Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
ON LOVE; PART CCCV
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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
Of all that the Master told us, He considered this as the Greatest of Commandments. So much of what we are to understand as aspirants or as believers is found in the precept that we must KEEP HIS WORDS:
“And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:30-31).
We ask ourselves WHAT THEN IS LOVE?
In a general sense love is benevolence, good will; that disposition of heart which inclines men to think favorably of their fellow men, and to do them good. In a theological sense, it includes supreme love to God, and universal good will to men.
We add to this THE EVER IMPORTANT AND HIGH IDEAL TAUGHT TO US BY THE CHRIST which can serve to both give us an understanding of what it means to Love oneself and how it is that we can Love our neighbor:
“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them“ (Matthew 7:12).
In yesterday’s post we discussed the power of men in the world throughout history who used such power in an effort to realize some goal, some personal goal about which they felt strongly and we noted the tyrants of history and the tyrants as well of today. We use this word to show the man and the inner group that he forms who use their innate power to implement their plan regardless of the costs to others. We should note here that by using this word innate, that we are saying that a man IS born with this power and in so saying we are also saying that this IS Soul Power which IS filtering through to the personality consciousness in the world and is being corrupted by the illusion and the glamour, the vanity of the Apostle Paul, in its implementation. This IS but another factor in the lives of men in the world and a sign that it IS the Soul that IS lost in this illusion and glamour while, at the same time, he IS standing back and awaiting the opportunity to wrest the attention of the consciousness away from the self and the self in the world and to focus it onto the things of the Soul and of God. While it IS hard to understand how this IS so, how it IS that the Soul can be functioning through form and at the same time standing back, we should again look back at the cartoonish illustration of the the conscience of man; that cartoon idea where the angel, representing the Truth, and the devil, representing the self in the world, are at odds regarding the doings of the man in the world. This IS not unlike the plight of man and although it IS the man who IS aware of the duality that will generally recognize that this IS happening in his Life, this IS for ALL men an aspect of the prompting of the Soul as he tries to get the attention of the consciousness in form. While we have not addressed these ideas in quite this way before, we should try to see that the KNOWING nature of the Soul IS ever being imparted to the consciousness but until the consciousness can take control of the nature of the personality, this KNOWING nature is distorted and changed by the illusion and the glamour in which the man Lives; corrupted to the self serving interests of the man in the world.
There are many variables that must be considered in these ideas and while this IS NOT the purpose of our blog, we can and do cover some of this in our essays and here we can relate some of the variables that give men in the world the use of their own innate Power directly to their ability to build suitable forms and their karmic responsibility and we have discussed idea each of these in past essays. To these we must add the factor of free-will, that limited free-will which controls much of the personalities response to the world, as well as the astrological components that DO affect Life in this world. This IS not the astrology that is common in the world nor is it the more esoteric or occult appearing astrology that is found in the Psychic Shops or as used by professional astrologists although the latter is much closer to reality than is the former. The True astrology is the understanding of the phenomenon of the energies emitted by the constellations and the planets of our own system, energies that impact the nature of the physical as well as the more subtle bodies of man which we can enumerate as the etheric, the astral and the mental bodies of man which heretofore we have not called bodies but have referenced the energies as emotion and mind, the etheric IS the basic scaffolding if you will of the physical form itself. We KNOW that ALL IS energy and while this is hard to imagine for some, it is a Universal Truth as IS the reality that behind ALL physical manifestation is an energy source that provides the method of Life. This IS of course an inadequate way of phrasing this from the perspective of the reality of how things work but this IS sufficient for our purposes here in our blog and in this essay as our use of these ideas is to show the many variables of Life in this world that are at work beneath the surface or behind what we can see and feel. It IS in these variables as well as in the ability to build and to use the bodies of manifestation that we ARE who we ARE and this is of course in general terms as to our proclivities and our use of them based in the limited free-will that this existence in form provides. Of course, we must not forget the KNOWING of the Soul as he tries to function through ALL of the variables of Life, trying to overcome the illusion and the glamour, as they effect the mind and the emotions and thereby the physical form itself through the brain and endocrine system, and set the Life of the man on the right course which ends in the expression of this KNOWING though the Life in the world.
The tyrant and the saint then can be seen as coming into this world in the same way, with their own individual proclivities and with the bodies of manifestation that they are able to create in this world as based in the accumulated abilities of previous lives, spiritual collateral if you will, plus of course the effect of karmic responsibility. This karma is a difficult concept to grasp for many and the simple understanding IS found in the reality that there is no judgement, nor punishment and reward, for the wrongs or rights of prior lives save that which each Soul may impose upon himself and this we must understand from the perspective that the Soul IS divine and IS part and parcel of that Great and Awesome Existence that we humbly call God as see by the True man, the Soul. From our perspective it IS karma that defines the afterlife that IS each man’s experience after a death in this Earth and it IS karma that dictates the ability to shed the personality effects of emotions and mind within this afterlife. It IS by karma that the Soul can gravitate to his achieved level of existence within the scope of this world’s existence which existence IS inclusive of the afterlife and what we can see as the levels of heaven of which Paul tells us that “I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven” (2 Corinthians 12:2). In this many commentators tell us that Paul is speaking of himself though for us here this does not matter as we only want to understand these levels of heaven as they may indicate our place in the scheme of things in this Earth Life and afterlife. Karma then leaves us at a level, which may be to remain in the regions of the afterlife still bound by emotion and mind, or may put us into one of these levels of which we do assume that there are seven as this IS a number much used in religion, esoteric and mundane. We can relate here this idea of karma to what we have been calling spiritual collateral as that which we can bring into a next Life and which dictates for us ALL that we are discussing above so that we can here see a picture that shows that karma has its effect in the afterlife and the reality of heaven in levels that likely culminate in the Master’s sense of the Kingdom of God and which at the same time may be seen as degrees of such so that we can then see these ideas of the Kingdom in similar fashion that we see degrees of discipleship as these terms are also intimately linked. Saying this we can likely see that most people exist in the region of the afterlife as few qualify as disciples as based upon the Master’s words on both discipleship and attainment of the Kingdom. Assuming then that there are levels, we CAN NOT say here at what level the Truth of the Kingdom begins nor at what stage of aspiration or discipleship one is able to shed his personality components of emotion and mind or is able to leave the arena of the afterlife. This is ALL a part of the great mystery of Life and of the Kingdom which ARE within the grasp of the True disciple and likely within the scope of understanding for those disciples who may not yet be able to say with the Master that “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
Closing this part of our discussion today we should say that the Master, the Christ as a Soul of total accomplishment in the Earth Scheme, is able to build for Himself a physical form and personality in this world that IS suitable for the full expression of the Love and the Power of the Soul, the “fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9) as the apostle tells us. This suitability is a factor that in the end plays a large role in the result of a man in this world becoming a tyrant, a saint, or any of the range of possibilities between these two poles. Yes there ARE the factors that we discuss above as variables to be considered as a man enters into a new Life here in this Earth but the idea of the suitability of the body and the personality for expression of the Love and the Power of the Soul plays a large part in the outcome and to this we must add as well the nurturing that one may receive as he grows to maturity. Both of these factors however are a part of our temporal existence which can be changed by the very Love and Power that one desires to express with such desire emanating from the Soul and NOT from the world. Our picture here is that there are many pictures, rather infinite in number, as each man at each birth is a unique individual Soul expressing somewhat through form based upon what he is able to build and the other factors as we outline above. And an important part of this equation IS the suitability of the form as this governs the ability of expression but at the same time is changeable by that expression to enable yet greater and in this we can see a part of the growth of the Kingdom in the man in the world as the Master shows us in several parables. Finally is the nurture that each man receives which IS what may define him as a tyrant or a saint if he so allows and this nurturing is fed by, and IS a part of in a strange way, the illusion and the glamour of Life in this world. This too can be overcome.
Bringing this ALL back to our topic, we should try to see that ALL these variables play a part in who we ARE and what we CAN become and it IS in these last two ideas, suitability of the body and the personality components as well as the nurturing that each man receives, that play a large role in mans ability to overcome the temptations of the world as these play upon his mind and his emotions and in this idea of temptation we should see again the reactions of the Master that we discussed in detail in the last essay as instruction for ALL who wish to follow in His Way. The Master had the Power to do whatsoever he wished in this world; ALL things were subject to His command and, in a much more limited way the powers of every man in this world should be considered. For example, the tyrant or the business leader has the power to sway the minds and emotions of others to see things in his way and to actually put forth the effort to accomplish the ends of this leader. This power resides in the Soul and IS imparted based upon the variables above and used to the benefit of to the detriment of others who are swept up in the implementation of this power and this can be and IS done with little or no understanding of what is actually occurring. The difference between the ideas of benefit and detriment can be found in the degree of focus upon the self in the world which in turn has some part in the determination of one’s susceptibility to the illusion and the glamour of Life and, to be sure, illusion and glamour are in play within both spheres, that of benefit and of detriment. We should note here that both of these, benefit and detriment, ARE related to the focus of the man in the world as the greater the focus upon the things of God and the NOT-self, the less of detriment that he will express and in this we should see that the selfishness of any man is a part of this detriment and this DOES negatively affect others while a selfless attitude of Love can be seen as a part of the benefit and this positively affects others. And, we must view temptation in this equation in a similar way as the greater the focus upon the self and the self in the world the greater the temptation the things of the world can become while conversely, the greater the focus upon the things of God and the Soul, the greater the “take no thought” (Luke 12:22) attitude held by the man which results in the lessened significance of such things of the world in his Life.
In the end it matters not who we ARE nor how we come into this world as regards the variables above. ALL ARE Souls working out a Life in this world from time to time with the ending purpose being, according to Paul, the “the redemption of our body” a Redemption that IS realized by our achieving that point of Unity where the Life in form and the True Life of the Soul are ONE, a Unity which can be seen as the Soul expressing ALL of the qualities of the Godhead through Life. Here we look again to the words of Paul who tells us two things; first, the remainder of our saying here where the apostle tells us, as disciples “which have the firstfruits of the Spirit” that we ARE “waiting for the adoption” (Romans 8:23), which adoption we understand as becoming one with the heavenly Father 4 as Vincent tells us (see Vincent’s comments In the Words of Jesus part 706). In every Life in form then the Soul has some opportunity to progress toward this goal of Redemption which we can only understand in the context that we have premised in earlier posts that gives us some semblance of order in our striving toward the Kingdom of God and this order is, in our words, Repentance, Transformation, and Redemption leading to Transfiguration. Today there are more that six billion Souls in form in this world which number is growing at a rate unheard of in history. There are Souls that are expressing Life at every conceivable degree of ‘ability‘ from the perspective of the Soul which includes men in fledgling existences where there is little ability for the Soul to control the form as we understand it, to men who are on the verge of True discipleship where the Soul and the expression ARE ONE; and, of course, there are countless levels of individuality in between. The important realization here IS that regardless of the level of expression, ALL ARE Souls, ALL ARE equal in the eyes of God and in reality and while we CAN NOT KNOW today why there is yet such a separation of expression from fledgling to disciple, we DO KNOW that we are ALL moving toward the same goal and we ARE DOING so in accordance with the Great and Awesome Plan of God.
The second idea from Paul is one that we write often and have used here today as well; speaking of Christ the apostle says: “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9) and we tie this always to the words of the Master that tell us that we CAN and WILL be like Him. Repeating some of the Master’s words regarding this we have: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father” (John 14:12), and “The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master” (Luke 6:40). The Apostle John tells us of this as well in his first epistle which amplifies and clarifies some to the Master’s words and intent; John tells us “as he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17).
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.
And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also (1 John 4:16-21).
Today’s Quote of the Day from the First Epistle of John is his reflection on God and on Love. John tells us that God is Love and, as we have discussed, Love is certainly as aspect and an attribute of the Godhead and one which is supremely represented by the Christ. John tells us further that without Love there is no relationship with God and likens the Truth of dwelling in Love to being in His Kingdom and in His Presence. He draws for us the idea of Love for ones fellowman being the prime prerequisite for Love of God for although one may say that he Loves God, it cannot be True unless he first Loves his fellowman. In John’s words the equation is certain: “he who loveth God love his brother also“. And, lest we forget that the idea of Love that the Master teaches in not the emotional attraction that we live with daily, we repeat again: LOVE is….
In a general sense love is benevolence, good will; that disposition of heart which inclines men to think favorably of their fellow men, and to do them good. In a theological sense, it includes supreme love to God, and universal good will to men’. To this we add the ever important High Ideal as taught by the Christ: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7:12).
Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!
- 4 Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
