Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
ON LOVE; PART CCXCIII
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).
In the last essay we again looked at the nature of the terms used in the New Testament that relate to our ‘salvation’, discipleship and the Kingdom of God. We looked again at the ideas of born again and keeping His words which Jesus states as “doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21) as regards the Kingdom and as “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed” (John 8:31) as regards discipleship which we see as synonymous terms: attaining the Kingdom and discipleship. We looked at other sayings as well including righteousness, which we see as a potency of God from the Master’s saying that we should seek the righteousness of God as He tells us: “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33) because the righteousness, or the lack of it, exhibited by the Pharisees IS NOT sufficient for being accounted worthy of His Kingdom. And we looked at His saying regarding approaching the Kingdom as a little child and His explanation that a man must “humble himself as this little child” to be accounted worthy and in this saying teaches us that ALL who can do this; ALL who can attain the Kingdom are equal in the eyes of the Lord which idea is covered in His answer to the disciples question of “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” Which IS “Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:1-4). Now we should understand that this idea of being humble IS covered in his other teachings and IS a part of His words that we must keep in order to be His disciple so that the disciple, being humble and in accord with ALL of His words is accounted worthy of the Kingdom of God making these ideas of discipleship and attaining the Kingdom synonymous. And, while synonymous may not be the correct term to use, ALL of the ways of entry into the Kingdom and discipleship are also the same in effect as to Truly accomplish any one is to accomplish them ALL so that if one IS keeping His words, he is at the same time born again, he “doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” and will naturally “humble himself as a little child” and, ALL of this is done in righteousness.
In previous looks at these points we included the idea of perfection as the Master tells us “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48) and this idea of perfect is used many times in the New Testament in similar context as related to the disciple. In other places in our essays we have alluded to the idea that this being perfect IS the end of discipleship, the culmination if you will, and makes us God Like and Christ Like which IS the height of our accomplishments here in this world where the Apostle John tells us “as he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17) and of which the Master Himself tells us that “The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master” (Luke 6:40). In this we can see that there IS a disciple and there IS a perfect disciple and here we should modify our thinking to these points while understanding that this perfection, like the Kingdom itself, grows in the disciple and that there is some degree of perfect which brings us to the Kingdom, perfectly keeping the criteria for attaining the Kingdom as we see above, but not so much as to allow a disciple to claim to be “as his master” nor to be able to say with Him that “I have overcome the world” which comes as a man can Truly be “as his master” in thought, in attitude and in action: IN ALL WAYS. We should see then our own journey from:
- a man in the world who is focused on the self and the things of the self in the world
- to the man in the world who is seeing double, focused on both the world and the things of God and doing neither justice as the Master warns us saying: “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24). Here is the beginning of the recognition by the man in the world of the prompting of his Soul as he sees with effect right and wrong as it is defined for him in society.
- to the man who understands and realizes this plight of duality; this IS the Life of the aspirant in whom the sense of the Kingdom is growing and in whom the focus of Life is constantly changing to be evermore on the things of God. It is here that a man takes himself as he is, at any time, with any given equipment, and under any given circumstances; he then proceeds to subordinate himself, his affairs and his time to the need of the hour ‡as the Tibetan tells us. This is the crucible of duality as we have defined it which is encountered when the man in the world realizes his state and it IS here that True Repentance comes as the man makes that vital decision to focus his Life on the things of God.
- to the man who become totally absorbed with the things of God and, while still in and still active in the world, has come to that place where he IS keeping the words of the Master in ALL respects, in ALL thoughts, attitudes and actions. Here is the man that will “take no thought” (Luke 12:22) for the things of the world and who can with confidence say that he has forsaken ALL and that he is in accord with the teachings of the Master on discipleship which tell us clearly that:On this stage of discipleship above we have no first hand knowledge but take our understanding from the teachings of the Master and His apostles as well as the guidance we get from our Tibetan brother and, on this next stage we can only surmise the reality based upon the Life of Peter and of Paul as they are presented for us in the Book of Acts as well as what we see as the finality of the journey in the words of the Master as He says to us “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 this can Truly be seen the Master’s words as they would effect each of us as we can say with Him in that day “I have overcome the world“. In this stage we see that perfection that the Master teaches us and of which the Apostle Paul writes saying: “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) where we see the True relation between ourselves as men and the nature and the stature of the Master.
- “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26).
- “And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27).
- “So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33).
We should note here that this ALL, by design, by His Great and Awesome Plan, must happen in Life in this world. For the disciple this IS the crucible of duality and for the race that we call mankind this IS the crucible of the world and, as we have previously said, it IS here in the crucible of the world that we must work out our ability to expresses an ever greater degree the Power and the Love of the Soul, the Christ Within; and this growing expression IS our journey. While we use the idea of discipleship as that High Calling that we read about in the Master’s words as it based upon the criteria that He sets for this, this is not the common sense of the word nor it is the sense that the Tibetan uses in much of His writing; what we consider the True disciple, he considers as the adept or the initiate of some degree thereby reserving the word disciple for the one who IS learning and this corresponds to what we call ourselves as aspirants. We note this so that we can make that exchange of words from disciple to aspirant in this saying from the Tibetan which gives some extra meaning to our plight in this duality through which we struggle; he says: Dissatisfaction, disgust, distaste, and a deep fatigue are characteristic very frequently of those who are on the verge of discipleship. For what is a disciple? He is one who seeks to learn a new rhythm, to enter a new field of experience, and to follow the steps of that advanced humanity who have trodden ahead of him the path, leading from darkness to light, from the unreal to the real. He has tasted the joys of life in the world of illusion and has learnt their powerlessness to satisfy and hold him. Now he is in a state of transition between the new and the old states of being. He is vibrating between the condition of soul awareness and form awareness. He is “seeing double” ††. He goes on to tell us of the aspirant that: His spiritual perception grows slowly and surely as the brain becomes capable of illumination from the soul, via the mind. As the intuition develops, the radius of awareness grows and new fields of knowledge unfold ††. Can we see these things in our own lives as aspirants?
As we look upon these ideas as a part of our Path to the Kingdom we should be sure to understand that what we say above is but a loosely arranged summary as there are likely many variations to the journey for each man as his own individual Way IS dictated by the Life that he leads, the equipment that he has to use and the spiritual collateral that he may have brought with him into this Life; add to this whatsoever we have said regarding the reality of predestination as we understand it. In seeing these things we can likely understand the rather limitless variation in individual journeys and why the Master tells us of the difficulty that we face in striving toward that strait gate that opens into the Kingdom and discipleship and this even among those who do try:
- “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).
- “Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved ? And he said unto them, 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 13:23-24).
In the first thought above from Matthew’s Gospel we have a rather generic approach to ALL men; there is the wide gate which IS the way of the world and this is the place for the many who do not see nor hear the reality of the prompting of his own Soul to the Good, the Beautiful and the True. For the few however that do see and hear there is the strait gate, the Way of Life as the Master tells us, which requires our more narrow focus upon the things of God. In the second point above from Luke’s Gospel are the Master’s words which, while similar to those from Matthew, are said in a different place and a different time. It is unclear to whom Jesus IS speaking; what we do KNOW is that He was travelling from city to city as He journeyed toward Jerusalem and that some one asks the question on being ‘saved’. We can assume that this question IS posed by disciples as is the similar question during after the exchange between the Master and the rich young man but this IS only an assumption that we use for our point which is that here in Luke’s Gospel we find many that are seeking to enter, many aspirants perhaps, who will not be able and this only because they CAN NOT find the ability for single-mindedness and focus ONLY upon the things of God. And there IS not shame here; there is only a missed opportunity.
So we see in ALL of this that the Master does give us the KEY to the Kingdom and to discipleship which is found in keeping His words and which results in being born again, righteousness, the humble nature of a little child and doing the Will of the Father and we should note that in Truly accomplishing one of these is as accomplishing ALL as to be born again is to have that humble nature and is being righteous while doing the Will of the Father IS keeping His words and being born again. And in ALL this perfection grows in us as the Kingdom grows in us and this until we “come….unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ“; this will be the end to our journey through time and space and the beginning of a new phase in the eternal Life of the True man, the Soul.
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!
- †† A TREATISE ON WHITE MAGIC OR THE WAY OF THE DISCIPLE BY ALICE A. BAILEY © 1951 BY LUCIS TRUST
- ‡ TELEPATHY AND THE ETHERIC VEHICLE BY ALICE A. BAILEY © 1950 BY LUCIS TRUST
