I would like to read something from a service of Uranda’s from 1949, when he was speaking to the unit here at Sunrise Ranch.
The spiritual expression plane should manifest as a spirit of gentleness and benediction over all, which is above and beyond those things that tend to produce petty reactions, bickering and inharmonies. That spiritual expression plane of our trinity of manifestation should be as a halo, as a glow of heavenly light that rests benignly over and around each member of this unit and all that we think and say and do.
So may it be for us today. May we be that unit, may we know that halo, may we bring it, and so may it be for us around the world as the halo knows no bounds. And let it be present in what we share together here this morning.
We have been focusing on the flow of the torus, which is the flow of all Creation — the Milky Way galaxy, the atom, and a human being. Uranda portrayed the flow of Creation as a figure 8. The figure 8 shows the torus in the lower circle with what is above or within it in a realm that is invisible to us.
If you picture the flow of the torus, it looks something like a big donut. Think of the Milky Way galaxy with Sagittarius A* at the center and great arms extending out from it. We name Sagittarius A* a black hole, and on the other side of it is a reality that we cannot see.
And so it is for you and for me. There is a toroidal shape to our manifestation and the energy we bring into the world. There is what goes out and what comes back. And then there is the part you cannot see, from which it all emerges.
Years ago, Foster Gamble visited Sunrise Ranch. He had created the movie Thrive, and then Thrive II. He spoke about the black hole, and he theorized that there is a city in there. He did not get religious about it, but in Scripture there is a vision of the New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven. A city is emerging in expression, in manifestation.
The flow of the torus is individual to you and to me. It is the working of the law, the most ancient spiritual teaching that there is. It is the teaching of karma. Karma is the law of cause and effect. There is something that goes out, and according to what goes out, there is something that comes back around. As ye sow, so shall ye reap. Isaiah portrays it this way:
So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
Isaiah 55:11
This is highly relevant to us as individuals. There is the flow of Creation through us, what we radiate to the world, and what we receive that comes back from the world to us, which we then uplift through us into the black hole, into the invisible, up to the Holy City, up to the Lord above. We then receive what comes down out of the invisible to be expressed.
Life is like a garden hose. There is a flow that is carried through the torus. And if the hose gets crimped anywhere, the whole flow is reduced. If our outflow is weak, what comes back is weak. If our ability to receive what comes back is blocked, what flows down from above is weak for us. It is all a part of one flow for us as individuals.
This week we considered such things as they relate to us as human beings. And we also had a chance to meditate upon that flow as it moves among us collectively. Both are valid and true, and really there is not one without the other. I do not believe it is possible to have a full and free flow as an individual without participation in the collective flow of human beings at whatever scale. And it is not really possible to have a full flow in any collective of people without an individual flow for each of the people participating. It all works together in a holographic way. If truly there is a full and free flow for me as an individual, that tends to replicate itself in the collectives that I am a part of.
We had a high privilege over these last two weeks. As Trustees, we spent about an hour and a half on two mornings in the Sanctuary here at Sunrise Ranch. And we read services from a volume of Uranda’s 1949 services. He was speaking to the Sunrise Ranch unit. The paragraph that I read at the top of the hour was from one of those services.
If you think about the time frame, Uranda initiated his public ministry in 1932. That was the birth of Emissaries of Divine Light. He went from here to there in North America and gave talks and offered Attunement. He published booklets. He had correspondence courses and a mailing list. And there were all kinds of wonderful teachings from that era: Seven Steps to the Temple of Light, Lighting the Way in You, Steps to Mastership, to name three of them.
And then many of us are familiar with his teachings from three years of Attunement trainings here at Sunrise Ranch, six months each, 1952, ’53, and ’54. And we have audio recordings from those latter two years, which we are so lucky to have. There is a particular tone to those teachings and the services from that time. After all, he was bearing down on delivering a training. So, it was all part of that training, if you will, or at least surrounding it.
At the beginning of 1949, it had been three years since a small group of spiritual pioneers landed at Sunrise Ranch. As you read the services from that year, you can feel him pouring out his heart and soul to assist that group of people to develop the flow of the torus among them — the flow of Spirit — so that they could be not only individuals who were experiencing something wondrous and fulfilling, but so that as a body of people they could know that flow together.
When I listen to the words from that time, my compassion goes out to the man just to hear somebody pour his heart out like that day after day. It is very evident in the words. To us, the words can seem anachronistic. There was a way of couching things that is not common in our community here now. Some of it is somewhat common, but some of it is not. It was from an earlier time, a time of initiation, and it was in the context of a Christian world with people very familiar with Christian references.
If a person can see beyond all that to the deeper truth of what was happening, it is magnificent. And if not, what could be a glass through which you could see an inner reality becomes a mirror, and it just reflects a person’s own prejudices back to them.
We are here to allow the things of Spirit to become real for us, and they become real as the lens through which we perceive them is transparent. It goes from opaque to perhaps translucent, which is not quite opaque, not quite transparent, but some kind of distorted thing in between, and then to transparent. And all of that depends on the instrument of the heart.
The heart is that lens that is opaque or translucent or transparent. And it is only as it turns transparent that the things of Spirit become real — that the inner Reality that we are living in becomes known to us.
Humanity has been banished to an outer world because of our opaqueness. So, we live in a world of outer form. We experience ourselves in terms of form — the forms of our physical body, our thoughts, and our feelings. We are banished to that world of form and banished from the world of Reality, banished from knowing Reality, seeing Reality, living in Reality, expressing Reality. What did Jesus say? Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. There is a dark corollary to that. Banished are the impure of heart, for they cannot see God.
I am full of biblical quotes this morning. The prophet Malachi said this:
…prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
Malachi 3:10
And what are the windows of heaven? They are the windows of the heart. And if the heart is transparent, it does not mean that the rest of the human capacity is excluded from that experience. Something happens where there is purity of heart. The Reality within the black hole pours out through the heart, and it pours out into the human spirit, enters the mind, and then finds expression and action in the world, so that we are acting as Reality in the world.
That is an individual matter, and the collective does not have much meaning without that individual experience. But there is an opportunity for a collective flow. In the world of form, we are separate and distinct, and as much as we may cry out for oneness, we do not know oneness because we are living in a world of forms that separate. And if we are living with an impure heart, we are banished to that world and excluded from the world where oneness is already a reality.
The oneness in which we live does not rob us of our individuality. There is a beautiful phrase. It came from one of Martin’s papers we shared over these last two weeks, in which he spoke about the interlocking, interlacing pattern of agreement. The idea of it is that there are lines of connection between us all in Reality. When we are not living in Reality, we are unaware of them and have a marked inability to connect deeply and meaningfully with other people.
But in Reality, we are already connected. Where there is a pure heart, we are living in that Reality with that connection. And then, in our humanity, we have an opportunity to light up those lines of connection, and in fact, it happens so naturally and so wonderfully between us when we enter that space.
This is not just stirring up a state of homogeneity. What would be the point of that? We are not homogeneous. There are unique powers of Creation that we are bringing into the world. There are unique facets of Love that we are bringing. There are unique powers of Truth. And while there is something powerful about the individual to be known and owned, we are ultimately helpless except as we do this together.
Does anybody watch some of these wilderness TV shows? Alone, or something like that? They put individuals in a remote wilderness location alone and see how long they can last. The longest anyone makes it is about ninety days. And meanwhile, they have lost massive amounts of body weight. We are not meant to live on our own in any context. We are meant to live together as human beings, as humanity, and to create powerfully together.
Of course, something else happens when we are banished to the world of form. Bickering. Instead of the lines of agreement and synergy between us, there is a locking of horns, a bumping against each other, a picking of fights.
We live in the world as it is, and if somebody wants to pick a fight, we have to do something about it, not just capitulate. But we are certainly not here for that. We are here to know Reality, and therefore to see each other. And then we have the joy of consciously allowing generation between us in all kinds of creative endeavors. And there are all kinds of lines of connection and friendship for all the dimensions of those creative endeavors.
In this whole picture, I was thinking about something that I believe is part of the truth of the existence of all people. We have a physical manifestation and expression, a physical embodiment of all that we are at all levels.
We have enjoyed that thus far this morning through the drummers. Imagine if Steve (Lange) were just thinking about drumming. That might be nice. But thankfully, his thinking about drumming ended up in the physical so that we could hear it. And in what we heard, we heard the physical. It was hard to miss. But we heard something within the physical — a power and a message.
There was the whole pattern of thinking that clearly went into that. All the preparation and learning over years. And then, in the wonderful way the mind works, all the coordinated beats of the performance. How does the mind coordinate all of that at that speed? But the mind was in there, and the heart was in there. And then there was something more — what Keith (Anderson) called the blood of the ancestors. It all found expression through the physical. And so it is with Michael Gaeta’s piano playing and everything that we have shared. It all comes down through the physical, if we let it.
So, what is necessary relative to our physical nature? It has to entrain with all the wisdom that is available to us that comes through our mental capacity. Not all of it just intellectual or rational thought. It is cosmic intelligence.
And then, have you ever seen a musical performer without heart? A singer without heart?
Something is missing without heart. And that is true in music, of course. But it is true in all of life. If the outer expression through the physical is not imbued with heart, it is severely lacking something. And where does the energy of the heart come from? Love. And where does Love come from? The black hole. Some invisible place that we access. And then, there it is.
Wow, the love of the universe is coming through me. I love you like crazy. And yes, I love you as a person, and I am a person, but this love is bigger than just a personal love.
There is another dimension to what can be expressed through the physical. And that is who we are. I daresay that was true in the performances here this morning. Did you see Jane (Anetrini) up there drumming? Did you see who she is? She showed us who she is through her drumming, through her physical expression. She allowed who she is to show up. How beautiful it is when somebody reveals who they are through their physicality. And she could have just sat in the front row and been present, but it becomes vivid when who we are shows up in our physical expression and embodiment.
It takes some courage to show up as ourselves in the world — through our words and our actions.
So, there is the self that shows up. And in the magic of how we are made, the form of how we are made is a capacity for something of vast scope. I am showing up as who I am. And who I am is a part of the Family of Being. If you meet me, you meet my family.
Several weeks ago, I was speaking about the secret of life and saying that it is beauty. This is the beauty of how we are made. And it is a secret to those who are banished to the world of form. But it is known by people whose hearts are pure — not pure in some kind of moralistic sense. Not pure in some kind of puritanical sense. No, simply pure in the sense of being transparent and uncluttered by infatuation and preoccupation with the world of form.
If we learn how to do that as individuals — and we are learning — we have the opportunity to do it together. We can let there be an interlocking, interlacing pattern among us, so that we become one living constellation of Being, conscious on earth, bringing the power of the torus into the world. Collectively, we form the means by which the flow of Creation moves. Our relationships carry the current of transformation and renewal.