Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
ON LOVE; PART XXXV
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GoodWill IS Love in Action
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Wakefulness is the way to life. The fool sleeps As if he were already dead, But the master is awake And he lives forever. He watches. He is clear. How happy he is! For he sees that wakefulness is life. How happy he is, Following the path of the awakened. With great perseverance He meditates, seeking Freedom and happiness. So awake, reflect, watch. Work with care and attention. Live in the way And the light will grow in you. By watching and working The master makes for himself an island Which the flood cannot overwhelm. The fool is careless. But the master guards his watching. It is his most precious treasure. He never gives in to desire. He meditates. And in the strength of his resolve He discovers true happiness. He overcomes desire – And from the tower of his wisdom He looks down with dispassion Upon the sorrowing crowd. From the mountain top He looks down at those Who live close to the ground. Mindful among the mindless, Awake while others dream, Swift as the race horse He outstrips the field. By watching Indra became king of the gods. How wonderful it is to watch. How foolish to sleep. The beggar who guards his mind And fears the waywardness of his thoughts Burns through every bond With the fire of his vigilance. The beggar who guards his mind And fears his own confusion Cannot fall. He has found his way to peace5.
Repeating our comments from a previous post: This is another selection from the Dhammapada, the sayings of the Buddha, from the chapter called Wakefulness. The ideas here are simple for the awakened but for the unawakened they can be very difficult. Wakefulness here can be likened to our idea of focus on the Christ Within, the Soul, the spiritual Life. Sleep is just the opposite and can be likened to focus upon the things of the world. To be awake is to see things as they Truly are and to be asleep is to see things in the illusion and the glamour of the world. Wakefulness makes a man the master of his own Life while sleep makes one the fool. Wakefulness is striving to enter at the strait gate while being asleep is to float aimlessly on the waves of the ways of the world where one may think that he is getting somewhere only to realize in the end that he has gone nowhere, accomplished nothing.
While it is difficult to understand the cultural use of some of the words that the are used to translate the Buddha’a ideas above and in other passages we can discern much meaning from the context and doing this, as well as referring to other translations, we will discuss this saying above and how it relates to the message of the Christ. We should remember that there is only ONE True message that is offered in varying ways to different cultures and in different times and it is in the words of the Christ that we find, in our opinion, the most universal of all the messages but this too must be discerned according to the context in which it is offered which IS Love and brotherhood, Peace and Harmony. It should also be remembered that with the advent of the Aquarian Age, humanity as a whole is much more ready to hear this message and to understand it on a worldwide scale; not so that they would convert to Christianity although many may, but to unlock these same ideals in the teachings of their own cultures, teaching that may have been offered in a time when this type of expression was not acceptable in human terms. Perhaps yet we can find the same situation that we report regarding Christianity where the message of Love is clear and not dated but at the same time it is not accepted as the reality of the Master’s teachings. In the 2000 years that we have access to His words and the confirming words of His apostles, the church that carries His name has selectively accepted portions of His teachings and interpreted others to suit their need and this has allowed for wars and colonization under a Christian banner that continued until not too long ago. Add to this slavery and the treatment of women, their lack of rights and suffrage, which also ended in recent times and have not yet taken full hold around the world. And for some of these things done by Christians and justified by clergy, while against the precepts of the Master, there is still not resolution in the race of men where bigotry and prejudice still abound in some quarters.
We should note that the race is moving steadily toward that required sense of equality and since the Great War much headway has been made in human rights and even right human relations which is the more public side of our theme of GoodWill. The notable reason behind this IS the advent of the Aquarian Age and while this idea is scoffed at by many, there is little else that one can find as the single reason behind this move toward the reality of the Love that the Master teaches us. We could say that this is the result of evolution and we would be right and we would add here that evolution is both aided and caused by the march of the Ages and the realization of this march is documented in the names that history has given to the measurable ages that can be seen. These likely do coincide with the longer and more esoteric astrological ages and regardless of how these may be viewed, none can doubt that the race has and continues to advance along physical and psychic lines. We can see that as the world has grown closer to today that the reality of ONENESS has progressed and the sense of separativeness is waning; we see the world as ONE from the perspective of most cultures and while there are still problems, these too are being worked on by the more forward thinking members of our societies. Much change is still to come and there is ever the danger of the self-annihilation of this race of men and to prevent this, much change is required; we have always said that organizations of GoodWill such as the United Nations should be supported as this is the most likely forum for social and economic change. Many are against this world body but ALL should realize that the United Nations is humanities best hope for world Peace and Harmony and these are the realization of a True Christian understanding of Love and brotherhood.
Returning to our saying at the head of our essay today we find the idea of wakefulness and we should see in this word the reality of awareness and of realization. The Buddha is saying that the way of Life is in wakefulness and this can be understood as the faith and believing that we have been discussing and which we KNOW as KNOWING and reliance on that KNOWING. We should understand that this KNOWING comes from the Christ Within and that the True Life is the Life that is of the Soul. In the Buddha’s teaching, the idea of wakefulness, of being awake, is the same as those things that he Master tells us are required for being accounted worthy of the Kingdom and Eternal Life and this is found in righteousness and is the result of keeping His words which is the result of our focus upon the things of God. So to be awake in this context is to focus upon the things of God or the True things of Life. In contrast to this the Buddha uses the idea of the fool which we should see as the man who is focused upon the things of the world, who goes about Life in disregard of the Truth of the Inner Life which is the Life of his own Soul. We can see this in the Parable of the Rich Fool who cared only for the things of the world and who thought that they were the important part of Life; We read that: “But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?” (Luke 12:20). This is the essential idea in the use of this word fool by both the Buddha and the Master.
The idea here of master is akin to our understanding of disciple as it is given us by the Master and which we discussed again in the last post. To be a master is, in the Buddha’s teachings, to be in total control of the lower self, of the body and the personality, and to stand apart as does the disciple of the Christ. The Buddha lists several things that are of descriptive of the master; He tells us that the master is awake, that he watches, he is clear, he is happy and that he lives forever. In the word awake we already discussed the idea of focus and in this he watches the doings of the personality and does not afford the personality the opportunity of the worldly self thus he is clear in his vision and his realization. The master is not interpreting divinity according to the ways of the world, and in this we find again the idea of joy as we saw it yesterday in the Buddha’s instruction that one Follow the way joyfully. Finally we see the reality that the master lives forever, eternal life, and this we should try to understand in the same regard as we say that this is to realize the Kingdom of God Within. Having attained the Kingdom and the status of master, one need not return to this world of form which can be seen as death from the perspective of the Soul.
Moving on, the Buddha is speaking to aspirants; He tells us to awake, reflect, watch. Work with care and attention. Live in the way And the light will grow in you. This is of course the Light of the Soul and the growth in the aspirant will be the greater realization of the Light in the consciousness of the man. He tells us to focus, to keep guard on the self of the personality and to reflect which for us is a part of focus but which relates to us the further idea of meditation, prayer and continuing affirmation of the Truth. And, He tells us of the work of the aspirant which we addressed yesterday as the movement of one’s focus onto the things of God is the work of the aspirant and the result of this work is discipleship. This the Buddha frames as Work with care and attention. The Buddha now moves back to some of the ways of the disciple or as He calls them, masters; He outlines the benefit of watching which we now see as keeping guard on oneself so that the lower forces do not gain sway in the Life. As we should KNOW the idea of the lower life having sway is for one to focus attention upon that Life and here is the difference between the aspirant and the disciple. The result of watching is that a man becomes a master, an island in the world of men, and in this state the floods and tides emotion and vanity or of any worldly way cannot touch him. Bringing us back to the idea of the fool, the Buddha explains that the way of Life of the fool in the world is careless as one allows the ways and the things of the world to afflict the consciousness. Can we see in the way that this is explained by the Buddha that these words would have been wasted on the Jews who saw Life very differently and how, in the march of time, we are able to relate His teachings with the teaching of the Christ.
This next part seems a bit more complex than our understanding of watching above but when we realize what the intent is then it can make much sense. We must remember that we are trying to put the best English words that we can to explain the translation that we have and here we find the idea, from our perspective, of guarding the guarding. This however makes much sense from the perspective of this ability to hold the lower forces at bey being the most precious treasure of the master; it is what has helped him to become a master and will help him to stay a master and this by his ability to keep from giving in to the things of the world as stated in the single word desire. This is the man who serves God and not mammon, this is the disciple. Finally the Buddha tells us that in this watching and in meditation which we can also link to this sense of guarding, the master find true happiness which is for us the reality of the Kingdom of God.
The Buddha goes on from here but the nature of the dialogue changes to include the relationship of the master to the men who remain focused upon the things of the world. We will pick up with this 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.
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? Jesus answered, 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 3:3-8)
Today’s Quote of the Day is in regard to the new birth which Nicodemus did not understand and which many today do not understand either. The words of the Master tell us of a total commitment to the Lord as the way to the Kingdom and these verses say that as well. This total commitment is being born again. The differences in language aside, we should try to see the relationship between these ideas of being born again which is the essence of discipleship for it is only in discipleship that one can Truly see the Kingdom. These are much misused ideas because they are seen from the perspective of the man in form and no from the perspective of the Soul living through form.
- 5 The Dhammapada Translated by Thomas Byrom
