Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
ON GOD; Part CXII
“Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace” (James 3: 13-18).
We have been saying for as long as this blog has been that this section of James Epistle is intended to be one’s guide to KNOWING that a thought, a revelation or anything ‘from God’, as some are prone to say, is actually such and this is an understanding that is not taught by many and which may not be seen by many as well. However, as a revelation of sorts in an of itself, this thought about this section must fit into the precepts of this section as well. It must not be in any way “earthly, sensual, devilish” nor can it deliver to us “bitter envying and strife“, either in the way we would ordinarily look at these words or in our expanded view of anything that is self-serving, or possessed of self-devotion or self-interest. We should see here that the apostle creates an analogy between these ideas of self-anything and “earthly, sensual, devilish” and this is a bitter pill for most all of us and it is the stopping point for many a man; it is the cross that we must bear if we are to Truly follow Him for as He says “And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27) is, as we KNOW, a statement of FACT. And, so that we are not confused, He also tells us this in other terms saying that “And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:38).
These are the things that a word or a revelation or a motivation from above would not be; they would not be for the lower-self, the carnal man in the world, and this is true no matter how a man may try to dress up what he is receiving as to make it not to be about the self….this is but illusion and glamour and it borders upon hypocrisy. Entire church doctrines have been established to protect a man from feeling that what he is doing for the self in the world is actually God ordained and right. On the other side of this is the list of positive and virtuous ideals that, in their combination, will allow for a man to Truly believe that his word or his revelation or his motivation is Truly from above, from God and from the Christ Within. As we have seen, this list of ideals can be understood in different ways by different people likely dependent upon their station in Life. Now this is not a derogatory thing as we know that we come into Life here on Earth with the ability to build a form and with a personality that is aligned with our previous experiences as well as any effects of karmic responsibility and that beyond this form we are ALL the same. So what we mean here is that these ideals are understood in different ways through one’s focus of Life which is the reality of one’s station and not some arbitrary Earthly educational, financial or moral place. A man focused upon the Soul and the Christ Within will see these ideas from the perspective of the disciple while a man that is focused upon his Life in the world and his family will see these ideals from his own particular point of view or from the teachings of the doctrine to which he subscribes. By example we can look at the ideas from our posts on the word envy which will be understood by the average man as this Greek word is translated in the bible version that he uses and or according to his doctrine; it could be envy or jealousy or bitter zeal as it is translated in the Roman Catholic Douay-Rheims Version. With a little help from Vincent and our other resources we have found that the proper idea of what would NOT be in Wisdom from above nor what this Wisdom would cause would be a sense of self, in bringing things to the benefit of the carnal man. Can we see our point here?
Another example can be seen in the ideal stated by the apostle as mercy, that “the wisdom that is from above” is “full of mercy“. We can, as the interpreters and commentators do, ascribe this to that mercy which is for the downtrodden of this world; the afflicted, the wretched, the miserable and the needy and we can say that if the thought that we have, which we believe is from above, encourages us to feed them or clothe them then this is a right thought and from above and this would be both good and in a Spirit of Love. On the other side of this is the understanding that the afflicted and the miserable and the needy are such from a spiritual perspective, that they are lost in the world of things and afflicted by the illusion and the glamour and the resultant deception and it is for these that we have mercy flowing in our thoughts. It is for these that we act; as Vincent and the lexicon tell us, Mercy is kindness and goodwill toward the miserable and afflicted, joined with a desire to relieve them4, 2. Can we see that this can go in either direction dependent upon one’s focus and that for us whose focus is on the Soul and the Christ Within this would naturally be the way that we perceive this idea of mercy; that our thoughts are with and for our brothers who have not yet seen the Light and the way?
We should clearly see the duality that is in this as well as in so much else as regards one’s Life in form. As man believes that he is this Life in form he also believes that all Life issues are in regard to this Life including any sporadic contact with his own Soul. While we have said that the realization of duality comes when a man is hearing from his Soul as the Wisdom from above and at the same time from his personality as the wisdom of the world, this does not mean that this duality does not exist in our prior state of consciousness. So long as we are in form there will be this sense of duality at play in our lives and this is what leads to James’ saying that: “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways” (James 1:8); when we realize this duality is when we can and do begin to work on it so as to free ourselves from the ranks of the afflicted. This is a difficult subject today as it was in days past as it appears that we are separating us from them and in a way we are doing so. However at the same time we do recognize our Unity with ALL men as Souls and our comments and comparisons are not on this level of Truth but are on the level where we recognize the same illusion, glamour and deception that afflicts us as well as ALL others. With the cause of showing that mercy that comes through in the Light from above, we affirm the truth in the saying that: Mercy is kindness and goodwill toward the miserable and afflicted, joined with a desire to relieve them4, 2. Remembering that our understanding is that these miserable and afflicted are our brothers who have not yet seen the Light and who are mired in the world and that our affirmation below is that our purpose is to foster love among the sons of men we should be able to appreciate their plight and our awesome responsibility. James comments on this thought in the last lines of his epistle saying: “Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins” (James 5:19-20). Can we see that there is nothing in this for the man who performs this task, there is only the gift that we can give our brothers.
We will move on to the final verse in our 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 leave our Quote of the Day from yesterday again today and likely for several days so that we can understand the intent of these affirmations which are intended for use by aspirant and disciples such as we believe that we are. Our opening and general statement on these verses has been moved to the bottom.
In the last post we tried to show the relationship between the teachings of the Master on repentance and the words in our affirmation that All that hinders and obstructs the showing of the Light must disappear before the purposes of the Soul. We know that the purposes of the Soul include the major purpose which is that we My Soul must foster Love among the sons of men and we should ever tie this to our entire understanding that God is Love and therefore we are Love as well; that the Christ is the expression of the Love on God on Earth and that our Souls, our Christ Within, are expressions of the Love of God as well and our goal is to express this Love on Earth as did the Master. For us it is rather clear that ALL is Love simply because God is Love. So then our stanza here reflects on the fact that for this Love to be expressed and for us to be able to foster this Love among our brothers we must first Will to Love and then Will to tread the way of Love. How can we understand this idea of Will? Let us start by saying that Will is our focused attention to a matter and when speaking about spiritual things it is the state of intentional focused attention on the things of God. This idea of Will is beyond desire for union with our Souls and with the Christ Within and at the same time stems from it; this is beyond devotion and at the same time it is the culmination of it. Will is the High Place of the disciple of the Master; it is that state of mind in which we KNOW that there is no turning back and that there is no longer anything in the world that can deter our progress. Will is the place where Love and Wisdom become our very nature.
We should see this idea of Will also as a matter of degree as most ALL things are; it starts where desire and devotion leave off and it builds until we become True KNOWERS, till we can come to that state of being where we “shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed , and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done” (Matthew 21:21). This is the Power of a FULLY REALIZED SON OF GOD and we should know that it is within our ken because the Master tells us so. Of course when a man reaches to this HIGH PLACE he is likely little interested in casting mountains into the sea but we should take from this the Awesome Power that there is within us ALL. What then is there that hinders and obstructs? Simply all things that tie a man to the world of things, the converse of all those things that the Master tells us we need to do to be His disciples and to be accounted worthy of Him. There is not mystery here as it all starts with His teachings from the Sermon on the Mount; He tells us what we need to do and the converse of these things is our hindrance and our obstructions. For each of us these are what we in our own hearts KNOW tie us to this world. The message is that when we Will to Love and Will to tread the Path of Love, we will at the same time recognize our hindrances and the obstructions that keep us from discipleship and we will work diligently on suppressing and eliminating them. This is the natural Path for the aspirant who should always remember the words of the Master saying that “No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62) and we should take from this the understanding that if a man is looking back upon the things of the world with desire still to have them then it is a Truth that he is not fit. We should remember here also that no man is ever lost and if opportunity presents again and the man accepts it then no thing is lost but time.
I am reminded in reading a pamphlet about the Reappearance of the Christ that there is another hindrance, another obstacle, and that is the inertia of the average spiritually minded person. I quote here from the booklet: The average spiritually-minded person, man of goodwill, or disciple is constantly aware of the challenge of the times and the opportunity which spiritual events may offer. The desire to do good and to accomplish spiritual ends is ceaselessly gnawing away within his consciousness. Every one who loves his fellow men, who has a dream of seeing the Kingdom of God materialise on earth, or who is conscious of the awakening of the masses to the higher spiritual values, is throughly dissatisfied. He realises that what he contributes of help to these desirable objectives is little indeed. He knows that his spiritual life is a side issue; it is something which he keeps carefully to himself and which he is frequently afraid to mention to his nearest and his dearest; he tries to dovetail his spiritual efforts into his ordinary, outer life, struggling to find time and opportunity for it in a gentle, futile and innocuous manner. He finds himself helpless before the task of organising and rearranging his affairs so that the spiritual way of living may dominate; he searches for alibis for himself and eventually rationalises so successfully that he ends by deciding that he is doing the best he can in the given circumstances. The truth is that he is doing so little that probably one hour out of the twenty-four (or perhaps two) would cover the time given to the Master’s work; he hides behind the alibi that his home obligations prevent his doing more and does not realise that–given tact and loving understanding–his home environment can and must be the field in which he triumphs; he forgets that there exist no circumstances in which the spirit of man can be defeated Circumstances and environment offer no true obstacle to the spiritual life. (from the pamphlet Preparation for the Reappearance of the Christ based on the teachings of the Tibetan who is a True disciple of the Christ and published by World Goodwill and Lucis Trust).
This effects us ALL and prior to my starting this Blog my efforts were in fits and starts that went nowhere and had no staying power and I spent much time away from any effort at all, filling my time with the mundane affairs of Life and eschewing the fact that I was doing little. I had myself convinced that there was little that I could do and then I came upon this idea of the blog and I committed myself to it and I do it daily regardless of time and circumstances and, while doing this, I now feel that I could be doing yet more. The struggle is at times hard but the rewards ARE simply undefinable and are founded in Love and Peace and that ever growing sense of KNOWING.
We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.
My Soul has Purpose, Power and Will; these three are needed on the Way of Liberation.
My Soul must foster Love among the sons of men; this is its major purpose.
I, therefore, will to love and tread the Way of Love. All that hinders and obstructs the showing of the Light must disappear before the purposes of the Soul.
My will is one with the great Will of God;. that Holy Will requires that all men serve. And unto the purposes of the Plan I lend my little will.
As we approached the time of the Wesak Festival we noted that there are Three Spiritual Festivals in three consecutive months each falling on the day of the Full Moon in the respective month. The first is the Festival of Easter, the second is the Wesak, the Festival of the Buddha and the third is the festival of the Christ which is coming next at the Full Moon of Gemini which will occur on June the 5th and which is alternatively called World Invocation Day. There is a little more that three weeks between now and the Christ’s Festival and we will try to use that time to attain a better understanding of what this day should mean to us. We will start here today with this set of affirmative sayings regarding discipleship and its requirements from the perspective of the willing disciple. We will get into the source of this saying as well as our thoughts on its meaning and intent over the next few posts and we will leave it here as the Quote of the Day until we can accomplish this. Spoken as the aspirant or disciple in form who is invoking fullness of the power of the Christ Within, he first acknowledges what he must bring to bear on the personalty, then what he must do with this purpose, power and will……LOVE.
- 2 New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
- 4 Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
