We have set ourselves on a mission, along with people around the world associated with this program we call Emissaries of Divine Light, and along with many other people who share what is our greatest passion. That mission is to allow to appear in the visible world what’s in the invisible, to allow to be heard and seen what heretofore hasn’t been able to be heard and seen. Said in other terms, our mission is to allow the reality and truth of what people all over the world hope for and dream about to be present with us and with them. That doesn’t come in the form that people want it or expect it. But the reality of what is hoped for and longed for is available. When we are functioning creatively and in communion with the Invisible, those things that are longed for by people everywhere, which have been largely unseen and unheard, can put in an appearance.

When we first catch a glimpse of this purpose and first set ourselves to it, we’re in the unhappy position of being unable to fulfill it on the basis of all we’ve learned thus far in our life. We are certainly unable to fulfill that dream on the basis of human strength. That’s not altogether obvious in the beginning. But it becomes obvious that while we have the capacity to handle what is here and now, there is no way we can fulfill all of what we’re here to do without radical prayer—without a heretofore unknown level of communion and openness to an inner reality. In the end, we have to let go of the arrogance that we could do it our way or that we could do it out of our own strength.

The strange paradox is that if we don’t apply our best thinking and our greatest strength to the task, we will probably never learn that it’s not enough. That is one of the values of giving all that we have—we find out that it’s not enough. How would you know otherwise?

So giving all that you have has the blessing in it of finding that it’s not enough, and that from you, from me, there is radical prayer, radical openness that must be present if we are to fulfill why we are here. I suppose there is another solution, which is to more or less turn the other way and fall asleep spiritually. But that isn’t much of an answer. So we have to come to terms with who we are, beyond this three-dimensional world, to discover how we are creating in this world. We must come to terms with that if we are to have the capacity to let the world we are creating be all of what it may be.

So part of radical prayer is to ask ourselves: Who am I being that’s making this world as it is? And from where am I viewing the world? What is my perspective? What is my stance? The unconscious state that is so prevalent around the world ignores the individual’s own role in creating their circumstances and blames it on someone else. Of course, in that blame, what’s hidden from the eyes of the person who is bringing the accusation is their own role in creating what has been created. We’ve probably noticed that about others from time to time. In the accusation, what is left out is the place from which the accuser themselves is looking at their world. That is apparently off the table. But, in reality, we can’t take it off the table. We can choose to be unconscious of our part in the creation of our world, and apparently most people have chosen to be largely unconscious of the place from which they’re viewing their world, and the influence that they, themselves, have on that world.

So a primary factor in the unconscious function of people that prevents them from fulfilling their true purpose in life is their own tendency to accuse, thereby losing consciousness of what they themselves are creating. Another range of unconsciousness relates to the great tendency to see the world in terms of “us and them.” While there is in many people some shame around the fact that this is how the world is viewed, this way of looking at the world is practically universal.

While it is true at a spiritual level that we are all one, at the level of physical reality that’s not true. You are you and I am me. And together we are us and they are them. Is it possible that this is exactly how things should be, and the important question is whether we will be conscious of how we think in terms of “us and them,” and work with that dynamic creatively? Who are the “us,” and how do I get to be part of it? It does seem to be the nature of the physical world that there is me and you. In that way there is distinction. There are ranges of our experience where there is you and there is me, and where there is us and there is them. For spiritual people, perhaps well-intentioned people of all kinds, the experience of “us and them” may be frowned upon, but it is an unavoidable reality of our life.

I propose that it’s more beneficial to be conscious of how we live in a reality of “us and them,” and watch ourselves do it, and do it deliberately in a way that’s creative, as opposed to pretending it’s not going on. How about a sports team? “Us and them” is at work in competitive sports. There’s us, our team, and there’s the team we’re playing against: them. In that context, if there’s good sportsmanship, that works pretty well. If you watch a high-performing basketball game, it is remarkable what can happen because of the “us and them” dynamic. Hopefully, at the end of the game, they shake hands or hug to acknowledge that the “us and them” is held in a larger oneness. It is just a game being played at a certain level of reality.

But there’s something creative to be accomplished in the game if it’s played well and played by the rules—and, if the players know who the us and them should be in that situation. There are occasions where players view members of their own team as “them.” That doesn’t work so well. The “us and them” is this team and that team, not players on the same team.

If we are conscious and deliberate about “us and them,” we find that in every case there is something creative that can come out of that dynamic. But if we are fighting with people who should be with us, and unaware of our boundaries with people who should, at some level, be separate from us, discord and destruction ensue.

I was speaking with a friend not too long ago. I was describing a situation, asking for this person’s perspective. Using a hockey analogy, he said, “Well, it sounds like someone is high-sticking a player on their own team.” That doesn’t make for good hockey, and it doesn’t make for a creative dynamic in living when we act unconsciously around “us and them.”

I’d like to read something from the world of sports. This is from Pat Riley’s book, The Winner Within. Pat Riley was coach of the Los Angeles Lakers while Magic Johnson was running the show. So he knows something about high-performing teams. He went on to coach the Knicks and wasn’t quite as successful over there. But he described something in what I’m about to read that I have never heard described so well, so I’d like to read it for you. It’s about two players, Xavier McDaniel and Anthony Mason.

“Xavier was an emotional, driven-to-dominate forward—tough and muscular—and his disposition was to dominate his opponent. Anyone who fits that description is also a very territorial individual. You can bank on it.

“As it happened, we also had a like-minded first year player already on the team, named Anthony Mason. Mace grew up on the tough streets of Queens, and from the instant the two laid eyes on one another, it was obvious that something was bound to happen. Each knew the other’s reputation. Through the introductions and preliminaries that began training camp, the two men seemed to be circling one another.

“Our first workout began with a no-contact rebounding drill. It was just supposed to be a way to teach technique. As chance would have it, McDaniel and Mason got paired up. Then, suddenly, eighteen minutes into my first practice as a New York Knicks coach, all hell broke loose. We had a full-blown two-man riot on our hands. McDaniel pounding both sides of Mason’s head. Mason was answering with furious, lunging blows. It was one of those traveling fights: they collided under the basket, fought their way over to the sideline, then ricocheted out to the middle of the court. It finally ended as a draw.

“And that was it. For the rest of the season, McDaniel and Mason were true teammates. Once they understood that they were both fierce competitors who wouldn’t back down from intimidation, the dispute ended. They respected each other. They were ready to join their strengths for the Knicks. They were ready to declare their innocence.

“Let me explain what I mean. There’s a tremendous difference between innocence and naïveté. Some people never figure it out. Being naïve means failing to understand or acknowledge the threats to your personal territory and it’s pitiful. Most people get over being naïve very quickly, but then they go to the opposite extreme, to an exclusive focus on Number One, to playing the angles and going for the end run. They calculate before they give.

“Being innocent means understanding territory and knowing that each player has his space and then putting it aside for the good of the team. The Xavier McDaniel/Anthony Mason story is about suppressing territorial ego. It’s a positive choice. You make it for your own good too, because trying too hard to be clever in defending your turf makes for short-range thinking. The greatest infighters, the leading self-servers, always find a way to stab themselves with their own daggers more deeply than they ever cut an adversary.

“Innocence is about trust in a team—it’s an attitude! Doing your utmost for the team will always bring something good for you. It means believing that everything you deserve will eventually come your way. You won’t have to grab for it. You won’t have to force it; it will simply catch up to you, drawn along in the jet stream by the forward motion of your hard work.”

People learn things in the intensified environment of a sports team, and there is a profound message in what Pat Riley is saying here. There is a faith in believing that success and fulfillment will follow you in the jet stream. It is from many perspectives an irrational faith, a stupid thing to believe. And yet, in the context of basketball, the team can’t work unless people believe it.

The same is true of life. A person’s life doesn’t work unless they have what seems to be the totally irrational belief that if they give of themselves, without thought of reward, something good will come of it. That’s not naïveté—that’s innocence. But it’s also something else: wisdom. And wisdom is saved for the innocent.

So let us be the truly innocent. And let us inherit the wisdom that we can only inherit in innocence, in a state of radical communion and prayer. As we are in that state, we can say, as the psalmist said, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” (Psalm 23:6) There is that which is truly good that is born of innocence—not the immediate goodness that a person might grab for, but the larger goodness of the creative process; the pleasure and fulfillment of our purpose in incarnating in human form to create a new world.

Post from: www.emissaries.org

(Carol Travis welcomed approximately 44 stations online. Previn Hudetz offered a song, a cappella, from the Dome Chapel on Sunrise Ranch, based on a poem by Robert Frost.)

I’m going out to clean the pasture spring;
I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I sha’n’t be gone long. You come too.

HUGH DUFF: Springs are those places where water bubbles up out of the ground, often the source of mighty rivers. They’ve always fascinated me because they’re such a beautiful metaphor for life, as it bubbles up within us and between us. I first met up with springs when I was spending some years ranching up in the Cariboo, in the heart of British Columbia. Discovering a spring was always cause for great excitement among us and the cowboys. At first we’d find a little stream flowing down through the pasture fields or the woods. The cattle would drink out of it; and they’d mess it up until it was muddy, but they’d get their drink.

We’d be a bit thirsty too. Knowing there’s nothing like spring water to quench one’s thirst, we’d follow the little stream up toward the source. And then, if we were lucky, we’d come upon the spring. It might be full of leaves or branches, but there it would be—this water, just coming up out of the sand. A spring always feels like a place of magic. It would be dry up above it, bone dry, and then down below ran a stream. If it was in the summertime, the water would be cool and beautiful, and all you could think of was to quench your thirst. There’s life that goes with it. Plants and animals and trees and swamps are nourished by the spring.

If it was in the wintertime, there’d be steam coming up from the spring and the little creek. The spring would be there, bubbling just the same. And if you drank it in the winter, it of course would still be cool because the spring keeps its temperature, but according to what the conditions were round about, the evidence of the presence of the spring changed. It’s something that’s eternal but also something that’s delicate and needs care. If you try and dig a spring out to get a better flow, to get more water, or you try to encase it in cement to get it to go where you want it to go, you often lose the spring—it goes somewhere else. It bubbles up somewhere else.

Isn’t that a lot like life? We try and get life to go a certain way, to give us results; we want it to be thus and so. And in doing that, it’s often squeezed down. You look around and gradually life’s gone; there’s just a little trickle there. If it’s all gone you can’t look anyway. For me, life and springs are fascinating.

We just came together at our Annual General Meeting (AGM) here in British Columbia, at Edenvale, and it isn’t what is done as much as people getting together who let that life, that spirit, spring up through themselves. It’s shared together, and we have the beginnings of a river.

I was thinking about that among us this morning. We have the beginnings of a river, and that river flows out into all the earth—some of it by the telephone lines, and a lot of it by the love, the life, the vibrational quality that flows in us and through us and among us in this hour. Sometimes when we think of spirit bubbling up or bubbling out, we look for a guru or inspiration. That’s a start—that’s like finding the stream. But the real thing is to find the spring, the source—to be willing to go upstream and to stay with it.

There’s a real, sustainable resource on this earth among us. The grand delight is in finding the source. It doesn’t matter whether it’s winter around us or summer, lush pasture or desert; everything’s just fine for expressing this spirit bubbling through us. A spring in the desert creates an oasis.

I really feel that, for us, it’s a matter of letting the spring rising within us be cleared. It is ours to be raking the leaves and letting the water flow clear. The rest will look after itself.

JANE ANETRINI: I would like to continue our consideration of the spring. Earlier this week a number of us were in a meeting considering the topic, and we found ourselves together at the headwaters. We were there together, thinking together, bringing the spirit of that water together. There’s something nourishing about being in the same place, in a pure place, with friends. I do believe the human experience craves this reality. I believe that every person who starts a spiritual path is looking for the headwaters of that spring.

We’ve often quoted Martin Exeter’s “Prayer of Being,” which begins, “I am in heaven.” This morning I was thinking that what is also true is “I am the spring and at the headwaters of that spring.” It also came to me that “We are the spring.” We are the source of the spring. The revelation of who we are is holy, nourishing and quenching.

Recently there has been an avoidance of the word we. I believe it is because people rode on the coattails of the words of people they admired, rode on the authority of people who brought leadership. And people were concerned about bringing their own authority and clarity, so we repeatedly said, “Speak with an ‘I’ statement; speak for yourself.” It required some ownership when you did that. But I want to reclaim again today the wonder of the “we.” To be at the source of the water, at the headwaters of the spring together, a “we,” an “us,” a group, a family stands there, allowing the rushing of the water into this earth as it was designed to be, so that the revelation of who we are is nourishing, is quenching, is life-giving.

This week I wrote about being at the source of that spring. I would like to read the words I wrote:

Once upon a time I was born
Bubbling out of and streaming into the earth
The time seems important to some
The date and place determining…affecting the rest of my journey
But I can’t seem to take the time to remember or to measure today

I am busy flowing
Moving

Wetting all in my path with my touch
Splashing
Rinsing
Caressing
Drinking
Washing
Bathing
Watering and
Drenching
Here I am
And there I go
My origin constantly connected to my consistent birthing

Now
In this time I am born
Bubbling out of and streaming into the earth
Creating
Blessing
And knowing the continued adventure with those also being born

I stand in the privilege and the glory of being with my friends today, who love and protect what I love and protect and bring the water of life, who bring it forth through our agreement and our friendship and our love for one another, and for the love of what we serve.

Post from: www.emissaries.org

In my meditations earlier this morning, I was thinking about the clarity that I suspect all of us have touched in our lives. And I was thinking of it as a spring in a meadow that we may have come across, discovered first because there is a meandering stream in the meadow. When first discovered, that water may be full of whatever is in the meadow, and perhaps not fit to drink. But if we are curious, we may look for the source of that water, until finally we come to the place where it’s bubbling up out of the ground and where it is fit to be drunk.

Life itself is like that. We touch something of clarity and something of truthfulness, seeing that spring as a symbol of truth, something that’s pure and uncluttered. Over these last ten days or so, I’ve had a chance to be in the natural world. When I’m away from the usual human world and immersed in nature for a period of time, there’s a sense of peacefulness and wholeness that comes. I experience myself as part of that natural whole.

Coming back after a time of travel, particularly in the natural world, can bring perspective on the things that had been close and maybe taken for granted. In the flow of life from day to day, there are things that we may grow accustomed to, and some of those things may cover over the purity of the spring, the purity of the experience of truth.

Being away, we can perhaps gain some perspective on that, and see if there are elements of our experience that are covering over the inner spring, that are hiding it, that are somehow polluting it, making it unfit to drink. If that is the case, care should be taken to dislodge what may be there, to allow the spring to flow freely, and to make sure we’re drinking from it at its source. It can take strong action on a person’s part to cast off whatever doesn’t fit, whatever’s not true, whatever we’ve grown accustomed to that’s been injected into life but doesn’t actually belong as part of our life. So it’s good to find times to step back—daily I would say, and sometimes for longer periods of time—so that we establish in ourselves a perspective on daily life. In stepping back, we can move ever more closely to the source of that life spring that is at our core, so we can drink the pure water.

This is the great work to which we are called as human beings and that we acknowledge in a particular way through this program we call Emissaries of Divine Light. It is the opportunity to drink the clear water ourselves because we reestablish that flow in us as a human being, so that it’s present in our world. There do seem to be things that intrude and, if allowed to, would cover up that spring and pollute it.

I was noticing the presence of the spring as we gathered here this morning. Maybe you were too. Through the music that was played, the poem, and just in our gathering together, there was a deepening of spiritual current. The forms that were presented were beautiful but, just as forms, probably not exceptional. But somehow, in the sharing in those forms, there was a deepening of spiritual current that was unmistakable.

Is not that spiritual current worth everything? There are the outer forms of things that we pay attention to, and rightly so. Those outer forms have the possibility of giving deeper and richer and more varied expression to spiritual current. Ultimately, that’s their value. The forms of our life make sense as we use them as opportunities to magnify spiritual current.

There are unique essences of that spiritual current that we each bring. We may sometimes marvel at each other—how could someone be so different?! The gifts that we bring can serve the larger spiritual current. What we bring can also throw a spanner into the works, as it’s put. I’m not even sure what a spanner is—a wrench, I think. It’s probably obvious enough to us that other people can do that. What a person brings into their world can cut across the greater flow of spirit. But do we have perspective on how what we are bringing relates to the larger flow of spiritual current?

If what is going on in a person, or in a group of people, is cutting across the current of the spring, how does that current have a chance to flow freely? It has to meander through all the arbitrary things that individuals bring into the picture, with a lack of awareness of the larger flow.

Our spiritual work necessitates that we find those arbitrary things, those things that set the course of the spring meandering through the meadow—to one by one set them aside, to one by one put them in a place where they no longer are disrupting the flow and the purity of that spring. We have the opportunity to do that conscious work in ourselves. One by one, as things come up in our experience, we can look at them clearly in the light of the spiritual current that we have to bring, and ask ourselves: How is this part of my experience serving that spiritual current?

So we have an opportunity to do that in ourselves, and therefore to build the channel that carries spiritual current into the world. We also have the opportunity to do that with others. We have the opportunity to live a life of service that assists other people to take those things that are blocking their gift and their fulfillment in the world, and as much as possible help them set those things aside in a process of healing and forgiveness and purification, a process of stepping back from the turmoil of everyday things, to reestablish the inner flow.

That is the nature of the understanding service that was brought by Lloyd Meeker, who founded this place, with others. He assisted them to find that original flow in themselves and to deal with those things that were covering it up—to deal with them kindly and with love and assurance, but to indeed deal with them. He brought the knowing that such a process was possible, even in a world that had grown hard through years of depression and a world war.

We live in a world now that has grown hard because of many things. Where the inner spring in us is flowing free, we bring the assurance of what is possible to people—what is not only possible but what is real and true, of them and of life itself.

In that service is the knowing that we, of ourselves, can’t make an experience for another person, and in fact they can’t make it for themselves. They don’t have to, because that original experience is present with us all. It doesn’t have to be re-created. It is present. It is our ultimate reality. We can alter our experience of that original flow; we can lessen our experience of it; we can move away from the experience of it. But the place of origin for that flow is our ultimate reality. It is our home.

Post from: www.emissaries.org

I was walking with a friend recently and sharing some hurtful thoughts and feelings I’ve been working with for most of my life. It was about receiving—or, I should say, not receiving.

I was the eldest in my family, born into a family that seemed to be in constant crisis—maybe they weren’t but it seemed like that to me. I learned very early how to give to try to keep everything from falling apart. I became a person who is good at unconditional giving. So I have that down flat.
Giving is a virtue, and I’m not suggesting anyone stop giving. However, I was finding that there was something missing. Something inside felt incomplete. My friend invited me to be part of a new story—a story that includes the ability to receive, to be open to receive. When you are open to receive, it can be a little tricky because you have to pause from what you’re giving out. You have to just be present to receive.

It seems to me that spring this year at Sunrise has been a perfect time to do that. I have never seen so many lilacs. The odor in the air is superb and penetrating—everywhere you go you can smell lilacs. So I began to practice receiving by smelling the lilacs.

Heaven truly is around us everywhere we go, right here on earth. It is especially present in our friends. But if we’re not receiving it, who knows it? The Cosmos or God or the Creator—or whatever you wish to call the energy that gives spring—gives fully to everyone. The same amount of spring is given to everyone. How much of that beauty we receive is up to us.

I was walking by a friend’s house where there was this glorious dark-purple lilac. I put my face right in it and smelled every inch of it. It filled me from the top of my head down to my feet—the fullness of receiving.

This consciousness has allowed a new story to come through me. What had been in the past was no longer present. It’s in the past. What’s here now is the glory of spring, the glory of the lilacs, the glory of my friends, and the glory of the spirit that moves and moves and moves. I don’t know how I could have missed it—it’s everywhere! It’s the way life was designed.

Another example of this spirit being present is when we share an attunement. An attunement is a sacred healing practice that Emissaries have offered for years. During an attunement you hold your hands over the person’s body, starting at their head. The moment you hold your hands over their head, you can feel the energy move. There it is, completely present. There is never a moment when there isn’t the glorious energy of heaven present. How could I have missed it?

So here is my message to myself and to you. “Receive first the glory that’s around, receive first the evidence of heaven, and then you can give.” When you breathe in, you can breathe in enough so that you get tight and stiff, but when you breathe out it’s a given you’re going to relax and breathe in again. That’s how life works. You can breathe in the glory and the beauty, or you can breathe in the latest thought you just had, which maybe isn’t so glorious. It’s a wonderful thing to know that in every moment the choice truly is ours. Nobody else can make us breathe in what we breathe in, or breathe out what we breathe out.

There are reasons for not being open—fear of being hurt again or fear of being told what to do, or perhaps not believing that heaven is present. Given all these factors, it is still your choice to be open or to be closed.

I see myself as a conduit to receive heaven and to release it. Welcoming the many visitors who come to Sunrise is part of my job. Some of these visitors ask, “So who are these Emissaries? What’s this all about?”

Sometimes I answer with a one-liner: “An emissary is responsible for bringing heaven onto the earth.” We all know a little heaven on the earth would be a good thing! But if it’s not inside me, I can’t bring it onto the earth; I can’t give it out. And it won’t be inside me if I don’t receive it.

I’m wondering in this moment how much heaven we bring into this space to receive what’s yet to come? What is the inner essence that’s coming from our experience? How open are we in this moment?

Our job is to be open and receive what is present. Then we can be assured that we have filled the heavenly atmosphere that is ours to give into our world.

Post from: www.emissaries.org

About fifteen years ago, I had the privilege of attending a seminar with Malidoma and Sobonfu Somé, and Robert Bly. Here is a description of Malidoma and his work:

Malidoma, as representative of his village in Burkina Faso, West Africa, and an initiated elder, has come to the west to share the ancient wisdom and practices which have supported his people for thousands of years.

At this critical time in history, the earth’s people are awakening to a deep need for global healing. African wisdom, so long held secret, is being called on to provide tools to enable us to move into a more peaceful and empowered way of being, both within ourselves, and within our communities. The indigenous spirit in each of us is calling for cleansing and reconciliation. The ancestors are responding.

The weekend I spent with Malidoma had a lot to do with what we tend to think of in the West as ancestor worship. I remember reading about that in my textbooks at school. It seemed like a very superstitious practice and a fairly mysterious one. Over the course of this weekend with Malidoma, it all made sense to me. I believe there’s a profound teaching in it that is relevant for us.

The belief in Malidoma’s village was that when a person passes on, they go, first of all, to a place that is something like the purgatory that Christians sometimes believe in. As time goes on, they go on to a higher heaven. While they’re in that purgatory, it is believed that they can reach out of that world into our world and do damage in our lives. It is safer when the person has gone to the higher heaven. Yet there is still some risk at that point that the ancestor could reach out of that higher heaven and cause problems in our world. It is also true that the ancestors could bring favor to our lives.

So it might seem a bit superstitious to believe that. But I want to describe what I believe is true about this, highly significant, for our lives. When someone who has been an elder to us has passed on to the “other side,” if our relationship with that elder is unclear, it will keep unclear things alive in our lives. I’d even go so far as to say that when the physical body has passed on, the energy of the elder remains for a time; it hasn’t dissipated entirely. If that energy pattern is kept alive by people, they may see ghosts. But whether or not we see the ghost, there is the energy of the person that has not fully passed away, just as the physical body may not have fully disintegrated. It is possible to keep a wrong relationship with that kind of energy, which should be allowed to pass away.

But even leaving that aside, if someone who has in any way been an elder to us—a teacher, a parent, a leader—if our relationship with that one is somehow unclear, that keeps something unresolved in us. It is clearly true with a parent. Psychiatrists discovered this somewhere along the line, to the point that it’s gotten to be a joke that psychiatrists speak about mother issues or father issues. So it is true that unresolved relationships with parents who die can leave something hugely unresolved in the person. It is best to have the opportunity to work out what is unresolved between us and a parent while they’re alive. It’s not impossible after they’re gone, but there’s an advantage to doing it in the flesh.

That applies to physical parents who have been elders for us. It also applies to all kinds of other people who played important roles in our life. Last week, here in this Dome and around the world, we had a chance to celebrate the life of someone who had been a spiritual elder to many. It turns out there were a hundred and twenty stations on the telephone, celebrating the life and spirit of Martin Exeter.

It made me remember that in that weekend I spent some years ago, Malidoma and Sobonfu created a ritual. Over the course of several hours we had the opportunity to come closer to the spiritual reality that we knew through someone who had been an elder to us and resolve whatever might be unresolved. It was a profound process. For me, the elder was Martin. And I’ve been thankful for that opportunity I had, and to Malidoma for giving it to me in that form at least. I was not afraid that Martin was going to leap out of the other world and cause problems in my life, but I knew that who I am as a man had been developed, in a large way, in relationship to him, and that who I could be in my life could be inhibited if there were things in me that were unresolved relative to him. The other side of that is that there could be blessing brought through a right relationship with his spirit.

If we are playing the role of an elder, a mother or a father or any other kind of elder, to others, I’m sure we aspire to do it the best that we can. We make it easier on those for whom we’re providing eldering if we do it the best that we can. But what makes it easier? It’s easier for the younger person to embrace their own elderhood if the representation of elderhood that they meet is clear.

However, ultimately, for any person, their stepping into elderhood themselves is not conditioned by the representation of elderhood to them. Having a gifted elder does not guarantee for any of us that we will be the same, and having an elder who has faults in no way prevents us from stepping into our own elderhood. You might say, thank God, because for many people the faults of their elders are only too apparent to them.

What is critical in relationship to those who provide elderhood is our attitude in the matter. For a child, it’s hard and maybe even impossible to differentiate between the person who is the mother or the father and the gift that’s being given. It’s all one package. The child is not going to differentiate between that, because in many ways his parents define his world. But over time, coming into maturity, the child has the opportunity to discover that, for them and for their life, what ultimately matters to them is their appreciation for the truth that’s been provided to them. There is the opportunity to let everything else pass away and to become meaningless to them. It doesn’t have to matter. It only matters for the young person when they insist upon it mattering. And that’s okay, to a point. But we come into our own elderhood in relationship to those who have been our elders, and so the way we handle that relationship is pivotal.

This is a description of what I’ve been calling reciprocity. In this case, our reciprocation and our giving back has to do with coming into the place that an elder has been holding for us. So if we’re coming into elderhood, what is it that we are holding for the younger person? Isn’t it first and foremost unconditional love? Certainly, as a parent, that’s job one. It’s hard to come to that place of unconditional love if, in relationship to one’s elder, one is living in a place of judgment. I judge my elder but I’m going to offer unconditional love to those who come to me for eldership? If you think about it, do you know anyone who has huge unresolved emotional issues with their parents or their teachers or their leaders, and then are in position to offer unconditional love to others? I don’t.

It is a sad thing when eldership that’s been offered is deeply flawed. Any actual hurt that has been done is sad, but what is most sad is when the person who has been on the receiving end of the hurt is caused to live in a place of judgment, believing that that will protect them and that will help them along their way. That judgment is most often accompanied by a lack of faith in the person’s own ability to be whole and to be an elder. If there is a deeply flawed elder, then there may be protection that is needed. But for the person who has been hurt, the restoration of their faith ultimately comes through their own forgiveness and unconditional love. When those attitudes are present, whatever gifts were brought by the elder are fully received and, along with that, the person’s own greatness is embraced. And whatever was flawed is allowed to fade into the past.

So we can think of our own ancestors. I hope that each of us has some way of relating to people of greater wisdom, greater strength, greater understanding and compassion, greater assurance and love in a given circumstance. If you are looking to bring any of those qualities in your life, how do you do it? How would anyone do it? By drumming it up? Well, there is something to rising to the occasion—that’s important. But how about doing some ancestor work? How about doing some work with those who represent those qualities that we seek to embody ourselves?

If there’s something unresolved in that relationship, we can do something about it. We can bring a spirit of forgiveness so that we set aside what’s not clear—just set it aside. In essence, we can say, “All right, that’s there, but it won’t be relevant for me. What will be relevant in my relationship with people who are my elders will be those qualities of being that I seek to embody myself. That’s what’s relevant. I reciprocate by magnifying those qualities.” And how could anyone reciprocate with their elders if they don’t have that attitude of forgiveness, and set aside those things that they deem to be flaws?

For a time, for a young person, seeing flaws in elders may be useful. It allows them to say, “Okay, you’re you and I’m me, and I’m going to live my life and determine my own values for myself.” There’s probably something healthy about that at some point. But ultimately, a person can’t rise to their highest if they’re held down by the weights of judgment and unresolve with their elders.

We have the opportunity to surpass our elders, not because in our own mind or heart we put them down and leave them in the dust, but because we celebrate and praise them. In that celebration, we find that we’re standing on their shoulders, on the foundation that is the best they’ve been able to create. We find that we’re called to something in this day that is our work to do. But how can we rise to do our work if we’re sitting in judgment over something in the past?

So here is an opportunity for freedom and greatness. It is greatness that’s born out of humility. I notice that in most relationships, even though we like to think we are equal, there is imbalance. Somebody is older; somebody knows more about whatever it is; somebody has assurance to bring. Whatever it is, there’s some kind of inequality. We have the opportunity to be humble in the face of the inequality. How do we handle it? Do we stay in relationship? Do we let it work well? If not, the unresolve may continue and reach down to do damage in our lives, just because we never learned how to work it with each other. I think that the work with the ones we acknowledge as our elders is a good place to start.

Post from: www.emissaries.org

We’ve been speaking recently about what it means to let spiritual consciousness emerge through oneself. While the word heaven can be thought of as a place to go after you die, we use that word to describe the invisible pattern of being, of which we are becoming aware. As our awareness increases, we bring the heavenly experience into our experience of earthly things. We bring heaven on earth.

It is actually common for human beings to try to bring something heavenly, and therefore pleasurable, into their life. There was a song that was popular a number of years ago, by Tuck and Patti: “Let’s Bring Heaven Down Here.” But how? My experience is that I have to go up, to a high place in consciousness, for heaven to be present through me and in my world. Heaven is present when I’m in the highest vibration I know. If I try to alter the fineness of heaven so that it fits in and doesn’t disturb the coarser levels of the usual pattern of my life, it is no longer heaven.

Last week was Easter, and I was speaking of the story of Mary in the garden after the crucifixion. She goes to the tomb and sees that the stone is moved, and she’s wondering where Jesus’ body is. She asks a man, that she believes to be the gardener, where they may have taken him. But in one of the most moving passages in the Bible, it turns out that the gardener is Jesus. He speaks her name. Though she did not initially recognize him when he spoke her name, there was a knowing, a remembering of the vibration within her that resonated so strongly with his presence. He spoke not to chastise her for her confusion but to remind her. When he said her name, she remembered again. I expect that in all the turbulence and distress in the events that led up to this occasion, it was difficult for her initially to hear that vibration and to sense what was happening. What’s revealed through the story is that she had listened so deeply to the vibration she knew through Jesus that she recognized it when it was present. She did enough living that way to know the sound of what was true. She knew the sound. And when it was spoken again, the very cells in her body remembered, and in her response of “Rabboni” was the message “Here am I.”

How often have we heard the words “Here am I”; “Yes, I will”; “Whatever it takes”? The experience of doing this collectively is symbolized by this teleconference service, having all in Western Canada and the Dome Chapel at Sunrise, in the central part of the United States, online at the same time. We are one body, standing in one place. It is now in both places, regardless of what the clock says. We are one body in this one moment. The only reason we share in services such as this on Sundays is to be of service, to bring the vibration out of the invisible heaven, the holy spirit on earth through our words. I could be gardening or doing some other enjoyable activity. But the reason we choose to be together this way is to magnify the spirit on earth and to do it together because we love it so. And we know that the experience of oneness as a body magnifies that spirit on the earth.

I was thinking of Barack Obama this week. He is already receiving a lot of criticism. He hasn’t been in office very long. It saddens me that the human experience is so self-interested that it attacks people that don’t seem to be satisfying what the person wants. Self-interest often leads to thinking and speaking that pursue what the person wants without respect to the invisible pattern of being. I don’t believe there is any way that heaven comes into a person’s experience on that basis.

I believe Barack Obama brought something in his campaign and leadership that stirred a lot of people in this country and around the world. It seemed that he cared about something more than himself, more than our country, and something more than our problems. He cared about the future of this planet as a whole. People have criticized him for touring around the world when, in their minds, he should be taking care of problems at home. Are our problems really strictly national? Have we lost sight of the impact of the issues at stake in our world that are global in nature?

It takes moving beyond a pattern of thinking that is driven by self-interest to see this larger picture. Self-interested thinking is ultimately self-active—driven by the concern from a very small sense of who a person is. A person whose thinking is driven on that basis isn’t opening themselves to a heavenly experience. They are simply trying to fix what they think is wrong with the world—and other people. That never allows heaven to be here on earth.

There is a time where we try harder, and do more to bring something creative into the world. But if the whole way of thinking is on a self-active basis, there’s a time where you have to say, “Let’s change the rules.” My heart tells me that we have to change the rules. We have to say that the way we’ve done it before does not work anymore. We need a new, higher vibration.

I have a friend who believes that everyone in the world wants to be like America. Everyone wants two cars, a big beautiful home, 2.5 children, and the abundance we know here. He believes that the whole world is acting the way they’re acting because of jealousy about that. I say that is not only self-active thinking; it is presumptuous! I know people even in this country who could care less about having a car. I know people in this country who care more about the well-being of their fellow man than they do about what they’re going to eat tonight or how big their house is. We have people stewarding the land of Sunrise Ranch who care about its sustainability, who care about its relationship to something far larger than whether or not we’re going to have enough apples in the fall.

The pattern of self-active thinking is born out of a person’s interest in serving themselves, and perhaps a few others. The truth is that we are, ultimately, one body of humanity around the world. And the heaven that is at hand is at hand for anyone who’s interested. You don’t have to live on Sunrise Ranch, you don’t have to live at Edenvale or in Western Canada, and you don’t have to be on the phone line this morning to participate. But you have to be willing to be interested in something more than what you want and what you believe would make you happy right now. When you are interested in something more than yourself, there is a new sense of happiness. There is an experience of being part of one body of people around the world, who are bringing one heaven to earth.

The Olympic Games represent this understanding at a national level. Athletes compete for their team and for their country, as well as their own victory. Observers of the games join in the sense of victory, even though they’re not the ones in the competition. There is something that happens that allows people to experience the oneness of a larger body. People are competing for their whole country. The list of medals is by country, not by person. They might get the gold medal, but often the experience of victory for something larger happens. When people run the victory lap, what do they carry? They carry their country’s flag, in symbol representing something larger than the victory of their own personal training.

I’m interested in rising to the place in consciousness where we know heaven together. I guess there are about two hundred people on this phone line this morning, and that all of us have something in our hearts and in our minds that could be considered extremely personal—someone we’re concerned about, something that’s not working the way we thought it would. And yet here we are in a place that says, “I will be present in heaven.” You didn’t have to show up this morning. You could have sat at home and thought about your personal world; you could have stayed home and journaled about it; you could have called the person you were concerned about or worked on the issues at hand. All those could also be effective. But where is the greatest power? Where’s the power that will change this planet? That’s what I’m interested in.

As my friend Nick Gordon says, “Holy Spirit is in and wants out.” I want the blessings of my living out, so that heaven may be on earth.

When we are in the place of bringing forth heaven, we are of generous spirit. We see seeds and beauty and possibility, and we don’t get stuck in the limitations of the people or the things or the forms. The forms are blessed and created by our spirit, with our capacities and with that which comes into our hands.

When we are interested in releasing holy spirit, in bringing heaven into the earth, earthly limitations are humorous. We see heavenly possibility, and that is very exciting!

Post from: www.emissaries.org

There are many in this room who are blessed to have known Martin Exeter. I am sure, possibly by the sign of your nodding heads right now, that you experienced Father God’s love through him. I feel, in the time that I have this morning, I can just share a bit of the love that I experienced with him. While working with him, having fun with him, playing tennis or having dinner together, here was a man who came to reveal God’s love in his living. That is our job also. The things he did are ours to do now.

I think there is something for women and men to do in bringing Father God’s love. Martin planted seeds—I noticed in the song that was sung, seeds were mentioned. Seeds were planted in those of us who were with him, and then those of us who were with him were charged with the responsibility of planting those seeds in those who came after—the same seeds, by the way, all part of the one planting and the one harvest.

On the way into the Chapel, I stopped at the sculpture of the likeness of Martin’s head and face, and I touched it. I remember when it was shipped to us; an artist volunteered to do the sculpture. When I took it out of the crate and first showed it to Martin, he looked at it and said, “They got the nose right!” He called it his British nose. We placed it on the piano in what is now called the Mountain View Room. The worldwide Central Council was being held there. At the beginning of the Council, Martin got up and put his profile next to the head to show the British likeness, the British nose, as he called it. So he was full of fun, full of humor, full of adventure. I see this time of celebrating 100 years since his birth as part of that continuum.

This year is also seventy-seven years since Emissaries of Divine Light was birthed. I had an interest in sunspot cycles over a number of years and Martin had an interest in them as well.

I was able to get charts of sunspot cycles from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and found them to be useful. Sunspot cycles are of eleven-year duration and range from minimum activity in the number of sunspots to a maximum level of activity and intensity. It is interesting that Uranda provided a focus for EDL for twenty-two years, which is two sunspot cycles, and Martin for thirty-three years, which is three sunspot cycles (he went into the hospital in 1987). There is an interesting correlation to those eleven-year cycles. This year is the culmination of seven sunspot cycles since the inception of EDL. From an earth standpoint, tree rings are markedly smaller or larger each eleven years. Something changes on the planet. There is an intensification that happens from the sun, and it is either a time of drought or a time of plenty. There are other terrestrial effects as well, such as the impact on electrical power grids. NASA is keeping an eye on this as we reach sunspot maxima. When EDL was founded it was during a time when this country and the world were coming out of a depression amid economic collapse. It’s interesting that, seven sunspot cycles later, something similar is occurring.

Here is the context within which we celebrate Martin’s life and 100 years since his birth. The content that appears within that context is up to the people who are at hand now. These people can be called Emissaries. During one of my speaking tours, I went to England and stayed with a friend who was a British Army General. He founded an organization called Generals and Admirals for Peace and the Environment, with the precept that war devastates Mother Earth. He commented to me, “My dear Nick, you say you are an Emissary, but I have emissaries. I send them out with a message and with a mission. What is the message and mission of the Emissaries?” I answered, “Divine Light.” Emissaries of Divine Light. He then said, “Oh, now I understand!”

The word divine means “of God”; light, “to illuminate.” I noticed the word blessing in each of the songs sung this morning. I also notice that spiritually immature people concern themselves only with being blessed, rather than in giving blessing. Spiritually mature people are looking to bless. Martin was always a blessing to those around him. I feel the seeds he sowed in me are growing more today than ever. I’m sure many of you feel that. And I also feel there is more present today than ever. Don’t look just on the form. Look to the context within which we bring the blessing today. All that came before now unfolds into the present. I bring the blessing; you bring the blessing. One of the repeated Bible verses Martin cited was, “I will…pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” Those who are spiritually immature will say, “Oh, great, I’m going to get heaps of this! I’ll take a second helping.” But as spiritual maturity puts in an appearance, one sees those words as meaning “I will pour you out as the blessing.”

You cannot pour out a blessing and stay anonymous. This is not “Emissaries of Divine Light Anonymous”; those meetings were never held here. This is “Emissaries of Divine Light at Large,” with a message and a mission. It is not just the name of an organization. It is emissaries carrying that light of love, the Father’s love. Jesus said many years ago, “I have come to reveal the Father…. The Father and I are one.” That is no less the responsibility before us today.

As expressed through Martin, the Father’s love provides great mercy and a lot of grace. There is a difference between mercy and grace. Mercy is when you do not get all that you deserve, and grace is when you receive far more than what you deserve. That is the blessing and love he brought.

He saw opportunity in circumstances. I remember when cow manure was found in the Little Chapel. The landscaper at the time had stored bags of manure in the Little Chapel— the building that symbolizes the holiest place within us. That was ironic. He saw this circumstance as symbolic of the manure that needs to be released from human consciousness to make space for what is holy. He seized this opportunity to remodel the Little Chapel. We put a new roof on it, a cupola on the roof to let in life-giving air, lighting and heating, as well as stained-glass windows. This was symbolic of the holiest place within us now being habitable. How’s that for a context?

Martin had great faith in those who worked with him. He was willing to risk. In so doing, faith is spelled R-I-S-K. If you want to increase your faith you must take a risk by moving beyond complacent mediocrity into the expression of greatness. Being around Martin, you stayed lean and hungry. (There are a lot of smiles of agreement in the room.) Not complacent, not numb, but lean and hungry. Here is the invitation into that higher vibrational place: the holiest place within each of us.

Martin wrote a number of books; some of them were compilations of his talks. I had dinner with him as his newest book was being completed. During dinner, I asked him what the title was. He said he did not have one yet. At the time the movie Romancing the Stone was popular and the current service theme was on the “tone of life.” I jokingly said, “How about calling it Romancing the Tone?” He laughed and then in a moment came up with the title “Beyond Belief.” Maybe he was saying to me, “You’re beyond belief!”

We sang “The Tide of Life” this morning. The Rising Tide of Change was a global event that he initiated. It included people from around the world. In the years that followed there were more global events, such as Signs of the Times and A Gathering of Light. Each of these global events was larger and included many more people beyond the organization of EDL—Emissaries at large. Who do I declare myself to be? Who do you declare yourself to be? I think this was his question and invitation. Do you declare yourself to be anonymous or at large?

You know, King David was not the only one to slay a giant. Four more giants were slain after Goliath. The four people who slew the other giants were closely connected with King David and followed his lead. There is power in that connectedness. If you want to slay the giants keeping you imprisoned, align with giant slayers. Emissaries at large are giant slayers. They slay the giants of mediocrity, adversity and complacency in their own lives and are thereby set free to experience the holiest place within and express the spirit of God into their surroundings. I speak from the friendship I have known with Martin, the uncomfortable friendship, keeping me lean and uncomfortable and hungry.

One of Martin’s books is titled As of a Trumpet. There is mention of a trumpet in the Bible that stands out to me. It is in Matthew: “And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” (Matthew 24:31)

Perhaps this verse expresses, in part, both Martin’s great mission and the great message and mission of each Emissary of Divine Light.

Post from: www.emissaries.org

[podcast]http://emissaries.org/pulse/2009/5/090503.mp3[/podcast]

International Teleconference Service from Sunrise Ranch, A Worship Service Honoring the Vision and Spirit of Martin Exeter

Speakers:

David Karchere
Jim Wellemeyer
Lou Rotola
Tessa Maskell
Rupert Maskell
Paul Blythe
Alan Hammond
John Gray

Artists:

PenDell Pittman sang “Come and Behold Him,” words by Martin Cecil, music by Lillian Cecil

George Emery read “Thus It Is,” by Martin Cecil

Michael and Sara Puharich read “The Lord’s Prayer” and “The Prayer of Being”

Jane Anetrini read “The Angelic Proclamation”

Joyce Karchere sang “Place of Worship,” words by Gary Diggins, music by Mary E. Hanson

Joyce also sang “Here in Thy Temple” by George C. Hanson

Post from: www.emissaries.org

It is so good to be together on this occasion, one hundred years from Martin Exeter’s birth, which was on April 27, 2009. Martin led this Emissary program from 1954 to his passing in 1988. He was a profound influence in the lives of many people. Whether it’s your first time in this Dome for a service or whether you’ve been coming here since it was built in the mid-seventies, it is very good to have this opportunity to celebrate the spirit and stature and vision of this man.

I brought with me an early book of Martin’s—Meditations on the Lord’s Prayer. It is interesting that he wrote this relatively early on in his cycle of leadership. Much later in his life, he worked with that prayer in a different way and transformed it to the first person. That’s a remarkable thing for someone to do—I would say an audacious thing to do. But he had a reason for doing it. There was a profound spiritual understanding that is conveyed by the words in the first person. I doubt that for most people who knew Martin that they think of him particularly as a philosopher; not even a religious philosopher. It would also be hard to characterize him as a great thinker. He was a great thinker, actually. But that is not a particularly accurate description of his life. His understanding came from a different place, a more profound place than a philosophical musing about what’s true and what’s not true. It was, as I understood it, an understanding that was born out of his living, which included his leadership of this program. And his understanding was born not only out of his own living but from the life of the people who served with him. It was understanding born out of experience. I’d like to read the Lord’s Prayer as it appears in the King James Version of the Bible:

“Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name.

“Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

“Give us this day our daily bread.

“And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.”

Here are beautiful words. They are words of truth that speak of God in terms of something higher than we are, in terms of someone with whom we have a relationship. It might be said that this prayer speaks of God in terms of a duality—God on one hand, and us on the other. It does take two to have a relationship. So in his Meditations on the Lord’s Prayer, which I would highly recommend, Martin works with that relationship.

Over the years, Martin came to something else that he shared, which was his rendition of the Lord’s Prayer in the first person. I described it as audacious, and it is in worldly terms, but I would suggest to you that the prayer that he offered isn’t best understood in worldly terms. It’s best understood by meeting it on its own terms and discovering for oneself the profound meaning that is conveyed by the words. So I will read what he called in his book Thus It Is “The Lord’s Prayer.” It’s interesting that in other places he called it “The Prayer of Being.”

I am in heaven.

And mine is the glory which results, shining round about, to be reflected by the world which I create.

For me it’s hard to imagine more profound words being spoken than these. They are a portrayal of the fulfillment of the original prayer that Jesus offered. It’s as if Spirit said through the lips of Jesus, “Keep saying this prayer (the original Lord’s Prayer) until you can say this one (”The Prayer of Being”), until you can speak from the place of oneness with the divine and let that have meaning in your experience; until you can let that be real for you. If your experience is one of separation from what is true, what is real, what is holy, speak words of relationship to that reality, and words of surrender to that which seems to you to be separate. And in speaking those words, open yourself to what seems to be separate to you, until the day when you can say words that will be My words, the words of Spirit, and you believe that those words are, indeed, your words.”

I suspect that if Jesus had presented his prayer in the first person, it would have had very little meaning to the people of his day. I note that when he did speak in the first person, for instance by saying, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” people were happy to, in essence, say back to him, “Yes, you are the way, the truth, and the life,” instead of taking the same personal responsibility that Jesus did. “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” I think that might also have been true of Martin when he originally wrote this book, that if he had spoken the prayer in the first person it might not have had a lot of meaning to people. Why did it become possible for him to present it in the first person later and let that have meaning for people? I do not believe it was because he woke up one morning and had a bright idea about it. It was because of living. It was because words that bring true illumination aren’t spoken out of good ideas; they’re spoken out of the substance of living. The understanding that we come to have in our life is hard earned—or pleasurably earned. But it is earned through living, and not just any kind of living.

It is prayerful living that brings understanding. It might seem like pretty poetry to say that our living could be a prayer. But if the word prayer has any meaning, wouldn’t it have to relate to our living? Maybe brought to focus in words of prayer at specific times, but those words of prayer have meaning because there is a life of prayer, or because a person’s life is a prayer, a deep longing—the deepest of desires. There is no deeper desire than to let the kingdom come—not some religious kingdom but to let the truth and beauty, the reality of what is sacred, the reality of wholeness be present—not only someplace else, not only up there someplace, not only tomorrow or years from now. The deepest prayer is that it should be right here, right now. When a person realizes that their deepest prayer relates to what could happen right now, there can be the opening in consciousness that lets that prayer be fulfilled.

Several weeks ago I spoke about reciprocity here in the Dome. I was speaking about how we reciprocate with other people—how we respond to what we receive from others. We could also think about how we reciprocate with invisible God—how we give back, for one thing. I suppose there are a lot of ways to describe what reciprocity looks like. In a relationship with another person, it begins with acknowledgment of the gift that’s been given, and an honoring of that gift. That honoring turns to appreciation and love. Where those qualities are present and they are allowed to go deep because there is a true gift being received, it compels something else.

As I was describing it a few weeks ago, it’s not enough, eventually, just to say thank you for the gift that another person has given to us. Where the gift is profound and true, and it goes deep, the gift that we receive from another compels us to give in kind. So I think of the gift of Martin’s life, and I honor whatever that’s been for any of you, knowing that each one who knew him would describe it differently. But I will say, for me, that that gift compels me to return in kind what I received. And to me, yes, there’s acknowledgment and appreciation, but as those words are usually understood, it’s not enough. Giving in kind requires of me that I serve what he served, that I serve those qualities of Spirit, that reality of being that he served—that to the greatest of my ability I bring that reality which he brought, knowing that, like anyone, I have no way to do it but through who I am. And if his gift was to be so completely and totally himself that he brought the qualities of Spirit into the world, then giving back in kind would be to have the courage, the willingness, to be who I am. And ultimately that is not a separate reality. There is one reality of being that we find that we are bringing as we are totally ourselves. We are not separate from others.

So I’d like to close by reading some words of Martin, from his book Thus It Is. This is from Chapter Fifteen: “One God, One Identity: I Am.”

A statement apparently was recorded in the Old Testament: ‘I am the Lord thy God…. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.’ Here is an indication of the fact that there is, in truth, only one identity. Clearly this identity has become very scattered insofar as human experience is concerned. Each individual is inclined to think that he or she is unique; and it seems as though there are nowadays five billion separate human identities. All of these human beings are quite capable of uttering the words ‘I am,’ in English or whatever it is in their own language. There is one God. There is one identity—capable of being differentiated, but one identity. Over the years I have sought to speak and to live from the standpoint of the fact that there is just this one identity. There are those who have endeavored to agree with me; there have been those who have disagreed with me.

But insofar as I was concerned it made no difference. I have somewhat soft-pedalled the point of one identity, partly because of the extent of my own experience but also so as to allow whatever was working out in others to do so, to the point where all might be accepted into the experience of the fact of this one identity, of this one God. All kinds of good Christians are inclined to say they believe that there is one God, and in other religious persuasions there is the idea that there is just one God; but virtually no one has seen the implications of this truth, that there is in fact only one identity.

I am the Lord thy God. I am incarnate in the earth. We’ll narrow it down a bit here, perhaps making it a little more obviously acceptable: I am incarnate in the earth. I am incarnate in all the myriad animate forms of the earth. I am incarnate in the human form. If I articulate these things, to what extent as individuals do we know that they are true? It has been the common human attitude to assume that we are all separate: ‘I am me. You may be you, but I am me,’ and I suppose never the twain shall meet. At least this has been the general experience. Human beings desperately try to get together, to agree—although no one would ever suspect this by looking at the state of affairs on earth—but have found it to be impossible.

I am incarnate—and we all may share this awareness, seeing that there is but one God and one identity—I am incarnate in the earth, in all the animate forms of the earth, and in my human form. My human form was created so that I might be consciously incarnate.

What a gift—the transformation of human experience, and the transmutation of human experience. Not in theory—or at least not in theory alone—but in substance and experience, so that what was opaque turns clear. How is it said: “A sea of glass mingled with fire….” (Rev. 15:2]

So good to have this time of acknowledgment and celebration! We have a teleconference next week and expect to do more on this teleconference to celebrate this great spirit and also to celebrate what we have to do now, in our lives, in the light of that spirit.

So may this be, for any that care to let it be so, a week of meditation on the spirit of this man and what he brought into this world. For those of you who are not very familiar with what Martin brought, his writings are prolific and available at Sunrise Ranch, so they are not hard to find.

When we recognize that the spirit Martin brought is the one ever-present Spirit, then the celebration of that Spirit now is something current and alive, not something maudlin or even morbid, but something that’s alive and present with us now. It is life-giving. It is that One Spirit that incarnates through everything.

Post from: www.emissaries.org

I have a vision this morning. The vision is of a crystal. Crystals form in certain substances under certain conditions. It begins with just a few atoms or molecules. There is a three-dimensional pattern that shapes, as other atoms or molecules bond to the forming crystal.

Under some conditions, the crystal can grow to be at least several times the size of a person. There are caves in Mexico where the conditions are just right-there is enough heat and all the right materials for the crystals to grow, even though a person can’t actually survive very long in those conditions.

A crystal is a physical symbol for something that is not physical. For me, it is a symbol for how we could be relating to one another. There are bonds that form between the atoms or the molecules in a crystal. The type of bond varies according to the crystal. But obviously the crystal depends on some kind of bonding and a very particular pattern of relationship. Jane Anetrini was speaking about relationship, and particularly committed relationship. There are all kinds of committed relationships, sometimes spoken of as covenantal relationships. She mentioned our Leadership Program. The commitment in that case is to one another–we’re undertaking something together. But, more importantly, it’s a commitment to ourselves. It’s a commitment to our own purpose, to a common purpose, and therefore to each other.

All people, wherever they might be, share that level of commitment. It may have been forgotten; it may be buried deeply under layers of self-concern and fear. But all people who incarnate on this planet share a covenantal relationship that transcends their incarnation, that transcends their life, from birth to death. What I’m saying is that you and I incarnated on earth for a reason, unique to each of us. You had a reason for coming here. You had your reason, and I had mine. As we awaken to that reason, each one of us for ourselves, we find out that there are unique reasons that we each came here and that, at the most essential level, those reasons are the same. And as you know why you are here, there is something you understand deeply about why I am here.

Seeing these things, we understand how we relate in that pattern. What’s common in the world is that we have personality patterns, and the personality patterns overtake and overwhelm this larger reason for us being together. That’s what usually happens. So people are caught up in a world of self-concern and fear, and through those eyes look at the people around them, deciding who they like and who they don’t like, who they could get along with and who they couldn’t. And even with the people they think they can get along with, when the going gets tough it’s often easy to bail. So the person bails out of the relationship, deciding that they could go find somebody who’s a little easier to get along with. You might say, in the usual pattern of things, why not? Why not find somebody who would be easier to get along with when the going gets tough? It makes all the sense in the world when the covenantal relationship has been forgotten, when we don’t see the opportunity that’s before us to relate on a different basis and when we don’t see the larger vision of what we could be doing with the people in our world.

So I ask you this Easter morning, when you consider the world that you inhabit and the people who are with you, what would you like to have happen with those people and your relationship to them? What is the very best thing that could happen with those people? And considering that, how might you be called to shift and change how you are relating in that picture?

For me, as I ponder these things, I see this crystalline form that I’ve been speaking of, and I believe that I could initiate that form in my life. I love and appreciate the relationships I have and how they are, but I think I could take a giant step forward in how I relate, and initiate something new, starting today. I think that with one or two or three or four people I could share this vision, and we could decide together that we will hold the right conditions in heart and mind. We could hold the right temperature and bring the right heat, so that our relationships begin this new form, this new way of relating, this new design that is in truth not new at all.

It is not new at all because it invokes what is already true between us at an unseen and hitherto unknown level of our being. It brings forward the rather preposterous idea that we could be that way here, that there is a way that we could take these crazy personalities and feelings and allow them to be used for what we created them for; that we could discover that we are not slaves to these things but, in the most creative sense, masters of them, because we are the creators of them. And if we created them, we can re-create them. I believe we can change the world in this way, and have only to decide to do so for it to happen. But to decide, we must see the possibility.

So how is it for you? What is the possibility you see? And what will it take from you to be an initiator of that possibility? Or do you think that in some way it will just happen? There are things that just happen in a magical way, but I believe that they “just happen” because someone decides they will let it happen, with the magical idea that if I let it happen for me, maybe it will happen for somebody else; maybe somebody else will see a possibility they had not seen. Maybe letting it happen for me will prove to be an inspiration for someone else.

Easter is the celebration of the resurrection of the body of Jesus. For that to have real meaning for us, life has to be resurrected, reborn, in our own experience.

I’d like to read something from Andrew Cohen:

We begin to recognise the need for more and more of us to go beyond our pathological individualism in such a way that we are able to merge in the higher We, a non-dual creative unity…so that truly autonomous men and women and as-yet-unrealised cultural potentials can emerge on the leading edge.

So maybe there are people who share a vision that there is something to happen with people everywhere on this planet. I view us as a representational body. We are a body of people in this room, and I have a body right here–no question about that. But we are connected in wonderful and magical ways to people around the world. What do they say? Within six degrees of relationship, we are connected to everyone else in the world. If that’s true for one person, how about all of us here? What capacity do we have to engage with the larger body of humanity that is awakening to their reason for being here? I believe that our capacity to engage in this way is very large, and if there were a miracle here with us this morning, there would be a far-reaching miracle in this world.

The story of Easter is a very beautiful story, and I love beautiful stories. The larger meaning of the story for me is what’s before me, and what is before us today. What is to happen with us? There are some things we are able to do because they are taught to us-we learn how to do them. I think of the musicianship we’ve seen displayed this morning. Part of a person’s capacity to create beautiful music is taught and learned, and there is part of it that’s hard work. But there is part of being a musician, and in fact the larger part, that you cannot teach, and you cannot learn by being taught. We would probably call the larger part of music artistry, which probably won’t happen without teaching and learning. But artistry is ultimately about catching a vision of something that’s possible and going for it.

So I trust that in some way each of us, in our own unique way this morning, is catching a vision, our vision. For me, I’ll say my vision, and I hope you say the same for you–my vision of what could be happening in my world because of what I do, because of what I make possible, because of what I see that has not yet happened. Anybody can see what has happened. We have to have other eyes to see what hasn’t happened but what could happen if we initiated it. That takes a different pair of eyes, a different heart-a heart that can truly see.

So thank you for coming this morning. I celebrate what we do, each one of us. Because of what we each do individually, “we” collectively have meaning. The “we” is empty if it’s not backed by “I.” Where there is a body of people who each say “I”–I do it, I initiate it, I hold my vision and I act on it–then we can say “we” and the “we” has meaning. It is backed. Our collective meaning is like the currency of this country. They can print all the money they want, but it doesn’t mean anything except as there are individuals who back it in their living with their work and their vision. And so it is regarding anything meaningful. The collective endeavor, the collective currency, is backed by the individuals who make up the “we.”

Together, we create the pattern of the crystal, which is built on our own individual experience and the quality of relationship between us. In an earthly sense, we may not all be best buds. You can’t have morning coffee with everybody. But, in a spiritual way, there is something that we can hold between us that creates the crystal pattern.

Despite all the peculiarities of personality, there is a way to be that transcends all that and holds it, and maybe even enjoys it. But only if we invoke a level of relationship that is higher than personality, that acknowledges “I know you, and you know me.” How about relating there, and agreeing there, on what will be to come?

So it’s good to invoke that among us today, to affirm that this is why we’re together.

Post from: www.emissaries.org