IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 310

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON GOD; Part XCIV

“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error. Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.  There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment . He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also” (1 John 4:1-21).

We have been speaking much about the ideas of illusion, glamour and deception and we have often noted how the first two cause the third and this is true for most ALL men in form on this Earth. The only cure for these is found in the Power of the Light of the Soul, the Truth if you will. We noted yesterday how the Master calls the Holy Spirit, which is for us the activity of the Christ Within, the Spirit of Truth and  how that the Buddha is the revealer of the Truth, being as He is, the Lord of Enlightenment. Both the Buddha and the Christ teach the same understanding albeit from different perspectives and with words formulated for the customs and the languages of the people that they are addressing. Speaking in broad terms, both the Oriental and the Jew had their own preconceived ideas about religion, God and their relationship to God, that had been passed down to them over the generations and changed somewhat by each as men sought to fit their religious understanding into their lives. The Christ and the Buddha came to these people to correct what the generations had wronged and to renew the teachings with more enlightened words for the spiritual growth of the people. Just as the original teachings led to the preconceived ideas of the people at the time of the advent of the Christ and the Buddha, so their teachings have led to the preconceived ideas of men today. Hence the return of the Christ and the long sought for coming of the Lord Maitreya will provide the correction for what the generations have wronged and to bring vital new teachings and yet greater enlightenment. We should not be surprised to find out that these will both be with us in and as the same Great Being, the Avatar of Love and Wisdom, who we will call the Christ and others will call Maitreya and perhaps still other religions which are awaiting their next Savior, their Redeemer, or their next Messenger from God, will find Him in this same Great Being as well.

For man to deny this possibility and to hold onto his preconceived ideas that the Christ will return for Christians and that Maitreya will return for Buddhists and the Mahdi will come to the Muslims is a fundamentally separatist attitude that is not founded in any reality but only in the vague pronouncements of scripture. There is ONE GOD for ALL of creation and this FACT should be more readily appreciated today than ever before and especially with the coming NEW AGE, the Aquarian Age. Is our premise accurate? we cannot be sure but it does make much more sense that the separatist attitudes of the world churches and religions. We spend much of our time trying to negate the preconceived understandings of today’s religions and the loosen the hold that doctrine and dogma has on man and this puts us in opposition to much of the common teaching of the manifold Christian denominations and world religions as well.

There is a great fear in the Christian world, and perhaps in the eyes of other religions as well, of what is called the New Age and the One World Religion and these fears can be based upon nothing but that same attitude of hypocrisy that the Master railed against 2000 years ago when His NEW TEACHING was opposed by the religious leaders of the day. While fear may not seem the proper word here, we should be able to see the idea of fear in this attitude from the perspective of our next verse of the chapter from John’s epistle above; the Apostle John tells us here that “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment“. We should be able to understand in this that the advent of a New Age is a astronomical fact and that the advent of a One World Religion would necessarily be based in Love. In the Spirit of Love, Love for all our brothers and all our neighbors around the world, there should be no fear of communion with them. Add to this the FACT that the Earth and mankind have progressed steadily through different Ages over the thousands of years of Judeo-Christian scripture, which ages correspond to the Zodiac in a much more than commonly understood way; add also the FACT that there is but ONE GOD for ALL of creation who sees through the eyes of Love for  “God is love” as the apostle tells us above, and there is no reason to not understand at least the possibility of a coming New Age and a coming One World Religion. Can we see the functioning of fear in their denial and can we see the activity of illusion, glamour and deception?

The Apostle Paul set this clear for us insofar as the One God and even with his words of Wisdom man has held to their belief that each society is worshiping a different God. Paul tells us:

“Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship , 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; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.  Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device” (Acts 17:22-29).

Can we see the point? that no matter what a society may worship, if they consider it to be the “God that made the world and all things therein” then it is necessarily the SAME GOD that is worshiped by the Christian or by the Jew regardless of how He may be depicted or what He may be called? Can we see also in the apostle’s words that this ONE GOD calls ALL men to “seek the Lord” and that we are ALL together in a UNITY because He “hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth“? How is it that mankind has missed this and misinterpreted it for more than 2000 years? simply by doing what Paul says not to do, that “we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device“. Can we not see man’s doctrines and his dogma and his religious rituals in this idea of man’s device? This man’s device is a rather clear example of what we are here in our posts calling glamour; it is an emotionally fixed position that a man takes that says that what he believes is the Truth and the only Truth and in this idea we should be able to see the group effect of it. It is illusion that is emotionally based in the lower self who refuses to see any other point of view but his own. In its group effect it is responsible for mans unthinking allegiance to a social grouping, a political party a state or country and a religion and his subsequent feeling that his way is better than all others. There is no change in this until such a time as the mind is set upon it and one can properly weigh things. For example a devout such and such would never entertain changing his religion until a reason for such a change is presented in thought. This is not intended to be a complete understanding of glamour as it is active in many other ways as well and it coexists with illusion to the degree that they are at times inseparable.

Both of these worldly factors lead a man to deception which can be seen a man so believing the products of illusion and glamour that he makes them an integral part of his Life. It is the world that deceives and that holds man a prisoner of illusion and glamour and it is the Christ Within, the Soul, that sets a man free and this thought is found throughout the teachings of the Master, of His disciples and of the Buddha as well. There is a saying in John’s Gospel by the Master that can help us to understand both the value and the man made illusion and glamour found in scripture; the man made illusion and glamour are simply man’s taking the words of the Master and His disciples and creating a doctrine that he believes represents the words but which misses the point. The Master tells us that: “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me” (John 5:39). This saying is spoken to those who see His works and hear His words and yet do not understand, He tells them that “ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent , him ye believe not” (John 5:38). Based on our posts over the last several days, we should understand that this word abide is reflective of living in so that much the same way as God or the Christ abide in you or dwelleth in you so too does His word. The message here then to them and by extension to us today is that if one does not have His “word abiding in” him, he will “believe not“, that is “believe not” the scriptures. The Master is here speaking to religious Jews who were in opposition to Him and today through His word He is speaking to the same type of man, one who reads the word but in whom it does not live.

We should understand that these Jews, through the glamour of their religious doctrine, believed that they were right and that the word did live in them and as such they had no patience for the Master or His words and likely what they considered His healing tricks. This however does not effect the Master as He tells them that they believe that they know the scriptures and that in them they have their salvation but they do not see what the reality is, that the scriptures are saying what He is saying and that they as men are and will continue to be lost. Can we see the extension of this message to us today? If we can then it likely does not apply to us as we see the Truth and the reality of His words and not the doctrines of men; if we can not see how this applies then we are likely just the same as those Jews, we believe that we KNOW what the scriptures say and we do not see the glamour and the illusion and the deception by which we are held. The simple task here for each of us is to measure the level to which we have the “word abiding in you“; this is a purely personal endeavor in which we can use the words of the Apostle James who tells us: “be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22). To what level are we a doer of the word? We can delude ourselves but this is illusion and the Truth of the apostles saying that we are “deceiving your own selves” Answering this in Truth will, for EVERYMAN, set his course for tomorrow. There is a line from Hamlet by William Shakespeare that is much bandied about but which at the same time holds mans key insofar as his ideas above on illusion, glamour and deception are concerned; Polonius, speaking to his son says:

This above all- to thine own self be true

Although we did mention our chapter above, we did not cover our text again today but the insights that we did cover are meaningful and important. We will continue with our thoughts on the Fourth Chapter of the First Epistle of John in the next post.

Note on the Quote of the Day