IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 539

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON LOVE; PART CXXVIII

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GoodWill IS Love in Action

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So much of what we say here in these essays is based upon our understanding of ORDER; that there is an ORDER to ALL things and there IS NO angry God who metes out punishments be they individual or corporate. In this ORDER there can be no arbitrariness, no preferences given and the reality of the Apostle Peter’s remark to Cornelius that “Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34) MUST prevail. There are more than six billion people on this Earth today and in the eyes and mind of God there is NO ONE that is any better or worse than another from the perspective of the True man, the Soul. As we have said however there is not this same ORDER in the world of form and it is here that we might find the source of the illusion that has created the ideas and the doctrines that one man may be above the other in the eyes and the mind of God. This is of course just illusion and hope and there is NO reality in the Truth and the Love that IS God of His preference of Christians over other religions or of tithers over those who do not….this IS illusion and this IS glamour.

This ORDER can be seen in most everything that we can perceive in the Universe where there is the ever ORDERED and predictable movement of stars and planets and the galaxies in which they reside. The same is true of the things in this world, the atomic and molecular structure of things is ordered and predictable and the only change is caused by the actions of the free willed man in form. When it comes to man and his doings there is not so much ORDER as there is chaos but, if we look deeply enough, we can find ORDER in this chaos as well. ALL that happens to the man in form is based upon his own decisions or the decisions and actions of others in some combination of free wheeling chaos which, once set into motion by these decisions and actions, take up a sense of ORDER of its own. If we cannot see the ORDER as it exists in the chaos of Life in form it is not because it is not there; it is only because we have not yet discovered it. Look at the law of gravity, things do fall to the Earth once they are dropped; the dropping is found in the chaos of decisions and actions but the falling is found in the ORDER of the law. This ORDER can be seen in ALL things and it precludes any and all ideas that are arbitrary and selective save those that are caused by the free willed nature of the man in the world. Even in sickness, disease and death there is order which, while it can not be seen, is a part of the cyclic nature of life in form.

This is how it is today and this is how it was in the day of Adam and Eve; by their decisions as Souls in form came the consequences of their actions. While the doctrines teach that these consequences are the presumed punishments from God as we see in the text under literal interpretation, we should understand that these things are but the natural ways of Life in this world and that mans excursion into this Life in form was the True decision that caused the consequences, the ordered consequences of his actions. This IS recorded for us by the Apostle Paul’s saying to us on the vanity to which we are subjected, and we must understand this word vanity in its proper context which includes all of the personal ideas of vanity but is, as Vincent tells us, a much more complex affair. Repeating the whole of Vincent’s remarks on vanity: Vanity (mataiothti). Only here, Eph. iv. 17; 2 Pet. ii. 18. Compare the kindred verb became vain (Rom. i. 21 note), and the adjective vain (1 Cor. iii. 20; 1 Pet. i. 18). Vain is also used to render kenov (1 Cor. xv. 14, 58; Eph. v. 6; Jas. ii. 20). Kenov signifies empty; mataiov idle, resultless. Kenov, used of persons, implies not merely the absence of good, but the presence of evil. So Jas. ii. 20. The Greek proverb runs. “The empty think empty things.” Mataiov expresses aimlessness. All which has not God for the true end of its being is mataiov. Pindar describes the vain man as one who hunts bootless things with fruitless hopes. Plato (“Laws,” 735) of labor to no purpose. Ezek. xiii. 6, “prophesying vain things (mataia),” things which God will not bring to pass. Compare Tit. iii. 9. Here, therefore, the reference is to a perishable and decaying condition, separate from God, and pursuing false ends⁴. It is in these ideas, especially the bolded words, that confirm our understanding of vanity as the illusion and the glamour of the world which separate us from God and are, in fact, the pursuing of false ends. We must of course see this all from the perspective of the True objective and goals of Life in form which we understand as discipleship as the Master presents it and the attaining of the consciousness in form of the Kingdom of God. With these things being the True end we cab see all things of the world as vanity, as illusion and glamour. We would be remiss to not include here again Paul’s words that have sparked for us this understanding of Life in form as the Plan of God; Paul tells us:

“For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21-21).

In the understanding of an ORDERED Universe we should try to see the reality of Paul’s words as they compare to the ideas of doctrine and the fall of man. Paul tells us that it is by the very Plan of God that the creature is subjected to vanity. As we have discussed before, this word creature is a manifold word that can have several meanings but, KNOWING that the text is speaking of man, we have discerned this as the man in form, the Soul expressing Life and consciousness through the form nature. Without again getting into the definitions and comments on this which we have likely done several times, we should note here that the reference in the context that it is given can only refer to the man in the world which IS the Soul’s expression in the world. Doctrine however tells us that the ideas of Chapter Three of Genesis are based upon the mistakes of Adam and Eve; being told not to eat of the fruit of  the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Eve does this by being deceived by the serpent. With this as a starting point in this discussion, we list our point on the trees and then the subject verses that are regarded as the fall of man:

• Last we have the trees; “the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil“.

“Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die  And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened , and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons” (Genesis 31-7).

The common understanding here is that this serpent is the devil or Satan and, of course, we take objection to this but only from the perspective of this being as a real animal or devil living through an animal. For us this idea of the serpent is akin to the ways of the world, the vanity, the illusion and the glamour, by which mankind is beset. We have premised that upon taking form, the Souls, the True men that are appearing in form as Adam and Eve or what they may represent, are slowly and steadily moved from their state of Purity. They go from KNOWING ONLY the Good, the Beautiful and the True of the Kingdom of God to KNOWLEDGE of the things of the world as is symbolized here in the eating of the fruit of the tree. The serpent is the lure, the attraction of the things of the world in which these Souls have taken form; the serpent is the reality of the instincts and the appetites of the human animal form, the serpent is the sudden surge of emotion and thought in form that seeks to fulfill its own ends. And what is the death here but the separation from the reality of the Kingdom and the beginning of the seemingly endless series of incarnations in this world of form.

So then we see that “the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly” and, as we see above this vanity IS this reality of separation and it is the illusory perception that what one sees in this world is what IS real; and we can see the understanding of “not willingly” as the serpent, as the lure, that devolves the Soul into the carnal world of flesh. There is no easy way to put forth these explanations and it is likely that this is a purposeful characteristic of scripture and the choice here so far is to understand this all as a part of the ORDERED devolving of the Soul into the matter of the world with purpose and with a Plan or to understand this as a serpent who speaks to the woman Eve to convince her to eat of the fruit of the tree and that in breaking this one rule, the entirety of the future generations of men are punished.  Our understanding is made more complex, and from both perspectives, by the idea that is contained in “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened , and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil“. From the perspective of the literal story itself this saying has little meaning and it is generally brushed over without proper comment and is understood by some as a ‘baiting’ of sorts to encourage Eve to partake. However, when we combine this with the allied saying by the Lord that we discussed in the last post:  “And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil” (Genesis 3:22), we can see more than what doctrine gives credit for. There is a reality there and that is that the man, the Soul in form, is not aware of the things of the world; this idea of expressing though a form as a self conscious Soul is a new thing for the Soul and in tasting the fruit, in experiencing the world, this Soul in form is now as those who had tread this way before, as the God conscious hierarchy of lives that we discussed in some detail yesterday.

Again we should see the ORDERED nature of this ALL. By the Plan of God the True man, the Soul, is taking possession of the human forms in the Earth and this story of Adam and Eve is of the first to do so. By the Plan of God and the ways of Life and of the World, this combination of divinity and flesh become more and more separated from the reality of the Kingdom and devolve into a Life in form; the instincts and the appetites of the human animal nature play upon this self consciousness that is using the form and, combined with the emotions and the thoughts that are generated in this combination, we have the man in form. To this point however he is likely not totally removed from the reality of the Kingdom. Enter now the female of the human species as the vehicle of expression for another Soul or whatsoever Eve is meant to represent and we have the completed cycle; on the Soul level, the level of the True man, there is now another with whom to interact and, from the carnal level, we have the likely rather instant relationship of the sexes that feeds off of the instincts and the appetites and the emotional thoughts of the self conscious Souls. Can we see the serpent in this attraction of the sexes on the level of the True man, the Soul, who acts much like a man and a woman would act today and can we see this on the carnal level as well? We should note that in these days it is likely the carnal attraction that is strongest and we should see the ORDER in this as this is the way of propagation as this does not change.

The serpent then is representative of the attraction of the man in form to the things of the world and the eating of the fruit is the consummation of the man’s choice of the things of the world over those things that he KNOWS but is losing sight of. And, here we must add that in doing this, being lured by the things of the world which are in the story represented by the ideas found in “tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise“, and consuming them, man is set about on the course of history, a course of living for the carnal self. The Truth is still the Truth but the man in form loses sight of it and, now KNOWING the ways of the world, the man who can overcome becomes “as one of us“. This is where we come to the Tree of Life which we will cover in the next post. As we can see this discussion on these idea of Adam and Eve and the Garden and the fall of man are not easy to express as we are far removed from the realities and we are long impressed with the doctrines and the traditions, but if we can look at these from the perspective of an ORDERED Universe, we can make better sense of them. We close here with the reality of the effect of the serpent in that he tells us that “then your eyes shall be opened“; in this is much Truth but we must understand that this opening is to the things of the world and IS the vanity, the illusion and the glamour of Life in form itself.

We will continue with our thoughts in the next post and continue on to our final point.

• “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; 2 Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created . 3 And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth: 4 And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters: 5 And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died” (Genesis 5:1-5) .

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:

Do not live in the world, In distraction and false dreams. Outside the dharma. Arise and watch. Follow the way joyfully through this world and beyond. Follow the way of virtue. Follow the way joyfully Through this world and on beyond! For consider the world – A bubble, a mirage. See the world as it is, And death shall overlook you. Come, consider the world, A painted chariot for kings, A trap for fools. But he who sees goes free. As the moon slips from behind a cloud And shines, So the master comes out from behind his ignorance And shines. The world is in darkness. How few have eyes to see! How few the birds who escape the net and fly to heaven!

This Quote of the Day is from the Dhammapada, the sayings of the Buddha and exemplifies from His perspective the same basic message that we have been seeing from the Christ. Follow the way of the Soul, focus upon the Real and not on the illusion and thereby attain the Kingdom. If we read and reread this we should be able to see the thread of reality in forsaking ALL for the Kingdom.

There is a realty in the Buddha’s words as regards our topic. We have presented these words several times as the Quote of the Day and have spent many words discussing the Buddha’s thoughts here; today we take it again from the perspective of the story of Adam and Eve. It is here with them that this all begins from the perspective of the bible; they are distracted by their new found Life in the Earth, in the forms of the human animal. They see the world as the world and they plunge into it never realizing the distraction and the deception of the lures of the world, the deception of the serpent.

• ⁴ Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888