Monthly Archives: September 2014

ON LOVE; PART DCCXXX

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GoodWill IS Love in Action

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FIRST IS THE GREAT COMMANDMENTS: “The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: 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 12:29-31).

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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.

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PLUS THE EVER IMPORTANT AND HIGH IDEAL TAUGHT TO US BY THE CHRIST: “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 continued with our review of the Master’s teaching to the Eleven from the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of John. In our view of the ideas on the Unity of God and Christ which we understand here as the Father and the Son, we were drawn to ideas on the Trinity of God which we see as a basic reality from the perspective of men in this world and perhaps the only way that many can have an idea of the reality of God in Life. While we DO NOT see the Trinity as Three Distinct and Separate Persons, we DO realize that this view can give the doctrinal Christian some insight into the way that the Power of the Godhead works out in Life. At the same time however, it IS this view, from the physical perspective, of the man Jesus as the reality of the Son that has confounded so many over the centuries. We should ever understand that the physical Universe, this manifestation of God that includes our world and ALL that is upon it, IS NOT our spiritual reality; it IS but the crucible of our perfection as Souls which ARE the reality of the True man. This idea of the division between the physical and the spiritual IS taught by the Master and by His apostles and we should try to see the idea here of corruption and, in this word, the idea of the temporal nature of Life in form. There are several Greek words that ARE rendered into the English idea of corrupt and for most of these the idea of this temporal nature will work for our better understanding of the writer’s intent which IS to separate the spiritual from the carnal in most every way imaginable. Why we ARE here in these bodies of flesh IS a mystery that IS NOT solved in any view of religion including our own yet we ARE here and the physical Universe DOES exist. In this we should try to see the overall intent of discipleship, that it takes us away from our focus upon this temporal existence and its perceived comforts and pleasures and it puts our focus onto the ONLY Truth: our spiritual reality. In this separation, in this division between the carnal and the spiritual, between the temporal and the eternal, we should see our existence as men….and we should see Jesus in much the same way.

In this view we can then look upon the reality of Christ as we look should look upon our own reality as well; that He IS a Soul as we ARE Souls. It IS the Soul that we must try to see as the Son of God, the manifestation of the ultimate Spiritual Reality whom we call God and which IS Spirit. It IS in this view that we can more clearly see the ideas presented by the Master here in this chapter from John’s Gospel and especially in our selection which we repeat again below. And we should try to see that this separation between the physical and the carnal IS ONLY changed by the reality of spiritual power as this IS wielded by the man who can bring it to bear in his own mortal Life, the man who can say as did the Master….”I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). The Master who we see and KNOW as Jesus the Christ IS our example and our teacher; in His words and the words of the Father ARE the KEYS to the Kingdom of God and we should see here that it IS His example that shows us “all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9). This IS the fullness of the interaction of the spiritual realm with the physical and this IS the promise that we should see in the Master’s words that shows us that the Power which He wielded in this world can be ours as well. He tells us this here in John’s Gospel in the simplicity of His words that “the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do“. This IS the Power of the Spiritual Realm, the Kingdom of God; this IS the Power of the God Within expressed by the Soul through form; this IS the grace of God released into this world. This IS the Presence of God in the Life of the man in the world as the Father and the Son, the Spirit and the Soul, become the realization of the man in the world; this IS the reality also of that Power of which the Master speaks as He says: “If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done” (Matthew 21:21)….this IS “faith as a grain of mustard seed” (Matthew 17:20). And this IS the reality of the Presence of God that IS depicted in the Master’s words saying:

“At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me. These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you” (John 14:20-26).

In these words we find the Truth of our spiritual reality and the separation between the spiritual and the carnal and, we see as well the cost, the price of having the Presence of God in the Life of the man in form. In the reality of the Master’s previous words saying “I am in the Father, and the Father in me” we should see the Truth that this CAN NOT be bodily; that this CAN NOT be the man Jesus but rather the Life of the Christ, the Soul who we see and KNOW as Jesus. And, in His words that we can DO such “greater works” we should see this same idea of God in man and man in God; again, this IS NOT the body….this IS the Soul. This we KNOW from His words, words that ARE NOT seen as they are intended but which show us that if it IS the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works” (John 1:10) from the perspective of the Master, then it MUST be so for us as well. While there IS NO clear statement here of Spirit and Soul, we should be able to discern the reality that the Master intends; that it IS the God Within that “doeth the works” and that it IS the God and the Christ Within that shall DO the same in the Life of the man who can pay the price. While the Master DOES NOT speak of the Christ Within, we should try to see the reality that He establishes and which IS amplified and clarified for us by His apostles; we see this reality in the idea presented above, that “I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you“. Here again we must see that it IS NOT the body of Jesus but the Soul, the divine being that IS expressing the Power of God in the Life of the Master Jesus. It is here that we should try to see as well the reality of the Holy Spirit, that this IS the Power of the Godhead….His own spiritual power of which we partake as divine spiritual beings and which we can wield in this world of men. The Holy Spirit IS the name then that we can give to the Power of God expressed in this world and this IS the reality of the activity of the God Within and the Christ Within which are the realization and the revelation of grace for the man who will keep His words.

And this IS the greater Truth of His words saying: “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63); here again is the separation of the carnal from the spiritual and here IS also the reality of His word. As we understand this idea of “the words” in the light of the revelations and the realizations that come from keeping His words, so can we understand the grace that flows to us in ALL that He tells us. His words: “they are spirit, and they are life“. In this we should understand not the words that ARE uttered but rather the intended meaning that we realize as this flows from our own Souls. He says “keep my words” and among His words are the Great Commandments and the Golden Rule that we have again at the top of our essay; He tells us that this IS the word of God as He shows us that “the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s” and as He tells us that “the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me“. Can we see the synergy in ALL of these ideas? Can we see that the same “Father that dwelleth in me” also dwells in us, that it IS the word of God from within that we act upon as aspirants and disciples. And we should try to see that this IS the deeper meaning to the Apostle Paul’s words that show us that the man, the man in the world, CAN NOT be righteous simply by obeying the law by rote? It IS only as the impulse to the Good, the Beautiful and the True streams forth from the God and the Christ Within that there IS True righteousness, which IS the result of grace. And, while this sense of individual grace comes from the Soul, this IS made possible for many through the more Universal Grace that came into the world in the person of the Master. So we heed the word of God not because we hear the word or read it, but because it awakens us to the Truths that ever flow from within but which are largely unheard through the clamor of daily living and the focus of men upon themselves and their illusory interests in this world. Whatsoever flows from above, from the Soul, the Christ and the God Within, IS spiritual, while whatsoever flows from the world is carnal, is bound in the idea of sin which IS the focus of the man upon the things of the self and the self in the world.

It IS in the Unity of the Father and the Son, the Unity of the Christ and God, the Unity of the Spirit and the Soul, that we receive the Light of Truth which we can see as the Spirit of Truth….the Holy Spirit. This IS NOT a separate thing from the God and Christ Within but it IS rather the Power of these flowing into the Life of the man in the world who IS focused upon the things of God. It IS in the idea of focus that we should see the price and this IS NOT intended to dilute or detract from the Master’s words here, focus IS but a useful word for our consideration in the world today. His words are clear; the reward, the grace, comes to “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them” and the essence of that grace IS His Presence. This has been the Way for 2000 years but men have interpreted this according to the ways of men and they DO NOT; they neither have His commandments nor do they keep them. In focus however we have a different reality and one that says that if we can keep our attention upon the things of God, that the things of the self will fade and that in this endeavor we will come ever closer to both Loving Him and keeping His words. It IS in this sense of focus, our own individual measured focus, that we receive the proportionate measure of grace; grace that comes into one’s Life as the revelations and the realizations of Truth and the ability to KNOW, to “have faith, and doubt not“, the spiritual reality of our own divine nature.

And this IS the Master’s message here in John’s Gospel as He tells us of the Unity of these Aspects of God and shows us that they are inseparable spiritual realities which ARE ever separate from the things of the world…save in the Life of the disciple who can DO such “greater works“. The Master teaches us about this separation of the things of the world from the things of God as He teaches us the basics of Truth in the Sermon on the Mount; there He tells us of “God and mammon” and of the “treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt” versus those “treasures in heaven” (Matthew 6 :19-20, 24) which suffer not this same fate. Luke offers disciples this same idea using a different Greek word for corrupt, one that has more a meaning of destruction than temporal as we read in Matthew; the Master says: “Sell that ye have , and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old , a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth , neither moth corrupteth” (Luke 12:33). We should see however the addition of the temporal nature of the things of the world as these ARE opposed to the idea of “a treasure in the heavens that faileth not“. The greater point in ALL of this IS that we should see the ideas of Spirit and the physical world as separate entities; that in the Sermon on the Mount the Master offers us specific ideas on this separation and that here John’s Gospel we have the allusion to this Truth in our understanding of “I am in the Father, and the Father in me“; a reality that CAN NOT include the body of the man Jesus. And we should see that this IS brought down to US as well as we ARE told that  “I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you“; there IS NO physical contact inferred here, this IS purely spiritual and we should understand this as the Soul, the divine Presence that IS in the Master CAN be realized in us as well as ALL ARE part and parcel of the ONE God.

And so we finish with our selection from John’s Gospel where we find the reality of this Unity of Father and Son and then of Spirit and Soul, and where we find the reality of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, who IS the divine activity of the divine self in this world. And we should see this Unity in the parabolic language through which we understand the reality of the final verse where we read “the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name“. Can we see the underlying idea here? That in this Unity of Father and Son the Holy Spirit comes into the Life of the disciple in the Name of Christ, in the Spirit of ALL that the Name of Christ connotes….His words, His example and His Oneness with the Father. There IS the allusion of a transfer here, a transfer from the Master to the Holy Spirit as the source of grace for the disciples and we should try to see here how we had previously framed this same idea: that until this time the apostles rely upon Jesus and here in the completeness of the fourteenth chapter we should see that they must now rely upon His Presence which He promises and which they perhaps had NOT yet fully realized in their lives. Here we should try to see that while doctrine places much emphasis upon this idea of transfer, the greater reality IS that the Eleven already had the Presence of God in their lives but that they DID NOT see this as it IS overwhelmed by the Light of the Master Himself. Jesus tells them this Truth in those misunderstood words regarding the Comforter as He says “but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you” (John 14:17) and here we should remember that this can easily be rendered as “is in you“. Our next selection of verses and the end of the fourteenth chapter read thus:

“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe. Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me. But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence” (John 14:26-31).

We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.

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.

We repeat here again a saying that is from the Bhagavad Gita, which goes well with our theme of the God Within, the Soul, which we see as the Christ Within and while this is good in the Christian world and is True based upon our understanding of the Christ as the manifestation of God, we should also see in these words below that it does not matter what these divine ideas are called; that it matters not what we call this Inner Man, that he is the same in ALL, he is the Soul.

Thou carriest within thee a sublime Friend whom thou knowest not. For God dwells in the inner part of every man, but few know how to find Him. The man who sacrifices his desires and his works to the Beings from whom the principles of everything stem, and by whom the Universe was formed, through this sacrifice attains perfection. For one who finds his happiness and joy within himself, and also his wisdom within himself is one with God. And, mark well, the soul which has found God is freed from rebirth and death, from old age and pain, and drinks the water of Immortality.—Bhagavad-Gita

It is difficult to tell just what verses of the Bhagavad Gita the above is from; whether it is a paraphrase or a combination. It is from the book “The Great Initiates” by Édouard Schuré which was originally published in French in 1889 and perhaps it is in the translation of the verses that they become hard to recognize. However, the sheer beauty of the presentation caught my attention and so I share it with you. The Path to the Kingdom is the same no matter what religion one professes.

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!