Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
ON LOVE; PART CCXCVII
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•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•ΑΩ•Α
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).
After discussing the reality of the concepts of ONE WORLD, ONE HUMANITY and ONE GOD as presented in the speech of the Apostle Paul to the Epicureans and the Stoics at Athens in the last post, and the converse attitudes of parts of the Christian church that holds to the idea that the Hindu God and the Muslim God are different entities and false religions, we found another saying by the apostle that paints Truth in a way that makes the decisions that we make about such things as God and our brother as very personal thing and a very personal responsibility. As we closed we suggested that ALL should search their own hearts, away from doctrines, or at least understanding them as such, for the Truth of one’s own thoughts, attitudes and actions in the world and here we would remind ourselves that unless we are living in Love, unless our expression IS GoodWill to ALL men along with a keen understanding of their plight based upon our knowledge of our own, we ARE NOT likely to find the Kingdom of God regardless of what we may believe about the rather nebulous concepts of faith and believing as these are understood in the world today. The Truth of faith and believing IS in KNOWING and this KNOWING comes from the Soul, from the True man, the Christ Within; this KNOWING comes through focus upon these realities and with this focus comes that True striving which is evidenced by one’s ALL out attempt to keep His words. These words, striving and attempt, are related from the perspective that in these spiritual pursuits they ARE the same; to say that one IS striving without the corresponding attempts to keep His words IS NOT a True striving and here again we come to that idea above of this being a very personal thing and a very personal responsibility.
Now there IS plain common sense here from our perspective as we correlate this idea of keeping His words with the reality of His sayings regarding the Kingdom of God. The Master tells us that we should strive as He says: “Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able” (Luke 13:24) and this should be clear to ALL. As we discussed a few posts back from a different perspective, this same idea is presented by Matthew as “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate” (Matthew 7:13). In Matthew’s Gospel this is an instruction for finding the Kingdom, that we CAN NOT continue in the wide way of the world and the self but we must narrow our focus to the strait gate of Truth and of Love. In Luke’s Gospel there is a question posed on how to achieve the Kingdom and here the answer IS that we strive; here the gate IS the same and the instruction is the same but the intent is different. In the Sermon of the Mount the instruction IS clearly that the way to the Kingdom is to “Enter ye in at the strait gate” and the warning of the difficulty in so doing while in the answer to the question the Master acknowledges the difficulty by telling is to strive, to try, to attempt and this IS the same idea that we get in the end of the saying with which we closed the last essay: “for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not“. Completing our point here we note that this striving is our attempt to do those things that will make a man accounted worthy of the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom that the Master tells us IS within as He says “behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21) and we hold this understanding of within against the attempts by some to change this meaning to more worldly ideas that conform to their own model of heaven and hell. So then we have striving to enter a Kingdom that IS within and this of course makes little or no sense to the man grounded in Life in this world but, when one considers that he IS the Soul, the Christ Within the Kingdom, and not this form, the reality of within begins to take on its True meaning which can be briefly stated as the Soul, living through form, IS the Inner man, the True man, and from the perspective of the consciousness in form this is the Life, the Soul, the God and the Christ within us ALL and if God IS within then so must be His Kingdom.
Here in this context we should see that that being accounted worthy is then the working out of the Inner Life of the Soul through the form in the world which IS accomplished through focus and the striving to keep His words. This is the realization by the consciousness of the inner divinity and the expression by degree of the Love and the Power of the Soul in the world. So then to strive toward the Kingdom or the realization of the Kingdom is to attempt to focus upon the things of God and in so doing to keep His words which is the Way….the activity of the Christ Within in the world of men which activity we see also as the Holy Spirit. Striving to keep His words IS not the end all of this, it is in the actual doing that we find that point of being accounted worthy while striving is merely the way to achieve this realization; striving IS the work of the aspirant while doing is the work of the disciple and again, we will find that there are degrees of discipleship and the Kingdom as alluded to by Paul in his reference, some say to himself, of “such an one caught up to the third heaven” (2 Corinthians 12:2) and the culmination of these degrees is likely to be found in being perfect. Our point here is to the idea of being accounted worthy as the mark of discipleship and attainment of the Kingdom and we find these two ideas in the Master’s words as He tells us:
- “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).
- “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed” (John 8:31).
Of course we must understand our premise that these sayings from the Master ARE synonymous, keeping His words and doing the Will of the Father, and this is fostered by the Truth of the Master’s statement that “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30). It IS then in looking at these ideas that we must see ourselves, our hearts, our consciousness in this world, in relation to the words from Paul that we ended with in the last essay as he tells us: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. (Galatians 6:7-9). Now while the language is different from the Master’s words of keeping His words and doing the Will of the Father, the intent is the same as we should see that sowing to the Spirit IS the way of Life, the way of that realization of divinity and being accounted worthy and this regardless of how one views the idea of “life everlasting” which is from the same words as the Master’s use of Eternal Life, which is the way many other bible translations render this. We should remember that in this Greek word aionios means without beginning and end, that which always has been and always will be; without beginning; without end, never to cease, everlasting, according to the lexicon 2 which IS the reality of eternity. In this construct we have eternal as always was and always will be so that this reaping CAN NOT be this as a gift but rather as a realization and this corresponds with those other realities regarding the Life of the essence of the man and of ALL things: Spirit. Here we must take ourselves back again to those words from Genesis as they correspond with the Master words: “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). Genesis of course 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” (Genesis 1:27) and while this may see contradictory, there is much Truth here if we can discern it. We can look at this in two ways; one is that the Divine Substance that becomes ALL things IS spiritual in its essence and just IS as God IS, this Substance IS as it IS part and parcel of Him; out of this substance we have man who, as that Spark of the Divine Flame, always was but now has the added and earned benefit of self-consciousness as a Spiritual Being. Our second view IS in the way that man is made manifest here in this Earth; this IS NOT a direct manifestation as is misread in Genesis but rather the manifestation of the Spirit that IS man, as the Soul that can incarnate in this world, so that as Spirit there is the Likeness of God as “God is a Spirit” and as the Soul there is the Likeness of God as the Trinity of Spirit as the Father, Soul as the Son, the Christ, and a the Holy Spirit as the activity of the Christ or of God. In ALL of this there IS NOT yet the man in the world in human form which we should try to see from Genesis as a separate action of creation by God. We cover these ideas in much detail over several posts beginning with In the Words of Jesus part 512 and it is important here that we try to see these ideas away from the doctrines that take this creation of ALL things literally and which at the same time CAN NOT explain the many seemingly contradictory sayings that make up their view.
We should understand as well that much of the Truths of these divine and spiritual concepts is incomprehensible to man although as Spirit and Soul he KNOWS them. It is ONLY when a man is awakened to the presence of the Soul and when that Soul is expressing his Life through the form to some degree that these revelations can even be glimpsed by the consciousness in the world and this glimpsing can eventually come to that point where we can ponder these concepts and attempt to explain them in human terms. And it is for this reason that we caution the reader that these are but attempts to express what CAN NOT be adequately expressed by words and we add here that the purpose of these attempts is to encourage the reader to ponder these thoughts in the Light of his own Soul as it is from the Soul that these Truths will emerge and this IS of course accomplished by one’s Right focus which IS on the things of God.
Returning to our quote above from Paul’s writing to the Galatians, we should look at the context of the whole saying as this excursion into the Truth of the meanings of eternal as always was and always will be is but a interesting and perhaps illuminating sidebar. The crux of the apostles words are found in the idea that regardless of what one does in the world claiming it to be ‘of God’ or ‘for God’ is fruitless if the result of such claim is for the self in the world and in this we added yesterday that this is a purely personal thing as each of us who are of sane mind will KNOW that such a claim is absolutely True, partially True or not True at ALL. This IS the idea behind Paul’s words that “Be not deceived; God is not mocked” as we realize that WE DO KNOW our state of spiritual living and we are likely the only one who can KNOW. In the popular notion that God KNOWS our hearts, we should try to understand that this reference should be to the God Within, our ONLY and personal link to God. The Apostle John help us here by this from his first epistle; John tells us:
“My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him. For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God” (1 John 3:18-21).
Here in John’s words we have this same idea that we have from Paul but in a differently graphic way as John tells us that we should not Love in word or in tongue only but rather “in deed and in truth” which is much the same as that saying that we refer to often from the Apostle James who tells us as clearly “be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22). We should note here the constant of deception in these words from Paul and from James and in both cases this is self-deception as a man deludes himself by thinking that he is doing right. However, according to the apostles this is a false belief and that the man who so believes CAN and DOES KNOW based simply upon the simple fact of DOING. This becomes then a tricky subject as a spiritually minded man in the world will think on those things that he may be doing in righteousness but does not generally reflect upon those that he IS NOT doing except in sincere reflection or as reminded by these words that require being “doers of the word” in the one saying and that we should Love “in deed and in truth” in another and sees these ideas in contrast to the opposite views expressed by the apostles. Now we DO KNOW our own hearts and, as John reveals above, the God Within “knoweth all things“. While he may not say this explicitly referring to the God Within we can deduce this meaning from our own understanding of Life and the hidden words of scripture. Here the idea of heart IS as the consciousness that can be a reflection of the personality in the world or of the Soul, the God Within, and this is of course dependent upon one’s focus which understanding is found in the full quote from Paul to the Galatians above. John gives us this same dynamic from a different perspective as he puts the idea of focus into his words telling us that we “we know that we are of the truth….. if our heart condemn us not” and here we should try to see that these ideas work for the man who is in that realm of duality as is the aspirant and the disciple that is still in this world to any degree. We should understand as well that this realm of duality affects not only those like us who are understanding of our place as aspirants but the millions of spiritually leaning people that approach God in whatever way that they KNOW; it is to these as well that these words and ALL words that reflect duality apply.
Returning to the words of Paul above we find a much more practical way of viewing this than is offered in the ofttimes nebulous words of John and we use this word in a positive sense. Paul makes the point that it is in the sowing and the reaping that we find our Truth; if oUr sowing or our focus IS upon the flesh, the things of the self and the self in the world, then this IS what we reap….things for the self and the self in the world which is from a spiritual perspective corruption. However, if our focus Is on the things of God then we will reap things of God which we can interpret here as the Wisdom from above and the fruit of the Spirit. Perhaps it is in the nature of that vanity to which man is subjected, the illusion and the glamour of Life in this world, that we are able to so delude ourselves as to think that we are doing right and doctrine plays no small part in this equation for as a man believes so will he act. And, unless a man has no other exposure to scripture, unless he is only bound to the doctrines that he KNOWS, he can and he will be awakened by Truth and it is in this arena that these words from Paul and John and James come into play.
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!
- 2 New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
- ‡ TELEPATHY AND THE ETHERIC VEHICLE BY ALICE A. BAILEY © 1950 BY LUCIS TRUST
