Verily by Human Hands

As we enter the Christmas season and the holidays, holy days, we find more time to experience the power of the imagination. Legends, myths and movies often tell stories about an “ordinary” person who discovers a surprising ability to do extraordinary deeds and even to save the world. Almost always there is some crisis that enables the central character to realise latent capacities which are then brought to the fore to “save the day”. Interestingly also, everyone involved in the story seems to be affected, growing in understanding about what is good, true and beautiful, and not so concerned about acquiring more material things. As we follow these stories we may feel vicariously empowered but, although something may have seeded in our consciousness, we often find that the habitual pattern of living reasserts its hold as we exit the cinema and leave the experience inside.

It can take a real catastrophe to pull us up out of the tide of “normalcy” that washes in when we step outside the theatre away from the subtle worlds reflected through the imagination. And as we watch all that is unfolding around our world, it may seem that catastrophes abound and “wrong comes up to face us everywhere” (as Christopher Frye wrote). Natural disasters such as earthquakes seem to be a regular occurrence – waves of the planet’s deep movement beating against the shores of human expansion. We see human and ecological welfare sacrificed to the material ambitions of the powerful, temporarily protected within the fast failing structures of human organisation. Wars rage on, apparently unsolvable, wreaking destruction and drawing forth reactive responses which seem to create more enemies so that the vicious cycle continues in a downward spiral.

And yet, as the forces of retrogression appear to expand, there is a growing groundswell, an upward spiral of the human heart as it comes into its own. Crisis draws forth an expansion of understanding, love for our fellows and a consequent clear-eyed response to need. We are finding that we are capable of far more than we may have thought – of a greater generosity of spirit. If we “have the eyes to see”, something intangible and subtle is driving an expanding sense of being, connection and consequent way of living in the world.

Often it takes a catastrophe or crisis striking at the heart of what we hold dear to wake into full force the will to act beyond the “norm”. New energies, values and perceptions then flood our sense of being and we are propelled into a transformed world-view. The line between one sense of being and another, one view and the next, can be very fine and instantaneous so subtle is the shift and so powerful the impact on all we are connected with, as it ripples out through our world. It’s not that we suddenly live in a different world but more that we respond differently – it is we who are changed! We change and we see a different world – one that expands into new territory. It’s as though, as we lose our hold on the familiar shore, we are swept into a larger sphere with a wider compass and a new centre from which to navigate. And it is vastly more real and alive than the half-trance in which we previously moved. We are told that the progressing human being, the disciple of life,

…does not move into new fields or areas of awareness, like a steady marching forward from one plane to another … What must be grasped is that all that IS is ever present. What we are concerned with is the constant awakening to that which eternally IS, and to what is ever present in the environment but of which the subject is unaware, owing to short-sightedness. …The Kingdom of God is present on Earth today and forever has been, but only a few, relatively speaking, are aware of its signs and manifestations. The world of subtle phenomena …is ever with us and can be seen and contacted and proved as a field for experiment and experience and activity if the mechanism of perception is developed as it surely can be. The sounds and sights of the heavenly world …are as clearly perceived by the higher initiate as are the sights and sounds of the physical plane as you contact it in your daily round of duties. The world of energies, with its streams of directed force and its centres of concentrated light is likewise present, and the eye of the see-er can see it, just as the eye of the mental clairvoyant can see the geometrical pattern which thoughts assume upon the mental plane, or as the lower psychic can contact the glamours, the illusions and delusions of the astral world. The subjective realm is vitally more real than is the objective, once it is entered and known. It is simply…a question of the acceptance, first of all, of its existence, the development of a mechanism of contact, the cultivation of the ability to use this mechanism at will, and then inspired interpretation.”Telepathy and the Etheric Vehicle, page 53-4

When events occur wherein everything is shaken up, transformed and expanded one can feel more truly alive, beyond previously accepted limitations, even beyond what we had previously accepted as natural laws. There are many accounts of amazing strength or control of time in which an imminent disaster is averted or a life saved, leaving witnesses shaking their heads and trying to explain what is inexplicable in ordinary terms. Miracles abound and yet the hold of the pattern of daily living can linger if we cling to a world view that excludes or denies what others can clearly see. And seeing is not quite the same as recognising – seeing something as real in the fullest sense. We might wonder, in these times which seem like the “end times”, whether we are prepared to recognise the World Teacher when He reappears as has been predicted in the World Scriptures. We are told that:

It is a spiritual fact that those who have passed from the cave of the tomb into the fullness of the resurrection life can be seen and at the same time evade the vision of the believer. Seeing and recognition are two very different things, and one of the great recognitions of mankind in the near future is the recognition that always He has been with us, sharing with us the familiar usefulness and peculiar characteristics of our civilisation and its many gifts to man.”The Reappearance of the Christ, page 44

Two thousand years ago a child was born who embodies the Love of God and so brought it into the world, and yet the “establishment” did not recognise Him. He did not come in any established mode of greatness but emerged through an “ordinary” appearance – born in a stable in Bethlehem. Just so have many enlightened human beings come and brought great progress but have not been recognised until after they have passed from the outer world. We read in the Bible that even Mary Magdalene, caught up in her own grief, failed at first to recognise the risen Master Jesus. Her expectations did not initially include His resurrection and, although she knew Him so well, she addressed Him as a stranger:

…they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him. And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master. Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.”Mark 16:13-17, King James Version

The Scriptures tell of the World Teacher appearing again in a way we may not expect:

Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.” Matthew 24:44

The timing of this reappearance has been much discussed and theories abound, yet perhaps the key point of focus is more one’s attunement or readiness to recognise Him when He returns into view. What will we expect when we are told to expect the unexpected? Will we picture Him, and Those Who come with Him, in some superficial form or will we instead know through our developing sensitivity to Their potent radiance of love, so pure that it brings into sharp relief all that is not of itself and so dispels it. For when the forces of purity are unleashed the impure may shatter and the half-hearted quail.

We can become so accustomed to expecting something, of being in a kind of “expectation mode,” that we may fail to recognise the awaited reality when it stands patently and potently before us. Our expectations may need to be stepped up into a “live expectancy”, more dynamically oriented and attuned to the Kingdom of Souls as it manifests into the material world. Thus will we open the door and enter – by human hearts, human hands and human feet. As Christ foretold in this account by the Master Morya:

The Star of Allahabad pointed out the way. And so We visited Sarnath and Gaya. Everywhere We found the desecration of religion. On the way back, under the full moon, occurred the memorable saying of Christ. During the night march the guide lost his way. After some seeking I found Christ seated upon a sand mound looking at the sands flooded by moonlight. I said to Him, “We have lost the way. We must await the indication of the stars.”
“Rossul Moria, what is a way to Us, when the whole world is awaiting Us?”

Then, taking His bamboo staff, He traced a square around the impression of His foot, saying “Verily, by human feet.” And making the impression of His palm, He surrounded it also with a square. “Verily, by human hands.” Between the squares He drew the semblance of a pillar surmounted by an arc. He said: “O how Aum shall penetrate into the human consciousness! Here I have drawn a pistil and above it an arc, and have set the foundation in four directions. When by human feet and human hands the Temple will be built wherein will blossom the pistil laid by Me, then let the Builders pass by My Way. Why should We await the way, when it is before Us?”

Then, rising, He effaced with His cane all that He had drawn.
“When the Name of the Temple will be pronounced, then shall the inscription emerge. In remembrance of My constellation, the square and nine stars shall glow over the Temple. The sign of the foot and the hand shall be inscribed above the Cornerstone.”
Thus He Himself spoke of the eve of the new moon. And the heat of the desert was great…”
Leaves of Morya’s Garden II, 153.