven. If the New Heaven isn’t very much yet, the New Earth isn’t very much either. But here is our realm of concern. It is not that cause and effect, sowing and reaping, are going to cease. It is just that the whole process, the whole cycle, is being raised up. And it is capable of being raised up to the extent that the New Heaven is a reality. And the New Heaven is a reality because of the fine substance that is present in it.

Now we have some evidence of the New Earth, and therefore of the extent of the New Heaven, when we take a look at the fineness of that New Earth; in other words the fineness of our behavior, the fineness with which we handle whatever it is that comes to us. Heaven and earth are one, and if behavior remains coarse, then clearly there is not very much fine substance. When behavior begins to become fine, then we are made keenly aware of the fact of fine substance. And this fine substance is our responsibility at this present time, as the New Heaven is in the process of being created. And we invite others to participate in this fine substance and therefore to allow their behavior to reflect it. Insofar as they are concerned, our behavior is the evidence of the New Heaven for them. They will not rise up into the experience of that New Heaven themselves unless there is the evidence of it because of us. And if there is the evidence then there is something real, there is something genuine, and the power is present, the power of ascension, or the power of resurrection, raising up.

And let us recognize that power, or the energy with which we are concerned does not originate in the earth. This is the human view. You get it out of the ground somehow, as oil or coal—or looking up into the sky these days to see if something cannot be extracted from the sun. But the source of energy insofar as the human view is concerned is an external one, whether it be in the earth or from the sun, and perhaps there are some other possibilities here if people look around some more. But the real energy is spiritual energy. “And ye shall receive power, after … the Holy Ghost is come upon you.” Usually energy is thought of, in the human sense, as being the result of what you eat, because if you eat energy-supplying foods, then you will be big and strong and have lots of energy. It doesn’t always seem to work that way. What you eat certainly plays a part in the operation of your physical form, but if the energy output of your physical form is merely what you eat, then you will experience a continual depletion of energy. Obviously we do not, properly, merely live to eat or eat to live. There is something more to a human being than that.

So while there is the necessity for a functioning physical form, this functioning physical form has something to do. It is there to provide a facility for the action of the spirit of God. It is the action of the spirit of God that is, amongst other things, the life of the physical body and is the power of the physical body. And that power is reflected in the action of the physical body to the extent that there is the fine substance of connection by which the action of the spirit of God becomes a reality. And inherent in that action is all the power that is needed, and if that action comes forth through the facility that is available for it, then the power comes forth. It came down from God out of heaven, it is the experience of the action of spirit, and that is the creative power. And if the universe is operational, it is operational on this basis—it is not a mechanical contrivance—but what is really occurring is far more than merely sustaining either the universe or the individual physical body. Both are present for a far greater purpose.

We find this out ourselves to the extent that we experience the reality of spiritual expression. Then there is power, and we are providing the New Heaven, the substance, into which people can come and participate in the experience of this creative power. Then we no longer need to shop around to obviate this necessity. So we begin to allow the restoration of the true state, the New Heaven and the New Earth, new to us as human beings and new in the nature of its manifestation now, certainly, because it has never been that way before. But not new in the sense that it is not what has been happening in the universe as a whole right along. It just has been excluded from human consciousness and experience, that’s all. Now we are letting it be restored to human consciousness and experience, a New Heaven and a New Earth because there is this fine substance which we care for. We care for it in our own living. We hunger and thirst for righteousness, which is the experience that is known by reason of this New Heaven.

Now we have hungered and thirsted for this as human beings, but we also hunger and thirst as angels for this fulfillment on earth. We love the LORD, we love God, we love the creative process. We love it all, and it is the greatest longing of our hearts that this should be restored to the experience of mankind. And not just for the sake of mankind, but for the LORD. So we share this love and this longing together, and we let it become ever more intense, because in the experience of this intensity is the experience of the power of restoration, the power of resurrection. It is in the intensity of that movement in the expression of the creative power of God, His spirit, that we have a sense of real hungering and thirsting for the resurrection.

We see this mess around us with our eyes, not with our hearts particularly. What we see with our hearts is the resurrection, the restoration. This is the only thing that has any meaning whatsoever, and so all our expression is constantly given to that, and we are concerned that our living should be evidence of the movement of this power. And as we are aware of the movement of this power, we see how it is available, and brings to bear on people what is necessary for them to hear the invitation, to hear the word that is being spoken: “Come into the Encampment. Come into the True State.” And there are those who are willing. There may not be so many of those who will respond according to the ideas that we have had heretofore as to how people behave when they respond. We let them respond in their own ways, at their own levels, and they will come right in. We care for the substance which enfolds them. We let the Garden grow. We do this on the basis of our momentary living, our momentary action, the way we handle what is immediately around us. If that is clear, then it will be clearing at least beyond that; and when beyond that is clear, it will be clearing beyond that again. But unless it is clear at the core it sure is not clear anywhere else. 

I rejoice that we share this time of allowing the creation of the New Heaven, a clarity of experience in our handling of all things. This fine substance needs to be enfolded in our thankfulness. In the world as it has been it could not exist. It has not existed for twenty thousand years anyway, because as soon as anything was generated it was dissipated almost instantly. So we have the responsibility of keeping it in existence, the wealth of the Kingdom.

© emissaries of divine light