Monthly Archives: February 2012

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON GOD; Part XVII

The ideas of God as contained in the saying that “For our God is a consuming fire” are many and there is much esoteric knowledge in this saying and in this understanding of the Nature of God. Fire is not a thing but rather a process, a force and a great releaser of energy and one that is manifest on virtually every level of existence as we know it. On the chart that we have been using to outline the Three Aspects of God and of man, there is now added a new column to show the esoteric relationship of Fire to both God and man:

It is not our purpose to go too far into this except to show the relationships as they exist; we should not think of physical fire alone in these relationships as this is just the outer manifestation as would be inherent in the Third Aspect, Fire by Friction. Just as one can only imagine the True nature of Spirit and of the Father, so it is True of His expression as Electric Fire of which physical plane electricity may be a hint. Solar Fire can then be understood as well as one can understand himself as the Soul and as one can imagine the True Nature of the Christ; not in His manifestation as Jesus but as the actual Second Aspect of the Trinity. Solar Fire can be understood only insofar as the Soul can be understood; as the Soul is the manifestation of Spirit, so Solar Fire is the manifestation of Electric Fire in its own place which we have heretofore considered to be at the higher levels of what we, without understanding, call the Mind of God. We should remember here that our Souls are ever in the Kingdom of God and that although they give Life and consciousness to the form that a man takes, it is only by the extension of consciousness that Souls are somewhat removed for lack of a better way of expressing this. This manifestation of Solar Fire is what brings to us the Fire of mind which we can see in our lives burning through the glamour and the illusion of this world in which the Soul finds its consciousness.

In this expression from the bible we get the understanding that God is Fire, from the chart we see that this Fire that is God is also a triplicity and this is True of man as well; as we have discussed there is ever a correspondence between man and the God of whom man is a likeness and an image. We briefly discussed in the last post the personal nature of this idea of consuming as it is written in Hebrews. On a personal level we should see this as a fact in the Life of man and of his spiritual orientation; the Spirit, manifesting as the Soul can and will consume the worldly nature as man moves closer to the Path and then onto that Path to the Kingdom of God. We can postulate here that when a man achieves this degree of becoming a disciple, that the worldly personality no longer exists; it has been consumed by the burning through of Soul consciousness or, perhaps a better term, full Christ Consciousness. On a world scale we can see this working out as a part of the evolution of consciousness that brings all of creation along with it under the Power of God; in a strange way we can see evolution itself as the burning away of the old forms of Life as the entire creation moves forward into new forms. We should not think here of physical forms alone but we should rather think of consciousness itself and the raising of it through the destruction of the old. By example there are few, if any, that still live as did the earliest of men or as did the men of the Old Testament era or even of men in the middle ages; these forms of consciousness are no longer and man has moved along to higher emotional states and the conscious use of the mind. So little of scripture is actually intended to deliver messages that are only applicable to one’s physical Life in this world but it is rather uniquely positioned to deliver to us a greater understanding of the reality of God and of man and this on a scale that can be seen by man at every level of existence. From the instinctual and uninformed man of old to the intelligentsia of today and every level in between, man has been able to find himself in the written word of scripture.

Our next attribute of God is that “God is light” and we have spoken much of this idea of Light; one of our earlier series of essays was titled The Light of the World (In the Words of Jesus parts 4-5) and we have steadily built upon the ideas found there throughout our posts. Our words above come from a more complete saying that “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5) and in this we can get a glimpse of the intensity and the height of this Light as we are told there is “no darkness at all“; in this we should understand that there is not even the hint of a shadow. This is the Light of the Christ and the Christ Within, brilliant and piercing and illuminating every part of the Earthly Life of the Master and every part of the complex personality of a man when he is come into the Kingdom and His Presence. In the prologue to his Gospel, the Apostle John tells us this of the Christ as regards Light: “In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (John 1:4-9). In this saying we should be able to draw the conclusion that there is a defining relationship between Life and Light. Speaking here as we normally do of the Christ Within, the personal Christ, can we see the direct relationship between the Soul and the man in form? The Soul gives Life to the form that is man as a conscious personality and Light as the consciousness itself. We have spoken much of the ideas of degree and of ranges of effect that things spiritual can have on the conscious personality of man and in this respect of Light we can see the measure of the degree and the range by the intensity of the Light that the carnal man will let into his Life in form. The Light is ever present, it is an attribute of God, but it does not illuminate without man’s conscious focus upon the spiritual Life which is  also the Light and the Path. Ponder on this.

This is necessarily a complex and confusing subject as we are speaking of spiritual things for which there are few words that can properly express them. In the chart above we find the idea of Light as a potency of the Holy Spirit and we should understand here that the Holy Spirit is the force and the activity of the manifest Soul and can be understood as being the same Light seen now as the Third Aspect of God and of man which is His phenomenal appearance; not necessarily the physical body but the body of forces that become the physical, emotional and mental nature of man and of God; this Light can be said to be the effect of the Fire by Friction in our chart above. Throughout our series ON GOD we have spent little time on the Third Aspect and this above can be seen a an introduction into what will shortly come. Much as we see the Spirit and the Soul as One, with the Soul being the manifestation of the Spirit, we should see the Holy Spirit as one with the Soul as well and as a sort of reflection of it in time and space.

Getting back to our topic, we read this from the Master regarding Light: “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). In this is a positive statement of the nature of the Christ and of the Soul and this Light is in the form of the understanding and the realization of the meaning of the Soul or the Christ in form. It is the Light that brings in its rays all of the potencies of God and is the phenomenal effect of His aspects. Christ, for example, brought into physical manifestation the Love and the Wisdom of God and these flow through to the world in His Light along with ALL things that are of the Good, the Beautiful and the True. ALL are available to the world in the Light which is the manifest energy of the Son of God, which is the Son of God. We see also in this saying that relationship between Life and Light which again is always available and requires one only to seek it and not block it out by turning one’s attention to the world; and this the Master frames for us as following Him and, we add of course, keeping His words. In another saying the Master does personalize this for us in a more direct manner saying that: “Ye are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14). In this we should see that we are effectively the same as the Master in form albeit not yet in function; The Master brought the Light to us and walked in the Light and used the Light and we are told that we must do the same in the continuation of the Master’s thought saying: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). The opposite of Light is darkness and for us and for the world this idea of darkness should call forth the understanding that in it there is not understanding and not realization of the reality of Life; man continues on in his life believing that he is this phenomenal appearance which he is making here and now and that the importance of his Life is in what he can get for his use now. From this darkness to the brightest spiritual Light is a infinite range of Light intensity and with each gradation comes greater understanding and realization and it is at some point in this experience that one becomes aware of the True self and begins to turn his focus toward that Light of awareness. It is here that the True journey of man begins; he senses the Path and begins to try to enter at the strait gate. Can we see here that no matter the subject matter the ideas remain constant and that ALL is found in one’s ability to follow the Master, the Christ and the Christ Within, and to keep His words.

We should see too that when the Master tells us that “Ye are the light of the world” He is speaking to us as He knows that we are, as Souls, and when He tells us that we should “Let your light so shine before men” He is telling us that we should let this Light that we are flow through this man in form. In this we should see our opportunity and our responsibility and in this we should see also the strait gate into the Kingdom of God.

Our next attribute of God is also an Aspect of God as outlined in previous posts and in our Chart above. It is said that this entire creation, in this current time period, is oriented toward Love and thereby the saying of John that “God is love” (1 John 4:8) and hence the dynamic importance placed on Love by the Master. As we have noted, the teachings of the Master are largely centered around this idea of Love and its related ideas of Brotherhood and GoodWill and it is in our expression of these ideals that we become focused on the Light of the Soul. It is in this Light, as we say above, that the potencies of the Aspects of God flow through into the world and into our lives. There is for us today no greater way to achieve the Kingdom of God and His Presence than through our expression of Love.

We will continue with these thoughts and our final attribute of God in the next post.

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

Note on the Quote of the Day