Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
ON LOVE; PART LXXIX
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
“And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it. If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live , ye shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me. These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you” (John 14:13-26).
We spent our time yesterday on the Master’s manifold idea of “take no thought“; we reflected on how it is understood in doctrine as not to worry or be anxious and we contemplated the reality of the saying as it is unfolded in the message of the Master to the disciple and to the aspirant. We looked at the examples that the Master puts forth in the images of the mustard seed, the fouls of the air and the lilies of the field and, while these are not all from same verses they do for us reflect the same reality of KNOWING. The fouls of the air are not concerned with what they shall eat as they KNOW that their supply of food is at hand; they give it no thought. And the lilies of the field, they show no concern for the beauty of their garb as they KNOW that they will flower they give it no thought. We must understand that these are parabolic sayings that contain Truths and at the same time we must understand that they are our example. This is not to say that the fowl always finds his food or that the lily always flowers as there are times when other circumstances can interfere and this same is True for man; drought and famine, weather and catastrophe, effect ALL things on this Earth. As examples however these things are True and it is as examples that we must understand them.
The same is True for the mustard seed which we have spoken of several times in these posts; the mustard seed requires that it be planted and that it receive water and that conditions are right to allow its growth into that tree but, as an example the mustard seed IS the tree, its proclivity is to become the tree. The mustard seed does not think about becoming the tree and it shows no concern for whether it will so become but it KNOWS that it IS the Tree and this is the faith that the Master tells us that we should have, the faith to KNOW. This KNOWING is what allows the Apostle Peter and the Apostle Paul to heal by their mere proximity as the certainty of mind becomes the conduit for the Love and the Power of the Christ Within, the Soul. We could say that these apostles are in that state of being where they KNOW and this is that same state where they CAN move the mountain; they fulfill the criteria of the Master’s words saying:
- “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you” (Matthew 17:20).
- “If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you” (Luke 17:6).
This faith is KNOWING, it is doubting not as the Master clarifies this idea for us saying that “Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done” (Matthew 21:21) so that we can understand that this faith is the reality of the ability to “doubt not” and this is what we call KNOWING. This KNOWING is a quality of the Soul and it is intimately linked with Truth which word we here use to mean the reality of Life; the Truth of the way things are and not the illusion of what they seem to be to the man in the world. Peter and Paul were able to bring this Truth to bear on their lives in the world, they became expressions of the Love and the Power, the Truth of the Life of the Soul.
It is here in this Truth of the Life of the Soul that the reality of forsaking is understood and it is sore hard to realize any of this while a man is focused upon the things of the world. This is the Master’s message to us in His saying that “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matthew 7:13-14). We should try to see here that the strait gate is the way of the disciple and the aspirant and the Life that this gate leads to is the Life of the Christ Within, the Soul, and the Kingdom of God. We should try to see that the word translated as destruction is much like the words sin and evil, they do not mean only what the common understanding is but rather they refer to the ways and the things of the world. So then this destruction is the result for those who go to the wide gate and the broad way and this is the Life of the average man who is focused upon the things and the ways of the world.
The greater point here is in the difficulty of finding that narrow way and that strait gate and there is a Great Truth in the Master’s caution to us that “few there be that find it“. This does not mean every well meaning person or every practicing Christian but it Truly means few. Some time back we published a statement that expresses this reality on a more worldwide scale that is not limited to the ideas and the thoughts of the Christian; this statement says: We are told by one of the Masters that a whole generation of enquirers may only produce one adept. We proceeded to point out that the adept can be seen by us as the disciple as he is described by the Christ, the one who forsakes ALL and the one who keeps ALL of the words of the Master; this is not the simple learning boy as the word is commonly understood to mean. The Master is quite clear on this distinction. With this in mind let us look at the full text of this statement on the adept which is a part of an explanation of the idea of Enquire the Way. The text goes thus:
- Enquire the Way. We are told by one of the Masters that a whole generation of enquirers may only produce one adept. Why should this be so? For two reasons:
- First, the true enquirer is one who avails himself of the wisdom of his generation, who is the best product of his own period and yet who remains unsatisfied and with the [Page 584] inner longing for wisdom unappeased. To him there appears to be something of more importance than knowledge and something of greater moment than the accumulated experience of his own period and time. He recognises a step further on and seeks to take it in order to gain something to add to the quota already gained by his compeers. Nothing satisfies him until he finds the Way, and nothing appeases the desire at the centre of his being except that which is found in the house of his Father. He is what he is because he has tried all lesser ways and found them wanting, and has submitted to many guides only to find them “blind leaders of the blind”. Nothing is left to him but to become his own guide and find his own way home alone. In the loneliness which is the lot of every true disciple are born that self-knowledge and self-reliance which will fit him in his turn to be a Master. This loneliness is not due to any separative spirit but to the conditions of the Way itself. Aspirants must carefully bear this distinction in mind.
- Secondly, the true enquirer is one whose courage is of that rare kind which enables its possessor to stand upright and to sound his own clear note in the very midst of the turmoil of the world. He is one who has the eye trained to see beyond the fogs and miasmas of the earth to that centre of peace which presides over all earth’s happenings, and that trained attentive ear which (having caught a whisper of the Voice of the Silence) is kept tuned to that high vibration and is thus deaf to all lesser alluring voices. This again brings loneliness and produces that aloofness which all less evolved souls feel when in the presence of those who are forging ahead.
- A paradoxical situation is brought about from the fact that the disciple is told to enquire the Way and yet there is none to tell him. Those who know the Way may not speak, knowing that the Path is constructed by the aspirant as the spinner spins its web out of the centre of his own being. Thus only those souls flower forth into adepts in any specific generation who have “trodden the winepress of the wrath of God alone” or who (in other words) have worked out their karma alone and who have intelligently taken up the task of treading the Path.**
There is much practical information in these words from our Tibetan brother and the tone of most ALL of his writings are on these same ideas of discipleship. Although there may be some confusion of terms, we should try to be clear in understanding that in the Truth of the Master’s description of the requirements of discipleship can be found those same ideas and ideals that make of a man an adept or even a master; the only differences are in degree.
We close here today with the affirmation of the disciple which we have covered in our posts several times:
I am a point of light within a greater Light.
I am a strand of loving energy within the stream of Love divine.
I am a point of sacrificial Fire, focused within the fiery Will of God.
And thus I stand
I am a way by which men may achieve.
I am a source of strength, enabling them to stand.
I am a beam of light, shining upon their way.
And thus I stand.
And standing thus, revolve
And tread this way the ways of men,
And know the ways of God.
And thus I stand.
We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.
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Potency |
Aspect of Man |
In relation to the Christ |
|
GOD, The Father |
Will or Power |
Spirit or Life |
Life |
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Son, The Christ |
Love and Wisdom |
Soul or Christ Within |
Truth |
|
Holy Spirit |
Light or Activity |
Life Within |
Way |
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.:
Today we post a World Prayer that is also included in the Prayers and Meditation section with some explanation of its source and its use. We are entering a time of the year which we can consider more sacred by way of the newness of Spring which should reflect in our newness of Life. This is the Festival of Easter and a time of rejoicing; not only for the Resurrection of the Lord from the Christian perspective but also for the teaching that is incorporated in the Master’s sacrifice 2000 years ago and in His continued sacrifice. We should remember His parting words: “I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:20)
From the point of Light within the Mind of God
Let light stream forth into the minds of men.
Let Light descend on Earth.
From the point of Love within the Heart of God
Let love stream forth into the hearts of men.
May Christ return to Earth.
From the centre where the Will of God is known
Let purpose guide the little wills of men–
The purpose which the Masters know and serve.
From the centre which we call the race of men
Let the Plan of Love and Light work out
And may it seal the door where evil dwells.
Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth.
- ** A TREATISE ON WHITE MAGIC OR THE WAY OF THE DISCIPLE BY ALICE A. BAILEY COPYRIGHT © 1951 BY LUCIS TRUST
