Monthly Archives: September 2012

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON LOVE; PART XLI

ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•Α

GoodWill IS Love in Action

ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•Α

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.

While yesterday’s post was rather short, it did contain much that we seldom discuss but which is of the utmost importance to those who Truly want to progress on their spiritual Path. By seldom discuss we mean that we do not use the straightforward wording that we used in the last post. These realities are ever our focus and we generally allow the words of the Master and of His apostles to say them. While this is our general way, it is likely advantageous to just spell our these realities from time to time as to get a fix in the words found in the New Testament which are much clouded by the doctrines of the churches. This clouding is found in the misinterpretation of some parts as relates to the ultimate divinity of man and the ignoring of other parts that may not comfortably fit into doctrine. This latter part we discuss with much frequency and this is most evident in the Master’s teachings on Love and on the requirements of True discipleship.

Our message that we ARE like Jesus and like Christ is against the grain of most Christian teachings but these are Truths that come directly from the Gospels and the writings of the apostles who, in the view of the infallibility of the writings of the Bible, should be believed. While we do not generally share the views on infallibility, this aversion is mostly based upon the uncertainty of the originality or the authorship of some parts, the effects of the doctrinal translations to which we must subscribe and the wide array of different interpretations that are available with many saying quite different things regarding the same verses. As one who has read our posts will KNOW, we do not fully agree with any of the proposed doctrinal interpretations of the Master’s words nor those of His disciples and we oft propose and premise our own interpretations. We again post our chart as the Right Understanding of the Nature of Man and Constitution of both God and Man and, while there is little that we can factually say about God, there is much that we can say about man and we will continue with this and our comparison to the Christ and to Jesus in this essay.

Looking again at the many ways that the New Testament tells us about our nature, we will try to build in us that confidence that it takes to shed the view of the world of men and Christian doctrine that Jesus is God and that we are not or that we are not such from the perspective of Life in form. We suggested yesterday and in previous essays that the difference between the Jesus as the Christ and ourselves is found in the reality of His birth; His scripted birth to a Virgin Mother and regardless of whether one subscribes to the virginity of the Blessed Mother or not does not really   play a role here in our discussion. Our perspective on the virgin birth is discussed in In the Words of Jesus part 177 in some detail; here we will only repeat the words of the Master who tells us: “with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26) and we should hint here at the expansion of this idea in the reality of the Master’s telling us that “all things are possible to him that believeth” (Mark 9:23) and here we must understand the True depth of believing as we have presented this in regard to the moving of the mountain.

The Master tells us many things that point to our own divinity but we must understand that this divinity, while it always IS for the True man, only comes to bear on the Life of the man in form when he can become the expression of the Christ Within in the world. Jesus, was born in this state; Jesus came to physical Life as the only begotten Son of God because He is born in this state which is, as the the Apostle Paul tells us, a state where “….in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9). We will not go into here the ideas behind this accomplishment of the Master, to be able to express this fullness through form, but will just say that if we believe that “God is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34) and if we believe what the Master tells us about ourselves, then we can believe that the Master IS a highly accomplished Soul but a Soul nonetheless as we are.

Starting with our understanding of the words from Genesis, we should clearly see that the reality of man is not this man in form and here we must begin to understand the divinity of man and that it is not possible that God is speaking about the form life for, if He were, He would be saying that He is a man just like us. Much of doctrine speaks of God as a man and this is from the use of various words in the bible that are offered so as to give the man a greater understanding as there are no words to express the reality of God. We read that God sits on a throne in heaven but can we take this literally as a man sitting? if we can, then is there less Truth to the Master’s words that tell us that “the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). The Book of Genesis tells us that: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so” (Genesis 1:27-30). We should understand that this is a fanciful way of depicting ‘creation’ in seven days that was written for the understanding of the man in that day ages ago and that in this fanciful depiction there are the seeds of deeper Truth that we must uncover. It is unfortunate that many in high positions in the churches of the world accept this and the entire Genesis story literally and believe it to such degree that they dispute the reality of physical science and not only in regard to the Theory of Evolution but in regard to geology and anthropology as well.

That God created man in His own image is a Truth of Galactic importance and the reality of this is seen in the understanding that God IS and that God IS EVERYTHING, He is LIFE ITSELF. Though he words of Jehovah we read that God says of Himself that He should be KNOWN as “I AM THAT I AM” and He tells Moses to say “unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you” (Exodus 3:14) and it is in these words that we derive our idea that God IS. However, it should not take these words to understand that ALL that we see in the night sky in the greatness of the observable Universe and that ALL that we see as we look at the smallest of the small particles of energy IS and, in some fashion that we do not comprehend, ALL is alive. The Master adds for us that “God is a Spirit” (John 4:24) and in this we understand that we also are Spirit as we ARE created in the image of God. Moving on with this idea of Spirit we establish that God is a Trinity and this understanding is developed from the many verses in the New Testament that testify of the Nature of God; that He is Spirit, that He is Love, that the Christ is God. The Master tells us that “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30) and He tells us of our same relationship with the Father saying “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us” (John 17:21). We should understand that this reality comes to us in realization as men in form when we are expressing the Love and the Power of the Soul through form; this is the realization of the Father in each of us as well as the Christ Within each and we must ever understand the nature of the Master’s teaching is by parable and proverb for it is in this understanding that we see that we are not this body; simply put, we are made in the image of God and God is not a body. Regarding the Third part of the Trinity which is God and therefore is man who is created in the image of God, we can find some difficulty in understanding the presentation; the Master tells us as disciples these things:

• “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)
• “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance , whatsoever I have said unto you” (John 14:26).
• “Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away : for if I go not away , the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart , I will send him unto you” (John 16:7).
• “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever” (John 14:16)

In the arbitrary order that we have placed them we should see the dual approach of the Master’s words on the Holy Spirit. The first tells us that the Master will send the Comforter, in the second He comes from the Father in the name of Christ, in the third the Master will send Him when He departs and in the last He comes from the Father by the prayer of the Christ. Our understanding of the Holy Spirit is that He is the activity of the Christ Within, and the God Within as these are ONE, in the world and this activity is the realization of the Christ Within by the man in form. It is here that we can understand that the Comforter comes as the Christ Within is realized. However, this activity of the Christ Within is ever present in the True man, the Christ Within, the Soul. Luke simplifies this for us in telling us of the Master’s words saying: ” how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” (Luke 11:13).

So we have here the Trinity of God and the Trinity of man as expressed in our chart above and in the reality of the saying from Genesis: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them“. So that we do not get confused, we should address the idea in this saying of “male and female” and suggest that this does not indicate the generally accepted thoughts that there is “male and female” in the realm of the spirit as this is a physical phenomenon which is restricted to mans existence here on the Earth. In the realm of the True man, in the realm of the Spirit and the Soul that Is man, there are no sexes and in the ideas of “male and female” in this context we should only see the combination of these factors in the LIFE that IS the Spirit of man and IS God in whose image the man is created. As men in form we tend to look at these words as what they mean to us in form as the difference between the sexes but this is not an appropriate perspective when viewing divinity, Spirit or God in any way. The ideas included in these words are more than the sexes of the animal kingdom and the idea of fitting components as these words are fashioned in the English language. Without speculating as to what these may mean in their use here in Genesis, we can simply say what we have said before; that “male and female” is the combined understanding of the True nature of the Soul that is man, that the potencies of each are inherent in the Soul that can be born into a body of either sex and likely has been. When seen from the perspective that “male and female” have only to do with reproduction and the attraction on the physical plane that causes this reproduction to occur, we should be able to understand how useless these ideas would be in a formless spiritual plane.

We have gone quite far into this understanding of the nature of man in the last several posts and we will continue with this in the next post. It was our intent to come back to the sayings of the Master and His apostles that tell us that His nature and our nature are the same and we did touch a bit upon this from the perspective of Genesis as the established fact of our likeness to God and in our understanding of the Trinity. In the next post we will explore how this works out for the man who is aware of his True nature as well as the average man who is not. We still have our saying from the Buddha at the top of our essay and we should see that this also is very much a part of our current topic. We will try to finish our look at this in the next post as well.

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.

This Quote of the Day has now been with us for many days and in this we should be able to see and to understand the two levels of understanding from the perspective of the man in form; the one who sees only those things that are presented physically and the other who is “born of the Spirit” and sees Truth.

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