Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
ON LOVE; PART LXIII
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
“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 missed the last two days due to moving and the trials and adjustments of starting the next day in a new residence. Of course the adjustments will continue as we unpack and get adjusted to new surroundings and new neighbors but things like moving do not change us nor should they if we Truly understand our Life in form and what it means. Our post today will be rather short and this may reach into the next few days as well as time is needed now to unpack and set up for yet another stage in Life. It is sometimes difficult to balance Life’s busy schedules and responsibilities and this is much the point of the Master when He tells us about God and mammon; it is also the point of our promised series on handling just such issues as living in the world and approaching the Kingdom at the same time and the key may be in the way that the Master presents this to us as “Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24, Luke 16:13). What we mean to say here is the the whole of this may be defined by the Greek word that is translated as serve and this is where we will begin when we are ready to begin. In the meantime we should take stock in our own lives and in our own understanding of the Master’s intent and recognize who or what we serve and what that idea really means.
We left off last time with the words from the Apostle John’s Gospel above and the rather deep truths that can be uncovered in the Master’s words regarding the relationship between the Spirit and the Soul, between the Father and the Son or, the ultimate reality, between GOD and Christ. All of these pairs are the same in nature albeit speaking in different contexts; when we speak of the Cosmic Nature of God we speak of God as the totality of ALL Existence and the Christ as the manifestation of that Existence and here we must understand that there is no separation or nor division but just a UNITY of Expression and, to this Expression in time and space we give the name of the Holy Spirit. Similarly we can speak of the Father and the Son although here we will be generally referring to God on a more personal level as the actual expression in regard to the human family, not the man in form but the whole of the created man as spoken about in Genesis where we read that “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27). Here we must understand that there is not personality and no form but ‘mankind’ from the perspective of the Spirit and the Soul of ALL beings and not of any one in particular. We should not be fooled here as there is likely no time (if we can justly use such a construct of heavenly things) when mankind did not exist as Spirit and as ONE with GOD although we have no realization of this in our current state of being; suffice it to say that as spiritual part and parcel of God we were sent or ‘created’ in such a way as to fulfill our mission in relation to the form life of the animal that was evolved enough to accept the influence of the True Life of man and thereby, for all practical purposes, become the man in form.
There is a saying in the Bhagavad Gita that addresses this; from our version, The Bhagavad Gita of Order, it reads: “I never really did not exist whenever, nor did you; you nor any of all these kings – never shall also surely all of us not exist hereafter” (Bhagavad Gita 2:12). In this saying Krishna, speaking as the Supreme Lord, is telling Arjuna, the warrior in form, of the True nature of Life. Another translation, The Bhagavad Gita as it is which is to us a more doctrinal rendition, says this a bit clearer as: “Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be“. The message here is the same, that for eternity all exists although not in the same form and certainly not, from the perspective of the man, in form as we KNOW it here in this world. Again, how and why this works and what the differences are between the vast assortment of energy forms is beyond our ken and the Truth of ALL things in not in this form Life that we enjoy but in the Life that gives itself to the form for a time and, we must understand that there IS a relationship between our True self as the Spirit and the Soul and the Spirit and the Soul that motivates the form Life of ALL in the ALL the kingdoms of nature; ALL ARE expressions of some spiritual Life that has not achieved the status of man but to the best of our understanding someday will and this we understand from the teaching of the Apostle Peter who tells us that “Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34) which saying comes from Peter’s vision which he describes as “And saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth: Wherein were all manner of fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill , and eat. But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean. And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed , that call not thou common” (Acts 10:11-15).
While these words from the Book of Acts are generally deemed to mean as a showing what to eat for Peter, we should see that Peter does get the greater idea of the equality of ALL which he translates into the idea of God’s EVEN look as persons and not about food at all. We take this yet deeper by relating this to our idea of ALL Life IS Life in God and although we may not understand these things nor their principals we should respect them.
Our last pair of Spirit and Soul brings this ALL to a personal level and is the subject of most ALL of our essays. We are Spirit and Soul and we find our Life within the Father and the Son which in turn find themselves in Vast Reality of God and Christ. This is the ONENESS that is expressed in the words of the Master above; words that cannot be readily understood from the perspective of man in form unless that man is focused upon the Life Within, which IS the Christ Within.
|
Potency |
Aspect of Man |
In relation to the Christ |
|
GOD, The Father |
Will or Power |
Spirit or Life |
Life |
|
Son, The Christ |
Love and Wisdom |
Soul or Christ Within |
Truth |
|
Holy Spirit |
Light or Activity |
Life Within |
Way |
We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.
As we approach United Nations Day, we repeat our words from a few days back and the Millennium Development Goals which have been adopted and which are the essence of and the reality of GoodWill which is Love in Action.
Millennium Declaration
In 2000, 189 nations made a promise to free people from extreme poverty and multiple deprivations. This pledge turned into the eight Millennium Development Goals.**
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight international development goals that were officially established following the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in 2000, following the adoption of the United Nations Millennium Declaration. All 193 United Nations member states and at least 23 international organizations have agreed to achieve these goals by the year 2015. The goals are:
- eradicating extreme poverty and hunger,
- achieving universal primary education,
- promoting gender equality and empowering women
- reducing child mortality rates,
- improving maternal health,
- combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases,
- ensuring environmental sustainability, and
- developing a global partnership for development.
Each of the goals has specific stated targets and dates for achieving those targets. To accelerate progress, the G8 Finance Ministers agreed in June 2005 to provide enough funds to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the African Development Bank (ADB) to cancel an additional $40–55 billion debt owed by members of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) to allow impoverished countries to re-channel the resources saved from the forgiven debt to social programs for improving health and education and for alleviating poverty.
Debate has surrounded adoption of the MDGs, focusing on lack of analysis and justification behind the chosen objectives, the difficulty or lack of measurements for some of the goals, and uneven progress towards reaching the goals, among other criticisms. Although developed countries’ aid for achieving the MDGs has been rising over recent years, more than half the aid is towards debt relief owed by poor countries, with remaining aid money going towards natural disaster relief and military aid which does not further development.***
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’
- ** United Nations Website: http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/mdgoverview.html
- *** Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 7 Oct. 2012.
