IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 469

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON LOVE; PART LXI

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•Α

How then can it be thought possible for a man to enter the “straight gate” of occultism the Kingdom of God when his daily and hourly thoughts are bound up with worldly things, desires of possession and power, with lust, ambition and duties, which, however honourable, are still of the earth earthy? Even the love for wife and family–the purest as the most unselfish of human affections–is a barrier to real occultism discipleship. For whether we take as an example the holy love of a mother for her child, or that of a husband for his wife, even in these feelings, when analyzed to the very bottom, and thoroughly sifted, there is still selfishness in the first, and an égoisme à deux in the second instance. What mother would not sacrifice without a moment’s hesitation hundreds of thousands of lives for that of the child of her heart? and what lover or true husband would not break the happiness of every other man and woman around him to satisfy the desire of one whom he loves? This is but natural, we shall be told. Quite so; in the light of the code of human affections; less so, in that of divine universal love. For, while the heart is full of thoughts for a little group of selves, near and dear to us, how shall the rest of mankind fare in our souls? What percentage of love and care will there remain to bestow on the “great orphan”? And how shall the “still small voice” make itself heard in a soul entirely occupied with its own privileged tenants? What room is there left for the needs of Humanity en bloc to impress themselves upon, or even receive a speedy response? And yet he who would profit by the wisdom of the universal mind, has to reach it through the whole of Humanity without distinction of race, complexion, religion or social status. It is altruism, not ego-ism even in its most legal and noble conception, that can lead the unit to merge its little Self in the Universal Selves. It is to these needs and to this work that the true disciple of true Occultism discipleship has to devote himself, if he would obtain theo-sophy, divine Wisdom and Knowledge.**

The aspirant has to choose absolutely between the life of the world and the life of Occultism discipleship. It is useless and vain to endeavour to unite the two, for no one can serve two masters and satisfy both. No one can serve his body and the higher Soul, and do his family duty and his universal duty, without depriving either one or the other of its rights; for he will either lend his ear to the “still small voice” and fail to hear the cries of his little ones, or, he will listen but to the wants of the latter and remain deaf to the voice of Humanity. It would be a ceaseless, a maddening struggle for almost any married man, who would pursue true practical Occultismdiscipleship, instead of its theoretical philosophy. For he would find himself ever hesitating between the voice of the impersonal divine love of Humanity, and that of the personal, terrestrial love. And this could only lead him to fail in one or the other, or perhaps in both his duties. Worse than this. For, whoever indulges after having pledged himself to OCCULTISM DISCIPLESHIP in the gratification of a terrestrial love or lust, must feel an almost immediate result; that of being irresistibly dragged from the impersonal divine state down to the lower plane of matter. Sensual, or even mental self-gratification, involves the immediate loss of the powers of spiritual discernment; the voice of the MASTER can no longer be distinguished from that of one’s passions or even that of a Dugpa; the right from wrong; sound morality from mere casuistry. The Dead Sea fruit assumes the most glorious mystic appearance, only to turn to ashes on the lips, and to gall in the heart resulting in:–

Depth ever deepening,darkness darkening still; Folly for wisdom, guilt for innocence; Anguish for rapture, and for hope despair.

And once being mistaken and having acted on their mistakes, most men shrink from realizing their error, and thus descend deeper and deeper into the mire.**

In repeating the words of H.P. Blavatsky above, it is our intention to dissolve any thoughts that we might have that occultism as mentioned here, or esotericism or Theosophy or any of the other names given, is in any way an aberration of Truth as regards one’s spiritual walk. One is hard pressed to find in the above anything contrary to the words of the Master on discipleship and, when we look at these words in their reality, we must see an interchangeability that even those who use them as a way of Life may not see. This is more because of man’s refusal to see discipleship in the reality with which it is painted by the Master and His apostles as mankind is always apt to reduce the requirements of True spiritual endeavor to those things that can be accomplished in the world of illusion, and this without realizing that the illusion exists. And, here the word glamour deserves its own place because it is in the clutches of this glamour that a man will see himself as right and his doctrine as True. Into any and ALL dissertations on things spiritual these ideas of glamour and illusion creep and this for the very reason of the difficulty that an un-perfected man in form has is discerning TRUTH for himself while fancying himself as having made the grade; this infects our work as well as any work short of the words of the Master and there is even a tinge of the personality of the apostles in their writings in the gospels. Saying this we should be able to see that the closer one gets to this objective and goal of True discipleship and then the closer the disciple can get to the reality of the KNOWER who can move the mountain, the clearer ALL becomes and in this perfect clarity illusion and glamour are totally dissipated.

We should note our use of the word personality in the previous sentence and we should try to see that it IS the personality that IS the consciousness IN FORM and this we may not have heretofore made totally clear. It is the personality, the mental and emotional nature of the man in the world, that houses the consciousness which the Soul has lent to the Life in form. There are no adequate words to describe this relationship and the picture that we have been painting is as accurate as we have been able to make it in our own state of realization. Making these pictures of ideas clearer and clearer is ever an objective of these essays and here we will reiterate and expand on some of what we have said. The Soul gives Life to the form and lends consciousness to the personality and in this idea of lend we want to build in the understanding that when the body nature dies, the personality does not; it continues for a time dependent upon one’s state of spiritual being and the type of ‘afterlife’ that one encounters. How and why this works we cannot tell but this is the teaching of most Christian doctrine as well except that they mistake the personality for the Soul and they count the consciousness as a function of the personality rather than its reality of belonging to the Soul; they do not understand that the man IS NOT the form Life. The personality then can be seen then as being given its own Life by the consciousness and we should see that since it cannot survive the body nature in this world, that there must be other realms in which it can exist; the alternative is to believe that when the body dies, ALL is dead and there is then NOTHING. This idea of NOTHING is contradicted by the many stories of near death and real death experiences as well as the past life and psychic experiences that exist in the world and which are not ALL the figments of imagination nor the ploys of psychics. We can call this a realm of the ‘supernatural’ and we should be able to see that it does at times creep into the ‘natural’ world in which we live in form. This is not for us to delve into in this essay save to create the impression of realms of emotion and of mind that overlap and which interact with the ‘natural’ world and, we might add, are the True realms of illusion and of glamour. It is in the nebulous nature of these realms that many occultists and esotericists, Theosophists and Rosicrucians or any number of other philosophies have delved in their search for Truth and it is in this realm that many are afflicted with the glamour and the illusion that has helped in the creation of volumes of work that treat the effects and not the causes but which are the same time great revealers of a reality to the world of men.

Much like the multiplication of the ONE TRUTH of God and His teachings that results in the great variety of worldwide beliefs seen through religions and sects and denominations that ALL profess to have THE TRUTH, there is the same multiplication of the realities of these hidden realms within the Life of our ONE GOD into the diversity of philosophies of popular occultism, few of which trend toward evil. This trend toward evil should be seen in the same way as what we have said regarding the use of this word in the gospels and that is that it is a trend toward the material world and the self, a world in which most ALL live and which holds most ALL in the clutches of the the same, the one and the only, illusion and glamour. It is this same illusion and glamour that creates in ALL these philosophies the same sense of being right above ALL others, and we include here the many denominations and sects, religions and occult philosophies which each see themselves through the glamour and the illusion as being the right way and the Truth. It is one of our objectives to reveal the existence of these two forces to which many give the name of evil and of of Satan or regard them as the intervention of devils and demons; these ARE glamour and illusion and these are our staunch enemies in our struggle to free ourselves form the sin and the evil of the world; our staunch enemies that prevent us from being “delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). Illusion and Glamour are our bondage as they hold our minds and our emotions in the prison of self and of selfishness.

In John’s Gospel there is an exchange between the Master and His disciples that can shed much Light upon what we are saying here if we can rightly discern Jesus’ intent. It goes thus:

“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way , the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do ; because I go unto my Father” (John 14:3-12).

We will discuss the relevance of this in the next post as well as the Master’s use of curing the blind in His ministry.

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.:

So that we do not forget that the reality of this ALL is still LOVE which is our Truth regardless of whatever other realizations may come to us in Life, we present here again the Apostle Paul’s words followed by our own understanding of this reality:

….but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law (Romans 13:8-10).

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)

We should remember always to link to this Greatest Commandment that other saying of the Master that gives to us the practical understanding of how to love one’s self plus the practical instruction on how it is that we CAN Love our neighbour; He tells us:

Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them

(Matthew 7:12)

Unlike so much of the Master’s sayings that come to us in the form of parables and for which we can only surmise that we have the spiritual presence to understand, these sayings are very straightforward and they are the key to many of the promises of spiritual life; they are the very key to the Kingdom of God. To these sayings we add our adopted definition of the Greek word agape (agapao) which is translated into the English words Love and Charity and which is:

‘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’

• ⁴   Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888