IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 742

ON LOVE; PART CCCXXXI

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GoodWill IS Love in Action

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“My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation. For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body. Behold, we put bits in the horses’ mouths, that they may obey us; and we turn about their whole body. Behold also the ships, which though they be so great, and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth. Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things . Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell. For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed , and hath been tamed of mankind: But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh. Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom” (James 3:1-13).

In the last post we looked at the word master and how it is defined as teacher in most scriptural references with NO allowance for the idea that the Christ is our Master and so much more than teacher IS implied in that title. We noted also over the last few posts how the idea of master is used by the Buddha to refer to the man that we would call the disciple, as we understand that High Calling, and the idea of teacher does not work in this context either where we see the master as the Soul expressing through the form of the man in the world thus making of that man a master in the Way of the Buddha and a disciple in the Way of the Christ and, of course, these terms are both saying the same thing of the man. In both ideas we noted the role of focus as this IS the Way that one realizes that he IS both the master and the disciple. In the Buddha’s words on Wakefulness that we recently discussed we find this focus as “watching and working” on which the Buddha tells us that: “By watching and working The master makes for himself an island Which the flood cannot overwhelm” (Dhammapada, on Wakefulness), while in the many words of the Christ we can see this focus expressed in His saying that: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:19-21). In the Master’s words we find the idea of choosing one’s treasure, what is important to the man and what he will attend to: his focus and in the words of the Buddha we have the reality of ardent watching what one does in the world and centering his Life’s work around that from the perspective that He gives saying: “….the master guards his watching. It is his most precious treasure”  (Dhammapada, on Wakefulness). The master and the disciple then are those whose focus IS on the things of the Soul, the Inner man, the things of God, and we should understand by the context of all these sayings and our own living in this world, that this focus, this being the master and the disciple, are a matter of degree which starts with that Repentance, that decision to change one’s focus which makes of a man an aspirant, and continues through the whole of a man’s awakening or Transformation, step by step, until he reaches that realization of being Transformed and can be counted among those KNOWERS who are Truly awakened. We should remember here that there IS a point where the aspirant becomes the disciple and this point is found in the fulfillment of detachment from the ways of the world of men.

Now in this understanding of the master we must see much more than the teacher as we find the Greek word, didaskalos, defined and remembering that this is the same word that is used to title the Master, the Christ, should help us with this understanding that there must be more. We discovered perhaps a bit of this more in the last essay as we looked at the extended defining ideas from Strong’s which told us that in addition to teacher we have the idea of: one who provides instruction, implying authority over the students or followers ³ ; and for the Greek word  didasko, which is the origin of didaskalos according to the lexicon, we have the idea of:  to teach, instruct, to provide information in a manner intended to produce understanding, either in a formal or infomal setting ³. When applied to spiritual pursuits we can perhaps get the idea of the role of the idea of Master as the Christ and the master as the Soul and the disciple in the world. Fitting this ALL together then and keeping it away from the world and the things of the world, we can perhaps construct a way of viewing both the Master as the Christ and the master as the Soul and his expression as the disciple. This construct must per force have naught to do with the ways of men or the ways of the world except as we could see the expression of the Soul in one’s relationships with others which is in reality not of the world but of the Spirit. If we take then the Master and the master and constrict the definition to the spiritual, we can begin to see the reality of a teacher and a guide in spiritual matters to the consciousness of the man in the world; this as the Soul and the Master try to wrest away the focus of the consciousness from the carnal to the spiritual by their instruction. Then, in conjunction with the ideas from Strong’s we would have the authoritative instruction of spiritual things from the Soul to the consciousness and from the Christ to the masses but this authoritativeness is in the Providence of the spiritual and divine over the carnal and the self-centered with the objective of Repentance and Transformation of the expression of the Soul in form. ALL of these words have for their objective the right understanding of the Master as a teacher and of the Soul as the master of Life in form for the individual and this regardless of one’s realization.

Having said ALL this it should be apparent then from our saying at the top by the Apostle James, that the idea of master there is neither that which we ascribe to the Master and the Soul and his divine expression nor is it the normal consideration of teacher in its common nature in language. Here we should try to understand this from the perspective of John Gill ⁸ from the last post where although it is bound to doctrine, it is at the same time revealing, from our spiritual perspective of the attitudes of some who are charged with the responsibility of instructing others. Taking the idea of master as more than a teacher as we have in the Master and in the master as the Soul, we should try to interject some of Strong’s ideas as we did in looking at Mr. Gills alternate comments yesterday, ideas of authority that are taken out of context from the perspective of the man who presumes that he is a master, a presumption that afflicts many yet today. If we understand these ideas as spiritual and we exercise them as such, the safeguards against abuse are in place as the Soul CAN NOT and WILL NOT exercise any control over any but the individual self which IS his own expression. However, if we presume to be acting spiritually but we are working according to the ways of the self in the world, the opportunity for abuse can be great; if we are for example the Pharisee, or today’s equivalent of the Pharisee, who believes that he is doing the work of the Lord but is in reality doing the work of the self, then we ARE NOT Truly masters but are merely acting the part. Of course we should here remember that these are James’ words, that same apostle that gave us the reality of how to KNOW that Wisdom from above and who tells us that if we ARE NOT doers of the word we are by deceiving ourselves. And perhaps this is the gist of James’ phrasing as “be not many masters“, perhaps he IS saying that we should not just be “many masters” without the right foundation of Wisdom and of doing. Our point here is that we CAN NOT see the reality of the apostles admonition to NOT be teachers as this is as we said in the last essay, nonsensical; but we can see that he may be saying: do not just presume to be such; in the Buddha’s words there is a similar sentiment that is worthwhile looking at here: “Love yourself and watch – Today, tomorrow, always. First establish yourself in the way, Then teach, And so defeat sorrow. To straighten the crooked you must first do a harder thing – Straighten yourself. You are your only master” (Dhammapada; on Yourself)⁵.

Having finally gotten past this first line in these sayings from James we come to that reality that brought us here, right speech. James’ lesson here is in the power of speech to create much harm and the difficulty encountered in trying to control it. Perhaps, as we alluded to in a previous essay, we do not see the power of the tongue as being as harmful as the more physical acts of violence and here James is trying to correct that rather naive assumption. And, there are many types of speech, there is the spoken word, the written word, and the self thought of the speaking of one’s own mind and save for the last, these can be interpreted in many ways so that the care that must go into speech is not only in what one may actually say but also in how what one says may be perceived by the hearer or even the many perceptions of the hearers. ALL of this is a part of right speech and we should not discount the idea of speaking to oneself as we can and we do convince our selves of things both right and wrong in through the carnal nature of the mind and the emotions that feed the mind. The apostle tells us that the man who can control these things which he covers under the theme of word can be seen from hsi perspective: “the same is a perfect man” and we should remember here the effectiveness of being perfect. The apostle also tells us in his words and his understanding that this control IS near impossible and in this light we should understand the reality of perfection and how few do reach that goal.

The apostle’s words on the tongue are straightforward and True and we should be able to see these pictures that he paints in our own lives and our own relationships; we should be able to see the harm and the good that can be done with our words, even those offered in jest, and it is in the ear of the hearer that those words that we utter take their toll or reap their benefit. And, in today’s electronic society there is ever greater harm and good that we can offer in our words and the many different forms than the simple ideas of words and tongue of James day can take here today. James uses these ideas on the power of the word and of the tongue to lead us into his dissertation of the Wisdom from above which we have discussed several times and he leads us there in the last verse of the saying above as he cautions us saying: “Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom“. In a previous essay we took these words this way: This is rendered in the American Standard Version as “let him show by his good life his works in meekness of wisdom” which we should adopt for our understanding so that can see the question and then the answer that if you believe you are wise in any way then show that Wisdom by your “good life“, in your “works in in meekness of wisdom“. Works here means ALL that an man can do and we should understand meekness in the way that we have developed over time in these posts which is, in a phrase, humble restraint. Vincent tells us simply here: the meekness which is the proper attribute of wisdom ⁴.

The keyword above is found in the idea of meekness as this relates the apostles former words on the power of the word and the tongue with the next part which is Wisdom and his caution is that whatsoever one believes that he KNOWS as knowledge or as Wisdom is only Wisdom based upon the criteria of the Wisdom from above that follows so that one’s words should be measured accordingly. And, that it IS in meekness that we can hold the tongue in check, meekness IS the rudder and the bit, meekness IS the way to tame the tongue. And, from our perspective it IS meekness that IS that harmlessness and that right speech that we must offer ALL in Love.n

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.

Repeating another quotation from the Buddha as our Quote of the Day:

Better than a thousand hollow words
Is one word that brings peace.
Better than a thousand hollow verses
Is one verse that brings peace.
Better than a hundred hollow lines
Is one line of the dharma (law), bringing peace.
It is better to conquer yourself 
Than to win a thousand battles.
Then the victory is yours.
It cannot be taken from you,
Not by angels or by demons, Heaven or hell.
Better than a hundred years of worship,
Better than a thousand offerings, 
Better than giving up a thousand worldly ways
In order to win merit,
Better even than tending in the forest
A sacred flame for a hundred years – 
Is one moment’s reverence
For the man who has conquered himself.

(Dhammapada Part 8; the Thousands)5

Today’s Quote of the Day is again from the sayings of the Buddha; this one is call the Thousands. One is hard pressed to find differences between these teachings of the Buddha and the teachings of our Master the Christ. What do we see above? First there is PEACE and how much better it is than the hollow sounds of Pride and Arrogance so often heard around the world. Next there is the idea of conquering one’s self and this should be likened to all that the Master and His apostles have to say about overcoming the carnal life, the flesh. Once a life is governed by the Inner Man, the Soul he can stand free and clear of all the worldly ways; here is our Victory and here is our PEACE.

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!

• ² New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
• ³ Strongest Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible – 2001
• ⁴ Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
• ⁵ The Dhammapada Translated by Thomas Byrom
• ⁸ Bible commentaries on BibleStudyTools.com