The Heaven Of This Earth Is A City In The Star

The  Heaven  Of  This  Earth  Is  A  City  In  The  Star

The Garden Called To Remembrance

Martin Exeter   July 31, 1983 p.m.

While words may be spoken by one member of the body, if they are true words they are spoken by the whole body.

Recently I received a letter from someone, part of which I would like to share with you because it says some things in a very articulate way which we and others may helpfully and radiantly hear: “Someone said to me the other day something about not being a core person, and that they felt their role was more on the periphery, with outreach type of activity. I’ve come across this kind of thinking before, including in myself, and on thinking about it, I’ve decided that it’s not quite accurate. For a start, one doesn’t decide where one is going to function, one just ends up being there. Also, the outer role does not necessarily reflect the inner position, as it were. And, as has been said many times, effectiveness in what has been called outreach is dependent upon effectiveness in core function. It seems to me that regardless of my geographical position I determine my distance from the core of this ministry by the number of pet illusions I choose to maintain. These may be illusions about myself, my own importance, fulfilment, my own destiny, or they may be illusions about others, about the design, about the core.”

The body of the Son of God is the Core. Those who compose that body are all members of that Core. There are many very peculiar ideas developed by different people which ignore the available truth. There is a lot about which there is much chatter which would not be necessary at all if those concerned would pay attention to the truth. We have a base for understanding. There is no necessity ever to go off in tangential speculation. “Well I wonder about this,” a person may say. Why wonder? Don’t you know? You do, if you stop to think about it, if you acknowledge the truth that is available to you. You know about anything. There is still a good deal of speculation, even among those who should know better; those who know the truth never need to speculate. That is wondering after the beast, isn’t it? something that is quite unnecessary.

There are undoubtedly many things that are still beyond our immediate awareness. One will not come to know what those many things might be by speculation. We always start from the known and allow the unknown to be received because we are moving with the known. There is plenty that we know. If we function on the basis of what we know, what has heretofore been unknown to us will begin to emerge into our experience. We don’t have to go scrambling around to try to find it; all we will do in such case is develop some further speculative concepts. We know ample truth to handle what is brought to us moment by moment, without speculation. When we do that, then those things which are yet unknown to us will emerge into our consciousness and experience.

We move from the known to the unknown. What is unknown to human minds and hearts, human minds and hearts cannot get hold of for their own satisfaction. What has heretofore been unknown will emerge into human minds and hearts, our own particularly, if we are attuned with the spirit of truth, our own truth, coming down from God out of heaven. It is said of the Spirit of Truth that it calls things to remembrance. I suppose in doing that, one might say, “Well I had forgotten something, but now it’s called to remembrance.” Being forgotten, it was unknown; being called to remembrance, it becomes known. There are those things of which I speak which you no doubt find do call to remembrance what was previously unknown to you, but becoming known to you, you might be inclined to say, “Oh yes, I really remember that.” It wasn’t as though it was something totally extraneous brought into your consciousness. The angel is present with all of us, ready to acquaint us in the moment with what we need to know. What we need to know in each moment is fresh, new; it is not a rehash of the past, and yet it is not unrelated to what we knew before. We are concerned to let this expansion take place.

Perhaps I could talk a little about something which is not speculation but relates to what the Spirit of Truth may call to remembrance. If the mental apparatus tries to grasp what the Spirit of Truth is calling to remembrance in order to possess it for itself it will fail and it will be confused. But we may be reminded of some things, mentally and in the feeling realm, which are at hand. It seems to me that the Spirit of Truth had a job to do in that regard: “He will show you things to come.” That is not intended to indicate that what is going to happen tomorrow will be told to you today. He will show you things which rightly should be coming into your consciousness, things which have heretofore been unknown but which are in the process of being called to your remembrance. You have had this experience all down along the way.

This morning I was speaking about the flaming sword and we saw certain symbolic representations of that flaming sword in a very immediate sense—nuclear armaments, for one thing. I also mentioned the disk of the sun, which obscures whatever may be present in the sun. Of course the scientific people have ways of probing into the innards of the sun, they think, and coming up with a certain amount of speculation as to the nature of the internal state of the sun, what is going on there. But it is all speculation, really, because there is something which prevents anyone from looking into the sun. There is a very excellent symbol of the flaming sword, and I don’t think it’s really all that much of a symbol; it’s a factual reality. We can see this, anyway, as representing the flaming sword.

Some of you may know that Chris Foster has been writing a book. The characters of his book originate in the sun and then they incarnate in different human forms on earth; they don’t need flying saucers to get to the earth. There is obviously a different level of state for anyone who might live in the sun, and so that different level of state provides the vehicle by which incarnation on earth might occur. Chris’s book illustrates something in a rather imaginative way—a little bit of speculation in there perhaps—with respect to the fact that there is something hidden insofar as the sun is concerned, hidden from human view anyway. I don’t advise anyone to try to penetrate with human vision behind the disk of the sun; it can’t be done and the effects can be disastrous. The disk of the sun may be seen as the flaming sword which prevents human beings from getting back into the Garden; that is one aspect of it. Another aspect of it is that this flaming sword makes possible conditions for human beings where they may survive. Obviously if the total light and heat of the sun were extinguished insofar as the earth is concerned, human beings wouldn’t last very long. But clearly enough whatever it is that radiates from the sun is stepped down somehow, so that it becomes bearable on earth and in fact is part of the necessity for life on earth.

What we know of the earth and of the sun, of the other planets of the solar system itself, is seen, humanly speaking, from the level where human beings exist. We know that that level is below the veil, so what is observable from this level of observation is very restricted, we might say; it excludes everything that is above a certain vibratory level. When the solar system is examined, the other planets are examined, those who do the examining are inclined to say, “None of the other planets are inhabited.” Really, how do they know? It looks that way from the level of observation but the level of observation is rather low, rather coarse, and so what is seen is not very inviting. There used to be idle speculation about Mars, and books were written about the people who lived on Mars. But then unfortunately a probe went to Mars and it didn’t see anybody there! So that eliminated quite a bit of fiction, but it really didn’t tell anyone anything much because of the level from which the observation was being made. Now we may observe on the surface of the earth that human beings are very busy creating deserts. So this is the sort of level of observation, isn’t it? They see deserts everyplace else. Only a very limited and coarse level of observation is available to the human view. To assume that that is all there is, is in fact nonsense. It is all that human beings in their present state are capable of discerning.

If the flaming sword prevents human beings from experiencing the Garden State, they are not capable of observing anything from the perspective of the Garden State. As we have noted before, simply because human beings pushed themselves out of the Garden State did not mean that the Garden State was dissolved; it is still there just as surely as it ever was. Human beings do not know it because there has been this veil in between, the flaming sword which has prevented them from getting back into the Garden with all the stuff that they have been generating in the meantime. That is very fortunate of course. But at the same time we can see the blessing that has been present by reason of the fact that even though human beings pushed themselves out of the Garden of life they still exist on earth. So for man’s sake this rather restricted state of experience on earth has been available. But what the whole is has been unknown, because the Garden State now is totally lost to human consciousness. It is just beginning to dawn on us again, perhaps, that it is really present and that it is possible to be restored to the Garden State, under certain conditions of course.

As I say, there has been this veil between. The Garden State is present. What human beings see of what they call the solar system is a sun, whatever that may be—it’s supposed to be in the middle—and a number of planets circulating around. They would be inclined, I’m sure, to say, “Well it is a whole system, but the parts are rather separate.” There are of course the various influences that the planets have on each other. Some of these influences are capable of being noted and understood in that way. In fact Pluto was found, wasn’t it, because there was an aberration in some of the other orbits of the planets indicating that there must be a planet someplace which hadn’t been known at the time. I believe there is supposed to be another one floating around somewhere, which must be there because of the perturbations it causes in the orbits and movements of some of the planets. Be that as it may, these planetary entities are looked upon as being more or less on their own, perhaps captured by the sun in some way—they can’t get away from the solar system apparently—and this is the way that this is looked at. Obviously it is not the way it is, because the way it is would include what we have spoken of as the Garden, the heavenly aspect, which is totally excluded from human awareness because of the flaming sword. What is the other side of the flaming sword? Nobody can tell. No amount of probing into the sun or into the further reaches of the universe really tells anyone what the truth is, because everything must be viewed simply from the level of observation where man is. That’s very low. There is a whole which includes vastly more of which human beings are totally ignorant, ignorant because of the flaming sword.

As I say, the disk of the sun can represent a veil to us obscuring whatever it is that is in the sun. The only observation that human beings can make of the sun is at the level where they make observations. So there could be, what? great cities and maybe parks and all this. All that human beings can think about is what they see here around on the earth, as though that was all that was possible. It isn’t of course. But this disk which obscures the sun also obscures the rest of the Garden, the Garden which is right next to the earth, for instance. Well is that Garden just a special earth-garden, all on its own? No, it is part of the Whole Garden, the whole heavenly state related to what we think of now as this solar system. But I would suggest that it isn’t a solar system. I don’t really have a name to give it—maybe you could invent one—but we could call it something which would convey an idea at least, as long as we do not define it in usual human terms, or scientific terms.

What we call the solar system is a Star: it is just one thing. Human beings do not know that it is just one thing, except in solar system terms, because they do not know the fact of the Garden; they do not know the fact of the heaven being present. But right next to what is thought of as being the earth, whether of this planet or any other planet, is the heaven. And it is in the heaven where life originates, isn’t it? Human beings are always looking for the origins of life on earth. They never find it. They go back and back until they come up with an amoeba, but then what about beyond the amoeba again? Well they have this cosmic soup of some kind upon which the lightning plays, and all this fairy tale, which is something scientifically approved, based in the idea that one can find life or the origins of life by dissecting the earth, whether the earth of this planet or the earth of some other planet or the earth of the galaxy or of the universe.

They are always saying, “Well we’ll discover more and more about the origins of things the further we can get out”—away from the place where the truth is, because the truth is not out there somewhere, not even in the immediate environment. It is present in the Garden, in the heaven, the heaven which presently is unknown because the flaming sword is in between. But we have a sensing of the fact, through our own experience, of the closeness of the heaven. We have sensed it, we have touched it, we have known something of it in our own expression. That is the only way we know it, by the way. The thinning of the veil is not the dissipation of the pollution around the earth; it is the thinning of the veil inside oneself, in one’s own experience, where the heaven has been absent, the Garden has been unknown. Nobody will ever find it round about somewhere: heaven is in some South Sea island perhaps. No, it’s not there. It is present with one, as long as life remains, and it is known when it is given expression. It can’t be given expression, as we have noted, if we indulge ourselves in unheavenly expression, which human beings do; that is, in judgment, condemnation, blame, all these things. That is unheavenly expression. Therefore if one is hooked, or addicted, to unheavenly expression, what sort of a world will one have? What sort of an experience will one have? Well one knows what one expresses; one will have an unheavenly experience. Sometimes that might be called a hellish experience.

The Garden is so close that we cannot in fact get out of it, and yet we don’t know it is there. We don’t know it is there because there is this veil, or I suppose it might be called a transformer, in between, which steps down the Garden Radiation to something that human beings can stand in their murky state. And it is because of this that they have continued to exist and that the potential for a return to the true state has been present. It is present because life is still in the carcass of mankind. I suppose if one were to use one’s imagination a little one might recognize that the heaven of this earth is a City in the Star. It was called the Holy City, wasn’t it, coming down from God out of heaven to take form. We may have a view of something rather vast, at least from the standpoint of human proportions: a mighty star which is composed of heaven and earth. It is all one thing. In the United States there are many cities but it is still one nation. In this star there are many cities but it is still One Star, something whole. Of course that is not the end of the wholeness either, as far as that is concerned, but it is about as far as we need to go this evening, I think.

Nowadays there is much talk about a planetary perspective. What’s that? Scarcely discernible, isn’t it? No, we need to at least sense that there is a totally new perspective, which comes within the range of awareness to the extent that we have allowed the dissolution of the veil in our own experience of life. It is an individual matter, but when individuals do take responsibility for letting it happen it is suddenly found that it is a collective matter. There is a body; there is a body that begins to put in an appearance. It was already there but it was hidden behind this veil; and now it comes forth, as the truth has come forth into expression consistently in one’s own individual living, moment by moment.

And again we realize that that is based not so much in not blaming, in not criticizing, in not doing all these things which human beings do, but rather in doing what an angel in heaven does, and that is to convey the spirit of the living God into expression on earth. As long as one is still under the seeming necessity of fussing about not judging, one will have very little to give expression to of what one should be allowing to come forth. In the attitude of merely not judging, the individual is constantly being assailed by external events which petition judgment; they ask to be judged. Haven’t you found that? There are all kinds of things in your environment which present themselves before you and say, “Now you judge me! You tell me whether I am good or bad.” And human beings plunge right in and start doing it. So we need to see that that is not heavenly expression, just the reverse: to judge. But we also need to be aware that there is heavenly expression, and when we are totally occupied with that, even the idea of judging doesn’t put in an appearance.

We dwell as angels in a Garden of vast proportions. Our particular part of the Garden does relate to what we think of now as this planet Earth. But the planet Earth which we see now we see from this very lowly positioning; we don’t really see what it is. But rising up to the level of heavenly perspective, we see a place of habitation for the body of the Son of God, a place of habitation for the living God. And as a place of habitation for the living God, what do you think that might do to the realm of observation? Well it would be observed from a totally different level of perspective. I would suggest that there is a lot around that we have never seen; it is all waiting to reveal itself. Human beings try to function with little bits and pieces. It is like a child playing with blocks, when there is a vast world awaiting revelation. Let us remember what our real proportions are as angels, so that we do not allow the restricted human view that is now current to convince us that we are petty people easily pushed around by everything that happens in the environment. That is not so, and we are beginning to discover that.

So we share the opportunity of a larger perspective. Come up hither, that we may see from a level of understanding that has always been available and that is now beginning to come forth increasingly as there are those who are concerned to express the truth for themselves, to be the truth in expression, not depending upon anyone else to do it.

The truth is easily expressed in words and in living. The yoke is easy and the burden is always light. That is why we are rightly called Emissaries of Divine Light. The light shines, the heaven is known, the waters are gathered together unto one place and the dry land appears; the form appears, clothing what is present in the heaven. As the barrier of the veil is dissipated the heaven comes forth and takes form. It takes form, of course, as there are those who are willing to let it happen as individuals. The individuals discover that the form that is appearing is not primarily an individual one. It is the body of the Son of God.

We share the privilege of composing that body to the extent that, as individuals, we express the truth. And the body continues. Forms, individual forms, may come and go. Some have been going recently, but a lot more have been coming, in various ways; and the body continues. And the job gets done by that body, or rather, as I indicated before, by the spirit which finds expression by reason of that body. Praise the Lord that it is so. We certainly are, I’m sure, cognizant of the privilege that we have to be alive now.

© emissaries of divine light

Bearers of the Sun

They say I come from the earth

From the dust

From the slime

Of a grey, primeval ocean,

A poor, pitiful creature struggling up through

Eons of time

To catch one small glimpse of light

Before I die.

It seems there is no question at all

That I am going to die.

Death and taxes, they say, are the two sure things.

We live on Death Row

They say

Sentenced the moment we are born,

By a God of Love,

Some even say!

But I do not believe what they say

For today I looked at the sun

And I felt at one with the sun

And as the warmth of the sun warmed me

And the light of the sun lighted me

I thought a most heretical thought

That if a part of me is of the earth

Earthy

A part of me is also of the sun

And it is the largest part

So that I could say, and speak truly,

I come from the sun.

I carry the light that shines in the sun

I bear the fire that burns in the sun …

I just dwell in the earth

For the moment.

I am of the sun

And I see the earth with the vision of the sun

From above.

These human boundaries mean nothing to me

This conflict of East and West means nothing to me

I see people of integrity everywhere

And I comfort them all with my light

And warm them all with my love

That they too may be reminded that they are of the sun

As I have been reminded.

I am of the sun

And I see my own body with the vision

Of the sun

From above.

I see my own body as a planet

A tiny but beautiful planet

Even though time and struggle

Have left their mark upon it.

The government is not responsible for my body,

The doctors, priests, counsellors,

Philosophers, experts

Of every possible kind,

None of them is responsible,

I am responsible

And I say to this little sphere of flesh

With its inbuilt mind and heart

Be still

Fear not

I am here.

We are not what we have thought ourselves to be

We are a Company of Creators

With fire in our nostrils

And in that fire all things are transformed

And the true destiny of men and women

And of this world

Is made known.

Chris Foster

Seeing From Above And Below

Seeing  From  Above  And  Below

Bill Isaacs  January 28, 2024

 

In 1922 T.S. Eliot wrote the epic poem “The Waste Land”, arguably one of the most influential pieces of writing of the 20th century. The 1920’s reputedly were a period of roaring accomplishments but were in actuality a mix of swirling heights and looming shadows of what was to come. A young Eliot (he was 33 at the time) wrote a remarkable poem that described the mood of decay and the spiritual ills of modern Europe. It narrates the difficulties even as it seeks to find a way out of them. I think it's useful to think of this now because the age in which Eliot wrote has its echoes in our time. People today are feeling a similar kind of angst, of coming challenge, replete with modern words to describe it, like “climate anxiety” and the “polycrisis”, a condition of systemic disease where everything collapses together in a tangled mess of troubles. The poem begins:

April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

Winter kept us warm, covering

Earth in forgetful snow, feeding

A little life with dried tubers.

Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee

The idea that we are trapped between memory and desire, between what we’ve known and what we long for, a state where there appears to be no resolution, only “a heap of broken images where the sun beats, and the dead tree gives no shelter” names eloquently the anxiety felt by many people then, and now. Human beings are trapped in their past, or in their dreams of the future.

One image that runs through “The Waste Land” comes from the Grail myth—that of the wounded Fisher King. The Fisher King spends his days fishing by a lake. The land around him is desolate and infertile. He's wounded in the groin, which is a kind of ancient euphemism for sexual wounding. The myth is telling us here that human beings have somehow had their generativity wounded, and so the land and all that is in it suffers. The wound arises out of an attempt to establish an independent kingdom, independent of life, where the habit is to try to steal creative energy and in so doing, forgetting to whom or to what it belongs. The Grail Myth later tells the tale of a knight, Perceval, whose mission is to heal the land, but in the end, he forgets to ask the crucial question, “Whom does the grail serve?” Our collective amnesia causes us to suffer and the land—which includes our collective experience as well as the physical earth around us—becomes desolate. This was what Eliot recognized, and what seems to resonate again now.

Eliot could see. This ability to sense what is emerging was also present in Winston Churchill. In 1924 he wrote, “Certain somber facts emerge solid, inexorable, like the shapes of mountains from drifting mist. Mankind has never been in this position before. Without having improved appreciably in virtue or enjoying wiser guidance, it has got into its hands for the first time the tools by which it can unfailingly accomplish its own extermination.” This awareness, which predates nuclear arms by two decades, illustrates the prescience of true leadership. Seeing the pattern of what is to come (which is not the same as predicting events) can allow a statesman to act even as others dither—something Churchill did remarkably well in the years leading up to WWII. And it enables poets to evoke an awareness of the longing for freedom and catalyze the quest to recover it. With seeing comes responsibility. We could ask ourselves the question, What do we see? And what therefore is our role to play?

The other image that runs through “The Waste Land” is that of Tiresias, the blind seer, who is, according to Eliot, “the most important personage in the poem, uniting all the rest.” According to Ovid in the “Metamorphosis”, written 800 years before Christ, Tiresias was wounded by the gods because he took the wrong side of an argument about sexuality. Tiresias had once encountered copulating snakes, struck them apart, and as punishment was turned into and lived as a woman. He later found another set of snakes, struck them apart again, and was then turned back into a man. Later he was asked by the gods—who saw him as a fair judge, seeing both sides—who had more pleasure in loving, men or women? He answered, women. One goddess didn't like that answer, and blinded him, but then another as compensation for this gave him the gift of seeing the future. Tiresias in other words knew both poles of sexuality, but also got caught in the polarization that can arise between then. He came to embody both dimensions, was blinded through their conflicting energies, and then emerged with the gift that transcends blindness.

This is a complex but powerful metaphor for both the challenge of holding the intensity of generative energy and the transcendent sight that is available on the other side of the fires of it. We can come in other words to see well beyond the surface of things. This is what is necessary for healing the infertility of the land. We must restore sight. To do so however we must move beyond the conditioning and polarities which we have all inherited, which are extensive. The conditioning is quite antithetical to life. Human beings operate exactly backwards to creative function in many respects. We separate when we could know unity. We constantly endeavor to be independent, and in so doing we discover that we're enslaved.

One critical and somewhat surprising dimension of perception is that our here and now immediate experience gives us a tangible window into the whole, into larger unfolding cycles. We can know the whole through our experience of the parts, through the portal we immediately have before us in this present moment. Perception is in this sense holographic. It is easy to fall into the lethargy that says the experience of going to the grocery store isn't terribly exalted. But that is would be a limited view. The whole is always unfolding in its totality through the parts, something we may feel or intuit at first. However, it is not easy nor necessary to sustain an imagined large cosmic view at all times. But one can carry a perception of the factors before us that allows us to feel the larger flow and translate what's immediately occurring around us in accurate and restorative terms. Sitting here today, reading this, for instance, we are humanity listening consciously to the flow of Life. Sometimes the best people can do is sense coming trouble. That's their gift (not always felt as such) and their opportunity. Others have other possibilities, and can sense emerging potential, and then provide an opportunity for healing.

One way we see is through language. There are some beautiful and untranslatable words in languages other than English that can give us a sense for the wider range of essences hidden behind the forms of things. One is the word “sehnsucht”, which is German for an intense internal longing or yearning for someone or something. Another is “hygge”, which is Danish for coziness, contentment and wellbeing. “Yugen”, in Japanese means “a profound mysterious sense of the beauty of the universe too deep for words.” Also Japanese, “komorebi”, means the sunlight that filters through the trees. And then finally “mitakya oyasin”, is Lakota Sioux for “all my relations,” the sense of the wholeness and interrelatedness of all creation. Perception through language activates vision, and points to the vast invisible world behind the appearance of things. What do you see?

There are two directions of vision that we could consider; two places from which to see. One is from the bottom up. We can rise out of and through the conditioning which we experience and with which we are surrounded. People make attempts to be “above it all,” to live beyond their reactions and emotional disturbance. Often however this is more of a theoretical or conceptual stance where the effort is to override uncomfortable experience instead of transforming the burdens and conditioning that generated the discomfort. People with some spiritual training seem particularly vulnerable to this trap. They attempt to blot out suffering with thoughts that stimulate satisfying feelings. But that is very different from doing the underlying work required to genuinely heal, and so be free, from whatever it is that's rising up. This work requires vision, to see from the bottom up, to perceive from a place of centeredness, from being, and from this place to bring healing into disturbed memories and emotional reactions. One need not condemn or reject whatever it is that's present. Instead we must witness it as it is. The focus from this vantage point is on what needs to be liberated in me, whether a local disturbance, an inner discomfort, or a need for a repair.

This last week I had an experience that illustrates this. I facilitated a retreat of a group of sixty leaders of a global institution in a meeting near Washington, DC. The participants represented all the countries of the world. We were there for three days, having conversations about global instability, the challenges facing the planet and the nature of their responsibilities with regard to this. We had a useful strategic dialogue. However, at bottom this session was really all about their connecting with each other in a genuine way. It was not as I told them about agreeing, only understanding, and listening, which is always necessary for anything significant to happen. And something did happen among them.

Standing in front of these people I had to set aside and work with parts of me that kept saying, “How am I going to manage all this? This is a lot.” Many of them were tired. A few had just returned from Davos, Switzerland where they had been having it out with other global and political leaders. Most felt the underlying tensions of the conflicts in the world that had begun to leak into their everyday meetings. They together held some of the most intense geopolitical conflicts in the world today. I had to have a talk with that part of me. I told it, “It’s all right. I've got this,” which it really wanted to know. It realized it could come along for the ride, so to speak, and that I would handle things. This part of me realized it didn't know what to do, but it trusted me to know what to do. It was a little daunted but happy to be there. I could have chosen to be identified with that part, but I did not. I also knew—because I and my team had spent time with each of these people in advance of this gathering—that this sentiment, this part, was not just in me. I could sense that the feeling of being unsettled by the complexity of the situation was also present in the people in the room. In an outer sense they have big jobs, but they are also human beings who were actively wondering how to handle this situation, and more, how to get something productive to come of it. To see all this and allow it to be okay is seeing from the bottom up, and then extending something stabilizing out into the field. This allowed a place of relaxation to arise among everyone. It also brought creative pressure to bear to quiet these factors, so we didn’t just get buffeted by disturbed thoughts and feelings.

There is another angle of seeing, another stance from which to function, in addition to the one that brings healing to the conditioning within and around us. This is  seeing from the top down, from the perception of stature, from the perception of the vastness of Being. Oddly when seeing from this place the word “vast” doesn't quite apply. If we think of our place in the scheme of things as our “home among the stars,” then our particular home is in this solar system, which is itself a star. We are on the earth, and to the degree we experience this, we realize we are in a city in a star. Perhaps many of the dimensions of that city are yet invisible, are not yet in form, but they are present. And the functionality at these levels of things is very much present too. From this place of being, from this place of stature, it's easy to see the relative insignificance of what human beings have constructed in their artificial bubble in the midst of the cosmic ocean. It looks very impressive from one level, looking up, but it doesn’t really amount to much in fact. Much of what human beings create vanishes generation after generation. It just dissipates. That is in marked contrast to the lines of force and creative flow that are ever pulsing and present at these other larger ranges. There are, in other words, awesome and extensive resources surrounding, informing and potentially flowing into human experience. These are always available. Awareness of this reality tends to get obliterated because of our involvement in the so-called significance of things, the crisis of the day, the conditioning in which we are enmeshed.

At various times in history there have been calls to rise up to recall a larger experience of identity, to see from this level. One example can be found in the Book of Job (38:1-9). There is a so-called divine examination in these verses, one that asks human beings a demanding set of questions, beginning with this one: “Where was thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?” In other words, do you have perception from above, from the place of Being? Are you aware of a range of function and identity through which flowed the creation of the earth itself?

I had the thought that we might perhaps take a slightly revised divine examination; a few new questions for a new era. So take out your pens, your blue books. And no Chat-GPT, no looking up, no cheating. Here are a few questions: “Which cycles in the larger order of things are you currently stewarding? Which cycles are unfolding directly through you? Which require letting and which require letting go? Which require only encompassment and awareness? How well are you holding these cycles? Is there room for improvement? What specific healing action is required for the ones that are closest to you? What factors remain to be healed in you, to let you be in position to provide stewardship at the next level of responsibility to which you are called?”

We are always being called to the next level of responsibility. That doesn't stop at any age and stage or in any condition, ever. Where are we standing as we lay the foundations of a new world? Because that is in fact what is happening and what is needed. It is not any longer a mystery, but it is a responsibility, an exciting one, a thrilling one. So, these two processes, the top down and the bottom up, fuse in a holographic experience here and now. Both are present. We hold both in each moment.

Doing this requires attention to the way experience unfolds through time. We may experience initially an awakening process, a rising up to the point of having understanding in the first place. This is a process that is moving in an accelerated way in many people now. Part of this involves perceiving the level of crisis that is upon us. You have to lift your head up to notice. It's not hard to miss, and some are avoiding it assiduously. However, greater awareness of difficulty is in fact a kind of awakening, a wonderful beginning. This is also a place where people get stuck. We need to learn to detach from the emotional trauma associated with what seems to be coming. This is seeing, and healing, from the bottom up. As we do it, we begin to have a place to stand that isn't so involved in the turmoil, even as it gets more challenging.

Then a second range of experience can open, one which we've been referring to here as operating from the top down, which involves stewarding the pattern of life from this awakened place. There are many people, for instance, who have come up through different routes, through different spiritual practices, to discover this awareness within themselves. That is a wonderful step, but what is needed is to operationalize this awareness, to come to function from that place individually and collectively. The discovery of wholeness and the possibility of healing is just the start. Next, we have to do something about the fact that the land has been infertile and decaying. We have to bring into our lives the generativity that has been lost, and then the land begins to heal around us. We begin to be in position to reconstitute the earth because the factors that have been long hidden start to be available in form, perhaps subtle form at first.

This part of the journey is unknown ground for all of us. We have not been here before collectively, but we're very actively in it now. There is something to discover. What does it mean to reconstitute the land immediately here, to heal it? Without doubt that implies changes in our mental models of what we're doing. Obviously, part of the reconstituting process is releasing our idea of what we thought we were doing, because everything is now very different. This isn't a cause for insecurity, it is a cause for curiosity. It's very exciting. We are moving out of the known into the unknown. We are on the precipice of allowing the recreative process to accelerate. Holding the question, listening for the changes that are meant to unfold without prejudice or preconceived labels, is a big part of what's needed. The Fisher King says,

I sat upon the shore

Fishing, with the arid plain behind me

Shall I at least set my lands in order?

Our answer to his melancholy question is that we can do better than this. We are here to regenerate the land because we begin to see, to perceive the pattern of perspective that has order within it. That was never lost. More and more people will no doubt sense very directly the overhang of difficulty. That has been the culminating impact of all these centuries of living out of sync with life. We move from the wasteland to the new land. We enter the new land because we create it. We allow it to take form in us. And while people may see giants and difficulties, we have confidence in the immensity of the power that is bringing all this about. Where there is no vision, the people perish. And when there is vision, the people live. We bring generative vision from above and below, and with it comes life abundant.

a Tone of Life service — toneoflife.org/bill-isaacs/seeing-from-above-and-below

Bill Isaacs — bill.isaacs@dialogos.com

The Garden Called To Remembrance

The  Garden  Called  To  Remembrance

Martin Cecil  July 31, 1983 p.m.

While words may be spoken by one member of the Body,

if they are true words they are spoken by the whole Body.

Recently I received a letter from someone, part of which I would like to share with you because it says some things in a very articulate way which we and others may helpfully and radiantly hear.

“Someone said to me the other day something about not being a core person, and that they felt their role was more on the periphery, with outreach type of activity. I’ve come across this kind of thinking before, including in myself, and on thinking about it, I’ve decided that it’s not quite accurate. For a start, one doesn’t decide where one is going to function, one just ends up being there. Also, the outer role does not necessarily reflect the inner position, as it were. And, as has been said many times, effectiveness in what has been called outreach is dependent upon effectiveness in core function. It seems to me that regardless of my geographical position I determine my distance from the core of this ministry by the number of pet illusions I choose to maintain. These may be illusions about myself, my own importance, fulfilment, my own destiny, or they may be illusions about others, about the design, about the core.”

The Body of the Son of God is the Core.

Those who compose that Body are all members of that Core.

There are many very peculiar ideas developed by different people which ignore the available truth. There is a lot about which there is much chatter which would not be necessary at all if those concerned would pay attention to the truth. We have a base for understanding. There is no necessity ever to go off in tangential speculation. “Well I wonder about this,” a person may say. Why wonder? Don’t you know? You do, if you stop to think about it, if you acknowledge the truth that is available to you—you know about anything. There is still a good deal of speculation, even among those who should know better. Those who know the truth never need to speculate. That is wondering after the beast, isn’t it? something that is quite unnecessary.

There are undoubtedly many things that are still beyond our immediate awareness. One will not come to know what those many things might be by speculation. We always start from the known and allow the unknown to be received because we are moving with the known. There is plenty that we know. If we function on the basis of what we know, what has heretofore been unknown to us will begin to emerge into our experience. We don’t have to go scrambling around to try to find it; all we will do in such case is develop some further speculative concepts. We know ample truth to handle what is brought to us moment by moment, without speculation. When we do that, then those things which are yet unknown to us will emerge into our consciousness and experience.

We move from the known to the unknown. What is unknown to human minds and hearts, human minds and hearts cannot get hold of for their own satisfaction. What has heretofore been unknown will emerge into human minds and hearts, our own particularly, if we are attuned with the Spirit of Truth, our own truth, coming down from God out of heaven. It is said of the Spirit of Truth that it calls things to remembrance. I suppose, in doing that, one might say, “Well I had forgotten something, but now it’s called to remembrance.” Being forgotten, it was unknown; being called to remembrance, it becomes known.

There are those things of which I speak which you no doubt find do call to remembrance what was previously unknown to you, but becoming known to you, you might be inclined to say, “Oh yes, I really remember that.” It wasn’t as though it was something totally extraneous brought into your consciousness. The angel is present with all of us, ready to acquaint us in the moment with what we need to know. What we need to know in each moment is fresh, new; it is not a rehash of the past, and yet it is not unrelated to what we knew before. We are concerned to let this expansion take place.

Perhaps I could talk a little about something which is not speculation but relates to what the Spirit of Truth may call to remembrance. If the mental apparatus tries to grasp what the Spirit of Truth is calling to remembrance in order to possess it for itself it will fail and it will be confused. But we may be reminded of some things, mentally and in the feeling realm, which are at hand. It seems to me that the Spirit of Truth had a job to do in that regard: “He will show you things to come.” That is not intended to indicate that what is going to happen tomorrow will be told to you today. He will show you things which rightly should be coming into your consciousness, things which have heretofore been unknown but which are in the process of being called to your remembrance. You have had this experience all down along the way.

This morning I was speaking about the flaming sword and we saw certain symbolic representations of that flaming sword in a very immediate sense—nuclear armaments, for one thing. I also mentioned the disk of the sun, which obscures whatever may be present in the sun. Of course the scientific people have ways of probing into the innards of the sun, they think, and coming up with a certain amount of speculation as to the nature of the internal state of the sun, what is going on there. But it is all speculation, really, because there is something which prevents anyone from looking into the sun. There is a very excellent symbol of the flaming sword, and I don’t think it's really all that much of a symbol; it’s a factual reality. We can see this, anyway, as representing the flaming sword.

Some of you may know that Chris Foster has been writing a book. The characters of his book originate in the sun and then they incarnate in different human forms on earth; they don’t need flying saucers to get to the earth. There is obviously a different level of state for anyone who might live in the sun, and so that different level of state provides the vehicle by which incarnation on earth might occur. I don’t wish to reveal to you all that is contained in Chris’s book, but it illustrates something in a rather imaginative way—a little bit of speculation in there perhaps—with respect to the fact that there is something hidden insofar as the sun is concerned, hidden from human view anyway. I don’t advise anyone to try to penetrate with human vision behind the disk of the sun; it can’t be done and the effects can be disastrous.

The disk of the sun may be seen as the flaming sword which prevents human beings from getting back into the Garden; that is one aspect of it. Another aspect of it is that this flaming sword makes possible conditions for human beings where they may survive. Obviously if the total light and heat of the sun were extinguished insofar as the earth is concerned, human beings wouldn’t last very long. But clearly enough whatever it is that radiates from the sun is stepped down somehow, so that it becomes bearable on earth and in fact is part of the necessity for life on earth.

What we know of the earth and of the sun, of the other planets of the solar system itself, is seen, humanly speaking, from the level where human beings exist. We know that that level is below the veil, so what is observable from this level of observation is very restricted, we might say; it excludes everything that is above a certain vibratory level. When the solar system is examined, the other planets are examined, those who do the examining are inclined to say, “None of the other planets are inhabited.” Really, how do they know? It looks that way from the level of observation but the level of observation is rather low, rather coarse, and so what is seen is not very inviting. There used to be idle speculation about Mars, and books were written about the people who lived on Mars. But then unfortunately a probe went to Mars and it didn't see anybody there! So that eliminated quite a bit of fiction, but it really didn’t tell anyone anything much because of the level from which the observation was being made. Now we may observe on the surface of the earth that human beings are very busy creating deserts. So this is the sort of level of observation, isn’t it? They see deserts everyplace else. Only a very limited and coarse level of observation is available to the human view. To assume that that is all there is, is in fact nonsense. It is all that human beings in their present state are capable of discerning.

If the flaming sword prevents human beings from experiencing the Garden State, they are not capable of observing anything from the perspective of the Garden State. As we have noted before, simply because human beings pushed themselves out of the garden state did not mean that the Garden State was dissolved; it is still there just as surely as it ever was. Human beings do not know it because there has been this veil in between, this flaming sword which has prevented them from getting back into the Garden with all the stuff that they have been generating in the meantime. That is very fortunate of course. But at the same time we can see the blessing that has been present by reason of the fact that even though human beings pushed themselves out of the Garden of Life they still exist on earth. So for man’s sake this rather restricted state of experience on earth has been available. But what the whole is has been unknown, because the Garden State now is totally lost to human consciousness. It is just beginning to dawn on us again, perhaps, that it is really present and that it is possible to be restored to the Garden State, under certain conditions of course.

As I say, there has been this veil between. The Garden State is present. What human beings see of what they call the solar system is a sun, whatever that may be—it’s supposed to be in the middle—and a number of planets circulating around. They would be inclined, I’m sure, to say, “Well it is a whole system, but the parts are rather separate.” There are of course the various influences that the planets have on each other. Some of these influences are capable of being noted and understood in that way. In fact Pluto was found, wasn’t it, because there was an aberration in some of the other orbits of the planets indicating that there must be a planet someplace which hadn’t been known at the time. I believe there is supposed to be another one floating around somewhere, which must be there because of the perturbations it causes in the orbits and movements of some of the planets.

Be that as it may, these planetary entities are looked upon as being more or less on their own, perhaps captured by the sun in some way—they can’t get away from the solar system apparently—and this is the way that this is looked at. Obviously it is not the way it is, because the way it is would include what we have spoken of as the garden, the heavenly aspect, which is totally excluded from human awareness because of the flaming sword. What is the other side of the flaming sword? Nobody can tell. No amount of probing into the sun or into the further reaches of the universe really tells anyone what the truth is, because everything must be viewed simply from the level of observation where man is. That’s very low. There is a whole which includes vastly more of which human beings are totally ignorant, ignorant because of the flaming sword.

As I say, the disk of the sun can represent a veil to us obscuring whatever it is that is in the sun. The only observation that human beings can make of the sun is at the level where they make observations. So there could be, what? great cities and maybe parks and all this. All that human beings can think about is what they see here around on the earth, as though that was all that was possible. It isn’t of course. But this disk which obscures the sun also obscures the rest of the garden, the Garden which is right next to the earth, for instance. Well is that Garden just a special Earth Garden, all on its own? No, it is part of the Whole Garden, the whole heavenly state related to what we think of now as this solar system. But I would suggest that it isn’t a solar system. I don’t really have a name to give it— maybe you could invent one—but we could call it something which would convey an idea at least, as long as we do not define it in usual human terms, or scientific terms.

What we call the solar system is a star; it is just one thing. Human beings do not know that it is just one thing, except in solar system terms, because they do not know the fact of the garden; they do not know the fact of the heaven being present. But right next to what is thought of as being the earth, whether of this planet or any other planet, is the heaven. And it is in the heaven where life originates, isn’t it? Human beings are always looking for the origins of life on earth. They never find it. They go back and back until they come up with an amoeba, but then what about beyond the amoeba again? Well they have this cosmic soup of some kind upon which the lightning plays, and all this fairy tale, which is sometimes scientifically approved, based in the idea that one can find life or the origins of life by dissecting the earth, whether the earth of this planet or the earth of some other planet or the earth of the galaxy or of the universe.

They are always saying, “Well we’ll discover more and more about the origins of things the further we can get out”—away from the place where the truth is, because the truth is not out there somewhere, not even in the immediate environment. It is present in the Garden, in the heaven, the heaven which presently is unknown because the flaming sword is in between. But we have a sensing of the fact, through our own experience, of the closeness of the heaven. We have sensed it, we have touched it, we have known something of it in our own expression. That is the only way we know it, by the way. The thinning of the veil is not the dissipation of the pollution around the earth; it is the thinning of the veil inside oneself, in one’s own experience, where the heaven has been absent, the Garden has been unknown. Nobody will ever find it round about somewhere: heaven is in some South Sea island perhaps. No, it’s not there.

It is present with one, as long as life remains, and it is known when it is given expression. It can’t be given expression, as we have noted, if we indulge ourselves in unheavenly expression, which human beings do; that is, in judgment, condemnation, blame, all these things. That is unheavenly expression. Therefore if one is hooked, or addicted, to unheavenly expression, what sort of a world will one have? What sort of an experience will one have? Well one knows what one expresses; one will have an unheavenly experience. Sometimes that might be called a hellish experience.

The Garden is so close that we cannot in fact get out of it, and yet we don’t know it is there. We don’t know it is there because there is this veil, or I suppose it might be called a transformer, in between, which steps down the Garden Radiation to something that human beings can stand in their murky state. And it is because of this that they have continued to exist and that the potential for a return to the true state has been present. It is present because life is still in the carcass of mankind.

I suppose if one were to use one’s imagination a little one might recognize that the heaven of this earth is a city in the star. It was called the Holy City, wasn’t it, coming down from God out of heaven to take form. We may have a view of something rather vast, at least from the standpoint of human proportions: a mighty star which is composed of heaven and earth. It is all one thing. In the United States there are many cities but it is still one nation. In this star there are many cities but it is still one star, something whole. Of course that is not the end of the wholeness either, as far as that is concerned, but it is about as far as we need to go this evening I think.

Nowadays there is much talk about a planetary perspective. What’s that? Scarcely discernible, isn’t it? No, we need to at least sense that there is a totally new perspective, which comes within the range of awareness to the extent that we have allowed the dissolution of the veil in our own experience of life. It is an individual matter, but when individuals do take responsibility for letting it happen it is suddenly found that it is a collective matter. There is a Body. There is a Body that begins to put in an appearance. It was already there but it was hidden behind this veil; and now it comes forth, as the truth has come forth into expression consistently in one’s own individual living, moment by moment

And again we realize that that is based not so much in not blaming, in not criticizing, in not doing all these things which human beings do, but rather in doing what an angel in heaven does, and that is to convey the Spirit of the Living God into expression on earth. As long as one is still under the seeming necessity of fussing about not judging, one will have very little to give expression to of what one should be allowing to come forth. In the attitude of merely not judging, the individual is constantly being assailed by external events which petition judgment; they ask to be judged. Haven't you found that? There are all kinds of things in your environment which present themselves before you and say, “Now you judge me! You tell me whether I am good or bad.” And human beings plunge right in and start doing it. So we need to see that that is not heavenly expression, just the reverse: to judge. But we also need to be aware that there is heavenly expression, and when we are totally occupied with that, even the idea of judging doesn’t put in an appearance.

We dwell as angels in a Garden of vast proportions. Our particular part of the Garden does relate to what we think of now as this planet Earth. But the planet Earth which we see now we see from this very lowly positioning; we don’t really see what it is. But rising up to the level of heavenly perspective, we see a place of habitation for the Body of the Son of God, a place of habitation for the Living God. And as a place of habitation for the Living God, what do you think that might do to the realm of observation? Well it would be observed from a totally different level of perspective. I would suggest that there is a lot around that we have never seen; it is all waiting to reveal itself. [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/2022/10/trailing-clouds-of-glory.html] Human beings try to function with little bits and pieces. It is like a child playing with blocks, when there is a vast world awaiting revelation. Let us remember what our real proportions are as angels, so that we do not allow the restricted human view that is now current to convince us that we are petty people easily pushed around by everything that happens in the environment. That is not so, and we are beginning to discover that.

We find ourselves in a position of continuing stability as a Body. This is increasingly being recognized by others, who really know nothing of our Body, that here is something dependable, something which will be there regardless. And I think this recent departure of Bill Bahan is an excellent opportunity to reveal the fact that because one human form is no longer present, it makes absolutely no difference to the operation of the Body. There were those who thought that maybe, seeing that Bill was the Whole Health Institute, next year’s HUC, which is sponsored by the Whole Health Institute, should be withdrawn from. Why? Is the Body so puny that the absence of one person can stand as a barrier to the outpouring of the spirit of the Living God? Of course not! There are those of course who have found themselves rather shattered by the departure of this man. Some have thought that if anyone should be shattered it would be me, because wasn’t he a part of my heart? Wouldn’t it seem as though he was more important to me than to anyone?

The question always arises as to whether the concern is with the person or with the truth that that person reveals. Now those who have been somewhat shattered by Bill’s departure are having it revealed to themselves that they were dependent upon a person; the truth was a theory. They may have acknowledged the truth in Bill but they didn’t know it for themselves. If you know the truth for yourself you can never be left desolate. But if you depend upon some person, even if that person is an expression of the truth, you will be trying to live a theory. And when a person in such a situation discovers that it was a theory, there is the opportunity. If Bill had continued on and those who were centered in him as a person had remained just centered in him, and in the beautiful truth that he revealed of course, they would have continued to deceive themselves, living what was only a theory. And when it gets right down to it, a theory is a lie. A theory is never the truth. So if one lives on the basis of a theory one is living a lie. And I trust that all of us, in one way or another, will be faced with this issue. Do we place our dependence in a person or in the truth?

Now we have a wonderful opportunity because there are those persons who are increasingly revealing the truth. But let us not depend upon the person; let us rather accept the truth into our own knowing because we share the expression of it. And if you are expressing the truth you will continue to be expressing the truth whether this person or that person is there or not. We may, from a human standpoint, perhaps speculate and say, “Well it would have been better if Bill had stayed around a little longer; I would have liked it if he had.” There is a like getting into the picture, isn’t it? Any of us could say that, but that is the human view, isn’t it?

If we express the truth, we know that what is essential is always present, that nothing of reality has been lost, ever. This is the fact of the matter, a fact that many people are unwilling to acknowledge because they justify their desolation on the basis of their love for a person. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God only; thou shalt love the truth only. If a person reveals that truth, well we love that person because we love the truth. We don’t love the person and then the truth, as a sort of adjunct; that is fatal. We love the truth first, and then it is found that some person who is expressing the truth can’t be separated from the truth. The truth is a spirit. We have been speaking of the Spirit of Truth calling things to remembrance. The truth is not a form. Forms come and go, obviously. They will even come and go in the perfect state of the oneness of heaven and earth, only on a little different basis. But the spirit abides. What has been lost? Nothing.

The spirit that Bill Bahan exemplified abides. In fact there are many who are discovering an increase of that spirit in their own experience. Praise the Lord! That is where it was supposed to be in the first place. Maybe if it had been as full as it begins to be now, possibly Bill Bahan might have been still around; something to think about anyway. But we tend to hold back, don’t we? The let-George-do-it syndrome. We know the truth when we express it. As long as we keep expressing the truth we can never be in a state of desolation.

We rejoice wherever that expression of truth appears. We love those who reveal that they are one with that truth because they are expressing it, but we love them because we love the truth. And we know that if that person doesn’t happen to be around anymore the truth hasn’t gone anywhere. We know it hasn’t gone anywhere because it is still being expressed by oneself. So I trust that any who have felt a little bit shattered by the departure of Bill will face up to themselves, because it is revealing of a certain failure in their own attitude. It is revealing of the fact that there was judgment, for one thing.

So we share the opportunity of a larger perspective. Come up hither, that we may see from a level of understanding that has always been available and that is now beginning to come forth increasingly as there are those who are concerned to express the truth for themselves, to be the truth in expression, not depending upon anyone else to do it.

Nick Giglio — Martin, I love the truth, so I know the truth for myself; and we do know our true stature in that way. We cannot deny that stature, because that is all there really is, that is the perspective we come to see. And we see that there is one heaven, there is One Body. We have tended to think that there had to be a lot of people first and then there would be One Body. Really it is just the reverse: there is the One Body. Now there are those who are penetrating the veil, the One Body becomes apparent, becomes truthfully present on earth. We are a part of that Body, we love that. Consequently we bring the heaven, and what has always been present begins to be seen. There is no planning needed; it is all there. And we find that the invisible becomes visible because of our love for the truth.

Martin Cecil — The truth is easily expressed in words and in living. The yoke is easy and the burden is always light. That is why we are rightly called Emissaries of Divine Light. The light shines, the heaven is known, the waters are gathered together unto one place and the dry land appears; the form appears, clothing what is present in the heaven. As the barrier of the veil is dissipated the heaven comes forth and takes form. It takes form, of course, as there are those who are willing to let it happen as individuals. The individuals discover that the form that is appearing is not primarily an individual one. It is the Body of the Son of God. We share the privilege of composing that Body to the extent that, as  individuals, we express the truth. And the Body continues. Forms, individual forms, may come and go. Some have been going recently, but a lot more have been coming, in various ways; and the body continues. And the job gets done by that Body, or rather, as I indicated before, by the spirit which finds expression by reason of that Body. Praise the Lord that it is so. We certainly are, I’m sure, cognizant of the privilege that we have to be alive now.

Cosmic Cycles  by  Gary Courtland Miles