[Words offered at Sunday Service, Sunrise Ranch, Loveland, CO Following an 8 day seminar entitled “From a High Place.”]

Welcome. It is a privilege to welcome you into this Dome of heaven, Sunrise Ranch, to be able to offer you some words, which will be followed by our international director, David Karchere, and visiting Trustee and minister from British Columbia, Maureen Waller.

These words are not speaking at you. They’re an invitation, a contemplation- that somehow we are participating in together.

I’ve come down from the mountaintop to tell you about the truth of the high place. I have to warn you, it’s not good. Driving down at first, in the snow, there was a lot of anxiety and trepidation being in that Jeep on the steep-graded road—icy road. To break the tension, Larry Pearlman said to our driver, “Remember the first rule of road racing: Keep the dirty side down!” And it may be true that wheels work better when they’re on the road; but we can’t speak that way in relation to the truth.

On Wednesday morning, I woke up from a nightmare. In my dream I was looking down at lab results, at a clipboard or something. I had to turn around and face a family and tell them what was on those lab results. I guess I was a doctor of some kind, and the truth of what was on that clipboard would affect the life of those people forever. I came out of that dream as from a nightmare; I did not want to say what was on that clipboard.

The dirty side of truth exists in relationship to myself and my own personal shortcomings. I’ve been engaging in a pattern of diet and exercise for the last ninety days, and by all measurable, quantifiable results, there have been almost none. My waistline is probably two inches wider.

Getting to see the process of diet and exercise, I really appreciate Keith Anderson, his expression of assuredness and truth one day: I was sharing some of my frustration, and he said, “You know, just put half as much on your plate.” And it was just kind of like the end of discussion.

There is a vise-grip, you know, to get a hold of your health. There’s the diet side and there’s the exertion side. I had about a thirty-day period where I thought I was doing both of those things, and I still didn’t have any results. And what I realize is that it’s really not a vise-grip. It’s like pillars—there are pillars of health. There’s nourishment, exertion, but if you’re not getting sleep, your body can’t do it. And the fourth pillar would be, I guess, elimination.

During class I get to experience the dirty side of truth related to my own energy, a very one-sided energy. Jane did a wonderful impression of me. We were talking about the Lover, the Lover quarter, and one of the characteristics of the Lover is this melting. Jane said, “When Oren is in Lover, he doesn’t even have to melt, he just kind of…” And she did it—she did it perfectly (exuding this heart energy all over the room with glassy eyes). In times of crisis, because I’m such a Lover, I seek not to make waves. Jane did hit it on the head: I would rather do nothing than take action, and just let it pass.

There’s been a two-year period that I’ve been secretly engaging in a practice of observation work with a good friend of mine, from North Carolina. It started with art, just drawing a leaf over and over again, and then a practice of some basic journaling exercises through Full Self-Emergence. Now also in this three-month period it’s progressed to the level of thought.

So I’d like to invite you to this meditation. It’s a thinking meditation, it’s something that goes throughout the day for me, and it just goes like this:

What percentage of my thoughts are about Oren? What percentage of my thoughts are about reversing the flow?

Reversing the flow is a key word for service, for consideration of others. And I realize now too, it’s also reversing the flow outward to our divine source. When I first considered this question, I had to honestly answer it’s like 80/20. I mean really, when it comes to in here, it’s all about me: “What did they do to me?” Even, “How much I weigh today;” and, “God, I’m so bad at this.” It’s all about me when it comes to in here. After three months of practicing this, it’s kind of more in balance—it’s getting more into the 50/50 range. And when it gets to 51 percent in the level of others, in the level of God, there’s a magic that happens. I’m really seeing that’s true—just 1 percent.

I have a favorite minister, and one day I asked him, “Don’t you get bored here? Don’t you go stir-crazy in this little place?” His response was, “I’m too busy to think about it.” I love that.

The other thing I realize about myself is that even though I am really a Lover, there are times when I can be an assured Warrior, and it’s mostly with my kids. It’s mostly when I feel most secure in my power. There was a time on Valentine’s Day, my son Josiah was asking to go up and hang on my chin-up bar, and I told him, “If you go up there, you’re getting yourself down.” He got up there, and he screamed. He did not want to let go of that bar, and he stayed up there a lot longer than I thought he would, actually. I just kind of talked him through it, “You know you can do this.” And when he hit the ground he screamed even louder, like he was so mad that he had actually had to follow through with the agreement on the thing.

The Master said, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:32) The truth is terrible. I say that not to judge it, but just to release our tendency to judge truth as good or bad or any other label that we could put on it. The truth is true!

At about the same time that I initiated my observation work, I had a very vivid dream of what looked like a human sacrifice. There was this shadowy, cloaked figure with a huge, jewel-encrusted sword about three feet long and a foot wide. And there upon the sacrificial rock was a woman. And this woman was welcoming this sword into her chest—not being consumed by it—but somehow actively participating in an act of human sacrifice, but without dying, without consuming her, like the fire that doesn’t consume.

The archetype of this shadowy figure calls to mind also the archetype of the grim reaper, who also carries a sword of sorts to cull what has passed and what should pass.

In considering these things, Uranda (the founder of this ministry, starting in 1932) said these words:

“There is only one thing that will hold you in position upon the divine operating table, so that the sword of truth can perform the essential operations.”

Hold still for the sword of truth, so that it can perform its essential maneuvers upon the divine operating table. Be still and know.

So why do I hide from truth? Because I’m afraid. I’m holding on to some illusion of myself, to somehow look better than the truth because the dirty side of truth will make me an outcast.

I’m here to say God knows the truth. We all know that. God loves you more than any love that you’ve known, and he knows the truth. And the only point to coming into the spirit of truth, for me, is so that me and God can agree, for once, about something.

So let’s be thankful for the gift of life, let’s welcome the sword of truth, love our divine source and love all relationships.

It is said that God placed an angel in the east of Eden, with a sword, blocking our access to the tree of life. Eden is a Hebrew word literally meaning “pleasure,” referring to the place of paradise. And at this moment, after being in this class in the high place, I’m really more interested in that angel with the sword than I am in the garden.

I’d like to walk with that angel, so that I may open my eyes and come into the fullness behind the sometimes half-baked words of the precious ones around me. The fullness behind what is seeking to come out from within me into the world, so that the dome of heaven appearing within can actually come into my world.