Monthly Archives: February 2012

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON GOD; Part XXIII

“But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ. But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted” (Matthew 23:1, 8-12).

We concluded our look at the above text of the Master’s sayings and we should have come away with a better understanding of His words based on what we have seen as the hidden meaning behind the words. On the outside these words convey an attitude and a way of action for the man in form and on the inner side they reveal yet another view of the relationship between the Christ and the Christ Within, a man’s own Master, as well as that intricate revelation of the Father in heaven being in that same heaven as is the Spirit of man as can be seen in the words of the Master who tells us that “the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21) thus revealing a seamless underlying conscious state in which we have found the synonymous terms: Christ in you, the Kingdom in you and the Love of God in you. Now it is True that we could have derived these ideas from any number of sayings by the Master and it is likely that throughout our posts that we have or will. The saying at hand is unique however in that it has both of these ideas plus the added understanding that relates this all to our outer conscious action, the action of the Self in time and space. Speaking to those who would be spiritual or religious, the Master says that their attitude must be one of humility and one of servitude and that one should not seek any advantage over those that they may teach or counsel.

We also returned to our sub-theme which is a discussion of the bible statements regarding the Nature of God and we have so far been through many including:

• Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).
• Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful” (Luke 6:36).
• God is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Matthew 22:32).
• The Lord our God is one Lord” (Mark 12:29).
• God is true (John 3:33)
• God is a Spirit (John 4:24)
• God is no respecter of persons (Acts 10:34)
• God is faithful (1 Corinthians 1:9, 10:13)
• For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace (1 Corinthians 14:33)
• God is one (Galatians 3:20)
• For our God is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29)
• God is light, and in him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5)

Leading us to our current topic; “God is love” (1 John 4:8). In our last post we added to this idea of Love the God Potency of Wisdom which, although thre is no direct statement regarding it, is an important Aspect that must be considered. We left off yesterday with a reading from Proverbs regarding Wisdom. Not one of the many that relates Wisdom to man but one that relates Wisdom to God and where we can see the special relationship between Wisdom and Love. In the Prologue to the Gospel of John, the apostle tells us that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men” (John 1:1-3). Now we understand that the Word is the Christ and that this is translated as Word from the Greek word Logos which is deeper than our understanding of word and that is, in many ways, symbolic of the manifestation of God. Comparing what is said here regarding the Christ, who we see as the direct incarnation of the Love of God, to what we read from Proverbs on Wisdom saying that: “The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was……Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men” (Proverbs 8:22-23, 30-31), can we see the resemblance? Can we see the intimate relationship between Love and Wisdom as is noted in our chart:

This relationship is indelible and we should see that flowing out of the Soul, the Christ Within, and into the Self, the consciousness, is the Love and the Wisdom of God and it is these that become our Life expression when we are accounted worthy and come into His Presence and His Kingdom. This idea of the Self is a new introduction into our understanding insofar as our writing is concerned and it may take some time to be able to properly understand just what this Self is. We started this discourse on the Self in ON GOD part XXI with a few defining words and heretofore we have spoken of the Soul being the real self and at times we have attributed this to the Spirit. There is no contradiction here as this is a complex issue that can be viewed from a variety of perspectives. We have said from early on that we speak of the Spirit and the Soul without delineation and this is also how it is depicted in scripture and in the translations of scripture where neither is really explained. The Spirit, as in the chart above, is akin to the Father and the Soul is akin to the Son and much like Christ can say that “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30) so can the Soul say that it is One with Spirit. One, the Soul, is the manifestation of the other, the Spirit. How can we explain this complex and difficult matter? only by analogy and even in this we are limited by words and by language. The best explanation that we can understand is perhaps what we post above from the Prologue of John’s Gospel which says that the Christ and the Father were One in the beginning when there was no thing and that it is through the manifestation of and by the Christ that ALL things are. Still necessarily vague…so let us try to add this; God IS Life and the manifestation HAS Life. The Father IS Life and the Son Has that Life. The Spirit IS Life and the Soul Has that Life. It is only through the Wisdom of God that we can understand this and even in understanding we may not be able to express it as there are not sufficient nor appropriate words.

This of course does not explain our new perspective on the Self. The Self is the Spirit and the Self is the Soul and the Self is that consciousness that makes us aware; the Self is one’s expression of Life. This consciousness is intimately entwined with Life and it is Life and Consciousness that the Soul imparts to the personality as a double thread if you will. This consciousness, this Self,  is developed by the personality into the outward appearance that each of us makes in the world and, as we have said it is this personality that is a combination of the physical form plus the emotional and mental apparatus. Self is not the emotions nor the mind but Self uses both of these to express itself to the world. Coming into the world the Self, the consciousness, is given to the form along with Life and here we can see another though more vague correspondence to the Spirit and the Soul. Up to a certain point in the evolution of the man in form, through incarnation after incarnation, the Self is not aware of anything except its own existence in form and this works out according to the Law and the Plan of God. We have spoken about this idea of evolution with the Life of the man being centered at different points as he progresses through incarnate life; first centered on the needs and wants of the flesh then some combination of this with the emotions and then, perhaps with the falling away of the wants of the flesh, to the intermingling of the emotions with the mind and then we will find man centered in the mind alone. In all this the man in form is attending to his Life in the world and there comes a time where the man, the Self, heeds the call of the Soul. The Self now sees a duality which may have been sensed but now is apparent and he realizes that he does have these two natures and that he can be sometimes in the world and sometimes in the Soul and, at times he is aware of both simultaneously. This is a point of tension and a time of decision which need not be made but which is the Key to the Kingdom and to Soul Consciousness for the Self. This is where so many of us are today; tending toward the Higher yet unable to resist the world of form. This is were we hear the words of the Master, both of our own Master, our Souls, and the Christ who through His words tells us the way.

So where is the change? The Self remains the same insofar as its developed tendencies in the personality but it is now more and more in the Light of the Soul and the ideas and the Wisdom and the Love of the Soul are constantly reshaping the Self, changing the man and finally resulting in the Truth of being Born Again. The Self, heretofore born of water, of the womb and of the ways of the world, is now born of the Spirit, the Soul, which conforms to the Master’s words saying: “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit” (John 3:5-8). Can we see here the relevance of our idea of focus? Can we understand that to do this one must cease his focus on the world and place his focus and the Christ and the Christ Within and can we see that this is a requirement for entering His Kingdom and His presence. The Self is the same, the consciousness is the same but the focus and the source of Light change and instead of the things of the personality, the emotions and the thoughts of Self,  being the light of one’s Life, the Soul, the Christ Within, provides the Light. Simply put, the Master tells us clearly that: “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12) and the key words here are “he that followeth me“.

The crux of so many of the Master’s sayings are are the epitome of the above understanding. When the Master says that “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh” (Luke 6:45) He is telling us that depending of where one is focused, that is, where his heart, his consciousness, his Self, is drawing the treasure from, depends the goodness or the evil. It is to us to understand that the Good comes from above and the evil from below, from the world. Now we previously equated the heart with the personality consciousness and this is true for the majority of men who are grounded in their worldly lives; in the change outlined above, the personality consciousness is becoming Soul consciousness but in either place, or in between, we can today see this as the Self. What is the good treasure of the good man? it is the Love and the Wisdom that are emanating from the Soul and being expressed by the Self. Evil in this saying as well as in others is a complex word covering a multiplicity of ideas and ranges of effect within those ideas. This is likely true of Good as well but in the understanding of the Master’s use of Good we should see the basics of His teaching and that is Good from above. Evil however can be in a great range from not good to extremely bad and for most people it should be considered as saying that it is worldly, carnal and not from the Soul and in this understanding we can accept it as being anywhere on the scale.

What is in our hearts, our Self, is what we express to the world and it is by this that we are known; what is in our hearts is the fruit of our lives. There is likely a large range of values between living in a carnally based personality consciousness up to living in Soul consciousness, in His Kingdom, and this range can be seen as the Path that leads us to that strait gate. It is the strait gate that opens up into the Kingdom of God. We will continue with this in the next post and perhaps get finally to our last point which is ever needed in our journey on the Path to God.

• God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble (Psalm 46:1)

Note on the Quote of the Day