Monthly Archives: January 2012

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON GOD; Part IV

We spent our time yesterday mostly in review of some of the ideas that we present here in this daily blog. It is unfortunate that there is so much confusion and so many differences between denominations and sects concerning that ONE thing that we ALL share and that is OUR GOD. Regardless of what He is called by the many customs and religions of the world, there is but one Creator and we should see Him or at least try to see Him as the Apostle Paul shows us in his speech to the Greek scholars at Athens. After seeing an inscription by the Greeks addressed to the UNKNOWN GOD, Paul affirms to them and to us that so long as God, known by any name, is seen as the Creator of all, then this it the same God that he is preaching. Paul says that: “…..him declare I unto you. God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: For in him we :live, and move, and have our being…..” (Acts 17:23-28). So it matters not that He is called Unknown or Allah, Vishnu or Jehovah, if this is the name of the Creator of All then this is Our God.

Much is said by Christians that derogates the customs of others insofar as they may have a multiplicity of names for God and this should not be so. Christian’s to have a number of names for God as well; some are based on the Trinity, or as we call it the Aspects of God, as each of the three is considered fully God. Christians also call Him Elohim, Jehovah, Adonai, Yahweh or simply Lord and God; add to this the Old Testament terms like El Shaddai or names that are used to describe God based on His many attributes such as Jehovah-Jireh, Jehovah-Shalom and Jehovah-Shammah to name a few. Much of the use of alternate names for God is from antiquity and is likely the product of a lack of understanding of the One God Himself and perhaps even from superstitions. There is but ONE GOD, One Boundless, Immutable, Eternal and Infinite Presence in whom, as Paul tells us, “we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28). We should see to it that in our own interactions with people of different cultures and faiths, that we hold to the simple premise regarding what or who they may worship and that is that if He is considered by them to be The Creator of All or if He is considered by them to be a name for an Attribute of the One God, that they and their beliefs deserve the utmost of our respect. We need not agree with them but, if we are all talking about the same concept of God, the One Creator, or His Attributes we could better serve ourselves and them by seeing the similarities above the differences. The splitting apart of the human family in divisive terms based on age old arguments over a subject that none really understands must stop and it will stop and men and women of GoodWill approach the subject with levelheadedness and Love instead of with pride and arrogance. Is not this harmony, and unity and respect for one’s neighbor the prima facie teaching of the Christ.

Returning to our ideas on the Trinity of Aspects of God where we were speaking of that aspect that we call the Father and where we left off with the saying that Every Man and Woman is a Star to which we ascribed more meaning that is generally understood. As we said in a previous post, the saying is purportedly coined by Aleister Crowley, an occultist and a mystic who is still severely derided by the Christian community which, it is likely, never really looked at his philosophy but who judge it and him from afar seeing him as a heretic. This saying is generally attributed to man in relation the the pentagram and there is surely much text relating to this combination. We however can look a bit deeper than this and get perhaps a glimpse into an esoteric realm of reality of which we can not have any certainty whatsoever. For us it is just the words as they exist combined with our current knowledge of the universe. We approached this idea from a simple statement that it is well beyond our ken to see anything in Life that is outside of the range of human thought; even the thoughts of infinite and eternal are mindboggling. Where do we go after our experience in human form is done; what do we do? Do we exist for an eternity in a place called heaven in ‘glorified bodies’ where all that we desire that is good is fulfilled for us and where  there is an ever growing civilization of like minded ex-people? Do we exist in a dreamlike state sans bodies; again for eternity? Or do we, once we have reached His Kingdom, continue to evolve to the stature of Christ-like beings and then more, taking on greater and greater roles in the mind and the body of our God? Can we be Planetary in influence? Can we be Solar? Can we be one of those septillion stars which, as we said, are really uncountable? Need a better idea of septillion? It is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000; remembering the definition of infinite, this number could just as well be a decillion which would add on another 000,000,000. This is our God and this is His Awesome Creation.

With this in mind, what is it that is worth our fighting and arguing over in relation to God? Surely no one understands Him nor can anyone claim to know Him save those who are in His Kingdom by way of following the Master and keeping His words. Now we must understand that while is may be beyond our ken to know and to understand God, we do have the ability to know and to understand our Souls, our Christ Within which is the manifestation of our Spirit self which is, in its essence, a more direct correspondence to God. Looking again at our chart we can see the relationship of a man to God the Father and to His Aspects in the Son and the Holy Spirit.

We discussed in a previous post on this subject the ideas of Will and of Power and how, away from this physical realm they can be seen to be much more in unison.  We used as an example the idea of the mind of man where Will Power can be seen as one and this is much the way we should look at the ideas presented in the chart. The Will of God is the Power of God and this can be surmised from the ideas of the words alone; what God Wills to happen,  happens, and that is the Power of God. Can we see in this the idea of KNOWING as well? KNOWING that one can heal is, in a not so strange way, willing it to happen and this was the course of action for the Christ and for Peter and the other apostles. Can we see in this the necessity of there being a range of KNOWING and thereby a range also of WILL? Can we see here how the Father reserves for Himself the ultimate in KNOWING and the ultimate in WILL and that for all of His children there is the possibility to KNOW and to Will up to that lofty point?

It is a difficult task to talk intelligently about something that we do not and can not really know and what we are saying here should be seen as reasonably cogent deductions based upon the teachings of the Master and other Sacred Texts. We know from the Old Testament that God; speaking to His apostle of that day in Moses who asks what he can say the name of God is. In reply God says that “I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you” (Exodus 3:14). What does this say except that GOD IS. John Gill, in his Exposition of the Bible⁸ tells us this regarding this saying from Exodus: This signifies the real being of God, his self-existence, and that he is the Being of beings; as also it denotes his eternity and immutability, and his constancy and faithfulness in fulfilling his promises, for it includes all time, past, present, and to come; and the sense is, not only I am what I am at present, but I am what I have been, and I am what I shall be, and shall be what I am⁸. And we would say that He is yet more than this for this understanding is limited to the ideas of men and not only as men but as men in this world knowing only this world. As we approach the Kingdom of God we certainly can see things more clearly and with greater and greater understanding; not understanding only of God but also of our own place in the Grand Scheme of things. We come to greater and greater KNOWING and thereby greater and greater WILL.

Finishing for today, let us look at the correspondence of God the Father in the realm of man. This is not to be seen nor understood as man in form as we know and see him but the reality of man as a Spirit. The Master tells us throughout the gospels how we should be in regard to the world and the things of the world and we see in this His telling us that we, when we can follow Him and keep His words, are accounted worthy of the Kingdom of God. He paints for us the understanding of the differences between the world and the Kingdom and He does so in parable and also in clear thought. He gives us the direction to follow to get to the Kingdom and He tells us where the Kingdom is saying: “the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). The way is clearly depicted by the Master but the explanations are lacking and this likely because the people He was speaking to could not understand anything deeper. In fact, as we know, they barely understood what He did say. Speaking in the temple the Master chastises the rulers and others who He thought should understand saying “Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speakethof his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not” (John 8:44-48). We should understand the idea here of the devil as being the ways of the world which they followed in lust and in pride; refusing to see the Truth. The point here is that the Master spoke in words that they in that time could understand but they mostly did not and that within His words are the keys and the clues to the reality of His sayings and His parables and it is to us today to understand His speech and hear His word. 

Paul, in his proper role of supporter of the sayings of the Master, helps us to understand the ideas of the master saying that “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16) thereby telling us the fact that this body is not us but just our vehicle of expression here on Earth. The Master Himself gives us some ideas on this saying that “ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them” (Luke 9:55-56). This may seem an unnecessary point but there are so many that identify themselves solely with this body of flesh and bone and many who believe that it is this body, somehow converted to a ‘glorified’ state, that is theirs forever after the end of this existence for all. The reality is in the words of the Master and His disciples saying that we are Spirit and the references are numerous and, while many are vague, we should be able to see the reality which is the essence of all belief in the immortality of man.

Our chart identifies the Spirit that is man with God and His aspect of Will or Power and this is the reality of Life. The Spirit is the Life; without the Spirit manifesting through the Soul there is no Life in the form, the body of man. When the Spirit withdraws from the form, this is the death of the body though the Spirit continues on, still giving Life, through the conscious Soul, to the other components of Life in form, namely the mind and the emotions. On the degree of realization and the focus of the now ended Life in form depends one’s state of being after the demise of the form and this we have discussed before and we will discuss in more depth as we get into the next Aspect of God, the Son and its human correspondence in the Soul.

Note on the Quote of the Day