Monthly Archives: January 2013

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON LOVE; PART CXL

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GoodWill IS Love in Action

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“And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life” (Genesis 3:22-24).

While Love is the Way par excellence for the man in the world to come BACK to the reality of his spiritual and divine nature, it is also sorely misunderstood as we have been discussing and as our reprint of our prior words on this should show. It is also True that the ONLY source of reality is from within, from that place that the Master tells us is the Kingdom of God and which we KNOW as such, as the home of the Soul, and the very Soul itself. This is a difficult concept to understand when we see Life from our three dimensional perspective and this is the rub and this is what adds to our sense of illusion. It is here that the words of the Master give clue and hint to our reality but do not explain and this is by His design which tells us that only those who are focused upon the reality of Life as disciples get to KNOW these mysteries that surround us and keep the man who is not striving imprisoned in the illusion and the glamour, the vanity of Life in the world. Let us look as some of His words:

• “Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see , and hearing they might not understand” (Luke 8:10). We should understand that the Master is speaking to His disciples ONLY with these words and this is just before His explanation to them of the Parable of the Sower which, as a parable, they did not understand either. We should add that even the Master’s explanation of this parable is not understood by many still today. We can always point to others who we think are by the wayside or on the rock or in the thorns while we easily believe ourselves to be the good ground; this is of course illusion and the reality of this is that most of us are to whom the Master refers above, the others that neither see nor hear Truth. If all those that believe that they are the good ground were, the Love that the Master teaches would permeate the world  and the lives of men; however, so long as we live in a way that IS generally separatist, overly selfish and where we care but little for our brother, our  neighbor, or the stranger who qualifies as both we are deluded. As we said in the last post, it is Love that is the Way and it is our expression of Love that holds the key to the mysteries and, we should add here, it is only in striving that we can hope to find the reality of the Love that IS God and the courage to express it.
• “Neither shall they say , Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold , the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). We say above that the Kingdom of God IS the home of the Soul, and the very Soul itself and we go on to introduce the context of our essay from there. It is here is this saying by the Master that we find the True key to these ideas. Let us look at the words that we have on this from the Master and do so in a logical fashion and not according to some doctrine which discounts our saying above because it does not understand. We have often said that in this world of illusion and glamour much that is said in parable is believed literally and much that is literal is seen as having a different meaning. In the context of our teaching on this we should see this as a literal statement with no real parabolic value other than not KNOWING what exactly is the Kingdom of God; here we should see the Master telling us that we can look wherever for the Kingdom, here or there, or coming in the clouds, or descending from above but that we will not find it because it IS NOT a place but a state of being, a realization with no physical characteristics at all. The entirety of the concept that one dies and goes to heaven is a misplaced fantasy and those who bring us stories of seeing heaven with its mansions and loved ones are but telling stories of dreams and visions which at best may reflect upon the reality of the afterlife for man; this IS NOT however the Kingdom of God. And, if it were and if we were to listen to and accept the words of the Master, NO ONE would be there; who can say that they comply with the Master’s words saying: “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). The Kingdom of God is the realization of Soul consciousness by the man in form on the Earth and this realization is achieved by one’s concentrated focus upon the things of God, keeping His words, and becoming His disciple.
• “All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them: That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 13:34-35). In this saying is our confirmation of the reality of the Master’s teaching and for a reader of the gospels to believe that he is beyond the multitude in stature is again illusion and glamour as there are but two distinctions in the Master’s teaching, the disciple and the multitudes. We should note also that while the nature of some of the parables have been discerned by man over the last 2000 years, there are many that still remain a mystery, subject to varying interpretations and there are yet others that should continue to grow in meaning but have not. We did some extensive work on the Parables of Jesus and while we do not proclaim our own correctness nor authority in interpretation, we are not seeing many as doctrine does. Many of the Master’s parables are treated in a rather literal fashion in doctrines which do not see the true depth while others are treated as eschatology although there are deeper and more important ideas veiled within them. Eschatology is but a sidebar in the teachings of the Master that is both mysterious in nature and difficult to discern yet there is a great fascination with this in the churches, a fascination which only serves to dilute His Truths with ideas that are rather meaningless. We should see in the words of the prophet above that this hiding of Truth in parables is not a new concept but that these mysteries are “kept secret from the foundation of the world” and these Truths are those ideas that are hidden in the words of the Master and His Apostles. We should try to understand as well that they are Truly discernible ONLY to disciples though we can likely stretch this to those who are Truly focused upon the Kingdom and the things of God….striving if you will. And, from our perspective, this stretch may be illusion as well.
• “These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father. At that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God. I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father. His disciples said unto him, Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb. Now are we sure that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee: by this we believe that thou camest forth from God” (John 16:25-30). This is a rather long selection but it is important that we understand the implications; these are HIS disciples and these things are said after the supper, after the washing of the disciples feet and after much teaching about Himself and His relation to the Father and of course after the nearly three years that He was with them teaching and doing miracles. Yet, after all this and right before the end, the Master tells them that He had been teaching them “These things” by parable or proverb as well; because they did not or could not understand? we do not KNOW;  because it was not yet time for them the KNOW the Truth? we do not KNOW. We only KNOW that He tells us this thing and while many try to interpret this as ‘certain things’ we take the broader view as His words at this time cover a multitude of issues. Our point here is that is these disciples, after being with Him and KNOWING Him as they do, still cannot fully discern what it is that He is telling them and seeing this, why does mankind believe that over the course of the last 2000 years that even one who does not KNOW Him, one who does not exhibit the qualities of a disciple as the Master paints them for us, or one who is not accounted worthy as He teaches us is done, that they can discern these things that His closest disciples could not? The answer is simply illusion and glamour. We should understand here as well that although the disciples make claim that “Now are we sure that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee: by this we believe that thou camest forth from God“, that the better reality is found in their reaction to His imprisonment and crucifixion and the universal doubting they exhibit at His resurrection; as we read it, they are not Truly convinced, they do not Truly KNOW, until His time with them after the resurrection where He reinforces His teachings from a new perspective.

We are in this world of illusion and it had much the same effect upon the man in Jesus’ day that it has on us today except that we have a more focused mental capability should we choose to use it. The reality of ALL of this is that to believe that we KNOW any thing about God and about His Love is but illusion and glamour if we are not focused upon Him and the things of God and this according to His teachings and not according to the doctrines that man builds as a cover for his inability to be True. This is a hard saying but it is from our reading of the words of the Master, the Truth and we go again to the Apostle Paul and to his Epistle to the Romans for words of wisdom. Here, the apostle is quoting various sayings from the Old Testament, words that point us to the reality we need to see, a reality that is beyond the doctrinal teachings of being accounted worthy. Paul tells us:

“What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.  They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Romans 3:9-12).

We should see here first that Paul is telling us that we are ALL the same and that the rest of these words apply to ALL. It is here that we should see that it is only in our complete submission to His words that we can be free of the illusion and the glamour and stand free of the vanity to which we are subjected as men in form; it is only in our complete submission to ALL that He tells us to do that we “shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21) and it is only in our complete submission to ALL that He teaches us that we can stand and say as He does “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

We leave today with some selections from the Dhammapada, the sayings of the Buddha, that are related to our ideas above albeit from a different perspective. We will discuss these in the next post as we try to move on to the completion of our ideas from Genesis and our final saying on this below:

Master your words.
Master your thoughts.
Never allow your body to do harm.
Follow these three roads with purity
And you will find yourself upon the one way,
The way of wisdom.

However many holy words you read, however many you speak, What good will they do you If you do not act upon them? Are you a shepherd who counts another man’s sheep, never sharing the way? Read as few words as you like, and speak fewer. But act upon the dharma (law). Give up the old ways – passion, enmity, folly. Know the truth and find peace. Share the way. 

Love yourself and watch – 
Today, tomorrow, always.
First establish yourself in the way,
Then teach,
And so defeat sorrow.
To straighten the crooked 
You must first do a harder thing – 
Straighten yourself.
You are your only master.
Who else?
Subdue yourself,
And discover your master.

We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.

• “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.  And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth: And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters: And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died” (Genesis 5:1-5) .

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:

Having touched upon the thoughts of Paul regarding Love and his relationship of this to what we can see today as illusion and then to his reality of Truth insofar as perception, we post his words again as the Quote of the Day along with our previous comments.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:1-13) (New King James Version)

Regardless of our daily theme, the underlying theme of our posts and of this entire blog is Love. In these words from Paul we should be able to see the overriding importance of Love in the Life of each of us. This is a common theme throughout the gospels and the other writings of the apostles and a theme that is not nearly understood. In our theme today regarding Paul’s writings to the Romans and in the previous discussions on them we seek to impart the better understanding of the reality of Life, the Life of the True man as the Christ Within, the Soul, as it is from this perspective that we can gain that revelation of Truth and, as Paul says above, be free from the condemnation and the vanity of Life in form, free from the illusion and the glamour. We repeat here what we said about these verses in a prior post:

Today’s Quote of the Day from the Apostle Paul is his testimony to the power of Love. After speaking at length about the gifts of the Spirit that one should desire in order to be of service to the Lord, he says plainly that Love is a more excellent way. Love in the context of these verses is not the sentimental or affectionate kind that we ordinarily think of but rather benevolence, good will; that disposition of heart which inclines men to think favorably of their fellow men, and to do them good. In a theological sense, it includes supreme love to God, and universal good will to men. This defining of Love is covered in some depth in a previous post; In the Words of Jesus part 47.