Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
ON LOVE; PART CCXL
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•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•ΑΩ•Α
To the God Who is in the Fire and Who is in the waters;
To the God Who has suffused Himself through all the world;
To the God Who is in summer plants and in the lords of the forest;
To that God be adoration, adoration.
Sh’vet Upanishad, II.17. **
Leaving our saying from yesterday at the top of our essay, we turn our attention today more toward the Buddha as the Wesak festival approaches. Our saying above, from a tradition that the Buddha was born into in His native land of India, epitomizes for us the Truth and the reality of God from the perspective of the man in the world as this reality IS fed by the Light of the Soul which furnishes that understanding and that acceptance which is required for ALL things spiritual. Over the last several days we have used the theme of readiness, the readiness of the man in the world to understand and to accept the precepts of God as they are made KNOWN by the God within and this is what we are saying here. That the man in form can and will see God as depicted in this saying when he IS ready and he IS made ready by the inflowing Light of the Soul; not by reading or hearing preaching and sermons which CAN AND DO however serve to turn one’s attention, one’s focus, onto the things of God. And so we have this alternate reality at play in the world that we began to discuss in the last post, an alternate reality that defies the Truth of God and places Him into the box created by this or that religion, denomination or sect and this despite the Apostle Paul’s words to the contrary which were part of our essay yesterday, words that we repeat here again without comment:
“For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring” (Acts 17:23-28).
It is when the man in the world, the consciousness working through the personality, begins to see the futility of Life in the world, religious or not, that he begins to allow the promptings of the Soul to his become a part of his focus. Don’t misunderstand our premise here, this is not the only way but this is the likely way for the man grounded in his life in the world and we should try to understand here that this prompting, which we can call the conscience, is active for most ALL men and capable of bringing a man in form to his apportioned place insofar as his spiritual life is concerned; such place being dependent upon the previously achieved place in past incarnations. We should note here that this is not a ‘carved in stone’ way of spiritual advancement but is rather a general guideline and we should remember as well that this is a part of those processes to which we give the general name of evolution. This is of course individual evolution and a dual evolution at that, as the Soul is able to build a more suitable form, body and personality with its attendant emotions and mind, on the physical and psychic levels of existence, he is then better able to use them toward his objective of the eventual expression of the Light of the Soul, the Love and the Power of the Soul, through Life in form in this world. This evolution is a part of the reality of Life and a True reason that one must not judge his brothers as he KNOWS NOT at what point any particular man IS insofar as this spiritual evolution is concerned. Remember that as Souls we ARE ALL the same divine beings and that this IS the True self; what we see and interact with here in the Earth is but the relative success that a particular Soul may have in accomplishing this expression and these successes exists in an infinite range of possibilities and, that the final result is that perfection that the Master tells us of in saying: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). And the whole of this is the reason that from a worldly perspective we should understand the Truth and the meaning of Paul’s saying that “For there is no respect of persons with God” (Romans 2:11) as in the limited free will of man in this world there is no intervention in the Life of a man save the intervention of his own Soul, his own Christ and God Within.
In Paul’s words above regarding the Nature of God we should get a glimpse of what it is that we are saying in regard to the individual but on a grand scale that involves ALL men and this regardless of place or time. In Paul’s words we should try to see the Truth of bringing the spiritual reality of God into one’s carnal thoughts as this IS what he is trying to accomplish; that men no longer look at their differences but should look from the perspective that mankind IS “made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth” and we should try to see the force of the word ALL in the context that the apostle uses it. Paul tells us also about our seeking the Lord which we can try to work into our sayings in the previous paragraphs; together we should be able to read that it is left to the man in the world to “seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him” and from our perspective one is more apt to look when he senses the futility of Life in this world. This sense of seeking the Lord is brought on by the promptings of the Soul which go unheeded for the majority of the world, a prompting that is always present and comes to us in those various forms of conscience; various because each man’s psyche is that unique combination of Soul Light working in and through his given emotional and mental equipment. Each man is unique in this as well as appearance and it is in this uniqueness that conscience plays its part and, we should remember that no matter what the uniqueness of any individual, these promptings CAN AND DO go unheeded because the man’s focus is elsewhere as well. Hence, each man is on his own, his achievement or lack thereof is dependent upon ALL of these factors but perhaps the most important IS focus and for this we have the scriptures and the teachers and the writers who ALL serve to awaken the consciousness to the Good, the Beautiful and the True. Through our lives we may or may not be exposed to the spiritual Truths of the New Testament and other world scriptures and we should add here that even in the absence of this exposure, the dynamics of one’s heeding the promptings exists insofar that ‘good’ men are created by right focus who do not KNOW nor understand the reality of the Soul and the God Within but who simply follow the promptings as they are made aware through conscience which may or may not be aided by exposure to the doctrines of the religions of the world.
For us today there is the Truth of the divine nature of man, the Truth of the Soul that must be expressed through Life in form, the Truth of the Love and the brotherhood which ARE the major expression of this Soul Light, the Truth of the Unity of men under One God as expressed above in Paul’s words and the Truth of the reality of man as the Soul and his temporal use of the body and personality in the world. These ARE the Truths that the man in the world must awaken to, that he must realize in his consciousness, and it IS through this awakening which IS his realization that a man can begin to see through the illusion and the glamour that so obnubilate his vision of these Truths. It is these Truths that will contribute to the spiritual progression of the man in the world; it is these Truths that are both the cause and the effect of one’s right focus on the things of God and it is these Truths that are a part of that True striving toward the strait gate which is only a reality for those who are Repented; those who have made that decision to change the focus of their Life, and whose Life’s emphasis has become to keep His words. And so we who are Repented, we who are in that process of Transforming, we who can understand God as He is depicted in the words at the top of our essay which come from Hindu culture but which are universally True, and, we who can understand at the same time the reality in Paul’s words above as he spoke them to men learned in the wisdom of the world, the Stoics and the Epicureans, CAN AND DO make spiritual progress. In our Truth, these say the same thing albeit from different cultural perspectives….ONE GOD, Who has suffused Himself through all the world and, IN Whom “we live, and move, and have our being“….God both immanent and transcendent.
As we approach the Festival of Wesak we repeat some of what we said previously regarding the Three Spiritual Festivals of which Wesak is the middle one: We are fast approaching the second of the Three Spiritual Festivals as they are called and celebrated by those who study esoteric philosophy and others who recognize the New Age as a time of opportunity. The first of these three was the Easter Festival which is at the time of the first full moon of Spring and this we did recognize in its more traditional way as that Great Christian holiday of Easter which is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon. The second festival, the Wesak Festival, occurs at the Taurus Full Moon which is traditionally the Full Moon of May and which is this year on April 25th and which will be celebrated by most Buddhists on April 24th. This IS the Festival of the Buddha. So we have in the first a celebration of the Christ and in the second a celebration of the Buddha and each of these are celebrated by their individual followers; Christians and Buddhists and, there is some crossover by people such as us who see the Truth in both. We should understand here that the idea of celebration can be seen in the ways that the Christian world treats Easter as it is in similar fashion that the Buddhist world celebrates this day as the birth, enlightenment and death of the Buddha and we should try to see as well that in both of these Great World Religions, the majority of the people are casual followers and this from the perspective of what we understand as the Truth of the Christ and the practice of Christianity. The Third festival is not one that is along the lines of these two and is called by many the Festival of the Christ and is seen as well as World Invocation Day; this day is the more esoteric of the three as it is not centered around an established regular religious holiday but this is nonetheless an important day for those like us who see beyond the separatist attitudes found in the everyday world of religion. World Invocation Day will be celebrated on May 24th, at the Full Moon of Gemini, and, as is indicated by the alternate name, this is day of invocation and of the expanded use of the Great Invocation by the world. According to the reality that we expressed regarding the use of the Great Invocation we will find on this day a greater opportunity to see the reality of the words of the Great Invocation at work in the world as many bring these High Ideals into their own focus and, as we understand it ALL, it is when more and more people can bring these things about in their own lives that we can begin to see them effecting the world at large. This day can also be seen as World GoodWill Day and this is from the reality that GoodWill IS the Love of God, of the Christ, in action from the perspective of man. An excerpt from a pamphlet on the Three Festivals tells us that: The third festival, Christ’s festival, celebrating humanity’s innate goodwill, takes place over the full moon of Gemini. This is the festival of our basic aspiration towards human and spiritual unity. It gives voice to a deep invocative appeal to the spiritual Hierarchy for light, love and the will-to-good. This Festival is also observed as World Invocation Day, when a special focus is placed upon the world-wide use of the Great Invocation. And from these words we can clearly see that New Age influence on this day whose public awareness was made possible by our Tibetan brother of whom we often speak.
In these words is our understanding of the basic points of these festivals and we should note that they are treated differently by many who see them from their own unique perspective. Our perspective is one of recognition and of understanding as we seek to convey the basic idea of unity as it is presented in this honoring of the Christ and His service to the world in the Easter celebration, that He lived His Life in the Earth as Jesus and showed and instructed us ALL how we can follow in His divine footsteps in the Love, brotherhood and the harmony that He expressed and that He and His apostles teach as the spiritual importance of this expression. Easter IS the culmination of His mission on the Earth as regards His physical presence and teaching and the Easter message for us ALL should be that death IS NOT the end but the beginning of the next phase and, if we can follow in His footsteps, this new beginning will be in that same sense of divinity that we can discern in His resurrection and which we can see in His full command of the nature of the world. In Wesak we have the Festival of the Buddha and here we honor the Buddha’s contribution to the Life of men in this world and while this is unnoticed in the West, it does have the significant impact that makes some of His precepts cornerstones of the view of many toward God. The Buddha did not express the Love and the nature of the Godhead but rather the Wisdom and the nature of the God Within and man’s search for the True and Inner man who IS NOT subject to the illusion and the glamour of the world. The Buddha brought His teachings to a different culture than did the Christ and where the Christ corrected man’s erroneous view of the prior teachings of the Old Testament, the Buddha’s teachings corrected some of the erroneous views that pervaded that culture through the doctrinal approach of the Hindu people in that day. Neither was outwardly successful if we view the result as evidenced by humanity today but this IS NOT the proper view; the proper view IS that in this world where the free will of man is the basic rule of physical existence, that the seeds of change were planted and that they grew and continue to grow in the lives of those who can both see the Light and recognize their destiny.
The last festival day in this series of three is Christ’s Festival which is alternately called the Festival of GoodWill and World Invocation Day and in this we should try to see the reality that the Christ IS the Great Avatar of Love and Wisdom and IS the teacher of angels and men; He IS the very expression of God and IS God from this perspective of His fullness, which IS ALL the fullness of the Godhead as Paul tells us. This is the Festival of the Returning Christ while the Easter Festival is that of the Resurrected Christ and His expression of Love, and Wesak is the Festival of Buddha, celebrating His Wisdom and we should see that the Wisdom that He teaches is that same Wisdom from above as it changes the Life of the man in form. Hidden in the Buddha’s Wisdom IS the Love of God and hidden in the Love of the Christ is the Wisdom that teaches that Love. In the returning Christ we have the synthesis of both of these Potencies of God as they will make themselves KNOWN through the Christ and the Christ Within as expressed by those whose focus IS upon Him and in this we can see the reality of Paul’s words saying: “…unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24).
As a part of our essay today reflects on the idea of awakening, the recognition and the realization of the God Within by the consciousness in form, our presentation today of the Quote of the Day is from the Buddha’s teachings on wakefulness and the Love and the Power that this releases to the man in the world.
We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.
| Aspect of God |
Potency |
Aspect of Man |
In Relation to the Great Invocation |
In relation to the Christ |
|
GOD, The Father |
Will or Power |
Spirit or Life |
Center where the Will of God IS KNOWN |
Life |
|
Son, The Christ |
Love and Wisdom |
Soul or Christ Within |
Heart of God |
Truth |
|
Holy Spirit |
Light or Activity |
Life Within |
Mind of God |
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.
As we approach the Wesak Festival on Saturday we again post a selection from the words of the Buddha as our Quote of the day; this one on being awake.
Wakefulness is the way to life. The fool sleeps As if he were already dead, But the master is awake And he lives forever. He watches. He is clear. How happy he is! For he sees that wakefulness is life. How happy he is, Following the path of the awakened. With great perseverance He meditates, seeking Freedom and happiness. So awake, reflect, watch. Work with care and attention. Live in the way And the light will grow in you. By watching and working The master makes for himself an island Which the flood cannot overwhelm. The fool is careless. But the master guards his watching. It is his most precious treasure. He never gives in to desire. He meditates. And in the strength of his resolve He discovers true happiness. He overcomes desire – And from the tower of his wisdom He looks down with dispassion Upon the sorrowing crowd. From the mountain top He looks down at those Who live close to the ground. Mindful among the mindless, Awake while others dream, Swift as the race horse He outstrips the field. By watching Indra became king of the gods. How wonderful it is to watch. How foolish to sleep. The beggar who guards his mind And fears the waywardness of his thoughts Burns through every bond With the fire of his vigilance. The beggar who guards his mind And fears his own confusion Cannot fall. He has found his way to peace. 5
This selection from the Dhammapada, the sayings of the Buddha, is from the chapter called Wakefulness. The ideas here are simple for the awakened but for the unawakened they can be very difficult. Wakefulness here can be likened to our idea of focus on the Christ Within, the Soul, the spiritual Life. Sleep is just the opposite and can be likened to focus upon the things of the world. To be awake is to see things as they Truly are and to be asleep is to see things in the illusion and the glamour of the world. Wakefulness makes a man the master of his own Life while sleep makes one the fool. Wakefulness is striving to enter at the strait gate while being asleep is to float aimlessly on the waves of the ways of the world where one may think that he is getting somewhere only to realize in the end that he has gone nowhere, accomplished nothing. In the above we should see the idea of master as the awakened one, the man in whom the Light of the Soul is being expressed through form, the disciple and the high aspirant, and we should see the idea of the beggar as the seeker, the one who is seeking awakening.
Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!
- 5 The Dhammapada Translated by Thomas Byrom
- ** A Treatise on Cosmic Fire by Alice A Bailey © 1951 by Lucis Trust
