Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
ON LOVE; PART C
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
The Great Invocation has been featured as our Quote of the Day for quite some time now and this is to keep it on the front page where it is seen by any who come to the NewAgeDevelopments website. This prayer is featured as well on the Prayers and Meditations page along with a rather detailed explanation of its origins and its intended use as the NEW WORLD PRAYER. It is unfortunate that the Christian world eschews these references to New World anything especially since their dislike is unfounded, the work of men who are captive of the glamour through which they see the world. These men and movements seem to see the world as though is were divided between the Christian and the pagan with some special allowances made for the Jews and perhaps by some the Muslims as well. They believe in a God that is separatist and this based on the misunderstanding and the misinterpretation of a few words in the New Testament. We have discussed these ideas of the use of isolated bible quotations in previous posts and we we have addressed several in detail, most notably the Master’s saying that “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). We have pointed out the Truth in this saying, a Truth for those who recognize the Truth of man as being the Soul as well as the correspondences between man and God as we list them daily in our chart below. We have noted that the Master’s speaking of the Christ, of His expression in the world, is at the same time speaking of the Christ Within each man which IS the Soul and IS ever one with the World Christ as expressed by the Master.
While this reality is not spoken of clearly in the words of the Master, it is seen in the reading of ALL His words and the words of His apostles when such reading is done with an open mind that is freed from the dictates of doctrine which purport to translate, interpret and comment on His words. It is the Master Himself who tells us that we should not take ALL that He says literally saying even to His closest disciples that “These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father” (John 16:25) and we should note that He tells them this thing in the same discourse with His disciples that begins at the Supper and includes the saying above that “I am the way, the truth, and the life“. We noted in the last post the genius of the Master’s teachings as some of His expressed Truths are couched in parables that must be rightly discerned to be discovered while other Truths are given in a literal and straightforward way and require no discernment but only acceptance. And, we have noted as well how the world has taken many of the parables as literal and have taken much of the straightforward as thou it were parable.
It is said that The Great Invocation was given to the world of men by the Christ for our use in bringing forth the ideas and ideals that it incorporates. As we look at the words of this prayer or mantram we should note the same ideas as we cite above regarding the use of the teachings of the Master; that when speaking of the Christ, He is speaking of the Christ Within as well. In this way, we can better relate to the invocative part of what we are saying in using this Great Invocation as a personal tool as well as a World Prayer. We can relate these ideas to our chart below as well and, realizing that there is no real separation between theses Aspects of God or of Man and that the potencies are True for each, we can relate the Mind of God to the Light or the Activity of God in this creation and to the Life within the form regarding man although we should see this as the activity of the Soul in form; we should see as well the activity of the Christ in the world as the Holy Spirit. This can become confusing because words are inadequate to express these ideas; let us look again at the True man from our present perspective and that Truth is the Soul. From the perspective of the man in form it is this Soul that gives Life to the animal form that we use, our bodies, and consciousness to the personality that we use, our mental and emotional equipment so to speak. The Soul then is ever active in the Life of the form for it IS the Life of the form and the same idea extends to consciousness. However, in this miracle that we call Life here on this Earth the consciousness becomes separated from identification with its Truth and reality as the Soul and becomes lost in the fogs and mists of illusion and glamour. This is a direct look at the message of the Apostle Paul in his saying that “the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope” (Romans 8:20) which saying we discern as to mean this immersion in the world.
Illusion, glamour and vanity are, ALL of them, things of the world, forces that hold a man captive and keep him unawares of the reality of Life even as this reality creeps into one’s thoughts and feelings from time to time. we can relate this idea to Paul’s teaching on the “whole armour of God” saying to us that “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:11-12); we should try to see the ideas of principalities and powers and rulers of darkness as being the reality of illusion and glamour and vanity though not in any particular order nor with any individual reference? So the Soul, during its incarnated time on Earth, is immersed in the world, in the principalities and powers and the darkness, but it IS still the Life of the Soul or, perhaps better said, an extension of the Life of the Soul as the Soul remains in the Kingdom of God in Purity; we can say here as well that the Soul IS the Kingdom of God in a strange and peculiar way. Remembering that there is no separation between these Aspects we can then see the activity of the Soul as the Holy Spirit on both levels of existence; taking this a step further we can then get a glimpse at the reality that the Holy Spirit IS the so called Mind of God and the mind of man as well in its Truest sense which must not be confused with what we call the mind aspect of the personality. We should see here as well however that when the consciousness is expressing the Light of the Soul, that the personality, which is the expressing part for ALL consciousness in form, would be expressing the mind as we see it above, as the Holy Spirit.
Trying to clarify this let us look at the man in the world whose consciousness is expressing the thoughts and the feelings of the man grounded in carnal matters; his mind and emotions are focused on the things of the world. The disciple on the other hand, being focused upon the things of God, loses interest in these worldly things and his consciousness is then filled from within, from the Soul, with the thoughts and the desires of a ‘man of God’; these thoughts and desires are the transmuted Love and Power of the Christ Within being expressed through the body and the personality of the man as a disciple. This is of course not black and white as in these two sentences but an evolving change from the man grounded in carnal matters to the disciple and this in a rather infinite range of differing expressions between and within each group. The expression of the man grounded in carnal matters is the expression of the things and the ways of the world subject to the forces of illusion and glamour, vanity as the apostle tells us, while the expression of the disciple IS the Holy Spirit as the expression of the Christ Within. We get a glimpse of this from the Master’s telling His disciples that “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 14:26).
|
Aspect of God |
Potency |
Expressed as Fire |
Aspect of Man |
In Relation to the Christ |
|
GOD, The Father |
Will or Power |
Electric Fire |
Spirit or Life |
Life |
|
Son, The Christ |
Love and Wisdom |
Solar Fire |
Soul or Christ Within |
Truth |
|
Holy Spirit |
Light or Activity |
Fire by Friction |
Life Within the Form |
Way |
From the first stanza of the Great Invocation then we have the Mind of God as the Holy Spirit or the activity of the Christ principal in the world and, from the perspective of man, the activity of the Christ Within in the Life in form. The Invocation is then that the greater Light will shine in the minds of men, that their consciousness will be more and more expressive of the Mind of God or, as Paul tells us speaking as a disciple to disciples “For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16). Individually and corporately we invoke our own Souls and the Mind of God to give more Light to the world of men.
The Point of Love is next and here it is referred to the Heart of God. Now we KNOW that this is not in reference to a physical heart but rather to what the heart represents and from the perspective of the man in form we have been seeing the heart as the consciousness. This can work in our greater correspondence of God as well but with much greater implications. We can say that as Souls, as the True man and NOT this body and personality on Earth, we are part and parcel of the Christ much as we can say that as Spirit we are part and parcel of God. We are indivisible from God and reflecting back to a previous post we say of part and parcel that In the idea of ‘part and parcel’ as an idiom is the reality of something that cannot be separated from a condition or activity* and in these defining thoughts is the idea that we are trying to get across regarding our relationship to OUR GOD. We, as Spirit, CAN NOT be separated from God, and, if this is True, God CAN NOT be separated from us as well nor from any part of HIS Spiritual Creation. Extending then this to consciousness which, from our perspective as men in the world, is of the Soul, we should be able to understand that each individual consciousness is also a part of the consciousness of the Whole and in this our correspondences are complete. This Heart of God then can be seen as the Soul of God, or which IS God, and, from our chart, the Christ or the Son Aspect. Here then we find the Love that IS God being invoked; we ask for that Love to come into the consciousness of the man in form, into his heart from the greater consciousness of God, from His heart, which IS the Christ, which IS the Son of God.
There is a symbol of this in Christianity as well which is known as the Sacred Heart of Jesus and there are entire devotions to this idea. Pictorially this is represented by the physical heart of Jesus as is seen in many paintings and statues and is meant to represent the Christ’s Love to ALL. In our invocation we are seeking that this Love of God and this Love of Christ be manifest in the hearts of men and, in a real way, when enough of the race is acting in Love there will effectively be the Christ as the Love of God descended upon the Earth. This is not to say that He will not reappear among us but rather to perhaps imply that it is only through the preparatory work of enough men expressing His Love that He will reappear. We should remember here another great Truth that is missed in the doctrines of the churches and that is that He never left us and this He tells us saying “I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:20). Paul helps us to tie these ideas of Mind and Heart, Light and Love, the Christ and the Holy Ghost, in his saying to the Romans that “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us” (Romans 5:5)
The next stanza focuses us on the Will of God which steams forth from the Spiritual Essence that IS God and that is for us as men our Spirit or our very existence. We must continue here in the understanding that there is no separation here and that these separate ideas that we have in the Trinity are but meager attempts to understand God by way of His potencies and this has been mankind’s way of looking at God throughout recorded history. We see Three Great Aspects while the Greeks saw many more and he ancient Egyptians yet more; we could say that one of the overriding messages of the Old Testament was to take mankind to a place where he could recognize God as one and in so doing diffuse some of the superstitions and traditions engendered by the ‘worship’ of His potencies individually. The difference here is that while we do see a Trinity, we also understand them to be ONE, at least that is the intent as there are some parts of the churches where the Unity of the Three is quite muddled. God the Father is the Spiritual Essence of ALL that IS and in this we see that God IS. We can say also that God is Love as the Apostle John tells us and we KNOW from the Master’s words to us that the Christ and the Father are ONE thereby giving us the reality that Christ is Love. John tells us further in the Preamble to his Gospel that, speaking of Christ, “In him was life; and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4) and in this saying we have the Trinity as Life being in the Christ and that Life being the Light of men and if we look at these words in our chart above, we will see again the reality of the Trinity of God and of man.
What however can we take as the meaning of the Will of God? we can take those things that we have discussed saying that His Will is the words of the Master and the commandments before Him and we will be right but at the same time will have barely scratched the surface. Our Invocation tells us that there is a place where this Will is KNOWN, a center, and from our perspective we can only imagine what this may be. However, based upon our correspondences we should be able to grasp a bit of the idea that in our Truest sense, as Spirit, we are ONE with God and in this we are that center and we KNOW the Will. This is however far removed from our conscious state and is likely in our terms equivalent to the totality of KNOWING or that state of KNOWING where a man can move the mountain; this center may actually be even further than this but we should understand that it is within the grasp of the True man. From this Center where the Will of God is KNOWN we are asking for Purpose which we should see as the Purpose that this Will is intended to express through the Soul’s expression in form and, if we can see through it ALL, this Purpose is Love and this is the Purpose of ALL who have achieved His Kingdom and are called as disciples.
We will continue with our thoughts in the 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.:
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.
- 4 Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
