IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 1207

ON LOVE; PART DCCXCVI

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

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).

ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ

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. While this IS from an older definition of Charity, which IS rendered in the King James Bible from the same Greek word agape which IS generally rendered as Love, we should amend our own definition here to include the idea that in the reality of Love a man will accord to ALL men ALL things that he would accord to himself and to say that Love IS our thoughts and attitude of the equality of ALL men regardless of their outward nature or appearance…that ALL ARE equally children of Our One God

ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ

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)

The global sense of the grace of God IS never more apparent than in True meaning of Christmas and while the very idea of this celebration has been hijacked by the commercial interests that seemingly rule the world and restricted by the doctrinal ideas that keep Jesus in the manger rather than in the hearts of men, the deeper Truths ARE yet with us in the right discernment of His own words and the amplifying and the clarifying words of His apostles. The Advent of the Christ as a babe “wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger” (Luke 2:12) set in motion a movement in this world which was timed for us by the Plan of God and, while the deeper message of His Advent may be missed by most, the reality of the unrealized ideas that He brought to us ARE still the backdrop for most ALL conversation regarding the Master. While we CAN NOT imagine that it in IS the Plan of God that the realization of His Truths on Love would take more than 2000 years to be clearly seen, we must understand that in this world of men and of Souls working to overcome the powers of that world, that there IS the reality of free will….that there IS NO heavenly Power that dictates or changes the ways of men. Through the wars, the famines, and through the epidemics of disease, it IS the free will of men that reigns supreme in this world and it IS the through the work of men that the reality of His Truths will be spread across the globe.

We should understand here that it falls to us as aspirants and disciples of the Lord to make the necessary changes in the world thought and in the attitudes of men regarding one’s fellowman and in this the church as we KNOW it yet today has failed. The Love that the Master brought to us in His words and in His example has never been clearly elucidated for the average man and the competition between men and groups of men has been allowed to flourish; and this NOT only in personal matters but in matters of spiritual import as well. Religions, denominations and sects have allowed themselves to stake out their own sense of Truth and in the illusion and glamour of Life in this world there ARE many competing factions; this of course IS NOT the way that this was intended but, in like manner to the free will of men as we cite above, this IS the way that this has evolved over the 2000 years since the Master left our Presence. And it IS His Presence in this world that IS the global grace of God of whom we read that “he gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16); it IS unfortunate that this saying itself has been the cause of much of the religious turmoil and the cause of many wars, none of which was the True intent. It IS in the reality of the working out of the Plan of God that the Master came among us and while it may NOT have been expected that the results of His teaching would be immediate, it has been, from a human perspective, far too long and this IS keenly evident as we look our across the world today.

But there ARE signs of progress amid the turmoil and competition. The world IS smaller and most ALL men may KNOW the plight of his brothers around this globe; humanitarian efforts abound and flourish in even the most remote regions and while this IS a sign of Love, a sign of the Love that the Master teaches us, it IS NOT founded in the fullness of that teaching but in the more common human sense of emotion and thought. In the reality of spiritual Life lies the deeper Truths of Jesus’ message and the reality that this race of men become homogenized, not in the sense of interracial and intercultural harmony ONLY, but in the sense of seeing ALL men as one sees himself….in the sense of looking past the differences in appearance and behavior and see the Truth that ALL men ARE Souls upon the same journey; ALL ARE Soul seeking to find that Path that leads to the strait gate which opens into the Kingdom of God. It IS when men can realize that this journey IS one that we undertake in order to find our own Truth and our own True Self that we can begin to realize the words of the Master relate to that psychic journey that brings the carnal mind and emotions under the control of the Soul, the Christ and the God Within, whose ONLY motivation IS Love and Unity. And this IS the reality of our individual grace as the revelations and our realizations of the Truths of Love and Unity which comes to us in direct proportion to our expression of such in this world of men. It IS this sense of quid pro quo, this Truly reciprocal action between the Soul and the carnal personality, that allows for the growth of the Kingdom of God Within once that seed IS planted in Repentance. This reciprocal action IS the subject of the Master’s words that we have been repeating almost daily, words that show us that His Presence in the Life of a man IS directly related to a man’s own sense of keeping His words and in this we should try to see the same idea of measure; that it IS by the measure of our keeping His words that we have an equal measure of His Presence. We read again:

“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” (John 14:21-24).

It IS this that should be the reality of the Christmas message of the Churches; that as we Love Him we keep His commandments; it IS as we DO this we have His Presence in our Life here in this world. This IS the True message of Love for ALL men as this Love IS the essence of His words and His commandments and it IS in this sense that True giving IS found; it IS in this sense of Love that we find the True fruit that each man should bear. And it IS in this sense the the Master tells us “that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples” which idea IS a part of our next chapter for discussion below. In the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of John IS a rather parabolic look at the effect of the ideas that we have in the fourteenth chapter; here Jesus takes the idea of His Presence, which He calls for us manifesting Himself to the man who Loves Him and how that the Father and the Son abide with the man who keeps His words. It IS in this sense of abiding, this sense of His Presence, that we find the deeper reality of our Oneness with Him, our Oneness as men in this world with our own Souls and through this our Oneness with the Christ and with our God. We read the first part of the fifteenth chapter saying:

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you” (John 15:1-12).

We must of course take the ideas from the previous chapter into these ideas where we ARE shown the Oneness of the Father and the Son and how that they ARE together the Spirit of God. While doctrines show us the separateness of the Aspects of God in the Trinity, the greater Truth IS found in their Oneness and while the Master may speak here in seemingly separate terms, the reality IS that this IS a parable which IS intended to show how that this vine, produced by and cared for by the husbandman, IS what men who ARE seeking the Truth must be grafted into if we can use this idea here. In this idea of grafting we should try to understand that it IS ONLY the man who has the realization of His Presence who can become a part of “the true vine” and, from His words above, this IS the man who “hath my commandments, and keepeth them“. Can we see here how that the Life of the branches IS dependent upon the Life of the vine and in this sense we have our own spiritual lives as they ARE part of the Life of God in Christ which comes from the Life of the husbandman. The greater part of this IS however found in the relationship between the branches and the vine, the live branches which ARE the realized Life of the Christ Within; and it IS these Live branches that should “bear much fruit“.

It IS this fruit that should be our expression of Love everyday and most especially as we celebrate the day of His Advent, His birth in the manger or the cave in Bethlehem which should be reflected in our lives as the Birth of the Christ in the cave of our own heart as we bring Him to Life in our consciousness and our Life.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

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.

Repeating a Quote of the Day from the past that has some significance in relation to what we are discussing here, that the Kingdom of God and therefore God is within us ALL and that it IS His Presence which a man realizes by measure as he begins his journey to the Kingdom of God. Here Lord Tennyson poetically tells us just how close God Truly IS and how it is that we touch Him

Speak to Him, thou, for He hears,
and Spirit with Spirit can meet
Closer is He than breathing,
and nearer than hands and feet.

(Alfred, Lord Tennyson 1809–1892)

From the poem The Higher Pantheism which puts forth the authors spiritual belief. Whether we agree with him or not, the quote if spiritually perfect for all of Christianity as well as any other world religion.

The thought behind the idea above IS NOT unlike that which we have been carrying as our Quote of the Day for many essays; It IS in the closeness that Lord Tennyson shows us that we should see the idea that “God dwells in the inner part of every man” which we read in the previous Quote of the Day. For us this saying and the previous one show us the closeness of the spiritual self to the Father and then too the closeness of the spiritual self with the personality of man. Men may like to think of God as something outside and above but the reality, as we have seen in so many of the sayings of the Master, is that God is with us and in us and we need only to let ourselves be drawn and to focus upon Him. And, if we can use these words from the Gospel of Thomas here we can perhaps see much: “When you come to know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will realize that you are the children of the living Father“

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts