ON LOVE; PART DCCXLXV
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
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).
ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ
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.
ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ
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).
As we have progressed with our discussion on the concept of grace as the revelations and the realizations of Truth from God through our own Souls, our own God and Christ Within, we have come to see the intersection of this idea of grace with the dynamic force of Love. Here again we caution that the reality of this Love IS NOT that emotional and mental attraction and attachment to others and to the things of this world but that it IS a multifaceted ideal that reaches from our Love for ALL others to our Love for God and then, to God’s Love for us. We have noted that God’s Love for His children IS free in ALL respects as His global Power, His Life Giving Energy and Sustenance, His Plan, and in the reality of the Avatars that have come to show the way to God for the man in the world. Of this last idea we have the birth, the Life, the teaching and example, and the death and resurrection of the Christ who came among us as the fulfillment of God’s Promise and as the Truth of His Love. And the Master showed us many things about the reality of this grace, how that in addition to the global ideas that are seen by doctrine as the show of His Love, there IS yet the idea of individual grace which IS the realization in the consciousness of the man in the world of the depth and meaning of the global reality. This individual grace, while it IS still free, IS the revelation of the mysteries of Life and of the Kingdom of God; and for this grace to come to the man in the world, there IS a cost, a quid pro quo as we have been defining this. That the grace of God IS free and at the same time comes with a cost IS but a matter of perspective and this IS shown to us by the Master and by His apostles in their writing.
When we can understand that the consciousness and the Life of every man IS based in Spirit, that it IS Spirit, then we can come to understand how that these ideas can work out together in the Life of the man in the world. In this the first idea that must be grasped IS that man IS NOT this body and this Life of form but it IS the Life and the consciousness which IS the Soul that IS expressing himself through that form; in this IS the reality of the Apostle Paul’s saying that “we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us” (2 Corinthians 4:7). Here the apostle is showing us the separate natures of the treasure which IS the Soul, and the form which most men see as themselves; here Paul IS pointing us to the reality of the God Within and the Power of God in the Life of the man in the world. That man IS Spirit, created “in the image of God” (Genesis 1:27) who IS also Spirit, IS the reality of that free grace from the Godhead as we ARE ourselves part and parcel of Him. At the same time this spiritual man which we call the Soul IS born into this world where he loses ALL sense of His True nature and this IS, as Paul shows us, part of the Plan of God through which we Live. This IS the reality to those oft used words from the apostle’s Epistle to the Romans saying: “the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope” (Romans 8:20); we KNOW this vanity as the illusion and the glamour of Life in this world. And this idea of vanity is further defined for us by Vincent saying that it is: the reference is to a perishable and decaying condition, separate from God, and pursuing false ends 4. In this state, in this condition, man loses his view of ‘Truth which comes in the flow of revelation from the Soul, a flow that is blocked by the man’s focus upon the carnal ideas of Living in the world, ideas which are built and compounded by his nurturing and his experience.
So then the free grace IS a part of the man, the True man who IS the Soul, yet this IS unrealized by the consciousness of that man in the world, a consciousness that sees ONLY what has been nurtured and his experience in Life in this world. This IS of course a simplistic look as a very complex and deep idea that IS tied to, and in many ways IS, the reality of “the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations” (Colossians 1:26) and we should try to see that within this mystery itself IS the revelation of it as the individual grace of God. The free grace of God IS ours, it IS present in the Truth of man’s Life, but it IS hidden from the view of the man who DOES NOT seek after it, it IS hidden from the man whose focus IS upon himself and the ways of his self in this world. It IS here that we find that the cost IS ONLY a cost from the perspective of the man in the world who maintains his carnal focus; the man whose consciousness is yet trapped in his nurturing and his experience, and in the affinity of his mind and his emotions, his personality, for the things of the world. It IS in breaking the chains of vanity, breaking the chains of illusion and glamour, that a man can come to realize the grace of God in his Life in this world…..it IS this breaking of these chains that bind us that we can come to see and to realize the ultimate glory of men which IS the subject of the second part of Paul’s words to the Romans saying: “the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).
And so we come back again to the intersection of grace and Love as we see that the grace of God and the Love of God are of the same reality which IS freely offered globally to ALL men and individually to ALL men from the perspective of the True man, the Soul. We see as well how that while this grace and this Love are the possession of the man in the world from a spiritual perspective, that they must be realized by the consciousness which IS held captive by the personality which sees only the carnal Life. We should understand here that matters of religion DO NOT change this dynamic unless one’s sense of religion IS in accord with the teachings of the Master and His apostles; unless one’s sense of religion includes the deeper Truth that a man’s Life must become an expression of the Love of God, the Love that IS God and thereby IS the True man, to the world of men. Here then IS the reality of the cost of grace or, better, of the realizations and revelations which ARE that grace in the Life of the man in the world: it IS simply that we keep His words. We should understand here that these revelations and realizations of divinity ARE the product of the Presence of the God Within in the consciousness of the man in the world and that these ideas ARE synonymous as ARE the presentation of these ideas in the Master’s words from our fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of John that we have been repeating daily; we read:
- “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him” (John 14:21).
- “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. (John 14:23).
Here the Presence of God IS found in the idea of His manifesting Himself to the man who keeps His words and we find this again in the second saying in the idea that the God and the Christ Within will “make our abode with him” which IS to reveal His Presence to the consciousness of the man in the world. And these ideas here ARE filled with Love; Love for God which IS keeping His words and the Love of God which IS the revelation of His Presence which IS His grace. So then the cost IS that we keep His word as we have been saying over the entire course of this blog….this IS the cost of His grace and the cost of being accounted worthy of the Kingdom of God and, this IS the cost of discipleship. In these three we should see the same reality which IS contrary to the vanity to which men ARE subjected, a reality where one IS NO longer separate from God, and pursuing false ends 4, but where the man IS free from the illusions and the glamours by which he had formerly been trapped. While the final part of the reality of Love, the expression of this by the man in the world, seems to be missing, it IS NOT; it IS an integral part of the reality of keeping His words and especially His words of the Great Commandments that we have again at the top of our essay. It IS this expression of Love which IS the sign that we ARE keeping His words and it IS this idea that we find presented for us in the Apostle John’s Epistle that we repeat here:
“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. 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 4:7-21).
Here we see that to Love God IS impossible without our Love for “one another” and, in the view that this idea of Love IS an integral part of the reality of keeping His words, we should see this same idea in the Master’s words above and in His most straightforward saying that “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). John shows us the same realities as the Master albeit according to his own interpretation and way of expressing himself and here in his words we should see the same reality of the Presence of God and the same cost which he has taken from the universality of keeping His words to the more specific sign of this in one’s Life….that “we love one another“. This IS clearly stated in the apostle’s showing us that “If we love one another, God dwelleth in us” and in his words we should see the greater reality if the idea here of confession as John equates for us with our sense of KNOWING, our sense of realization, which we read as “Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him“. Can we see the equation here? Can we see how that to confess Christ IS to follow Him and to keep His words and that such confession IS NOT merely some affirmation of doctrinal precepts? Unfortunately this IS NOT how this IS commonly perceived as men separate these ideas and believe that their salvation IS in their confession, in their affirmation that “Jesus is the Son of God“. While many who comment upon this scripture DO NOT relate this totally to affirmation, while many DO see the underlying Truth of keeping His words, this vision IS lost in the popular applications of doctrine which relate this idea of being “born again“, of being “born of God” as we read above to the misunderstood and out of context ideas of confession and affirmation found in Paul’s words saying:
“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9-10).
When we can see ALL of these ideas in one place, it becomes easier to discern the greater Truths regarding the idea of salvation. If we consider that salvation IS the same as our being accounted worthy of the Kingdom of God, and that salvation IS equivalent to having the Presence of God in one’s Life, then theses words from Paul and the similar words from John MUST fall in behind the Master’s own words on His Presence above and His matter of fact words on attaining the Kingdom which we read as “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). Similarly we MUST see the words of the Master saying “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3) as this relates to the words of John above where we read “every one that loveth is born of God“; these ideas ARE inseparable and in the full view of the reality of the Master’s message this expression of Love IS keeping His words.
In the end we must come to realize the greater Truths of His words against the machinations of doctrines that ARE intended to give a man safe harbor in the absence of DOING as the Master instructs and as His apostles clarify and amplify. It IS in this view that we can see the reality that He teaches in the multiplicity of Truths that come in the True idea of grace. Whether we see this grace as Love, as His Presence, as the realization and revelation of our own divine nature or as the operation of the Holy Spirit in one’s Life in the world, we must understand that ALL of this IS spiritually the same and ALL of this IS related to our ability to keep His words. And His words at the end of this chapter ARE His example to us in the form of His acknowledgement that as He teaches us to DO, so He DOES Himself; we read again the end of His words from this fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of John:
“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe. Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me. But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence” (John 14:26-31).
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.
Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!
- 4 Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
