An article from "Meritus Office Newsletter", March 2001 ...
THE VOICE OF CONSCIENCE
by Rev Antoinette Schoenmaker
From an address given on 22 October, 1999, at a service filmed for Compass, ABC Television
Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him,”
God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For what person knows a man’s thoughts except the spirit of the man which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who possess the Spirit. (I Cor 2:6-13)
The words of this Bible reading describe the work of the early church: to realize the spirit of Christ within them and to grow in knowledge of the spirit. To realize that now that Christ has come, the old laws were no longer applicable, and new laws, spiritual laws, had to be discovered. So the work of the early church was the work of revelation, the work of coming to know the spirit.
When this Centre was officially recognized by the government of Australia on Advent Sunday in 1975, Mario gave an address in which he dedicated this Centre to the ideals of the early church: the ideals of mystical experience and knowledge.
In the interests of coming to know the spirit of Christ more fully, and the role of the church in this, I thought I would like to revisit this address by Mario. I won’t quote it in its entirety, but I want to draw out some of the points he makes about the purpose of our Centre and the philosophy which lies behind his thinking.
The first very bold point he makes is that our Centre must be the voice of conscience as far as regimented Christendom is concerned.
Now this is a bold point for a small organisation, but then Mario had a big vision of our Centre and of Christianity as a whole. On another occasion he said:
I, by no means, associate the Christian religion with the church. I believe that the Christian religion is deeper and greater and more enveloping than that. The purpose of the Christian religion – which, may I add, has only just begun – is to bring forth a spiritual individuality, a spiritual knowledge, and a capacity to love to the utmost without asking anything in return. If these are just the bare outlines of the Christian religion then we must realize that we are far, even now, from grasping the enormity of what Christ came to bring. (p.12 A Mystical and Esoteric Interpretation of the First Letter of St John, Rev Mario Schoenmaker)
Back in 1975 Mario was still quite involved in the orthodox church and could see firsthand that many churches had abandoned this pathway of spiritual development (which was so characteristic of the early church) to become social institutions. We ourselves know all too well from history that the church has become embroiled in politics and even warfare, and has turned away from giving spiritual knowledge, nourishment and experience.
The purpose of the church is given in the words of Christ in the Gospel of St Matthew:
He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:15-19)
The church has the keys to the kingdom of heaven. It has a duty to open to the human mind and heart the spiritual realms, and the spiritual origins and destiny of the human soul.
In this passage from the Gospel of St Matthew, we read that the church is formed firstly by means of perception, by beholding and knowing Christ as the son, the impulse of the living God. This is the rock, the only rock, on which we can build.
The qualities of seeing, knowing and being alive to the spirit are vital to the church keeping to its purpose and being a real expression of true Christianity.
That purpose is to bind and loose on this earth, so that in the heavens also the beings there may be gathered together and also released.
Paul discusses this very same thing in his letter to the Ephesian Church:
To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 3:8-10)
By our actions on this earth, during our lives, things are created not only here on this earth, but they are also created, seen and made known in the heavens.
This morning, for instance, space and time, energy, thought and creativity, have been dedicated to Christ. A certain sacrifice has been made which creates something in the heavens, in the spirit, which will in turn resound on the earth.
This is why we call our service a Cosmic Mass. We celebrate together as a small group of people but we also know that the effect of our worship is not small. Whenever we set aside our lives from a common use to a sacred use, there is a corresponding affect in the heavenly realms, by which the spiritual beings come to know and experience Christ.
Knowing this, knowing the significance of our actions, is part of being alive to the spirit and the spiritual dimension of our lives and of this earth.
Also inherent in Mario’s dedication of this Centre to being a voice of conscience, is the philosophy of individuality which is at the heart of true Christianity.
In Christ we see the image of divine humanity, the fully realized, free and powerful individual. From his life we learn what it is to be truly human, fully divine. He lived his life not in accordance to the laws laid down, but in accordance to his conscience and full knowledge of his purpose.
Conscience is formed, in the beginning, by learning certain laws and principles, but later it is formed through our own experience and insight. To act from your own conscience is to value your own soul and individuality. It is to value what you know within yourself (however you have come to know this) and to accept responsibility for your actions and words. Sometimes this is a very daring thing to do, requiring great soul-searching and yet it also yields further insight and knowledge.
To be the voice of conscience also means being responsive, as well as responsible. It is to see clearly the situation before you, the soul before you, the spirit at work in that soul.
When we doubt ourselves, our own knowledge, our own soul and the Christ within are no longer living realities. It is then that dogmas, creeds and external authorities become our safety and our refuge. But they are a poor replacement for living knowledge of Christ.
Rules, regulations, laws, creeds, are the memories of yesterday’s revelations. They fulfil the function of a safety net. That is, they prevent us from going backwards, from forgetting, but they do not help us to go forwards. They do not assist us to make an individual response based on our own conscience.
Laws, creeds, dogmas, came into being because to have living knowledge of Christ requires effort. It is like the bread of the eucharist – it must be made fresh every day. It cannot be stored up. If we rely only on the past, on what was experienced in the past, what was written down and has now become law, then we fail to make the bread, the truth of Christ, fresh within ourselves.
Our task, as individuals and as a community, is to make fresh bread, to discover and know how Christ is at work today. Of course it is of great interest how Christ worked 2000 years ago, but it was in response to the needs and longings of the human soul living today, with all the difficulties and dilemmas modern life brings, that The Centre arose.
There’s no doubt in my mind that Mario when he mentioned being the voice of conscience was specifically thinking of the controversy he caused when he blessed the union of two lesbians in 1973. It never fails to amaze me that almost 30 years later the churches are still confounded by this issue. To me it indicates a lack of will to see how Christ is at work today, and how he is working to make us neither male or female but one. It is also a failure to see that love, however it is expressed, comes from God.
2000 years ago Christ related to each soul, not in accordance to the laws laid down, but in response to their needs and longings and to the situation they were in. Some he healed, some he rebuked, some he praised, some he taught, some he blessed, some he fed, some he gave a challenge to, some he called to give up everything and follow him. They are potent, real, living and loving relationships we witness in the Bible between Christ and the human soul and the various states in which the human soul finds itself. He did not rely on the guidance of external authorities or accepted values. We see that he valued the human soul, and this impulse has been growing stronger ever since.
So today we do value the human being. The churches and governments of today proclaim the inherent value and right of every human being. So why, on the other hand, do they refuse even to give communion, let alone a blessing, to someone who says they are gay? To me this highlights a learning area we all face: the disharmony between heart and mind. How do we let our ideals flow into thoughts, feelings, words and deeds? This is part of the work of spiritual development which the early church was committed to. If we are part of Christ and Christ is part of us, and the mission of Christ is to unite all things, things in heaven and things on earth, then surely we also have to unite and harmonise all the different aspects of our being.
Mario sums this up in his address with these words:
Religion is not ethics; morality is the outcome of a deeply spiritual life, rather than its cause. We do not dictate behaviour; our aim is freedom. Not a freedom to do what one pleases, but a freedom which lifts the mask from one’s personality and brings one into the joy of real living. This is pure religion, for it binds one with another, and the binding of souls is what religion and the church ought to be about.
Again, there is reference to binding and loosening. The word religion means to bind together. To create from diverse elements a completely new thing.
There are many underlying thoughts in Mario’s statement. We are spiritual beings first and foremost – and it is the role of the church to proclaim this. For the purposes of this life we have assumed a certain role, sex and personality which brings with it certain limitations. It determines what we like and don’t like, where we will spend our energy, what we have no interest in, who we relate to, what our strengths are. As such we are not free. There are obstacles each of us have to overcome before we can fully express our spiritual nature and unite with each other.
But together with this thought is also the knowledge that Christ is in us - that within us is a divine power and that our destiny is to be like God: all-powerful, all-knowing, utterly free, utterly responsible. It is the task of the church to open this spiritual vision to us and encourage us to be what we really are. And we do this the more we exercise our conscience, the more we come to know within ourselves what is good and right in this situation, the more we take authority for our own lives – then we experience the falling away of limitations and the beginnings of spiritual freedom.
There is nothing left untouched by the deed of Christ. His act of redemption was for the whole world, for every part of it. It will all be raised up. No part of life – in the end – will be separated from a knowledge and perception of spirit.
We see the beginnings of this. We see the search for spirit today in so many ways, under many names, and in many areas of life. We see people wanting the highest, the best, something that will give them an experience that is beyond their current limitations. We see this in different therapies, in science, in business, in sport. Even in the Paralympics their quest, their mission statement is to feel the fire within. Surely this is the beginning of true Christian religion. For the power within we know to be Christ, the real Centre of our being.
Is this why we call ourselves The Centre? Mario says this, in that address:
The Centre stands for the fact that the human race is the recipient of God’s love and care. We are the centre of the universe. If you think this sounds a bit conceited, then I would ask you to stand still for a moment and grasp the relevance of your existence. If you do not think you are important in God’s economy then, indeed, you have removed yourself from the centre of his being and have become by that action or by that thinking “eccentric”, for you are out of the centre. To be in The Centre is to strive towards being in the centre of God’s will and creative power.
I would say that increasingly human beings have a sense of the importance of their lives. That their life has purpose and they want to do the best they can within the scope they have. To realize this is to realize that Christ is in you, that you are central to the plan of evolution, the plan of wholemaking. What you do matters. When we say to one another, “I am going to The Centre today” – it means we are going to be conscious of this fact.
Mario said:
We do not worship the Jesus of history, even though the Jesus of history is important to us because of his teachings and his life. But we worship the Christ. The Christ to us is a divine principle and presence within us and within this world. It is the very ground of our existence, and recognition of this presence brings us into a right and practical experience of God. This Christ is mystical because it cannot be defined in theological, scientific or even philosophical terms. It can only be experienced and known.
We seek to know this power within ourselves, in the other and in this world. At times this knowledge lives magnificently within us; at other times it is a dim memory. But together we are learning and seeking to make this a continuous consciousness.
And this is not an elite activity. We see the whole world engaged in this. They may not use the word Christ but it is the consciousness of Christ they are wanting.
The final point Mario makes in his dedication address has to do with the timing of the birth of The Centre and the breaking forth of a new era in human evolution. 1969 was when it all started: man walked on the Moon and The Centre was born! But that wasn’t what he was referring to.
He said:
We are children of the era which is dawning upon us just now. We have all come into incarnation in order to be the light-bearers and harbingers of good tidings to a humanity which is full of sores and wounded to the very essence of its being. We have come because we have been together before. We have shared trials and tribulations before. Now we are building; now we are sharing.
It is obvious now, 25 years later, that a new age was then dawning. There is a greater valuing of the individual today than ever before and a greater insight into spirit. We have a role to play in this and in fact have already assisted in this birth of greater consciousness. We have committed ourselves to seeing more, discovering more and enacting more the presence and spirit of Christ. We have committed ourselves to developing our souls – our thinking, our feeling and compassion, our actions and ideals, so they are in harmony with what we inwardly know. We are striving toward that perfection, to being co-formed in the image of Christ.
Mario makes the point that we are subject to time and space and must work within it – although increasingly we are not so subject to space. But we must work within this time period, as Christ worked, as a physical being within his.
So today it is important to value the whole human being. To honour one another as thinking intelligent beings, as feeling, compassionate beings, as wilful, creative beings. And in our spiritual development none of these elements can be left out.
That is why we dedicated the year 2000 to the concept of obedience. It’s value lies in bringing to the forefront of our consciousness that our lives, our lifestyle, our thinking and feeling and actions, must be in conformity with what we know at the very heart of our being. This is the work of uniting the heart and mind which is the purpose of the Order of Melchizedek which we are called to manifest.
We are believers, knowers, of evolution, progression, growth. We know that nothing is constant except our devotion to God and mankind. For the rest, all must and will change. This is also what this Centre is dedicated to. We must ever be in the vanguard of progress, for it is Christ who is the pioneer, the first-born. It is Christ who is before all things and in all things – if only we have the eyes to see it. His impulse is progressive and uniting and leads us into the future.
To actively work with this Christ impulse is to listen to the voice of conscience, it is to value one’s own self and the soul of the other. It is to create, actively create a lifestyle that is based not on outwardly imposed laws and morality but rather inwardly experienced truths. It is to look for the purpose and the challenge of the situation. Then we shall surely see how the power and presence of Christ is working today.
So shall it be.