IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 447

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON LOVE; PART XXXIX

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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.

We began our post yesterday but never did get to finish and post it. The reason for this third missed day is the same as the previous two, the death of the same teenage grandson. Yesterday would have been his seventeenth birthday and there was a sort of celebration planned although the mood was not particularly celebratory. The idea was to get those who were close to him to join together for some birthday cake and to participate in the spreading of a portion of his ashes over the wall at the overlook where his friends had created a memorial. This was all done in a rather solemn non-ceremony and the thing that was noticed most was the lack of understanding in the world today regarding death which is a direct result of the lack of the right understanding of the nature of man and his constitution which has been our subject now for several days. It is here that we should see the reality of the Crucifixion, the Resurrection and the reality of the teachings of the Master.

The Apostle Paul gives us more on death than any of the writers and from the perspective of Christ we should be able to see the reality by His example and His words but we are blinded to this reality by the doctrines of the churches that teach heaven and hell and the single Earth Life of a man. The very word resurrection is much misunderstood; it is a translation of the Greek word anastasis for which we only have the doctrinal ideas to interpret it. While the lesson of the death and resurrection of the Master should be seen as a presentation of the immortal nature of Life, it is instead interpreted according to the belief that it is the body of the man that is the True man and therefore we have the raising of a dead body as resurrection. We have covered before the nature of the Risen Christ and how that He was not KNOWN nor recognized by many who encountered Him and this should help us to see that the body does not define the man; it was the Life of the Master that resurrected into whatsoever form that He chose. While linguistics is not our forte, can we see the disconnect between the teaching by example of the Master and the doctrines of the churches. Can we also see how the Master’s words on the subjects of eternal Life and resurrection may have been misinterpreted based upon the customs and superstitions of the Jews?

Most Western Religions, and we count Islam among these, have some sort of eschatology inherent in their various doctrines. Eschatology is essentially the study of the prophetic interpretations of the end of the world or the end of the age and it is defined as the branch of theology or biblical exegesis concerned with the end of the world. Like most things there are various definitions for this as well as many different views on how this works and how this is related to the ordinary death of a man. Again, in our view, much of the interpreted ideas on this ‘end of world’ and the idea of resurrection are grounded in the belief that the man is the body and he is this existence here on Earth forever. Mankind has and continues to try to interpret the spiritual reality of man according to the carnal which is not the reality of man and hence our current state of misunderstanding.

And this is where we intended to come from in our continuing conversation which follows, not from the death and resurrection perspective, but from the Life and the constitution of man perspective. In the right understanding of what a man essentially is or appears to be from the perspective that we have as men in form, comes the right understanding of death and of eternal Life which are the subject of much of the words of the Master and His apostles but which we do not receive because of our refusal to look past doctrines and the basis of those doctrines in the Old Testament understandings and superstitions. We must remember that the Master speaks to us in parables on those things that pertain to the Kingdom and in this category we should place the True nature of man in whom this Kingdom exists; we should never look past the saying of the Master that can help us to realize the Truth: “behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). These are connections that are not normally made in the discourse of these things on which we are speaking and we should try to see that if the Master spoke to us in this fashion as to not reveal divine Truths plainly to those who could not or would not accept them, that the writers and the prophets in the Old Testament likely had the same ideas at work in what they said and wrote.

Before we continue in our text that we started yesterday we should try to realize the Truth of man’s lack of understanding of the processes of death and the lack of help that comes from the various doctrines on resurrection and the superstitions upon which the doctrines of heaven and hell are founded. We mentioned early in today’s essay the writings of Paul on death and we here post some that are very misunderstood and, at the same time very revealing when viewed in the context of the Soul being this True man who has taken on form. We will address these further in a future post; Paul tells us that:

“And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound , and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (1 Corinthians 15:49-55)

As we started writing yesterday:

We made some additional comments in the last post regarding the Constitution of man as a result of our looking at the relationship between Love and Wisdom and how they are both potencies of the Soul of Man and the Christ of God. Looking again at our chart we see that the Love and Wisdom aspect is related as well to our understanding of the Son of God and the Christ Within and here now we have addressed all to the terms and amend our chart to reflect the reality that the Christ IS the Son of God:

We should remember how the Apostle Peter addresses Jesus when he is asked in this exchange: “And it came to pass , as he was alone praying, his disciples were with him: and he asked them, saying, Whom say the people that I am? They answering said, John the Baptist; but some say, Elias; and others say, that one of the old prophets is risen again. He said unto them, But whom say ye that I am? Peter answering said, The Christ of God” (Luke 9:18-20). This is similarly answered by Peter according to Matthew’s Gospel saying: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” to which the Master responds saying “Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 16:15, 17). We have used this last saying recently in showing the reality of the Wisdom that is from above as, from our perspective, this IS what the Master is referring to. In Mark’s Gospel we find the similar rendition also with Peter saying “Thou art the Christ” (Mark 8:29). Our point here is in the words that we have marked in bold and that is that the Master IS THE CHRIST, and there is a special significance to this that is missed by much of the doctrines. THE CHRIST IS THE SON OF THE FATHER  and this does not refer to the person of Jesus but to the divine understanding that THE CHRIST is that Aspect of God of which we speak so often; in our chart THE CHRIST is the Love and the Wisdom of God made manifest to men in the person of Jesus who, from the perspective of the world as well as the heavens, becomes the Christ at His birth in Bethlehem. This is the reality of John’s words telling us that Jesus is THE CHRIST and is the only begotten of the Father. In his saying that “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14) we should try to get the idea that was intended, that the Logos, translated as the Word, was made flesh in the body of Jesus, the man in time and space, and of whom the Apostle Paul tells us that “in him dwelleth all the fulness of the God head bodily” (Colossians 2:9).

Having said all this and having amended the chart, we should be in a better place to understand that THE CHRIST is to Jesus as the Christ Within is to each of us. This is in reality as Souls in form and in practical reality as we can realize the Love and Power of the Christ Within as our expression in the world of men. Jesus, speaking as He is THE CHRIST, tells us of the relationship between Himself and the Soul infused personality in the world. Speaking to His disciples only, as Soul infused personalities who have overcome much of the world and who were in accordance with His teachings on discipleship, the Master says “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you” (John 14:20) and in this we should see the ONENESS of the Christ Within, the Soul, with the Christ, the Son of God. The Master makes this clearer to us in His prayer concerning His disciples which is the realization of divinity for ALL; He says: “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me” (John 17:21-23).

We need to realize the Christ Within, the Soul, as the reality of man as in this realization much of the Master’s words that were heretofore obscure become clear; it is as though we had broken the code and have finally seen the Truth behind the parable. This ONENESS of the Christ Within and the Christ can then be seen as but a part of the ONENESS of the entirety of the Trinity and here we should remember that there is no real separation from either the perspective of God or of man and this we find in the words of the Master who tells us yet more of this ONENESS of ALL Aspects of God saying:

• “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30) attesting to the ONENESS of the First Two Aspects of God
• “But when the Comforter is come , whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me” (John 15:26). we should see in this idea of “proceedeth from the Father” the reality of the ONENESS of the Father and the Holy Spirit in the same way as the ONENESS of the Son and the Father.
• Clarifying this further, the Master tells us that “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works” (John 14:10). Jesus here tells us of the True relationship of the Son and the Father being IN each other in True ONENESS.
• And most emphatically, the Master tells us of the reality and the Truth of the Old Testament saying that “The first of all the commanments is, Hear , O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord” (Mark 12:29).

Now it is generally acknowledged in Christian doctrines that there is ONE God expressing as Three ‘Persons’ who are co-equal and each God and while this takes care of the basic understanding of ONENESS that is necessary to properly understand God and man, it does not give the fullness of the flavor of what IS. We think of persons because this is our way as men in form, it is what we KNOW, but this is not the reality of things. As we KNOW, “God is a Spirit” (John 4:24) and this is the perspective that one must take in looking at God; here we should understand that we have little or no understanding of what this Truly means. We should also understand here that the body of a man IS NOT part of his own Trinity nor was it a part of the Christ’s; the body of Jesus is just that, a body much like yours and mine except it was built in perfection while ours must be taken to perfection. As Paul state’s this above, ALL THE FULLNESS OF THE GODHEAD BODILY, so should we see the perfection of the body of the Master. The Master, by example, was Transfigured before three of His disciples and it is this Transfiguration that Truly signifies the ability of the Soul, the Christ Within, to express His fullness through from. Was this an accomplishment for Jesus, we do not KNOW, but we could surmise that it was an example to us of our future for if He was in ALL THE FULLNESS OF THE GODHEAD BODILY from birth as we premise and as scripture hints then He would have no need to accomplish anything in this world. We do not however KNOW these things but we can KNOW them through our own communion of this personality through which we act with our own Soul.

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.

• ¹ Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1828 and 1913
• ² New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
• ³ Strongest Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible – 2001
• ⁴ Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
• ⁵ The Dhammapada Translated by Thomas Byrom