ON LOVE; PART DXVIII
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
“The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: 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 12:29-31).
ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ
“Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:36-40).
In the last essay we discussed the reality of the mysteries of Life and these of course include ALL that the Master and His apostles call mysteries and those “things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 13:35). Among these mysteries is the Truth of our existence here as men in this world and the reality of Life as it exists outside of these forms that we use, these “earthen vessels” (2 Corinthians 4:7), these bodies that by the illusion and the glamour of Life a man comes to believe ARE his True self. There are countless other mysteries but it IS this last one here that IS perhaps the first one that must be solved by the man in the world as his first step onto the Path must be to KNOW that it IS NOT the form that must journey home but it IS the consciousness in the form that must seek and reach the Kingdom of God while living in that form. As we read in the New Testament that these secrets and mysteries are intentionally clouded in parables and parabolic sayings so that it IS only as a man grows in his own response to the prompting of his own Soul that they are revealed and this revelation is by the same degree of response which IS of course the focus of the Life of the man. The Master tells us of this separation between Soul and body and He tells us as well of the greater importance of the Soul over the body but He DOES NOT explain; the reasoning must be discerned by each man individually as in these things of Spirit there IS NO adequate explanation available from one man to another. Even in this blog we can only open another’s sense of seeking or present possibilities that the reader himself must reflect upon for Truth. And this idea that the man IS NOT the body with a Soul but IS rather a Soul incarnating through a form for a time, IS the first reflection of Truth that one must have. The Master tells us this without explanation:
“And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28).
There is a reality here in these words that escapes the man whose focus IS yet in the world and whose belief is according to doctrine and human nature, those that trust that he IS the body which has a Soul. It is in this saying and others like it that the confusion over the Greek word psuche abounds as this word is at times thought to mean the Soul, and others as the Life itself or the mind and is defined in the lexicon as: breath the breath of life the vital force which animates the body and shows itself in breathing, of animals, of men life; that in which there is life a living being, a living soul; the soul the seat of the feelings, desires, affections, aversions (our heart, soul etc.); the (human) soul in so far as it is constituted that by the right use of the aids offered it by God it can attain its highest end and secure eternal blessedness, the soul regarded as a moral being designed for everlasting life; the soul as an essence which differs from the body and is not dissolved by death (distinguished from other parts of the body)2. From this definition we should see that the Soul IS the Life, it IS not killed, it IS NOT dissolved by death but at the same time it IS considered as part of the body; we also see the idea here that the Soul IS the seat of the feelings, desires, affections, aversions (our heart, soul etc.) which, as the personality, would continue into eternal Life. And, we see also the idea that the Soul, by the right use of the aids offered it by God it can attain its highest end and secure eternal blessedness; here we get the idea that it IS the Soul that learns and that whatsoever is garnered in this Life in the world is the eternal state of the Soul as an essence that carries on the personality of the man in the world as well as what he has learned and which then lives eternally. Of course to this we should add those other doctrinal ideas of heaven and hell and some other place, the purgatory of the Catholics perhaps, for those who do not qualify as ‘good’ or ‘bad’.
This IS the common understanding of much doctrine and this is poor picture of the Life of God is likely the reason that the sense of religion is fading in the world today, the reason for the growth of the secular view even by many who purport to be religious. In a devotional and emotional way these idea can be accepted and still are by those more emotionally based peoples of the world; however, for the thinking man, for the man whose emotions are giving way to the reality of mind, for the man who is thinking his way through the morass of Life in this world instead of feeling his way, these archaic doctrinal ideas are no longer satisfying. Hence the search by so many into alternate ways to doctrinal Christianity and the varied beliefs that are outside of doctrine by so many who yet remain attached to their religious training. In the Master’s words above there is a distinct quality that takes them beyond the reaches of doctrine and here we focus first upon the idea of the body in hell as well as the destruction of the Soul. Hidden in these words are great Truths that are missed by many and which can be easily understood by the man who understands the reality of the True man which IS the Soul; the same Soul that is “made subject to vanity” in our current subtopic from the Epistle of Paul to the Romans. While this may ALL seem to be far from our original topic of forsaking, it IS NOT; it IS when we can look at the reality of the True man that we can properly understand what this forsaking means as well as its purpose.
Regardless of how one views the words from the Book of Genesis that tell us that “God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27), we should try to come to some idea of what this image represents as in this word we should find the Qualities and the Nature of God. The Apostle Paul offers us some ideas in regard to image as we read”
- “Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 3:17-18).
- “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Corinthians 4:4).
- “seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him” (Colossians 3:9-10).
This IS the reality in the idea of image, that this IS so much more that mere appearance. Of course our perspective on this IS such that we DO NOT regard the body here in these words but rather the Spirit of man, the Trinity that IS God IS man as well as IS presented in our chart below. The body IS NOT in this chart, the body IS but an “earthen vessel“, that vehicle for the expression of the Soul in the world of men. Our point here is that since the True man IS in His image, there is no need for his learning anything other than how to create this expression of Truth in the world and this idea of expiression is seen in Paul’s words in the second point above in which we should see the same ideas from our current sayings. That “the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not” can be seen in two ways and here in the King James Bible it IS seen as though this IS NOT God but god which IS the nature of the world. There IS the general doctrinal agreement here and this idea of god is attributed to Satan by some; but in the Truth that there IS ONE God of ALL the Universe, how could this be? If we can allow ourselves to see this god as God we can then relate this easily to the idea above, that it IS God whose creation IS “made subject to vanity” according to His own Will and Plan. We will not get into the other misinterpreted parts of these three sayings as our intent is to establish that the “in image of God” means His whole image and not just some part that is convenient to doctrine.
To properly understand the Master’s idea above regarding the one who can “destroy both soul and body in hell” we must look away from doctrine and try to see the ultimate reality of the Soul as the True man, part and parcel of God, and that eternal part of Life as even they acknowledge. This Soul CAN NOT be destroyed in the common context of destruction but it CAN be lost in the sense that he remains mired in the vanity, in the illusion and the glamour and in the blindness “of them which believe not“. Vine’s tells us of the Greek word apollumi which is rendered destroy here that: a strengthened form of ollumi, signifies “to destroy utterly;” in Middle Voice, “to perish.” The idea is not extinction but ruin, loss, not of being, but of well-being 6. Here then we should see a parabolic use of these words and especially of the idea of hell; the body does not go to hell as it is understood in doctrine and here the Greek world geena is used by Jesus. This word refers to an area outside of Jerusalem where refuse and the bodies of dead animals and even criminals were cast 2; this is essentially a smoldering garbage dump which has been converted by doctrine to the picture of hell as it is taught by the various denominations. This IS NOT the same word that is rendered as hell but which has the meaning of the place of the dead; this Greek word hades IS the more specific to the death of the body of a man. It IS by doctrine and tradition that this word hell takes its meaning and not the scriptures; here we should try to see the Master’s Truth which IS that a man should fear those who can pervert him and drag him back down into the world of illusion and of glamour, the world of vanity and of blindness where he IS lost as a Soul.
This IS the same reality that we find in the Apostle Peter’s saying that we have been using over the last several posts; Peter tells us that we become “partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” (2 Peter 1:4) and this escaping IS from that same condition as being lost which we should see in this idea of being destroyed. We should note also that these words from the Master on who to fear are not offered to the multitudes but to His disciples as He IS sending them out into the world on their own with nothing as He tells them clearly: “Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses, Nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves: for the workman is worthy of his meat” (Matthew 10:9-10). It IS in this context that the Master speaks and tells them that they should not fear death but the one who can lead them astray, lead them away from the Truth that the Master has brought to them. Here He tells them that they must maintain their focus upon the things of God, upon the Good, the Beautiful and the True. The opposite to this IS the illusion, it IS the vanity and it IS the blindness that overcomes the man in the world and from which the aspirant and the disciple must extricate themselves, it is from here that they must escape. An to do so, to pull oneself out of this state, is to “put off the old man with his deeds“, it is to “mortify the deeds of the body“. It IS in shedding these things that are opposite to right focus upon the things of God that brings the man out of the world and into that state where he IS “renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him“; this renewal IS the change that Repentance brings and that one’s Transformation perfects and in this renewal a man can realize the Truth of his own deliverance “from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God“
This IS our reality as aspirants and as disciples, it IS we who are working on this Transformation which is not a changing of the Soul nor of the body but rather a change in what one is expressing through his Life which in the end will be a reflection of the “image of God“. This IS the result of our escape as Peter phrases this and this IS brought about by our focus upon the things of God which IS the result of our hearing and heeding the call of our own Souls which IS at first faintly and then more loudly leading each of us to the reality of forsaking. We say here again then that among the mysteries the first one that must be solved by the man in the world as the first step onto the Path, must be to KNOW that it IS NOT the form that must journey home but the consciousness in the form that must seek and reach the Kingdom of God. And this consciousness IS the quality of the Life of the Soul, that part of the divine man in form that IS used by the body and the personality for his awareness of Life in the world and which must be converted and Transformed from the state of vanity to the state of deliverance. This IS done by focusing the consciousness on the “treasures in heaven“, the things of God instead of “treasures upon earth” (Matthew 6:19-20) which are the thoughts, attitudes and actions of focus upon the things of the world.
We did not get back to our final thoughts on the words from Paul to the Romans about our existence in this world but in what we do cover above we should be able to see the seamless nature of the words of the Master and His apostles in regard to our True salvation and deliverance from the “the bondage of corruption” which IS Life in this world. We post the apostle’s words again:
“For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. 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. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:13-23).
We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.
| Aspect |
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.
We repeat here a Quote of the Day that we spent much time with over the course of our essays. In this affirmation we find the Truth of discipleship as we have been ever been expressing and here we can relate our themes of the last few days; “take no thought” for the things of the world and that we approach the Kingdom and discipleship in the nature of the little child, in humbleness, meekness, unashamed in any way and unassuming. The message that this imparts for us today IS that it IS the Soul that is at work in the world of men as it expresses to some degree the purpose, power and the will through Life in this world. These words are from a meditation offered to his students by our Tibetan brother and in which we find greater understanding of the message of the Master. This IS Truly the way of the disciple.
My Soul has purpose, power and will; these three are needed on the Way of Liberation.
My Soul must foster love among the sons of men; this is its major purpose.
I, therefore, will to love and tread the Way of Love. All that hinders and obstructs the showing of the Light must disappear before the purposes of the Soul.
My will is one with the great Will of God;. that Holy Will requires that all men serve. And unto the purposes of the Plan I lend my little will.
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
- 6 Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, 1996
