IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 527

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON LOVE; PART CXVI

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GoodWill IS Love in Action

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“And God said , Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 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. And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;  And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates. And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying , Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed” (Genesis 1:26-2:25).

In the last post we made it a bit further in our discussion on the ‘creation’ of man from our perspective; that it is the manifestation of the spiritual man, the Soul, that is spoken of in the First Chapter of Genesis and it is the forming over eons of time of the human animal body that the Soul will use as his vehicle of expression that is spoken of in the Second Chapter. As we moved on we were able to better explain and to understand the role of the sexes as they are portrayed in the text above which we repeat separately below as well; it is here that the convoluted understanding of the ideas of the woman being made of the man take root and it is here that the idea of male superiority that have plagued humanity from the beginning seem to originate. We should try to see two things in this ‘creation’ of the female human animal body, first that it is just that, a body and nothing more; in our view, the body is not the True man and does not define the Life that is using any particular body be it male or female. Second is our realization that as Souls ALL ARE the same in essence and in Purity if we can say it that way as we use the word to define for us in worldly terms the ideas encapsulated in the reality of Divine. In the words of the scripture we find the idea of the rib in many ways defining the role of the woman as the rib is ‘taken’ from the male and used to create the female; many believe to this day that the female of the human species has one more rib than the male but this is not a Truth; it is rather a doctrinal teaching by some who desire to emphasize their chosen position. The better reality here is to show in biblical terms the idea of equality that they are both, man and woman, made from the same materials and then, from our perspective, that these bodies are evolved over some long period of time.

Concerning the idea of evolution and the beginnings of Life, we cannot tell how it starts but the revelations of science are likely close to accurate as a general theme while they are at the same time untenable and changeable in the specifics that the also evolving sciences may provide. From this perspective we do not KNOW nor understand the origin of the role of the sexes and, there may have been a time when there was but one sex and hence the story of the creation of the female. This seems unlikely from our perspective but only because we cannot imagine the whys and the hows of reproduction without the sexes. We must understand that we are speaking of the body nature ONLY here and not the Life of the Soul that will use the body and in this may be a clue to our understanding of the sexes. Perhaps the male human animal form was FIRST able to be used as a vehicle for the expression of a divine Life and the female of the species was not and, for some time the Souls that would use these bodies were not born into them but rather ‘took possession’ of them as we have premised before. In time, the female human animal body with its different appearance and different hormonal and emotional balance was also ‘made’ to be suitable vehicle for the expression of the Soul and hence, the story of the secondary creation of the woman, Eve. We must understand that this is not the creation of the body of the woman itself as the bodies had long ago been ‘created’ in the Sixth Day as “the living creature after his kind“, but rather the rendering of that body as a suitable vehicle of expression for the Divine Man, the Soul. Thus, we must look at Adam and Eve as the first pair of Soul infused human animal bodies in the Earth and, again, we do not KNOW if these firsts are the individuals themselves or if these names are representative of many. Nonetheless, we have the Soul infused human bodies for the first time and in this scenario the male, Adam, precedes the female, Eve, based solely on the suitability of the human form to support the Life that IS the Soul.

The steps that we established in the last post are for us the reality of what we have in these chapters from Genesis and this above is but an expansion of that idea. Continuing with our discussion, our starting points of the last several posts are:

• Next we have the creation of the woman who was, according to the text, already created with the man during the creation in the image of God. Again this is either repetition and explanation or it yet another step in the bringing forth of the spiritual man into the Earth. There is another rather obscure saying in Genesis which may go well here: “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose” (Genesis 6:1-2).
• Amended statement: First, we should rephrase this as it is technically not right and this is the first that we have actually reread this point with earnest. The woman is created in the same time as the man from the perspective of the way it is written for us when God says: “Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind” (Genesis 1:24). This is the creation of ALL animal bodies and the human man and the human woman are among these. In the next verses we come to the Creation of man “in the image of God” and this we recognize as the manifestation of Spirit as Souls in the Kingdom of God where there are no sexes and this we will try to make clearer as we proceed. Our text for today is concerned with these verses which we place here again for clarity and we will say much here that is alien to the common understanding….even more so that what we have been writing.

“And the LORD God said  It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man” (Genesis 2:18-22).

We must look at the verses directly above in the assumed context in which they are written, as a simplistic explanation to the man in that day who could not understand the complexities of what is Truly happening. Here we should try to understand that when a Soul is incarnated by any means, that the Soul is subject to the capability and capacity of the form in which he is expressing; this says that while the Soul on its own plane may KNOW ALL things, it IS NOT until that Soul  has completely overcome the form nature, has completely overcome the world as the Master tells us, that he can realize these ALL things in his Life in form. This reality persists throughout time and throughout this world of men and each of us can testify to the slow and gradual sense of the realization of spiritual things as we progress along the Path to His Kingdom. In form man is subject to the vanity, to the illusion and the glamour that cloud the reality of the Life of the Soul and, as we have seen in Paul’s words, this is the intent of the Plan of God. Next we have the ending part of the saying directly above which is spoken first in the words of Adam and not of God; all these words can be treated in just that way; we read:

“And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed” (Genesis 2:23-25).

We have commented before that in these translations of the bible the doctrinal bent of the translators is bound to creep and we can see this dynamic at play in these words. Clearly Adam makes these first two statements in our King James Version (KJV) but this is not quite so clear in other versions and while this does not matter in the reality of Life, it is yet another source of the common understanding that has existed regarding a man and a woman. Additionally, in reading this Second Chapter we find the idea of “And the LORD God said” at the introduction to every word uttered by the Lord while in this particular instance we do not see this effect. The likely assumption here then is that these words are either Adams or that they are the commentary of the writer and this is picked up again in the New Testament in the words of the Master confounding this yet more and likely resulting in the ideas that are portrayed in many translations, that these are the words of the Lord saying: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh“. We should note that the Master is addressing the questions of the Pharisees regarding divorce in His response that is tied to this saying and is likely the cause of the change in the understanding from a statement seemingly from Adam to a statement from Adam followed by a statement by God although, as we say above, it is not addressed this way. The Master’s response in the Gospel of Mark does not address the source as it simply states the idea while the following one from Matthew’s Gospel seems that it may make claim for authorship as a part of the Genesis:

• “But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Mark 10:6-9).
  
• “And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Matthew 19:4-6).

Note here the different construction of the words and that in the second it is unclear as to the origin of the second verse, as to who said these words, the Master or God and, we should note again that this does not matter as in regard to what it means, it only matters in understanding how doctrines have brought us to the common understanding. We should also note that in this early part of Genesis the idea of wife is yet undefined and that in both the Hebrew and the Greek understanding the word translated as wife it could refer to any woman. Can we see here the implication that Paul makes saying “know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh” ? and can we see how this implication is largely ignored? There is much that we do not understand about this matter of the relationship of the male and the female, and the husband and the wife and there is much uncertainty on the whole subject of sex and the sexes. We will address these most important parts of mans Earth Life in future posts but for now we seek only to establish what we have said, that it is the reality of the Soul’s subjection to the ways of the world, to the human animal instincts and appetites as they play a large part in the vanity and the illusions of Life itself, that puts men and women in this awkward position which, when compounded by emotion, results in those ways of man that the Master teaches against.

In the understanding that both the male and the female are Souls expressing through form and that the objective of Life is not in the things and the relationships of this world, ALL of the interpersonal conflicts between a man and wife disappear in the reality of Love and of purpose. Short of this we have the same relativity of sex and the relationship of the sexes that have existed since the dawn of history; this starts in the words of Adam who claims that the woman is a part of the man rather than claiming the equality of both being formed of the same materials, “of the dust of the ground“. Adam’s sayiings go without comment and the effect is not noted in the text as affecting the relationship of the two; the text abruptly moves to the serpent. Before we go there however we should complete our thoughts regarding our sense of reality here:

• We have here in time and space two individual human animal bodies, one male and one female and both expressing the Life of a Soul who, when he first takes possession of the form is still relatively in control of his own expression.
  
• Through the idea of the animals and the bringing forth of a woman version of the human animal we can glean a sense of want on the part of the male, Adam; he is looking for more and tries to find it in the lower animals but this does not work out to his liking and we come then to the ‘creation’ of the female human animal.
• Based upon our own relationships, we should be able to see the threat of conflict between two equal but separate beings in the world; not from the perspective of the Soul but from the perspective of the animal forms that are competitive and have roles to play and this is True in virtually every species.
• Can we see here the difficulty for the Soul who is slowly or quickly losing ground in control of the Life on Earth as he succumbs more and more to the wiles of the animal form that he is using? Can we see the conflict of two or more males as have likely been going on for eons prior to the use of the human animal as the host for a Soul? Can we see also that the female of the human animal species has already existed and that the now Soul infused male human who is losing control of the Life of the body is attracted to this ‘creature’ by the instincts and the appetites of the form itself and how this relationship with the female human animal is purely physical until such time as there is the ‘creation’ of a female human form that can serve as a vehicle of the Soul?
• And finally, can we but imagine the working our of these things from our perspective today as Souls in form who ARE NOT in control of the instincts and the appetites and the emotions of the body and the personality? Can we look from this perspective at fifty years ago and around the world? a hundred years ago? longer? This is evolution and this is the progress of the race of men and the same that afflicts man in your imaginings around the world likely afflicted the early Adam and Eve in much the same way as they steadily lose control over the body, lose it in the reality of Paul’s words saying: “the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope” (Romans 8:20). And, this reason is the Plan of God as it works out in the Earth.

We will continue with our thoughts in the next post and continue on to the end part of the point above and our last point below.

• Last we have the trees; “the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil“.

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 repeat here again a saying that is from the Bhagavad Gita and which goes well with our topic over the last several days. Today we see the God Within us as the Christ Within and this is good in the Christian world and this is True based upon our understanding of the Christ as the manifestation of God. We should see that it matters not what we call this Inner Man as it is the same in ALL, it is the Soul.

Thou carriest within thee a sublime Friend whom thou knowest not. For God dwells in the inner part of every man, but few know how to find Him. The man who sacrifices his desires and his works to the Beings from whom the principles of everything stem, and by whom the Universe was formed, through this sacrifice attains perfection. For one who finds his happiness and joy within himself, and also his wisdom within himself is one with God. And, mark well, the soul which has found God is freed from rebirth and death, from old age and pain, and drinks the water of Immortality.—Bhagavad-Gita

It is difficult to tell just what verses of the Bhagavad Gita the above is from; whether it is a paraphrase or a combination. It is from the book “The Great Initiates” by Édouard Schuré which was originally published in French in 1889 and perhaps it is in the translation of the verses that they become hard to recognize. However, the sheer beauty of the presentation caught my attention and so I share it with you. The Path to the Kingdom is the same no matter what religion one professes.