Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
ON LOVE; PART CCXLII
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
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
As we quickly approach Wesak, the Festival of the Buddha, we continue in our discussions of this Great World Avatar of Wisdom. In the last post we discussed the words from the Dhammapada, the translated sayings of the Buddha, on Wakefulness. There are various ways to interpret the idea behind the title Dhammapada and the problems with language are the same in translating this as they are in our Western Culture’s translations of the Bible; there are not sufficient words to express the depth of the meaning. By example, we have this from Wikipedia: The title, Dhammapada, is a compound term composed of dhamma and pada, each word having a number of denotations and connotations. Generally, dhamma can refer to the Buddha’s “doctrine” or an “eternal truth” or “righteousness” or all “phenomena”; and, at its root, pada means “foot” and thus by extension, especially in this context, means either “path” or “verse” (cf. “prosodic foot”) or both. English translations of this text’s title have used various combinations of these and related words. ** For us the best understanding of the title can be found in the verses that we have above where the Buddha mentions the path of the awakened as in this description we have the central point of His teachings and when we combine the thought of being awakened with our understanding of recognition and realization as degreed steps within this reality we will find Truth and righteousness, the Love and the Power of the disciple.
In short the idea of Dhammapada can be understood as the Doctrine of the Buddha much as the Gospels can be seen as the Doctrine of the Christ and the objective of both is to make disciples of men. Both are written in such a way as to be readily understood by the novice and the master, the man who IS Soul infused in his Life on Earth, and both have resulted in the establishment of worldly doctrines that do not necessarily attain to the level of divinity intended by the spoken worlds of each of these Great Avatars of Truth. As we have discussed in previous essays, the words of the Buddha are centered in Wisdom; not the wisdom of the world but rather the Wisdom from above as referred to by the Apostle James and our measurement of the Buddha’s words Will give us the same understanding as we get in James’ defining terms of what this Wisdom from above IS and IS NOT. In this context, the Wisdom of the Buddha will also encompass the Truths of the Apostle Paul’s fruit of the Spirit as in both of these Christian writings we find those ideas and ideals that flow forth from the Soul and through the Life of the awakened, the Life of the disciple. These words of the Buddha are spoken to a culture and a society that had previously embraced the Hindu religion and are appropriate to that culture and, we should note here that most of the Hindu adherents do not move to this New Revelation of Truth and that the Buddhist teachings thrive to much greater degree outside of Hinduism. Can we see the parallel here to the teachings given by Christ to the Jews, teachings that form the New Revelation of Truth to the Jews, but which are not accepted by the majority of them; they are however accepted by the many who are outside of the Jewish religion. So we see here that these divine enhancements of established religious traditions are not accepted but by those outside of these traditions and that both the Christian and the Buddhist religions are established as theologies that ARE separate from the religion into which the Avatar was born. In the Bible we read of this rejection of the Christ and His teachings by the Jews as prophecies and the same is likely True in the Hindu faith but this is beyond our knowledge of that ancient history. It is also uncertain when the Buddha lived and there is a nearly 200 year range in the opinions of scholars over the years; this is of course of little meaning to us and for history’s sake we can say that the Buddha lived about 500 years before the Christ.
In ALL of the Buddha’s teachings can be found this Wisdom, this Wisdom from above, and we should understand that hidden within this Wisdom is that same Love that the Master teaches and which we should see as that universal attitude of brotherhood and of GoodWill which IS reflected in those sayings of the apostles that tell us that “God is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34) and which James personalizes in telling us “if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors” (James 2:9). This is the reality of the Love that the Master teaches and the Love that is within the Wisdom of the Buddha; a Love that IS GoodWill to ALL regardless of any worldly attributes or status. This IS the herald cry of the “the angel” along with “a multitude of the heavenly host” who, at the birth of the Christ were “praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men” (Luke 2:13-14) and we should see in this ALL men and our own battle cry as well of GoodWill IS Love in Action. In this section of the Buddha’s words we should see these ideas of Love and GoodWill in His words speaking of the master, of the Soul living through his form in the world, who from the tower of his wisdom He looks down with dispassion Upon the sorrowing crowd. And we should see this as a KEYWORD in our understanding of the Love that the Master teaches; dispassion, as at the heart of this word is the True sentiment of “no respecter of persons” as an attribute of both God and the awakened man. In this word dispassion the Earthly quality of emotion is removed and thereby the attractive quality that we call Love in this world; and in this we can understand that the Lord who sees ALL men the same, says to the Pharisees that “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Matthew 9:13), which we should understand as His outward reach to ALL men which, in the context that both Paul and the Master put on this idea, should be seen as the totality of men in the Earth. In Jesus words we have the reality that “there is none good but one, that is, God” (Mark 10:18) while Paul tells us, quoting two Psalms, that “There is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10) and then, in his own terms, he tells us that “all have sinned , and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Can we see this universality of approach? Can we see as well this dispassion in Jesus’ other more positive words as well where by example He tells us of the Father saying: “for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45).
In our sayings below which we left yesterday for further consideration we have several realities that affect the Life of the man who IS awakened and the marked difference between his Life and the Life of the unawakened in the world. The Buddha calls the unawakened the fool while the apostle tells us of the behavior of the fool, that he will “fulfil the lust of the flesh“. While the Buddha says bluntly that The fool is careless, the apostle tells us from the reverse, from the perspective of the master or the Soul, that the fool will “do the things that ye would” in the world, that he will live to satisfy “the affections and lusts“.
- Paul tells us: “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh……And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” (Galatians 5:14-17, 24-25).
- The Buddha tells us: 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.
The Buddha also give some reverse understanding of the fool through His declaration of the awakened and the most specific IS the the reality that he gives in to desire and in this understanding we should also see what we take from the apostle’s saying regarding “the affections and lusts“. Overall we should be able to see the ideas of both regarding the equality of ones being Christs and being the master and the equality of in the strength of his resolve He discovers true happiness with the apostles understanding of living “in the Spirit“. We should note here the different cultures, the different ways of speaking and the different messages as one comes from the perspective of Wisdom first and the other from the perspective of Love. However, in this ALL the meaning and the intent remain the same; to make of the man in the world a disciple who will fulfill the ideas of both.
In our next sayings from the Buddha that we used as our Quote of the Day for the last post we have an expanded view of Love but from the perspective of hate and here again we take away that emotional attraction that we today place as our defining of Love and which IS NOT the same as the Love that the Master teaches us. In this dialogue by the Buddha we should see not only hate but the causes of hate which is a force only in this world and is the antithesis of that Love that flows from above, from the Soul. Saying this we are saying that it IS man’s working in the world of illusion and glamour, the world where vanity reigns, that we do and say hateful things against others who we perceive have offered us an emotional hurt. We should be able to recognize that behind this teaching the Buddha is telling us that it IS in living as the self in the world, living in one’s focus on the self and the things of the self, that a man, a fool as we see His term above, can and does cause harm to others through the variety of human failures that cause hatreds among people.
In this world Hate never yet dispelled hate. Only love dispels hate. This is the law, Ancient and inexhaustible. You too shall pass away. Knowing this, how can you quarrel? How easily the wind overturns a frail tree. Seek happiness in the senses, Indulge in food and sleep, And you too will be uprooted. The wind cannot overturn a mountain. Temptation cannot touch the man Who is awake, strong and humble, Who masters himself and minds the dharma. If a man’s thoughts are muddy, If he is reckless and full of deceit, How can he wear the yellow robe? Whoever is master of his own nature, Bright, clear and true, He may indeed wear the yellow robe. Mistaking the false for the true, And the true for the false, You overlook the heart And fill yourself with desire. See the false as false, The true as true. Look into your heart. Follow your nature. An unreflecting mind is a poor roof. Passion, like the rain, floods the house. But if the roof is strong, there is shelter. Whoever follows impure thoughts Suffers in this world and the next. In both worlds he suffers And how greatly When he sees the wrong he has done. But whoever follows the dharma Is joyful here and joyful there. In both worlds he rejoices And how greatly When he sees the good he has done. For great is the harvest in this world, And greater still in the next. (Dhammapada; on Choices) 5
In the Buddha’s words we should be able to see the totality of the opposites of our Christian ideals of Wisdom from above and the fruit of the Spirit as these are presented to us by James and Paul and especially those ideas that we have developed from James’ words regarding “bitter envying and strife” (James 3:14). In these words that are translated from the words of James we have taken the ideas of self; self-interest, self-devotion and ALL attitudes of selfishness and we should see that most ALL of these ideas outlined above can fit neatly into this understanding. And in this we must see as well the Buddha’s teachings on what Paul calls vanity and which we call illusion and glamour as He tells us Mistaking the false for the true, And the true for the false, You overlook the heart And fill yourself with desire. See the false as false, The true as true. Look into your heart. Follow your nature. In this we should see the heart as the consciousness, the conscience if you will, and in His speaking to disciples we should see that the nature is the reality of the Inner man, the Soul, as the source of the consciousness and the conscience. In all, the many seemingly separate sayings above can all be tied together as the Buddha’s explanation of the causes of hate as the ways of the self in the world and the dispelling of hate in the acts of the True man, the master, the Soul. And in Truth, there is no one who, with an open and honest mind, can dispute any of what He says.
Regardless of the manner of teaching, which IS of course based upon what best suits the intended audience, the overall message IS the same and the result of following either of these Great One’s, the Buddha and the Christ, will be much the same. While the Buddha teaches from the perspective of Wisdom, a Wisdom from above in which there is that Love as the Master teaches, the Christ teaches us from the perspective of Love and in that Love is the same Wisdom from above. These are, both approaches, leading man to the Kingdom and to discipleship and the differences in culture will attract a man to the one or the other or, from our perspective, to both. In both approaches we should try to see the similarities over the differences and understand that when the Master Within who IS the Christ Within is able to take control of the daily consciousness of the man in form, that same Light shines forth into the Life of the man in form and in this Light IS that Love and that Wisdom that is inherent in both teachings. We should see and understand as well that the Christ and the Buddha are Great Brothers, as are we ALL, and whatsoever we can imagine to be their divine relationship, we should accept as our own as well and promote this brotherhood and harmony to ALL.
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.
Our Quote of the Day below can be seen in relationship to our text above as we must awake and see past the illusion and the glamour of Life in form; before we can begin to progress, we must be able to recognize that this illusion exists and that it has always existed can help us in our understanding. We should understand here as well that the master that is spoken of is one’s own True self, one’s own Soul.
If you are awake in the presence of a master
One moment will show you the way.
The fool is his own enemy.
The mischief is his undoing.
How bitterly he suffers!
Why do what you will regret?
Why bring tears upon yourself?
Do only what you do not regret,
And fill yourself with joy.
For a while the fool’s mischief
Tastes sweet, sweet as honey.
Bit in the end it turns bitter.
And how bitterly he suffers!
For months the fool may fast,
Eating from the tip of a grass blade.
Still he is not worth a penny
Beside the master whose food is the way.
Fresh milk takes time to sour.
So a fool’s mischief
Takes time to catch up with him.
Like the embers of a fire
It smolders within him.
Whatever a fool learns,
It only makes him duller.
Knowledge cleaves his head.
For then he wants recognition.
A place before other people,
A place over other people.
“Let them know my work,
Let everyone look to me for direction.”
Such are his desires,
Such is his swelling pride.
One way leads to wealth and fame,
The other to the end of the way.
Look not for recognition
But follow the awakened
And set yourself free. 5
The above is from the the sayings of the Buddha in the Dhammapada, from the section entitled The Fool. Fool here should be seen as reflecting the person who follows the worldly ways and this regardless of one’s intended spiritual nature or standing if this can be so expressed. This is a lesson in following one’s master who we look at as the Master, the Christ, and all those disciples of Christ that have come before us; they KNOW the way that we, being seekers, should follow. In this is a lesson on being humble and meek, the antithesis of pride.
Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!
- 5 The Dhammapada Translated by Thomas Byrom
- ** Wikipedia contributors. “Dhammapada.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 12 Apr. 2013.
