The Divine Presence and the Temple Within
by John Morton, DSS
This article comes from a seminar given by John Morton at the Luxor Temple in Egypt during a PAT V Peace Awareness Training on July 9, 1995.
I wanted to say something about being close to J-R. Just the fact that I am here represents for me an intention to be close to the teaching, to the place where the Word was being disseminated into the flesh. And that is my experience of who the Traveler is. It doesn’t always sound that way, doesn’t always sound as if the Glory of God is being spoken or walked and manifested. But if you have the ability and willingness to look past what you see in the physical, then it truly is always being spoken. Always being walked as a divine presence.
There’s something about a place like this, that’s been dedicated to the highest God, even in the aspects of God that have been referred to in the Egyptian cosmology that we’ve been hearing about, whether it’s Osiris, or Isis, or Horus, or Sekhmet, Sobek, or Anubis, it’s just representing aspects of God that are still converged in our awareness and consciousness to work with.
And there’s an opportunity to come into a merging with the spirit in the flesh, so that when the flesh breathes, when it moves, the spirit is made manifest. There’s a man whose name is R.S. Schwaller deLubicz who wrote a book called “The Temple of Man” which is about this temple here at Luxor. And as Fadel (our guide) was saying earlier, the representations of the body are all here from the feet to the head. And that each of those centers corresponds to energy.
There was one who studied the sub-atomic by looking at the astronomic. That is to say, he studied the smallest elements of creation by looking at the greatest elements of creation into the heavens, as a way of reflecting.
That one, referred to as Hermes, Hermes Trismegistus and by other names, long ago said words to the effect: “As it is above, so it is below. And as it is below, so it is above.” That is an integration of all creation.
So for us to consider that we are mortals who are born and die, and come from dust and go to dust, is to deny something on a much grander scale. So we come into a place here where the mind could conceive the proportion and the exact dimensions and the relationships of the cosmos, and put it into a singular design. And then conceive that design in such a way that it could be manifest, taking substances that are among the most dense and hardest in the stones here. And placing the most ephemeral, subtle energies into the most dense. And creating a union of that relationship. That it is a magical, magnificent, miraculous kind of place. That it is a temple of Man.
And this man deLubicz spent his lifetime, some sixty, seventy years, discovering recovering all of these elements. Measuring all the relationships of every column, every dimension here, and discovering that everything had exactness and preciseness to it, that nothing was here in a chaotic and random way.
And yet there’s something that goes on in this level. That chaos has its day, so that we would look here and say, “Well, what you see here is destruction and chaos being manifest that nothing perfect exists.” There is no mortality or eternity. There are only things that are so much like a tower of Babel that reaches up towards greatness, but must fall because it’s unattainable, it’s not possible.
And if you think about your own existence, I’m sure you’ve thought about the impossible, of that which is finite, and that that cannot be, and considered yourself one and the same as inadequate. And those were just the kind of thoughts I was having when that first Luxor meditation was done.
And then the thoughts that were uttered into my consciousness simply by listening to the one I wanted to be closest to in the whole world, transformed into a greatest of thoughts. That the greatest of possibilities to transcend, to become one with God was present in my midst by taking the steps to be here. It was as if every step of this lifetime, and every step of every other lifetime, culminated here. That by coming back here I was reuniting, I was resurrecting something that had been lost, a separation. So it was a sense of finding, that thing the Greeks called the “Eureka”. They just have to imagine, and maybe you’re already picking up on that state of consciousness, to find what you’ve been looking for all your existence. To find it, to finally arrive at a place, and to realize, “Of course it’s not in these stones. It’s not in this Temple of Luxor as a finality. But the true temple is inside, inside the body that we all walk.”
And the magnificence in this temple and in these stones doesn’t even come close to the magnificence and the perfection that is in the body. I’ll give you a demonstration. Let the stones walk. And let you walk. And see who walks. And that spirit that walks, that spirit that moves, that comes through our breath, is heard, is seen. That’s what we come here for. That’s what we come here on this trip for. And of course we realize it is in all of our life. There’s no place where that opportunity does not exist.
But just the same, there is the opportunity to choose back into the Divine, to choose back into the path that lies before us. And we call it Soul Transcendence, we call it the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness, the Sugmad, the Sarmad, the Sat Nam. What’s important is that living vibration.
You know, what’s interesting is every time I come back here it is a place of re-birth. So I have a sense of relief when I step back into the Luxor Temple. And one part of me says, “You know it’s not in this place any more than it’s in any other place.” And yet there is something about coming here that is so, and making it happen.
There have been many wonderful experiences that have happened here. Some of the most wonderful of my life. There are a few of those meditations that have been made available on audio. They’re worth hearing.
There’s something about the transformation and the transition that commands moving. So I’m just going to move a little bit here. Some people are getting hot feet around me. So we’re setting the levels for darkness.
“And darkness was upon the face of the deep.” You remember that scripture? Who’s the deep? That’s one of the names of God. It’s in Genesis 1:2, so if you’re curious you can read through it. It’s quite an interesting account because it’s probably the main place in the Bible where there is the representation of the story of creation, how things came into existence “in the beginning”.
And there are places on the planet that are chakras and openings, places where cosmic energies touch down. And certainly we’re in one. And things shift. Like I was sitting over there, and now I’m sitting over here.
So it’s important to not get caught up in what used to be and attempt to worship the past, attempting to resolve what took place here, because if you noticed, there’s an energy on this planet that does corrupt things and it moves it into decay, and that’s how it’s intended. And one aspect of that is things around us decay. In the mirror there is a message of, “What is flesh must decay, must come to an end, must crumble to the ground, like so much dust.” And something moves on.
It might be interesting right now, to consider – Well, what was here before the temple? What was in this place before this Temple was built, such that they decided to build it here? Most of you probably already considered that the Nile was probably here. That’s interesting to consider — How long the Nile’s been here and what’s passed by in all that time. And to consider that it’s still passing. Whatever is that force is still here.
But there’s lots of evidence — and I’m sure you’ll see it if you visit the Cairo museum, or you read about the things that have been discovered here — that just in the flora and fauna that was here at one time, that this was not a desert, that there were things that don’t live in the desert in the area. So there’s something even about the land that has decayed, so not much life can be here. Except that there’s this element that comes in the water that brings life, so that under the most extreme conditions here, it’s fertile. It’s one of the most fertile places in the world, along the Nile.
So we find ourselves here in one of the most fertile places on the planet, a place that survived harsh conditions. And lots of levels were erected and taken down and are being built upon.
It’s interesting to consider what we erected over our existences and what’s come down, and what’s been re-built and restored, and what’s still flowing eternally, that brings life.
And certainly if we looked up into the sky, there are elements that survived, that continue after we are gone. And yet those who study those elements are finite, that the things that can be seen in the physical, the stars and the sun are finite. They come to an end.
So every once in a while we get to consider what was in the beginning that still is now. And you don’t have to go too far in that question to realize “You”. You are in the beginning and you are in this end, this end of the universe, this end of God’s creation. Considering once again how far we have yet to go.
As a soul, we’re those that look up, who look into the infinite, that look past the stars and wonder, “Even if all the stars cannot be seen, where are the origins, and is there an origin of it all?” And there are those who come into the flesh to speak of the infinite, to walk in the infinite. Have you come here to do that? And how do we begin that journey into the infinite? How do we integrate into it? Is there something we have to do? Is there some realization that we have to have? Or can we just know it now, and in the knowing, become?
I hope where you are sitting, or if you are standing, or maybe you’re listening and watching, that you’re experiencing the ease of your existence. The nothingness that was referred to in the beginning. You notice how religious philosophies often merge that in the beginning was something on the order of a nothingness, or chaos? And yet in that nothingness is the everything, the All in the all.
And how are we to become that? How do we do that in the flesh? Do we treat everything the same? Do we treat everything as nothing? Is everything important? Do we have to know everything, be everything? Or do we have to be nothing, and know nothing? It seems when we find the infinite, we find it’s both. And it’s all of what that is. If it’s a stream, if it’s a succession, then it unifies in the infinite. That it becomes complete in the whole, no matter what the form. That’s important to realize – no matter what the form, that infinite carries the day.
Maybe we’ve brought you far enough away from where you live and whatever pulls on you magnetically, that you can let go. How remote of a spot do we have to find for you? How ancient so that you’ll let go and trust that it’s all done? And in that trusting comes a raising up of consciousness, so that as we let go, we expand infinitely. We give up the body, we give up all the bodies and all the forms to take on the infinite, and the infinite has no thing in it. Or it has every thing in it. And in that nothingness and in that allness, there’s a union.
The Traveler actually is a consciousness, a consciousness of the infinite, a consciousness that has always been. And it’s been spoken through the ages, and it’s been lived through the ages as long as there has been flesh. So there’s still flesh. And this infinite consciousness speaks to you again. Not necessarily in the voice that you recognize or acknowledge, but in the voice heard by all. And is heard even by nothing, in the silence.
It’s been said by the wise ones, that the greatest hearing is in the silence. It’s not the dark, like seeing the silence. So even if you can see the Light, do we not see the dark? And what is in the dark? The Light. We are Light. We are the radiation of the infinite.
It’s in the wind. So as you feel the air move upon you, feel the infinite move upon you. You may notice the body shields itself, but you breathe in the air. You breathe in the infinite. If you do not, you cannot, for there is no existence without it. There are those who are standing and are listening, and they know they are hearing even though they hear silence. They don’t hear my voice, but they hear the voice that is heard in the soul. And they are compelled to notice, to realize their own initiation, that we all step here into the initiation onto the planet. But that’s a mere birth, that’s a mere moment. And it’s not meant to be defined by this temple or this place, or planet, or this existence. It is what is undefinable, unconfined.
Breathe it in, so, your skin is like an open window letting the breeze come and go. And when all the windows are opened, your house becomes a place where the wind comes and goes. And if the opportunity became present now to transcend, to merge with the infinite, what would your choice be? Would you have your protestations about what you have to do, and who you have to do it with? Or would you go? If you were tapped on the shoulder right now and a voice whispered, “Come,” would you get up and go? Or would you wonder who was saying that to you? How many times have you heard that and didn’t go? Does it matter?
It only matters when the opportunity comes present to move into the infinite that you make that choice. Does it come once? Or many times? Once is enough. The infinite is eternal, it has no beginning and no end.
So you see, we’re on the threshold here. Just as we walked into each segment of this temple, we crossed another threshold, another aspect of consciousness, symbolized in the design and the construction in the representation of all the cosmos of creation. And this temple is a most excellent representation. So when one walks this walk, from one segment to the next segment from one chakra to the next chakra, we’re walking from the lowest elements to the highest. You know it’s interesting in the present temple — as we moved into the area representing the crown chakra, it was opened. And one of you chose to move out beyond the walls. Yeah, I noticed. And that represents the one who escapes, who moves beyond the physical and moves into the infinite. Is this the voice of the finite or is this the voice of the infinite? You decide.
Baruch Bashan.
Blessing of the Divine
by John Morton
Lord, we call forward Your presence once again, and in doing so, we call ourselves forward to stand in the fullness of who we are and the glory of You that is the glory of God. We resonate with Your truth, with Your spirit of joy that is the consciousness that forgives and has compassion for all and understanding. Let us each now visit our own circumstances accompanying You. We see a new day. We see Your light and love permeating all, radiating. All is new. All is bright and beautiful.
We ask to bring a miracle. A miracle is the ordinary of the Spirit. Let us have the wit to put aside, to let go, what we have chosen that confines us or in any way would block us. We give up and let go of our judgments, our pronouncements that would deny the Spirit, the truth, and the loving in all. Place the spark that is Divine once again into our conscious awareness that it radiates inside through the levels of our body, coursing through our blood into every cell. We are integrated and whole in an energy that is harmonious and of our True Self.
We see our circumstances and whatever is present for us to look into right now. We see Your energy bringing new thoughts, new ideas, new circumstances, and transformation. Let us see the Spirit made manifest. All that we relate to becomes joyous and a source of upliftment. Each one we look upon, each one we touch or contact in any way, we receive as a divine being. Each one is brought to us simply to love and to welcome, including those who come to test or tempt us to go astray and move into areas and actions not of our concern or not of the Spirit.
Give us the eyes to see, the ears to hear. We do not condemn but bless them as you would. We uphold the way that is true. We see this taking place with ease and grace. As Your way is light, and Your way is grace. We welcome the Christ as we welcome the higher state of the Traveler that we may know the radiant form. We become that radiant form in the knowing.
In this moment, we ask that we be translated into the highest form that is our Spirit and the revelation of our soul. As well we ask that we be prepared, that we may step from this moment in a direct line with our Spiritual heritage. We proclaim the promise that was given from the beginning. We are the Beloved of God and in this we shall be forever more.
Baruch Bashan
Note: You may find of interest the following items that are available through the MSIA website store at www.msia.org/store
Luxor Meditation for Peace and Harmony by John-Roger
Practice the Divine Presence by John-Roger
The Blessings Already Are and You Are the Blessings by John Morton
