Fresh Thinking, Inspiration, and Vision on the Process of Spiritual Transformation

The fact of the matter is that when we stand on the surface of this planet and look around us, particularly into the night sky, we become aware that there is a vast whole, a vast whole that moves in its own natural rhythms and for its own natural purposes. Man is not excluded from this. He has undertaken to exclude himself, and the results are evident. There is no existence outside of that whole. Man comes into the whole with the opportunity of participating in it, with cosmic identity. He doesn’t do that. Human identity is maintained from generation to generation, and each generation passes away. This is not the true design. This is the way that human identity sees things.

So we come apart that we may experience the fact of the true cosmic identity, which is a unified one. The unified identity is not in external form; it is present in internal experience. The very fact of life itself is an internal experience. Did anyone ever find life? Life, yes, relates to physical form; there are certain effects which are seen; but has life ever been isolated in the laboratory? “Ah, now I have a unit of life!”—what would it be? Life springs forth from the focus which spreads life throughout the whole. Life is then differentiated in its manifestation. But life itself is one. We share that life to the extent that we are willing to allow the human identity to pass away. That looks like death to the human identity—because it is! The human identity needs to pass away. It will anyhow sooner or later, the way things now are, so why not let it pass away now? Why do we have to wait for some future time when that experience is forced on us? And then, where did the human identity go? It vanished. It was invalid, that’s why, unreal.

The experience of cosmic identity has been lost, one might say, because human beings fell asleep. They exist at a subconscious level where they don’t belong, and they experience all sorts of traumatic dreams in that unconscious condition. It isn’t a matter, in human identity, of trying to validate it, because it’s invalid; it can’t be validated. It is a matter of letting it pass away. And we are aware that in our experience of dreaming, in the ordinary course of events, the way to dispel the dream is to wake up. It isn’t a matter of staying in the dream and trying to work out all the ramifications of the dream. How would we ever do that? Yet that’s what human beings try to do. It’s impossible. There is no answer, no solution in the dream state.

Wake up! That is the point. And the waking up is to cosmic identity. That seems very strange insofar as human identity is concerned. “How could it be?” Well it happens all the time. Every generation passes away in its season; human identity is lost. What futility. Man was not designed to be lost but to be in the experience of cosmic identity. Cosmic identity is described by the words “I am.” Human beings repeat these words with respect to themselves. We all do it. Usually we add a few riders after the statement: I’m merely human; I am sick; I’m feeling good. But the statement is simply: I am. The fact is I am—cosmic identity, one identity differentiated in manifold ways, but all springing out of that one identity. Human beings try to have little separate identities for themselves. “Look at me, I’m very important. I achieve great things. I did this, I did that.” And all we have is conflict in consequence; it must be so.

Being aware of these things we come apart in an hour such as this to relinquish any attempt to validate our human identity, and with an open willingness to experience cosmic identity. We do that because we all find ourselves moving with the same cosmic flow. We are not competing with each other. We are here together, sharing the movement of the creative process. That’s more easily done in a setting such as this. It must be done in every setting everywhere. When it is, it is found to be very valid. The cosmic state is the valid state. We are surrounded by it, we are hemmed in on every side by it. Why not accept it without trying to inject into the situation our own personal ambitions, whatever they may be? They don’t belong. They simply mess things up, and the whole world is thoroughly messed up in consequence.

So, yielding to the movement of the rhythms, the cosmic rhythms that are present, we begin to discover that they are present. We had no room for them before because we were so busy about our human affairs, so busy in our human identity. So we come apart, open, yielded, to receive a new awareness as being a part of an immense whole. If we have any individual meaning it is based in the fact that we are functioning and operating within that immense whole, that immense cosmic whole. There is our meaning. There is no meaning or anything outside of that, and human beings individually all discover that sooner or later. But at the point of discovery, who discovers it? There is nobody there anymore. What a waste!

So we share these moments, letting a certain quietness come, a stillness, a consciousness of being in accord, a consciousness of all being together in one place, no matter what the geographical position may be. Geographical position does not establish the reality of identity. Identity is. I am. And this may be accepted in its natural character and rhythms into expression in momentary living. And so the affairs of the human identity in which we all play a certain part may be permeated by the cosmic rhythms and the cosmic purposes. What effect does that have? It raises up what is capable of being raised up, it dissolves what is not capable of being raised up. We have been aware of these two aspects of the creative process: integration and disintegration. The effect of the creative process emerges in this way. We are concerned with that emergence within the range of human affairs. To be in the range of human affairs it must emerge through human beings. Nothing gets into human affairs without coming through human beings.

As cosmic identity and alignment, attunement, with cosmic rhythms and purposes is restored, then whatever we do in our daily living will be permeated by this cosmic expression, the expression of the creative process, but brought to focus now through human beings. This is the purpose of man: to bring this to focus, to let the planet and all things related to the planet be brought specifically and directly into the focus of the creative process by reason of man. This is the only reason for the continued existence of man. And he has continued to exist, in spite of all the nonsense that has gone on for all these millennia, in anticipation that there would be those who would make themselves available to the experience of the creative process in cosmic identity. Finally this whole matter is being brought to issue, as is rather plainly evident for any sensible observer. Thus far and no further, for human identity. Either yield and accept the reality of identity, which is cosmic in nature, or bow out permanently. Well there must be a certain bowing out in any case—the bowing out of human identity.

I rejoice that there are those who, I suppose one might say in spite of themselves, begin to share a willingness to relinquish human identity and all its expectations, all its intentions, all its ambitions, so as to make space for the living experience of cosmic identity. We are not considering something here which relates to belief but something which relates simply to actual living experience. Human beings in their human identity have satisfied themselves with their beliefs, their religions, their political systems, all the rest of it. And all these things are in conflict with each other, of course, just as human beings are in conflict individually speaking. That is the natural condition of the human identity. It can’t be any other way. Attempts to try to smooth things out and get things together, with peace established and all this, are utter futility. It could never be done as long as human identity remains. But in cosmic identity, that’s the natural state. All is one. There is the state of wholeness. That is what is meant by the word holy. That is the true state. It is the existent state everywhere in the universe except in this little pinpoint, because of the intransigence of human beings.

So, relinquishing our intransigence, we willingly yield our human identity to be dissolved, and we find that when there is that willingness something else begins to come into the picture, something that was totally excluded before. Because it has been totally excluded, human beings imagined that it didn’t exist. But giving space for it, we find that it is there, and we find that there is a cosmic identity, individually and all together. It is one identity, differentiated in natural and harmonious ways.

So we rejoice to share something not only of this vision but of this experience. Unless it is experienced it doesn’t mean anything. Philosophy, religion, all this doesn’t mean anything as long as it is theoretical; and it is all theoretical. Human beings try to force it into the picture, one way or another, and disaster follows. But relinquishing all that, the natural flow of the creative process brings oneness, harmony, it might be called peace. There is no other way to experience peace. Peace is simply the result of something; it isn’t something of itself. Human beings are inclined to say, “Well let’s have peace. Let’s reduce armaments. Let’s do this, let’s do the other thing, and we’ll have peace.” What nonsense. Is there peace in human hearts? Whatever is in human hearts will externalize itself. We only have to look at what is externalizing itself to be very much aware of what is in human hearts, and it certainly is not cosmic identity. It is human nature, human identity. As long as that exists we have a disintegrating state which can lead, and does lead, individually speaking at least, and can lead collectively speaking, to oblivion.

I rejoice in this hour together, with all of us in various geographical locations—it makes no difference, here we are all together—in a shared understanding and a shared cosmic identity beginning to emerge. I thank God for this opportunity this morning, today, this evening, whatever it is, to let some more dissolution occur, that the truth may emerge, the truth may be known, and the beautiful design and operating control in the rhythms and the purposes of the creative process may once again emerge in focus through man restored to the state of Man.