Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
ON LOVE; PART LI
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
“Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink ? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:34-40).
As we KNOW the chart below is our depiction of the Constitution of Man as a Trinity along with the Aspects of God who is the Trinity that man is made in the image of. It is important to remember that man is not this phenomenal appearance on the Earth but is rather the Life and the consciousness that is being expressed, to a greater or lesser extent, through that appearance. Man IS Spirit, or Life itself and in this Aspect is the True relation to God who IS Spirit as well and this the Master tells us saying simply that: “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). In the Ancient Wisdom and our more modern Esoteric Teachings such as those given by the Tibetan, a disciple of the Christ as are ALL spiritually advanced men, is a thing called the Law of Correspondences which we will state briefly as ‘as above, so below‘ and the idea here is only to bring out, from a different perspective, the reality of man being in the image of God, not as the man in form but as the Trinity of Spirit, Soul and the expression of these which is commonly called the Holy Spirit. What then is the Soul? In this premise of ‘as above, so below‘, the Soul is to man what the Christ is to God and hence we refer to the Soul as the Christ Within a term that is given us by the Apostle Paul as he tells us: “To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). Here we should try to see that the Christ Aspect of God which is listed in our Chart as the Son, The Christ, is not in reference to Jesus but rather to that Aspect of God of which the Apostle John speaks in the Prologue to his Gospel saying that: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men” (John 1:1-4). This Word, from the Greek word Logos which has its own significance in spiritual literature, is not the words of the scriptures, nor the words that the Master spoke but is the Word that we can understand in the ideas engendered from Genesis that “And God said” (Genesis 1:3) and hence John’s saying that “All things were made by him” as He is the manifestation of ALL that there is.
|
Aspect of God |
Potency |
Aspect of Man |
|
Father |
Will or Power |
Spirit or Life |
|
Son, The Christ |
Love and Wisdom |
Soul or Christ Within |
|
Holy Spirit |
Light or Activity |
Life Within the Form |
If we can for a moment put Jesus aside in our thinking about the first column and realize Him as a man in the third column, we get the understanding from the Gospels and from the Master’s words that we can do as He has done saying “The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master” (Luke 6:40); and we can realize the words of John saying “because as he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). This is a reality of the mystery spoken of by Paul “which is Christ in you, the hope of glory“. When we can see Jesus as a man, as in the third column, who is of such an advanced spiritual state that He could come into the world possessing what Paul tells us is the Fullness of God saying “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9), we can come a long way in understanding our own selves and the potential that we have or, as we should say, the objective and the goal that we have. A key word in all of this that we say above is found in the Master’s words which give us the reality of how we can accomplish these things and this word is perfect. In the saying that “every one that is perfect shall be as his master” we should see the implied perfection of the Master, the Christ Jesus, and we should marry this idea to the Master’s telling us of the Way, the Path, that we must follow saying: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). It is in this perfection, this sense of being pure, that we have the reality of the Virgin Birth of the Master as He is Borne of the Father God and not of a Earthly father; a Father God who IS perfect. There is in these sayings from the New Testament the Truth and the reality of the Life of man and much insight into Our God as both a Cosmic Being and as the Truth of our own existence. Looking then at the God Within, the Spirit that IS man, being the human correspondence to the Father God and looking then as the idea of the Christ Within, the Soul that IS man, being the human correspondence to the Cosmic Christ, the Logos translated as the Word, of whom John tells us “and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1), we should have the understanding that they are ONE and that the only separation is in our perspective. The Master helps us to understand this UNITY on the human level saying that “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30) an here we should note that most other bible translations render this as “I and the Father are one” thus removing the personal relationship of the Master to God and making it a more universal relationship in which we ALL share. We have then the ONENESS spoken of by John in the Prologue and we have the ONENESS spoken of by the Master which together give us the same understanding of ‘as above, so below‘ seeing that what is True Cosmically of God is True on the human level in Christ Jesus and thereby in us ALL.
This leaves us with the Holy Spirit as the Third part of the Trinity and the One that seems the most misunderstood and we should note that trying to see Jesus as the Christ being human as we are is likely a requirement for the proper understanding of the Holy Spirit which we have heretofore spoken of as the Activity of the Christ (Cosmically speaking) in the world, the very Energy that IS God as it interacts with this world of matter. Viewing again our premise that ‘as above, so below‘ in relation to the Holy Spirit, we should be able to see that the activity of the Christ Within, the Soul, in the Life of the man in form, IS the Holy Spirit; we should also be able to understand why the way of speaking of this Spirit is that He is realized only in the realization of the Christ Within in the Life of a man. When the focus of a man’s Life is not on the Soul, the Christ Within, then the realization of this divine part is not a part of the consciousness of the man in form. Conversely, when the opposite is True, when the man is focused upon the Christ Within, then the realization of the Christ Within in the consciousness of the man in form IS the Holy Spirit as the activity of the Christ Within in the Life of the man; the Holy Spirit is this EXPRESSION OF DIVINITY, the same expression that we see in the Life of Jesus the Christ. Here we should try to see that just as the Father and the Son, God and the Christ, the Spirit and the Soul, the Christ Within, are ONE that the Holy Spirit is also ONE with them as He is but their expression in time and space.
Can we see here the reality of the words of John the Baptist as they affect the reality of the baptism? John baptized with water and he spoke the words of the forerunner saying “And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” and he brought many men to a realization of God and of the law which is what they KNEW. He moved them out of the doldrums of religion as it had become established through the reliance of the people on the priesthood and on the scribe and the Pharisee. In the Baptist’s words was a new Life of the independence of each man insofar as His own ability to see and to KNOW God. Many were ready and many came to the Baptist, much to the chagrin of the religious authorities of the time who saw John as an annoyance and discounted his teachings thinking themselves to be True representatives of God on Earth; this attitude is the essence of what we call in our posts glamour. John the Baptist however took NO credit as a man of God in worldly terms but humbly worked to bring Truth to the world and in his humility he presented the Master to the world. We KNOW of his humility from the gospel stories that tell us that “And John was clothed with camel’s hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins; and he did eat locusts and wild honey” (Mark 1:6), and we KNOW of his humbleness of attitude from the gospel stories that tell us that he says “He it is , who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose” (John 1:27). And, in both of these ways of the Baptist we should try to understand that he was himself a Soul of High Calling, an Advanced Soul from the perspective of our own meager spiritual accomplishment and in his High Calling he willingly humbled himself before the Awesome Greatness of the Christ as He came in the person of Jesus.
Back to our thoughts on baptism, we must try to understand the True meaning of the Baptist’s words regarding the Master saying: “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire” (Matthew 3:11). What does this really say? Can we see the idea from above regarding the words of John to the Jews is that the Way to God and to His blessings is in repentance. Here we should understand that the message of Jehovah, through Moses and the prophets, was that the ‘blessings’ of God were for those who followed the law and that these blessings were tending to the betterment of the Life of the man in the world. Much is still said today about the Blessings of Abraham in some parts of the Christian Church and this is in many ways the product of confusion and, as we KNOW, this is not from God, not Wisdom from above, if it is confusion; this we KNOW from Paul’s saying to the Corinthians “For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33). We should also remember that Wisdom from above is not about the self in any way but is about the fruits of righteousness as we have repeated many times in the recent past. The basis of our premise of confusion is simple and it is found in the reality that the Master does not teach anything that benefits a man in this world; these type of blessings were the product of the Old Testament, the Old Dispensation, and the idea that the Baptist is offering is that men should come back to this reality of the law and the blessings, that they should repent as a starting place for the teachings of the Master who brings us a New Dispensation, one that is founded in Love and in keeping the law not because it is the law but because it is the right thing to do.
It is in this idea that we do what is right that the Master refers to when speaking about treasure of one’s heart which we KNOW as the content of one’s consciousness; He continually instructs us that this treasure must not be of the things of the world even though these were the promises of the Old Testament. And here then is our understanding of the New Baptism of the Master, the one of which the Baptist speaks saying “he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire“. By making the treasure of one’s heart the things of God we bring the realization of the Christ Within into the Life of the man in form and this is the True baptism with the Holy Ghost for when the Christ Within, the Soul Life, is realized, it is the Soul that is expressed through from and this expression IS the Holy Spirit. And this is the same as the Master tries to explain to Nicodemus saying “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit” (John 3:5-8)…..Ponder on this.
We did not get to our sayings from the last post regarding the ideas of evil as this word is used by the Master and we will get back to this in the next post.
- “That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45).
- “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” (Matthew 7:11).
- “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders” (Mark 7:21).
- “Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake” (Luke 6:22).
- “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh” (Luke 6:45).
- “And in that same hour he cured many of their infirmities and plagues, and of evil spirits; and unto many that were blind he gave sight” (Luke 7:21).
- “And when the people were gathered thick together , he began to say , This is an evil generation: they seek a sign; and there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet” (Luke 11:29).
- “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved” (John 3:19-20).
- “And shall come forth ; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation” (John 5:29)
- “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil” (John 17:15)
- “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen” (Matthew 6:13).
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’
