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The Reappearance of the Christ - Chapter III - World Expectancy |
2. Christ taught also that the Kingdom of God was on Earth and
told us to seek that Kingdom first and let all things be of secondary importance for its
sake. That Kingdom has ever been with us, composed of all those who down the ages, have
sought spiritual goals, liberated themselves from the limitations of the physical body,
emotional controls and the obstructive mind. Its citizens are those who today (unknown to
the majority) live in physical bodies, work for the welfare of humanity, use love instead
of emotion as their general technique, and compose that great body of "illumined
Minds" which guides the destiny of the world. The Kingdom of God is not something
which will descend on Earth when man is good enough! It is something which is functioning
efficiently today and demanding recognition. It is an organized body which is already
evoking recognition from those people who do seek first the Kingdom of God, and discover
thereby that the Kingdom they seek is already here. Christ and His disciples are known by
many to be [51] physically present on Earth and the Kingdom which They rule, with its laws
and modes of activity, is familiar to many and has been throughout the centuries. Christ is the world Healer and Savior. He works because He is the embodied soul of all Reality. He works today, as He worked in Palestine two thousand years ago, through groups. There He worked through the three beloved disciples, through the twelve apostles, through the chosen seventy, and the interested five hundred... Now He works through His Masters and Their groups, and thereby greatly intensifies His efforts. He can and will work through all groups just insofar as they fit themselves for planned service, for the distribution of love, and come into conscious alignment with the great potency of the inner groups. Those groups who have always proclaimed the physical Presence of the Christ have so distorted the teaching by dogmatic assertions on unimportant details and by ridiculous claims that they have evoked little recognition of the underlying truth, nor have they portrayed a kingdom which is attractive. That Kingdom exists but is not a place of disciplines or golden harps, peopled by unintelligent fanatics, but a field of service and a place where every man has full scope for the exercise of his divinity in human service. 3. At the Transfiguration, Christ revealed the glory which is innate in all men. The triple lower nature - physical, emotional and mental - is there shown as prostrate before the glory which was revealed. In that moment, wherein Christ Immanent was in incarnation, wherein humanity was represented by the three apostles, a voice came from the Father's Home in recognition of the revealed divinity and the Sonship of the Transfigured Christ. On this innate divinity, upon this recognized [52] Sonship, is the brotherhood of all men based - one life, one glory which shall be revealed, and one divine relationship. Today, on a large scale (even when by-passing the implications of divinity), the glory of man and his fundamental relationships are already a fact in the human consciousness. Accompanying those characteristics which as yet remain deplorable and which would appear to negate all claims to divinity, is the wonder of man's achievement, of his triumph over nature. The glory of scientific attainment and the magnificent evidence of creative art - both modern and ancient - leave no room to question man's divinity. Here then are the "greater things" of which Christ spoke and here again is the triumph of the Christ within the human heart. Why this triumph of the Christ consciousness must always be spoken of in terms of religion, of church-going and of orthodox belief is one of the incredible triumphs of the forces of evil. To be a citizen of the Kingdom of God does not mean that one must necessarily be a member of some one of the orthodox churches. The divine Christ in the human heart can be expressed in many different departments of human living - in politics, in the arts, in economic expression and in true social living, in science and in religion. It might be wise here to remember that the only time it is recorded that Christ (as an adult) visited the Temple of the Jews, He created a disturbance! Humanity is passing from glory to glory and, in the long panorama of history, this is strikingly observable. That glory is today revealed in every department of human activity, and the Transfiguration of those who are on the crest of the human wave of civilization is very close at hand. 4. Finally, in the triumph of the Crucifixion or (as it is more accurately called in the East) the Great Renunciation, [53] Christ, for the first time, anchored on Earth a tenuous thread of the divine Will as it issued from the Father's House (Shamballa), passed into the understanding custody of the Kingdom of God and, through the medium of the Christ, was brought to the attention of mankind. Through the instrumentality of certain great Sons of God, the three divine aspects or characteristics of the divine Trinity - will, love and intelligence - have become a part of human thinking and aspiration. Christians are apt to forget that the crisis in the final hours of the Christ was not that spent upon the Cross, but those spent in the Garden of Gethsemane. Then His will - in agony and almost despair - was submerged in that of the Father. "Father," He said, "not My will but Thine be done." (Luke XXII. 42.) Something new, yet planned for from the very depth of time, happened then in that quiet garden; Christ, representing mankind, anchored or established the Father's Will on Earth and made it possible for intelligent humanity to carry it out. Hitherto, that Will had been known in the Father's House; it had been recognized and adapted to world need by the Spiritual Hierarchy, working under the Christ, and thus took shape as the divine Plan. Today, because of what Christ did in His moment of crisis hundreds of years ago, humanity can add its efforts to the working out of that Plan. The will-to-good of the Father's House can become the goodwill of the Kingdom of God and be transformed into right human relations by intelligent humanity. Thus the direct line or thread of God's will reaches now from the highest place to the lowest point, and can in due time become a cable of ascension for the sons of men and of descent for the loving, living spirit of God. [54] |
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