ON LOVE; PART CCCXXIII
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
May the Power of the One True God flow through His group of all true servers;
May the Love of the Christ characterize the lives of all who seek to aid in His work;
May I fulfill my part in the one work through self-forgetfulness, harmlessness and right speech
(Evening Reflection)
In the first two lines of the mantram above we find service; first that the Power of God, which we should understand as the Power of the God Within as well, should flow through the lives of those who have accomplished this High Calling of a True server. As we discussed yesterday, this idea of serving has no real bounds but it IS intimately tied to those things that we identified in the second stanza as aiding in His work and in this idea we outlined some of the things that we read in the gospels regarding His words on why He had come among us. Among these we found that He came to fulfill the law and to bring sinners to Repentance and in these words we found our aid to Him, our service, as keeping His words and teaching others by the example of our own actions and words. We noted that He tells us also the He came to bring variance, to set one against another in the battle of Truth versus doctrine and to bring that fire of spiritual impulse that causes such variance. Here we should note that variance IS NOT the objective but it is the result as the barriers to Truth are hard to break down and this because the individual and corporate comfort in living in the illusion and the glamour of the world are difficult to overcome with the promise of the unknown. Here, in this effort of bringing the greater measure of Truth to the world of men in form, we serve by carrying on this same principal and we so this by living in and expressing the Truth; again by our own example and our own words on Love, brotherhood and harmony which IS, from our perspective, the gateway to yet greater Truth and realization of the better Way. The Master simply expressed the Truth and the doctrinally oriented Pharisee and his follower did not see nor understand the reality even though He pointed it out to them in their own scriptures and in this He stood firm; here we too must stand firm, not that we should confront anyone but that by our example we do not change our own ways back to the ways of the world; we stay focused upon God and the God Within and understand that whatsoever happens around us is but the ways of the world and we should look evermore at the Master’s words that tell us that He and His disciples are overcoming the world saying: “I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17:14). And, we should understand this idea of “not of the world” in its spiritual sense as they were and we, as disciples and aspirants, are yet in the flesh in this Earth; this idea then of “not of the world” is our realization that naught from this can matter to us as we “take not thought” for the self or the self and the things in the world which, in the completeness of this thought means that we should “take no thought for your life” (Luke 12:22).
We also saw that the Master had come “among you as he that serveth” (Luke 22:27) and we should see here that this IS His example to us as we note in the many things that He does and the teaching that He offers and in a small way by the example of the washing of the feet and when He tells us: “If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them” (John 13:14-17). We should understand here that washing feet IS not the totality that we should take from this and that this washing pales in comparison to the True message which IS that we serve even in things that are not seen as appealing, as things that we are wanting to do; here we should see that the True server is a server in the pleasant and in the distasteful and it should matter not as the idea IS only to serve. We should note here that this IS late in the Master’s ministry, it IS near the end of His time with them, and that even at this late time He is still teaching them and by their reactions in this time we should be able to see that they had not yet overcome the ways of the world. We have discussed this dynamic in previous posts and this is not our topic for today but it does bring us to a subject that we have ever meant to deal with but have always put off an this is the Truth of the betrayal of the Master by the Apostle Judas. Let us take a short break here to briefly discuss this before we continue with our mantram above.
We are brought today to this story of Judas, a most reviled name in world history but a disciple of the Master and a divine Soul nonetheless, whose only link to these fateful events is the historical perspective of what he did, by the words of the Master according to the Apostle John above. It has always been our perspective that Judas had a mission to complete and one that he came into incarnation as an advanced Soul, as did ALL the apostles and those who were born to aid in His work if we can say it this way using the words from our mantram. Despite His Power as a True Son of God, who had come among us in possession of “all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9), Jesus could not effect the free will of men in the world and, if He could do so, He would not do so, and this as a part of the reality of the meekness of those who KNOW who can DO ALL things, but will not. Hence His reliance on disciples and apostles and those close to Him who were of some advanced state and who could break through the illusion and the glamour to the necessary degree to accomplish their mission. Note how we frame this today and understand that these apostles were just like us; they were born and were nurtured in the ways of the world and brought to maturity from which point they heard the call of their own Souls and they answered. And, so that we do not think that ALL were nurtured in a religious way or that they answered the call of the Soul quickly at maturity, we are given the example of Matthew of whom we read of the Master “And after these things he went forth, and saw a publican, named Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he said unto him, Follow me” (Luke 5:27). Now we KNOW very little factually about these men or the others who came as Jesus ready help, and we DO NOT KNOW that Matthew was just lost in the ways of the world as his natural way of Life or if he is purposely in this way of Life as an example to us and, while we lean toward the former, we should note that seeing the Master was for Levi his great awakening where we can just imagine that he hears and heeds the call and realizes his destiny at the sight and calling of the Master. Now ALL this is but background to our understanding that as Souls each of us is apart from this existence in form while at the same time each of us is living through this form and giving this form access to our own waking consciousness, our conscious awareness, which can and does hear the call from both sides….from God and mammon. We should note our premise that the closer one gets to his own divinity the stronger that sense of duality and the more intense the struggle as the consciousness, the heart as the Master calls it, functioning through the personality, rails at the prospect of losing control if the Life that it had hitherto controlled. This is an awkward way of expressing this but there are not sufficient words nor ideas to say it plainer at this time.
And Judas IS no different; he is in the world and he is sensing the divine and while the divine has for ALL the apostles taken the lead in the Life of following the Master, the ways of the world are still lurking about and this we see in the lessons we are given by the interactions between the Master and the Apostle Peter. Judas has a most difficult task to accomplish and we can see this in the Master’s words if we can look past the doctrinal inferences of his being evil and a thief which are promoted somewhat by the carnal view of the other apostles as well. Our saying above which brings us to this place is the Master’s words on washing the feet of the disciples and we repeat these here again in the full context of this happening and we break this down into parts for our comments:
- “He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself. After that he poureth water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded. Then cometh he to Simon Peter: and Peter saith unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet? Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter. Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head” (John 13:4-9). As this story unfolds we give attention to the actions of the Master who prepares Himself and the basin as the apostles likely watch in wonder as to what is going to happen and then he begins to wash their feet one by one. Much is read into this act by the Master but let us take it as an example of service where the Master takes to doing a rather distasteful thing for His disciples. Perhaps Peter senses this and from his perspective sees this as a rather repulsive thing and rejects the washing by the Master of his feet. Here again Peter is our example of the man who is yet tied to the world and, understanding this, the Master assures Peter that while he may not understand now, he will eventually come to see the purpose. Again Peter, likely in his worldly tone, refuses and forces the Master to rebuke him from the perspective that if you do not allow this, there is no more relationship between us; to his sobering thought Peter concedes and swallows his pride, a remnant of his worldly self.
- “Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all. For he knew who should betray him; therefore said he, Ye are not all clean. So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:10-14). Now as the Master proceeds to wash Peter’s feet and the rest of the apostles as well, He comments that this washing of feet is all that is necessary to keep one who is already washed, clean, and there is a hidden reference here to the cleanliness of the man, of his expression to the world. We can see in this the reference to baptism, or to the idea of being washed of sin or we can see this in the way of His saying that all of the twelve are fully clean now that their feet have been washed…..”but not all“. The next comment is John’s and, by reading his other words, we can see IS NO fan of Judas; we read from an earlier chapter of the time when Mary comes to wash the Master’s feet with expensive ointment and dry them with her hair; John says then: “Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, which should betray him, Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein” (John 12:4-6). This is Johns opinion of Judas and we can see here that from the perspective of a disciple that there should be greater understanding and Love for his brother Judas. We should see as well that John paints for us a constant picture of Judas and in the verses just before our section where he says: “And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him” (John 13:2). From our perspective the idea of the devil and Satan is real to men in this day, men who are yet of a superstitious nature and who are still in many ways bound to those things that they had learned as Jews and here is a reflection of either this dynamic or of John’s desire not to show the Truth and the reality in this time where none would rightly understand; or, perhaps there was knowledge and right discernment of these words that is lost in the confusion of doctrines that seek to have continuity with the ideas of the Jews. We should try to see here some sense of reality and it is a part of our premise that none of these apostles had aught to hide except Judas who had in his heart that he must do this thing for the Master and here perhaps we can see more clearly the idea of clean from the Master’s perspective, as a parabolic way of expressing what was about to happen based in the actual washing of the apostle’s feet. Then we have our words from above where Jesus makes note of His service to the apostles and if we take these words and see their hidden meaning as we understand it, we can see the reality of this episode where the Master says in our language that ‘I have done this distasteful thing for you and you should should understand it as such and be willing to do such things for me and for each other without letting worldly ideas creep in as did Peter. I am your Lord and Master and in this, the strength of my act, you should see clearly that you must do as you must do.
This is much more involved than anticipated and we have not the space today to finish our thoughts. We will pick up her tomorrow as we ARE upon the KEY words from this seemingly simple action of washing the apostles feet. We will then finish our comments on the mantram at the top of our essay. We leave the rest of the Master’s words for your review.
- “For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but that the scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me. Now I tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he” (John 13:15-19).
- “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me; and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me. When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake. Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask who it should be of whom he spake. He then lying on Jesus’ breast saith unto him, Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon” (John 13:20-26).
- “And after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly. Now no man at the table knew for what intent he spake this unto him. For some of them thought, because Judas had the bag, that Jesus had said unto him, Buy those things that we have need of against the feast; or, that he should give something to the poor. He then having received the sop went immediately out: and it was night” (John 13:27-30).
- “Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him” (John 13:31-32).
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.
Wakefulness is the way to life. The fool sleeps As if he were already dead, But the master is awake And he lives forever. He watches. He is clear. How happy he is! For he sees that wakefulness is life. How happy he is, Following the path of the awakened. With great perseverance He meditates, seeking Freedom and happiness. So awake, reflect, watch. Work with care and attention. Live in the way And the light will grow in you. By watching and working The master makes for himself an island Which the flood cannot overwhelm. The fool is careless. But the master guards his watching. It is his most precious treasure. He never gives in to desire. He meditates. And in the strength of his resolve He discovers true happiness. He overcomes desire – And from the tower of his wisdom He looks down with dispassion Upon the sorrowing crowd. From the mountain top He looks down at those Who live close to the ground. Mindful among the mindless, Awake while others dream, Swift as the race horse He outstrips the field. By watching Indra became king of the gods. How wonderful it is to watch. How foolish to sleep. The beggar who guards his mind And fears the waywardness of his thoughts Burns through every bond With the fire of his vigilance. The beggar who guards his mind And fears his own confusion Cannot fall. He has found his way to peace. (Dhammapada; on Wakefulness) 5.
This selection from the Dhammapada, the sayings of the Buddha, is from the chapter called Wakefulness. The ideas here are simple for the awakened but for the unawakened they can be very difficult. This is much like the sayings of the Christ and His apostles, especially these last ones that we discussed regarding the mysteries. Wakefulness here can be likened to our idea of focus on the Christ Within, the Soul, and the spiritual Life. Sleep is just the opposite and can be likened to focus upon the things of the world. To be awake is to see things as they Truly are and to be asleep is to see things in the illusion and the glamour of the world. Wakefulness makes a man the master of his own Life while sleep makes one the fool. Wakefulness is striving to enter at the strait gate while being asleep is to float aimlessly on the waves of the ways of the world where one may think that he is getting somewhere only to realize in the end that he has gone nowhere, accomplished nothing.
In the above we should see the idea of master as we understand the disciple in our writing, as the awakened one, the man in whom the Light of the Soul is being expressed through form, the disciple and the high aspirant and we should see the idea of the beggar as the seeker, the one who is seeking awakening.
This idea then of being awake can be seen running through the teachings of the Master and of the Buddha although the Master does not use the specific word but rather alludes to it in His teachings calling the asleep those whose “heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed” and the awakened those who “see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart” and this is a point that Jesus makes several times and it is to those who can realize their awakening that these words ARE directed: “blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear“.
