Monthly Archives: June 2013

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON LOVE; PART CCXCVIII

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GoodWill IS Love in Action

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Of all that the Master told us, He considered this as the Greatest of Commandments. So much of what we are to understand as aspirants or as believers is found in the precept that we must KEEP HIS WORDS:

“And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:30-31).

We ask ourselves WHAT THEN IS LOVE?

In a general sense love is 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.

We add to this THE EVER IMPORTANT AND HIGH IDEAL TAUGHT TO US BY THE CHRIST which can serve to both give us an understanding of what it means to Love oneself and how it is that we can Love our neighbor:

“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them“ (Matthew 7:12).

In the last post we closed out our look at the words of the Apostle Paul to the Epicureans and the Stoics at Athens and would here just try to emphasize the bottom line message that we get from this speech. Remembering that the apostle IS speaking to what would be considered heathens from the doctrinal Christian perspective, Paul tells them clearly that the God that they worship IS the SAME GOD that he is preaching as the Father of the Christ, the Father God as the Master teaches us, and this for us says simply that there IS but ONE GOD, a fact that we already realize based upon our ability to view this from the perspective of the Soul in form and not the self-centered personality in the world that is beset by the illusion and the glamour of Life in form. We find here in these words part of the impetus that led to our own declaration of the Truth of ONE WORLD, ONE HUMANITY and ONE GOD ALL working together toward that final redemption of which we can only dream. These words ARE a realization that must be accepted by ALL men as the Truth of our existence here in this world and this IS like any other spiritual pursuit and accomplishment; ALL are realizations of Truth that serve to center the Life of the personality, his focus if you will, onto the important parts of Life in the world, the most important of which are listed above in the Great Commandment and the Golden Rule. Paul’s speech here to these Greeks should serve to show how he reconciled his own understanding of God with that of these men of Athens and the lesson to the world should have been that we reconcile our views of God with those of others as well rather that let the roles of illusion and glamour intercede and cause this separative attitude of religions and Gods that still persists today. Our lesson in ALL this IS that there IS AND CAN BE ONLY ONE GOD if our understanding of God is True, that He IS that One Boundless, Immutable, Eternal and Infinite Presence in whom, as Paul tells us, “we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28). And while it is common to attach personality to God as this Awesome Presence, there is in reality none that we can even remotely comprehend and we should try to see His personality as the accumulated and individual personalities of those who have been able to realize His Truth….and chief among these from our perspective IS the Christ.

The personality of Christ IS in essence the personality that was displayed by Jesus over 2000 years ago and we should try to realize here that our understanding of the Christ IS at best deficient. The physical body and the personality of Jesus was born into this world as ALL bodies and personalities are born into this world but with one great difference which IS that the Soul that gives Life to the body of Jesus IS a Soul who had already accomplished the Highest Calling of a Soul in incarnation. He did this in a previous Life and was thereby suited to come into His Life as Jesus in the reality of Paul’s words that “in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9), while this same achievement, expressing the fullness of the Godhead in this world, IS for us an objective and a goal. And, in His Virgin Birth we have the sign and the symbol that it IS the Soul Life that IS True man and that this Life is active, sans the body, in eternity albeit in ways that we can hardly comprehend. And this IS our Truth, that the more that a man in the world can focus upon the Soul, the Christ Within, which IS the True self, the closer he will come to the expression of the Love and the Power of the Soul up to that perfection that we see in Jesus as “in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily“. It IS the Master who tells us clearly that:

• ” for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you” (Matthew 17:20) AND AGAIN THAT:
• “And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you” (Luke 17:6) AND AGAIN THAT:
• “For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith” (Mark 11:23).

In these sayings by the Master to His disciples we have a Great KEY to our own future but we must understand that this capability of control over the physical word comes ONLY to those who have achieved that degree of perfection that the Master tells us of saying “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48) and it IS in this perfection that we find that fullness of the Godhead and control over the physical realm of which the moving of the mountain and the plucking up of the sycamine tree are but examples; and, these are examples that would NOT be done by the disciple that is capable as these things are contrary to the expression of the Love of God. But this IS the Power of the Christ in the world and this Power and ability is of a nature that once it IS achieved it IS a part of the True man, the Soul who can say with the Master that “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Remembering then that the Christ tells us that “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30), which is tantamount to telling us that we are the same when we can so realize these Truths, can we see the reality of the the Virgin Birth in a new Light as the Christ IS able to do whatsoever He Will in this physical realm that is completely under His control. There are likely limits to these abilities but we CAN NOT say what they might be as the Truth would be that to achieve this state where  “in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” there ARE only God thoughts and God actions against the stated mission which we can perhaps see as the Redemption of humanity and in some way the Redemption the world itself. There can be no malice, there can ONLY be Love and two things that we should remember here are the free-will of man in the world and the Glory of Transfiguration when the free-will brings a man in the world fully back to the realization of what He Truly IS, fully to perfection.

Another part of these Great Mysteries is in the Name of Christ which technically IS NOT a name; though adopted by Christians as a personal name this Greek word Christos means Anointed and in this we should understand this as Anointed of God. Now this word anointed can be a confusing one in its own right as our understanding IS from our language; let us look here at some various understandings and points:

• Webster’s 1828 version says this: ANOINT”ED, pp. Smeared or rubbed with oil; set apart; consecrated with oil. ANOINT”ED, n. The Messiah, or Son of God, consecrated to the great office of Redeemer; called the Lord”s anointed. Cyrus is also called the Lord”s anointed. Isaiah 45 ¹. Taking away the doctrinal ideas we should see the reality of set apart and consecrated but neither of these contributes much to our right understanding of this word as it IS used of the Master.
• Our more modern dictionary tells us that anointed means: 1. to rub or sprinkle on; apply an unguent, ointment, or oily liquid to. 2. to smear with any liquid. 3. to consecrate or make sacred in a ceremony that includes the token applying of oil: He anointed the new high priest. 4. to dedicate to the service of God ⁷. Again we have little here that can help us to understand the Truth of the word as it applies to the Christ except in the last point which is dedicated to Gods service.
• The lexicon gives us only the definition of the Greek word Christos as anointed  and says: Christ = “anointed” Christ was the Messiah, the Son of God; anointed ². Again we have little of help in understanding except to see the Greek word as used in the gospels where it is not seen as a name:
  • This likely IS better seen in Peter’s words “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16) or as it is phrased in Luke’s Gospel: “Peter answering said , The Christ of God” (Luke 9:20).
  • Or in the words of Martha, a sister of Lazarus, who says to the Master: “Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world” (John 11:27).
• Vincent gives us some ideas in word study regrading the use of the word Christos which is rendered as Christ; he tells us: Properly an adjective, not a noun, and meaning anointed ( Χρίω , to anoint). It is a translation of the Hebrew Messiah, the king and spiritual ruler from David’s race, promised under that name in the Old Testament (Psalm 2:2; Daniel 9:25, Daniel 9:26). Hence Andrew says to Simon, “We have found the Messiah, which is, being interpreted, Christ (John 1:41; compare Acts 4:27; Acts 10:38; Acts 19:28). To us “Christ “has become a proper name, and is therefore written without the definite article; but, in the body of the gospel narratives, since the identity of Jesus with the promised Messiah is still in question with the people, the article is habitually used, and the name should therefore be translated “the Christ.” After the resurrection, when the recognition of Jesus as Messiah has become general, we find the word beginning to be used as a proper name, with or without the article. In this passage it omits the article, because it occurs in the heading of the chapter, and expresses the evangelist’s own faith in Jesus as the Messiah ⁴. Here we get some insight into the use of the word in the Gospels with the definite article although perhaps not for the reasons that Vincent cites and the leaving off of the definite article is perhaps one of the first doctrinal conventions.

We should try to see that in the usage of this word Christ IS the reality of Anointed and it is difficult to say today that we are speaking about Jesus the Anointed although this IS the reality of these words. So then what does this mean and how is this and can this be related to the Soul of man, the Christ Within? If we look at the meanings of the English word anointed we can get some idea of the force of this word as it works in the world and from our perspective here as men in form. Let us understand first that the Christ, the historical Christ, IS a Soul, a very advanced Soul, who has “overcome the world” and has come among us as a teacher and a guide. Let us also try to understand that as Souls ALL are the same and equal except insofar as this dynamic of achievement and perhaps the ‘time’ in which each has been a self-conscious of man and while this may seem an odd idea, it takes on a clearer light when we look at this in relation to eternity and the constant motion of ALL things as they move closer and closer to the full realization of the Great and Awesome Truth that IS God. Again, we must try to see this ALL from the perspective of man in this world as once one has achieved this fullness as a part of this world scheme, there are likely infinite realities yet to conquer. So the Christ, the Anointed of God IS set apart as a Soul, as a Soul of man which in itself has some sense of accomplishment and it is an esoteric understanding that ALL Spirit, ALL divine sparks of that Great Divine Flame we call God, must pass through this phase as a self-conscious Soul as we ARE and beyond this simple statement we KNOW nothing. The Christ then and the Christ Within each of us who are in form, or in the afterlife between incarnations, or in the Eternal Kingdom as those who have been delivered, IS set apart and IS consecrated which we should see as similar but with a more spiritual angle than just set apart. In this idea then of consecrated we should see as a part of its definition a one that IS dedicated to Gods service and here we have used the three ideas that we have taken from our meanings above. So then as Souls we are ALL the Christ, the Anointed of God and we are set apart and consecrated, which IS dedicated to His service and in our saying this there are likely many in the church who would cry blasphemy towards our words and ideas.

But we ARE in the world and here we are removed from this anointing and from the Truth of our Sonship until we can come to the full realization that we ARE the Anointed and we ARE Sons of God and this realization comes to us by degree and proceeds by our Right focus until that point where we can say with the Master that “I have overcome the world” and can come to that realization of perfection of which Paul tells us “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13). We should see in Paul’s words our future, our potential, and this we interpret and understand as Till we come in the single-mindedness of the KNOWING of the things of God and the knowledge of ourselves as Sons of God as a perfect man in the world who IS the measure of the stature and the fullness of Christ. We should see that we have made this verse from Paul very personal and this is of course in our sense of reading and we should note that from our perspective the words “knowledge of the Son of God” can just as rightly be reference to the Christ Within and our own Souls as Sons of God. And, in case we forget His words to us that tell us of our ability to do and to accomplish these things we should again visit the words of the Apostle John who tells us that: “as he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17) which we should see as that we are both Souls in form and that we have the same nature and ability in this world; and the caveat here is again that realization as that which we read here in Paul’s words to the Ephesians. We close here with some of the Master’s own words that tell us this same thing; that we can be as He IS:

• “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father” (John 14:12).
• “The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master” (Luke 6:40).

Attended a preschool graduation today of two grandchildren and saw this poster in the cafeteria of the Catholic School which they attend. Thought it enlightening and worth sharing and the link to the website from which I retrieved this and which offers this for sale is at the bottom of today’s essay.

We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.

Aspect of God	Potency	Aspect of Man	In Relation to the Great Invocation	In relation to the Christ
GOD, The Father	Will or Power	Spirit or Life	Center where the Will of God IS KNOWN	Life
Son, The Christ	Love and Wisdom	Soul or Christ Within	Heart of God	Truth
Holy Spirit	Light or Activity	Life Within	Mind of God	Way

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.

There is a certain esoteric Mantram which embodies this attitude—the attitude of the disciple who is striving, in cooperative endeavour with others, to link hierarchical intent with human aspiration and thus bring humanity nearer to its goal. The intent of the Hierarchy is to increase men’s capacity for freedom in order to function effectively with that “life more abundantly” which the Christ will bring and which demands that the spirit of man be free—free to approach divinity and free also to choose the Way of that approach. The Mantram bears the name, “The Affirmation of the Disciple.” It involves certain inner recognitions and acceptances which are readily perceived by those whose intuition is sufficiently awake; but its meaning should not be beyond the ability of any sincere student and thinker to penetrate if it appeals to them as significant and warranting their effort. ‡

I am a point of light within a greater Light.
I am a strand of loving energy within the stream of Love divine.
I am a point of sacrificial Fire, focussed within the fiery Will of God.

And thus I stand

I am a way by which men may achieve.
I am a source of strength, enabling them to stand.
I am a beam of light, shining upon their way.

And thus I stand.

And standing thus, revolve
And tread this way the ways of men,
And know the ways of God.

And thus I stand.

We repeat what we had previously said of this Mantram:

Today’s Quote of the Day is called the Affirmation of the Disciple and is spoken from the perspective of the Soul and not from that of the man in form. It is the Soul that we are in this life on Earth, housed in this ‘temple’ of flesh and it is the Light of the Soul that must flow through this ‘temple’ in order that we may say with the Christ “I have overcome the world“ (John 16:33) which is our goal and our destiny. Speaking then as the Soul we affirm our reality and true existence in God and in His Three Aspects of Light and Love and His Will. As this Light and Love and Will flow through our conscious personalities and forms we, as disciples, take on the nature of the second stanza being able to offer to the world a better way through our service and our Love for all, encouragement to righteousness through our strength of purpose, and the Light which shines in accordance with the Master’s instructions to “Let your light so shine before men” (Matthew 5:16) and illuminates the Path. Finally we realize that we are standing in this world and walking as men but, as conscious Souls in form, we know the way and the ways of God and are able to say with the Christ that “I am not of this world” (John 8:23).

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!

• ¹ Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1828 and 1913
• ² New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
• ⁴ Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
• ⁷ Dictionary.com Unabridged based on Random House Dictionary – 2011
• ‡ TELEPATHY AND THE ETHERIC VEHICLE BY ALICE A. BAILEY © 1950 BY LUCIS TRUST
• http://www.allposters.com/gallery.asp?