Whether in politics, religion, or some other field of human endeavor, conservatism can be a trap. It can become an attempt to live in the person’s imagination of the past. It can become an effort to re-live the forms that were glorious once upon a time, but which no longer work today.
Likewise, progressivism can be a trap. A person can imagine a future that they think ought to be and attempt to impose that imagination on the world and the people in it.
In each case, the person is prone to experience disappointment and a sense of hopelessness. They find they can’t bring back the forms of the past. And they can’t live in the world of their imagined future. There is The Power of Now, as Eckhart Tolle put it. This is where the axis mundi—the axis of the world—descends from the invisible realms of Being and intersects with the world of space and time.
Living in the here and now, the essences from the past that are relevant to life now come rushing forward to empower us. And we draw to us the optimal manifestation of life now from out of the unformed future.
In October of 1979, Martin Cecil gave a talk emphasizing the significance of a space in consciousness that allows what is sacred to live. He later entitled the talk The Preservation of Essences.
The preservation of essences as Martin describes it is different than the preservation of forms, which are, by their very nature, temporary. The essences of life are preserved by us because we are fully here where we have landed geographically, and fully in this present moment, now.
In this place, the forms we create can be full of the essences of life. Some of those forms endure longer than others. Here at Sunrise Ranch, many of us know that when we walk through the campus we are likely to receive a big hello from Brian Mullen. The reverberation of his words hangs in the air for a moment and then they’re gone. In the process, the essence of Sunrise Ranch lives. Thank you, Brian.
We have an elliptical geodesic Dome that is almost 50 years old. Being inside it and gazing at the dome ceiling reminds us of the heavens. While it has been well taken care of over the years, it now needs a new roof and renovation of other facets of the structure.
We have an archive department at Sunrise Ranch. It is an extensive library of books, audios, videos, and booklets, mostly recording the precious words of the founding leaders of Emissaries of Divine Light, Lloyd Arthur Meeker and Martin Cecil. These materials won’t last forever. But for as long as they are useful, they provide a connection point to what does—the Eternal.
A good book can be like a magical powder. Add water and stir, and what seemed inert connects the reader with what is alive within them and in the world in which they live. Our library is like that. All that is needed to bring it alive is the conscious attention of the individual. We have the God-given ability to invest our words and all the other forms of our expression with the same magic that is in those archived materials.
When we think of the past, while we can be grateful for the forms that are from the past, the ultimate value is in the essence that those forms expressed and embodied. The essences of that past, and the reality that was known by those who lived it, can come forward into the present to support us now. In that sense, the essences of the past are preserved.
But how are they preserved? Having been around when Martin gave that talk, I remember thinking, in my silly imagination, of little vials up on the shelf, with the essences in them preserved. But that’s not really how it happens, of course.
Essences are preserved in living experience. They are preserved because they resonate in consciousness. They resonate in the vibrational field—in the epigenetics of today. An essence might seem like an ephemeral thing. And yet in the essence of things is the very pattern of life, the very pattern of a human being. The innate pattern of human culture is in those essences.
The forms play a part, and I’m not here to diminish the significance of forms. Martin was talking about the forms present in his day that preserved what is essential, naming Sunrise Ranch and the community of people in 100 Mile House in British Columbia. Spiritual essences were preserved because they were lived and known by human beings.
That’s what we’re doing here at Sunrise Ranch today, along with our friends around the globe. We are letting the essence of what it is to be a human being, the essence of who we are together as humankind, be preserved in our living. We can embody that in form. Some of those forms seem to be more temporary—a conversation, a smile, or a meal served. However temporary, they are not unimportant. The simple things we do, even in casual ways every day, preserve the essence of life.
Some forms are more enduring than others. The skyscrapers of today would likely topple within several hundred years if not maintained. But the oldest building in the world is thought to be a temple in present-day Turkey, Göbekli Tepe. It is thought to be 11,600 years old.
There are pyramids around the globe which are generally thought to be 4,600 years old. The prevailing opinion is that the Great Pyramid of Giza is approximately that age. But some say it is much older, perhaps dating back to 10,500 B.C. Stone structures last longer than modern-day buildings, and perhaps longer than books, magnetic tape, or digital records, though they don’t endure forever.
Ancient pyramids pre-date the Incas and Aztecs in the Americas. There are buildings and pyramids elsewhere that pre-date cultures with which we are more familiar. They are not just ancient. They are ancient ancient.
Many of these ancient ancient structures are aligned with celestial bodies. They memorialized and embodied the relationship humankind has with a heavenly order that is of a far vaster scale than human culture itself. In this way, they preserve the essence of that relationship for people of today. They remind us of that connection. They also remind us that while we like to think of the culture of today as the zenith of human civilization, there are those who came before us who had knowledge and ability that exceeded our own, at least in some respects. Who among us could build Stonehenge, or a giant stepped structure the size of the Gunung Padang Pyramid in Java, Indonesia, which is at least 4,000 years old?
The significance of these ancient structures is not that they inspire us to re-create them today. We are not going to build a pyramid or temple of stone. Their significance does not lie in their outer form, but in the fact that they preserve the essence of an ancient knowledge and experience. For us in the present, we can access that same heavenly connection that was embodied in stone so long ago.
Part of what’s preserved in documents from ancient ancient times is the realization of who and what we are as human beings and how we are made. It was preserved in form in the story of Creation in Genesis, attributed to Moses. Moses, himself, lived 3,500 years ago. And yet we suspect that the truth that is in those words is not only ancient but is ancient ancient, telling us about how we are made and how we were empowered by the Creator to keep the world in which we live.
The story carries the implication that we are endowed with magical powers. We are made in the image and likeness of the Creator with the powers of Creation, which include the powers of consciousness.
People who have exceptional creative ability have tapped into those magical powers of Creation that are latent within us all. If you ask them about how they accomplish what they do, they typically explain it in ways that are unfamiliar to most people. They conceive of what they do in fantastic ways. Einstein did not develop the theory of relativity just through rigorous study. He imagined himself riding a beam of light. A violinist isn’t thinking where she is placing her fingers as she plays a Bach sonata. A creative magic takes over.
From the hermetic tradition comes this saying:
As above, so below.
This is exactly what is portrayed in the story of Creation. It says that humankind was made in the image and likeness of God. As above, so below. Here is a core essence of human potential, embodied in the words of the biblical text, translated into English.
As I wrote the Pulse of Spirit last week, I puzzled over the use of the Hebrew name for God used in the story, Elohim. It is a plural word, just as the Hebrew word kibbutzim is a plural word for the word kibbutz, an Israeli collective community. I wanted to know if the word Elohim is commonly accepted as plural, and whether it is a name for God or more like a title.
Many religious scholars deny the plain meaning of the word, which is plural. They excuse away the plural form of it and assert that it is a name for the one God of Israel. And they say it is usually inappropriate to speak of The Elohim, just as I would not call myself The David.
It is understandable why this attitude might be taken. The Israelite tradition—and the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions that followed it—was developed in a surrounding religious context that featured competing gods, many of whom were not kind to human beings. The Israelite tradition distinguished itself from these surrounding cultures.
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD.
Deuteronomy 6:4
But in the zealousness of this monotheistic tradition, what was lost is that while the reality of God is one, it is also plural. E pluribis unum. Out of many, one. One Family of God in perfect unity. The word Elohim refers to the plurality of God, and especially to a high pattern of focalization of the Family of God.
Why does this matter? As human beings, we are not made as something distinctly different from what is above. We are the same reality at a different frequency. Knowing that, finding the correlation with what is above becomes easy. It is essentially the same as us, but at a higher level and without all the human tendencies. Relating to that reality becomes far easier than trying to relate to an omnipotent old man with a beard.
After I posted the Pulse of Spirit, a biblical scholar in Israel, Etzion Becker, who is a fluent Hebrew speaker, wrote to me, verifying that the name Elohim is plural and that to understand the Hebrew words, they have to be experienced.
If we conceive of God as one being, then what is below is different than what’s above. We are not just one being, as humankind. There are now eight billion of us. If we understand that God is at the same time one family, in total harmony and unity, and also plural, we will understand something about how we are made as human beings. We are both plural, and we are one. And just as above, where there is a center to the family of God, there is a center to this human family that we seem to have lost. And so, we end up in conflict and chaos.
I proudly declare that there is a center to who we are as a human family, to be found in the here and now by each of us. We can figure out all the social parts of that in due time. The essential matter is that we know that center inside ourselves. And so we wait for the day when what is central for us all can naturally emerge among us as human beings—that one thing that we all hold in common that unites us all—that one love, that one divinity.
Yes, we know we’re plural, but we are also one. We’re one because we share one thing. And that one thing unites us, and we know that one thing in the here and now as we connect vertically with the reality of the heavens now. And as that heavenly reality is known and expressed and embodied by us in our living, we come to feel and know and experience that one thing that unites us all, that brings us all together.
It is one reality up there—above. And one reality here—below.
Let’s know and live that reality here and now. Let’s accept the powers of the Creator that are largely dormant within us. Let us live and know the reality, as above, so below.
Praise to our ancient ancient ancestors who preserved the essence of this reality in the words of the Creation story:
And the Elohim said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.