IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 383

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON GOD; Part CLXIV

“For every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes. 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 6:44-45).

“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt , and where thieves break through and steal : But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt , and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:19-21).

Have we seen the connection between our topics over the last few days and our saying regarding treasure and heart that we have been posting at the top of our essays?  In yesterday’s post we created a list of points regarding the consciousness of a man, his heart as the Master calls it,  and we should have the idea now that this consciousness IS the man; the form Life that he lives has received its Life and its consciousness from the Soul or the True man. We have said frequently that we cannot understand the reasoning for Life in form, that journey through incarnation after incarnation, as we tread the Path toward what the Apostle Paul tells us is our destiny of being “delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God“. We cannot discern the reasons for the existence of Life itself except to be able to say that Life IS and this is True because God IS and God is Life. Perhaps in some distant future when we are again ONE with our own Spirit in this consciousness that we have, we may realize the purpose of it ALL but for now we should understand simply that we ARE this consciousness and this consciousness is the Life of the Soul, the True man, which exists within and is part and parcel of OUR GOD.

A hint that we gleaned from the words of the apostle, from the same group of sayings as we cite above, which he wrote to the Romans, is found in the very end of these saying which we repeat again here:

“For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:20-23).

Our hint is in Paul’s words saying “waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body“. In the idea of adoption we should remember Vincent’s words saying that: We have but a faint conception of the force with which such an illustration would speak to one familiar with the Roman practice; how it would serve to impress upon him the assurance that the adopted son of God becomes, in a peculiar and intimate sense, one with the heavenly Father⁴; and it is in this ONENESS that we should understand this idea. This word and idea is uniquely Paul’s and is not explained as to his meaning, it has given rise to much doctrine which seems to tell us that when we are good Christians we will become as adopted children of God. There is some Truth here that does not from our perspective include Christian criteria nor the act of becoming as in reality we are ever His children. The first sentence of this group which we had posted for many days tells us the reality of it ALL and this reality includes adoption. Paul says “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Romans 8:14), this is the criteria for this adoption and one that brings us to the point of this ONENESS with God and the God Within and the purpose in this ONENESS as “the redemption of our body“. Can we see that in this state of being we can be seen to be like the Christ at the Mount of Transfiguration and that in this state every cell, molecule and atom of substance in our threefold form will be glorified and redeemed; words that are likely well beyond our understanding today or the understanding given by doctrine. As we said in the many days that we have now spent on these sayings by the apostle to the Romans, there is limitless depth in Paul’s words from which we have been trying to glean but a small part as it pertains to the Life of a man in this Earth and, as his sayings here continue there is yet more revelation which we will get to in future posts.

This creature of which the apostle speaks can be easily seen in the idea of the consciousness of the man in form. This consciousness is not the form with its mind and emotions as one would commonly think but it is rather that complex interaction between the the Soul and these components to which the Soul has lent himself which self IS this consciousness and IS also that heart of which the Master speaks. While we may take this idea of consciousness for granted in Life, there are many in whom there is not the proper interaction and in this we can only surmise that the cause is one of equipment, that is body and emotions and mind, that is deficient for the purposes of this interaction by reason on birth or accident or, that the Soul himself is the cause due to some karmic responsibility that is beyond our ken. We should remember that there is an instance of this nature in the Gospel of John which gives us some bit of information and does point for us to the idea of reincarnation; the text goes: “And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him” (John 9:1-3). Ponder on this.

Now we have discussed this idea of the creature, this consciousness, being “made subject to vanity, not willingly” and this is the reality of the plight of the man in form, that he is lost in the illusion and the glamour of the world of vanity. Again, we should see in this word the idea given to us by Vincent saying that in this word the reference is to a perishable and decaying condition, separate from God, and pursuing false ends⁴. We have also discussed the role of duality as it effects the Life of the Soul in form and we have noted that it is at such a time as the consciousness within the form begins to realize that there is more than that which he sees, that this sense of duality begins to play a part in his Life. This can be seen as the beginning of the man’s awakening and the True beginning of his struggle to free himself from “from the bondage of corruption” and, this is the True beginning of the man’s True realization of his own free will. It is to us at this point, this stage, of Life that the Master speaks in the sayings above and it is here that we should recognize the import of His sayings.

When we view the heart as the consciousness of man and the and the treasure that the Master speaks of as those things that are important to him, we can begin to understand the reality of the Master’s sayings. The reality of this is not a superficial change in heart but rather a dynamic change in the focus of one’s Life to the degree that we no longer regard the things of this world as of any importance whatsoever.  This is the stance of a True disciple of the Lord and this change in focus brings one into alignment with many of the precepts that the Master teaches about the focus of one’s Life. This focus of one’s Life echos out in the Master’s sayings and by the very nature of what He says we can see the difficulty in achieving this High Calling.

• On the choice between the things of the world and the word of God, the Master tells us that: “No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Luke 16:13). There is no doubt in the Master’s words here, He simply sates the fact that it is impossible to do so; a man MUST be focused upon one or the other. Men try to be godly without keeping the entirety of the Master’s words but it takes more than going to church and reading the bible, it takes a commitment to keeping His words and not only those that are convenient.
• In Luke’s Gospel this saying follows the Parable of the Unjust Servant and the Master’s words are in relation to the ways of man in the Earth; He says “…for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations. He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man’s, who shall give you that which is your own?” (Luke 16:9-12). The doctrinal understandings of these words as well as those in the previous point are tied to money and to possessions but this is not the proper understanding; this must be looked as as the things of the world both physical, emotional and mental. It is attitudes and feelings as well as physical possession of things and looking at the plight of man the argument can be easily made that riches are the minor component as those of little means are are included in these words as well. It is the focus of the Life of a man and be it money or possessions (including those that we buy but cannot afford), attachment to persons or ideals or, on the negative side, staunch prejudices and national hatreds, these are for him the mammon and in all senses, positive and negative; the “mammon of unrighteousness“. One is of the “children of this world” when his focus is on the things of this world and the Master tells us here that when we are in this state it is wise to have friends of a similar nature as they may help and understand us when we fail; in this idea of friends we should see the nature of the unjust steward who gave that which was not his to his ‘friends’ so that they would help him in his time of need. Thus living as the “children of this world” is the nature and effect of that vanity of the world and we can see from looking around us that this neither works nor is it of any benefit to the True man, the Soul, but rather these things only take him further from his goal. The Master tells us as well that we should, when required to do so, deal with the things of the world in a faithful manner, in honor and with proper care and He alludes to the idea that this worldly action can be a precursor of our ability to deal with the things of God. There is much food for thought in these statements.
• In the like verse from Matthew’s Gospel regarding God and mammon, the wording of the Master’s saying is virtually the same and it does clear up any confusion as regards the thought of servant from the saying above where it is offered in conjunction with a parable about a servant. Here we have clearly a man: “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24). The context here is different insofar as this is said as a part of the Sermon on the Mount which we should see as the everyday rules for a Life focus upon the Christ Within, the Soul, and God. Here the Master makes this statement just before another that has so much to say about the focus of one’s Life and another of His sayings which is not understood by the doctrines of the Church today; He says: “Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?” (Matthew 6:25). We should note also that both these sayings follow upon the Master’s words from our saying at the top “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” and we should also note how these three work together to make the point of the Master’s teaching here plainly focus. We repeat here a thing that we say earlier in this essay as it is equally fitted for this point: the reality of this is not a superficial change in heart but rather a dynamic change in the focus of one’s Life to the degree that we no longer regard the things of this world as of any importance whatsoever.

There are countless sayings in the words of the Master that echo these same ideas to us who would be disciples of the Lord and who are struggling through Life in this world as aspirants who recognize the duality and sense the goal but are yet caught up in that vanity, that illusion and that glamour of Life in from. The reality of escape is before us ALL and the Master does tell us both of the severity of the undertaking of discipleship, which is only such when viewed from the perspective of the man in form, and the difficulty of reaching our goal a difficulty that is echoed for us by the Buddha.

• Among other things, the Master clearly lays our for us the way of discipleship saying that “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple…..So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26-27, 33) and in this we should take the proper idea from the word that is translated as hate. In another place He tells us that: “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed” (John 8:31) and, again, this of course means the entirety of His word and not just those which are convenient. He also tells us, as a reiteration of what His word is, that “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35) and we should understand this as Love for ALL and as harboring none of those thoughts or emotions that separate one man from another whether personal, cultural, national or racial.
• The Master tells us of the difficulty saying: “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matthew 7:13-14) and in this He tells us in another place that we should “Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in , and shall not be able” (Luke 13:24) and in this we should understand that although the way is difficult, we should ever try.
• This idea of difficulty is echoed by the Buddha in the saying that we left at the end of our essay yesterday; He says: Come, consider the world, A painted chariot for kings, A trap for fools. But he who sees goes free. As the moon slips from behind a cloud And shines, So the master comes out from behind his ignorance And shines. The world is in darkness. How few have eyes to see! How few the birds who escape the net and fly to heaven!⁵

We will continue with our thoughts on heart and consciousness and the reality of the focus of one’s Life in the next post.

Note on the Quote of the Day

This daily blog also has a Quote of the Day which may not be in any way related to the essay. Many of these will be from the Bible and some just prayers or meditations that may have an influence on you and are in line with the subject matter of this blog. As the quote will change daily and will not store with the post, it is repeated in this section with the book reference and comment.

We have left this saying for several days now and want to here say that within this reflection is the reality of a True Son of God, a disciple if you will, and it is by accomplishing these things that a men can be seen as disciples and, for those who try to achieve, those who strive, as aspirants.

Evening Reflection

May the Power of the One True God flow through His group of all true servers;

May the Love of the Christ characterize the lives of all who seek to aid in His work;

May I fulfill my part in the one work through self-forgetfulness, harmlessness and right speech

(Evening Reflection)