ON LOVE; PART DCCI
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GoodWill IS Love in Action
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FIRST IS THE GREAT COMMANDMENTS: “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).
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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.
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PLUS THE EVER IMPORTANT AND HIGH IDEAL TAUGHT TO US BY THE CHRIST: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7:12).
In the last essay we continued with our look at grace from the perspective of the Apostle Paul’s words to the Romans, how that grace IS a “free gift” from God. To properly understand this idea of the “free gift“, one must first understand the very nature of grace, that grace IS NOT that nebulous idea of ‘things’ for the comfort of man in the world as presented by doctrine. One must understand that grace IS a spiritual gift which flows into the heart, the consciousness, of the man in the world as the realizations and revelation of the Truth of God and of the divine Life of the Soul. While this may seem just as nebulous as the doctrinal approach, there IS a definite reality that IS seen and understood by any man whose focus comes to be upon the things of God. It IS by this focus that the man comes to realize an ever greater measure of Truth and IS ever more able to understand and express the Truth of Love as the Master teaches us. And perhaps there IS NO better measure of this grace in one’s Life than his ability to comprehend and to express the Love of God as we see this stated by the Master in the Great Commandments and the Golden Rule that we have at the top of our essay.
While the Apostle James offers us the better way of understanding what it IS that comes into as our consciousness as divine, as Wisdom from above, there IS yet much to be discerned by that same consciousness regarding the Truth of the source. That the thought IS from the Soul, the Christ Within, or from the personality, or even from some combination that we could find in the presence of a divine thought that IS colored by the personality to suit the man in the world. can indeed remain a mystery to most of us. In the greater idea of Wisdom from above IS the reality of pure which we see as Godlike and, in our understanding of the way that the apostle frames this, we see this idea of “first pure” as encompassing ALL of the other listed qualities. We read James’ words as: “the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy” (James 3:17). We have discussed these ideas from James in some detail several times over the course of our posts on this blog and we should note here again our understanding; first that James’ preceding words on what IS NOT “wisdom that is from above” are misinterpreted and misunderstood as the very words used should be seen to imply that ALL that IS for the self and the self in the world, ALL thoughts and attitudes to that effect, ARE NOT from the Soul, they ARE NOT from above….they ARE NOT from the Christ Within.
We discuss these ideas on the self, on the right interpretation of “bitter envying and strife“, in In the Words of Jesus part 323-331 along with our discussion on what IS Wisdom from above. In short, our view of this IS that the apostle’s meaning IS in regard to the self; in the words rendered as “bitter envying and strife” can be found many ideas of self: self-devotion, self-interest….in general, self-absorption. It IS unfortunate that these are commonly seen as jealousy and as strife rather that to show forth the better ideas of what would be in such Wisdom that IS not from above. We should understand that the topic IS not the way of man but the thoughts that he has and whether these ARE from above; it takes no special degree to understand that jealousy and strife ARE NOT from God…this should be common understanding. It DOES however take some insight into James ideas to understand that the meaning here IS that if the thoughts or attitudes of the aspirant and the disciple include aught for the benefit of the self in the world, that these thoughts or attitudes ARE NOT from God. These ideas are discussed again in In the Words of Jesus parts 1003-1004 as a part of our overall look at the Epistle of James and in the combination of ALL our thoughts we should be able to see and understand that there IS naught that IS NOT “first pure” that can be from above. In this view the greater clarity should be seen: that this idea of pure IS related to the idea of holy and that in these two words we get the greater idea of Godlike and of perfection.
This then IS the greater idea of that Wisdom from above: that there IS nothing in these thoughts that concerns the self or the interests of the self in the world but rather that these thoughts would be of a Godlike nature and would reveal to the man in the world something that IS of God. Here we should try to see that ALL that IS of God IS at the same time of Love and hence our drawing these ideas together above along with the reality of grace. The question here then becomes relative to the idea of divine thought as this IS what would come from above in the form of grace, the revelations and realizations that give us the greater ability to express the nature of the True man and to understand that his nature IS Love. And so our idea of the measure of grace in one’s Life, that measure IS his ability to comprehend and to express the Love of God as we see this stated by the Master in the Great Commandments and the Golden Rule which have at the top of our essays for some time now. This IS our reality of grace as we find this as the “free gift” of God; it IS a gift that every man has as a Soul but one that can only be translated to his consciousness in form in the Light of the Soul, the Wisdom from above, and can be measured by his expression of Love in the world. We should remember here that there IS another aspect of this gift as a “free gift” that IS offered to mankind globally in the Presence and in the teachings of those messengers from the Godhead of which Paul mentions two; Moses and Jesus. It IS their Presence that brings the next great revelation to the race of men; from Moses we receive the law and from the Master we receive the reality of Love as we see above and as He teaches us to express it to ALL men in equanimity.
It has been our effort to show the reality of Paul’s ideas to the Romans and their misinterpretation based in the doctrinal approach to the ‘fall of man‘ and the idea of ‘original sin‘. To this end we have also been exploring the greater Truth in the stories from Genesis that tell us of the Garden of Eden and the actions of Adam and of Eve. In the last essays we painted our view of this again as this relates to those other words from the apostle on how that the whole of humanity IS “made subject to vanity, not willingly” and that this IS by the Plan of God. We discussed as well the reality of that the whole of humanity “shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:20-21). In these ideas IS the greater reality of the ‘fall of man‘ and the Truth of grace as it IS by this grace, the progressive revelations of Truth globally and the individuals measure of this grace as achieved by the measure of his focus upon the things of God, that we ALL can progress. We must however see the idea of humanity here as that this IS NOT the body and the personality but that this IS the Life and the consciousness, the Soul, that IS using the body and the personality in time and space. The bodies and the personalities are merely the vehicles for the expression of the Soul’s Life and consciousness when he IS so delivered. The ‘fall of man‘ IS the Plan of God in operation and it IS by grace, by the revelations and the realizations of Truth, that each True man “shall be delivered“.
And it IS the misunderstanding of ALL of these ideas from Genesis to Paul that have lead to the preconceptions and to the doctrines that paint this ALL as we see it yet today; preconceptions and doctrines that show is the nebulous ideas on grace as a greater share of the pleasures and comforts of Life in the world. In these preconceptions and doctrines men fail to see the Truth of Love as the great measure of one’s own degree of grace in his Life in this world. And it IS Love that IS the great equalizer; there IS NO shortage of words on Love from the Master and His apostles; there IS a great stream of reality in this theme that IS diluted, changed and even ignored by much of the Christian world. We should understand that this common attitude on this concept of Love is based in the misunderstanding of its meaning; this Love IS not the emotional and mental attachment and attraction between people and between people and the things of the world as so many believe. It IS based in this misconception that there IS a common human failure to attach the Truth of Love to ALL men. In the Truth of Love, which IS devoid of these emotional and mental attachments and attractions, there IS ONLY GoodWill and the True idea of mercy; there IS ONLY the unsolicited offering of “whatsoever ye would that men should do to you” to ALL men. And there IS NO sense of reciprocity involved in this as so many choose to believe, there IS ONLY a man’s offering to ALL what he would want for himself, an offering that is devoid of “respect to persons” (James 2:9) which idea IS modeled after the Love of God as we should see clearly in Paul’s words that “there is no respect of persons with God” (Romans 2:11).
And this IS the defining character of our own measure of grace, that we can offer this True sense of Love to ALL men unsolicited and without expectation of any such return. While these ideas ARE clearly marked out in the Master’s words, there IS little or NO True comprehension of his meaning…that we should Love ALL men equally and without reservation. In the last essay we also delved deeper into the reality of sin and how that the common understanding of sin as the gross offense IS misplaced and purely doctrinal; it ignores the commandments on Love and fails to see sin as the opposite to righteousness. In this we can see that if righteousness IS the way of God, that a man’s being truly righteous would render him Godlike, we can also see the greater reality that such righteousness IS being accounted worthy of the Kingdom of God. In this the idea of sin as the opposite of righteousness would mean that the man in sin IS NOT accounted worthy which largely corresponds with the reality of the Master’s teaching, especially when we can correlate the idea of righteousness with keeping His words.
And in this ALL IS the greater reality of grace as this comes to us by measure; a measure that IS related to our degree of focus upon the righteous things of God and away from the sinful things of the self and the self in the world. Here then we should be able to understand and to see that it IS Love that IS the True measure of grace in one’s Life, that it IS one’s expression of Love as the Master teaches us that IS the greatest sign of our keeping His words which IS the reality of righteousness and of being accounted worthy of His Kingdom. Here again we should see the reality of striving and the Truth of His words saying “Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able” (Luke 13:24). It IS in striving that our degree of focus is seen and in it IS in our continued striving that our degree of focus and of grace IS increased; and it IS in this idea that we should try to see the Master’s parables on the growth of the Kingdom of God. In Jesus’ Parable of the Mustard Seed and the Parable of the Leaven we have the growth of the Kingdom of God within the man which should be understood as the growth of grace in the Life of the man in the world….the growth of his very realizations and revelations of the Truth of the Kingdom and of the things of God.
The ultimate of these things, this grace, comes to the disciple and to a lesser extent to the aspirant whose focus IS upon the things of God and this IS the reality of the Master’s teaching on the growth of the Kingdom Within. Here we should try to see how that this growth can continue into the ideas from the Gospel of John that we repeat again below. In the Truth of “the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do” IS the Truth of True discipleship and the ultimate of grace in the Life of the man who can so express the Love and the Power of the Soul in this world. This reality IS the end point, the fullness of grace and the perfection of the disciple and this IS accomplished in the simplicity of keeping His words. Can we see how that this ALL works out in the Life of the man who has Truly Repented, the man who IS Transforming his Life by his striving to move the totality of his focus off of himself and onto God. And this grace IS that Wisdom from above, this grace IS the greater ability to express the Love of God to ALL men; this grace is our ability to see the Truth of sin as a man’s focus upon the things of the world and to see the deeper Truths that ARE hidden in the words of the Master and His apostles.
We did not get back to the ideas from John’s Gospel as we intended but the ideas above should serve to encapsulate our thoughts on grace in the Life of the man in the world from our recent essays that explore this from the perspective of Paul’s words to the Romans and the doctrinal ideas of the ‘fall of man‘. We repeat our selection from the fourteenth chapter of John’s Gospel again and we will try to get back to this in the next essay.
“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. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it. If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you” (John 14:12-20).
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 again a saying that is from the Bhagavad Gita, which goes well with our theme of the God Within, the Soul, which we see as the Christ Within and while this is good in the Christian world and is True based upon our understanding of the Christ as the manifestation of God, we should also see in these words below that it does not matter what these divine ideas are called; that it matters not what we call this Inner Man, that he is the same in ALL, he is the Soul.
Thou carriest within thee a sublime Friend whom thou knowest not. For God dwells in the inner part of every man, but few know how to find Him. The man who sacrifices his desires and his works to the Beings from whom the principles of everything stem, and by whom the Universe was formed, through this sacrifice attains perfection. For one who finds his happiness and joy within himself, and also his wisdom within himself is one with God. And, mark well, the soul which has found God is freed from rebirth and death, from old age and pain, and drinks the water of Immortality.—Bhagavad-Gita
It is difficult to tell just what verses of the Bhagavad Gita the above is from; whether it is a paraphrase or a combination. It is from the book “The Great Initiates” by Édouard Schuré which was originally published in French in 1889 and perhaps it is in the translation of the verses that they become hard to recognize. However, the sheer beauty of the presentation caught my attention and so I share it with you. The Path to the Kingdom is the same no matter what religion one professes.
