ON LOVE; PART DCCLXV
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).
In the last essay we tried to take our ideas of grace and Love and the Presence of God into the reality of Life in this world and how that the True man, the divine Soul, IS NOT the general audience that the Master and His apostles speak to. They ARE speaking to man in the world who IS the outward appearance of the divine Soul who IS lost in the illusion and the glamour, the vanity according to the Apostle Paul, as they try to get this outward appearance, this personality in the world, to see the Truth and to come to that realization of who they Truly ARE. This realization IS of course the grace of God, His Love and His Presence as this IS found in the Life of the man who keeps His words. This IS the deeper reality of the ideas presented by Paul as He tells us that it IS the True man, the Soul who IS in this body, who becomes the creature and the creation of which we read in his words to the Romans: “the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope“. Here we have the Truth of our existance in this Earth and here we see the idea of vanity as the illusion and the glamour in which men live and which deludes them and causes them to lose touch with their own True reality. Here, based in our own insight and with the help of Vincent, we have offered our own rendering of these ideas saying: “For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in expectation that the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God“ (Romans 8:20-21). In the idea of expectation we should try to see that in speaking of God that there would be no sense in the idea of His hope but rather in His KNOWING that the Plan will work; more on these changes can be read in In the Words of Jesus part 1150.
It IS the idea of vanity that IS important here, an idea that we equate to the our own ideas of illusion and glamour. It IS these that keep a man from realizing the Truth that comes from his own Soul as he gets caught up in this world of things and focuses his Life’s attention upon the self and those things that become important to him….those things that delude him. And Vincent helps us here in understanding the ideas behind the apostle’s use of the Greek word mataiotes, a word that is wholly misunderstood; we read: Vanity (ματαιότητι); Only here, Ephesians 4:17; 2 Peter 2:18. Compare the kindred verb became vain (Romans 1:21note), and the adjective vain (1 Corinthians 3:20; 1 Peter 1:18). Vain is also used to render κενός (1 Corinthians 15:14, 1 Corinthians 15:58; Ephesians 5:6; James 2:20). Κενός signifies empty; μάταιος idleresultless. Κενός , used of persons, implies not merely the absence of good, but the presence of evil. So James 2:20. The Greek proverb runs. “The empty think empty things.” Μάταιος expresses aimlessness. All which has not God for the true end of its being is μάταιος . Pindar describes the vain man as one who hunts bootless things with fruitless hopes. Plato (“Laws,” 735) of labor to no purpose. Ezekiel 13:6, “prophesying vain things ( μάταια ),” things which God will not bring to pass. Compare Titus 3:9. Here, therefore, the reference is to a perishable and decaying condition, separate from God, and pursuing false ends4. While we often refer to Vincent’s words for his reference to this vanity in this saying, we DO NOT often offer the reasoning behind this; we DO so again here because this idea of vanity this IS an important part of our reality of Life which is misrepresented in doctrines which tell us that this pertains to the ‘fall of man’ from the the doctrinal perspective of the story in Genesis. This IS indeed the fall of man but it IS a fall that IS the result of the Divine Plan of God and it IS a fall from which ALL will recover and “be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God“
It IS in these ideas that we find the Truth of our existance here in this Earth and while there IS NO reason given nor any idea of the overall objective of the Plan, there IS the reality that we MUST overcome the world and that this deliverance IS our overcoming. It is this same reality that the Apostle John paints for us in the combined selection that we have been studying over the last several posts; here the apostle shows us that it IS in the idea of being “born of God” that we can “overcometh the world” which IS our escape from the clutches of vanity, our escape from the delusions of Life and our separation from God. That these ideas ARE hidden from view in the apostle’s words IS easily seen in the way that doctrines address the totality of his words in this epistle and when we can relate this idea of being “born of God” to the Master’s own words of being “born again“, then we can more clearly see the reality of the Kingdom of God and its relationship to this overcoming of the ways of the flesh and of the world. The Master tells us that “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3) and while doctrines may paint this as accomplished in some affirmations and rituals, the Truth IS that this IS equivalent to His other words on 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). John shows us that this idea of being “born again” or of being “born of God” IS attached to our ability to “love one another” at the beginning of the saying below and then, in the end, he ties this to the reality of keeping His words which, while painted in his own parabolic language of believing, reaches out to the same idea that the Master shows us; the relationship between Love for God and keeping His words; we read again:
“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. Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. By this we now that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God” (1 John 4:7-5:5).
In the end the reality should be clear, that it IS when “when we love God, and keep his commandments” that we can be seen to “ love the children of God” which brings us back to His original saying that “every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love“. And this IS our way of deliverance “into the glorious liberty of the children of God“: that we “love one another” which IS to keep His words and that we Love God which IS found in the same dynamic that “when we love God, and keep his commandments“. For doctrine this Truth causes that paradox of ideas that pits the Master’s words against the doctrinal concepts of believing and faith and, in the deluded ideas of men in this world, the easier ways of doctrine seem to always prevail. As we discussed in the last essay, it IS perhaps here, in their inability to see the dynamic of duality and the reality of Transforming, that we can see the difficulty of religion which seeks to paint things as black and white; that this IS why they have devised their own ways of salvation rather than to see the steady movement from carnal to divine through duality. This duality IS that part of Life that begins with Repentance and continues through one’s Transformation and it IS this sense of Transforming that we see in the Life of the apostle Peter as well as in the lives of the other apostles about whom we read in the gospels.
In the combination of our ideas then we should try to see that we ARE Souls, that we ARE divine men in the True sense of the word men, as we should understand from the words from Genesis saying “God created man in his own image” (Genesis 1:27). It IS this divine man that must become the realized Presence in the Life of the man in the world; it IS this divine man that must come to live through the form and the personality in the world. It IS this same thing that we see in the Life of the Master; that the Christ, that Soul of Great Accomplishment in the heavens, incarnated in the world of men in the form as the personality that we KNOW as Jesus and that because of His stature, and His accomplishment according to the Plan of God, He was able to bring into the carnal Life of Jesus “all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9). It IS this fullness that makes Jesus the Christ in the world and it IS this reality that IS extended to ALL men in His words saying that “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do” (John 14:12). Here again this idea of “believing on” Him must be seen in the depth with which it IS intended and which IS explained in subsequent verses as keeping His words; it IS this same reality that we find in John’s words above as both “that we keep his commandments” and that we “confess that Jesus is the Son of God“. Both have the same result and the same effect in the Life of the man who understands that these, and the later idea of “he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God“, ARE the same. Again we must see the reality behind the words and the common sense that must be applied; both of these are aptly encapsulated in the Master’s rhetorical question that asks: “why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).
And so we should be able to see ALL of our relationships from the last essay in the Love and the grace, the Presence of God, that we have been discussing. Men are born into this world and there comes a time when each becomes the self conscious expression of Life, a self expression which is nurtured in the ways of the world. This nurturing plus the ensuing experience create the man and here we should try to see that the subordination of Way of Truth to the ways of the worked IS accomplished in most every venue of Life and this includes religious and secular upbringing. Here we should try to see that a strict doctrinal nurturing IS as bad as one that IS irreligious as both block the access of a man to the Truth and further obnubilate his vision. It IS in the prompting of one’s own Soul, a prompting that can appear as conscience, or as an desire to KNOW more, or likely in any way that has the Soul’s intention to move his personality to see the Good, the Beautiful and the True over the ways of the world and of men. This IS of course much more complex that we can portray here as we must consider the prior spiritual accomplishments and spiritual collateral of any Soul as well as any other predetermining factor the he may bring into his incarnation; we must also consider the happenstance of Life, things that are beyond the control of the man on ALL levels, and we must try to understand the relative strength of the situations of Life in which a man may find himself. ALL of these ideas that pertain to an individual Life in this world are rather insignificant to the eternal Life of the Soul and failure IS likely seen as lost opportunity; it IS on the other side of the equation that the reality of Life in the world can be seen. This IS a part of the Master’s teachings on time and on opportunity which are veiled in parables but which should reach out to the man who has begun to awaken to the Truth. That there IS little that one can do in the face of the falling tower or the acts of violence of one like Pilate IS True and it IS in this light that we should see the Master’s words on being ready which IS to say that for the man who senses the prompting and perhaps glimpses the Truth behind it, there IS NO better time than NOW.
Regardless of whether one sees the Master’s words as eschatology or as one’s own demise, His words have the same effect which IS to say that from the moment that one may glimpse the Truth, he should act; he should Repent and he should begin earnestly his own Transformation. The whole of this idea IS presented by the Master in these words from Luke’s Gospel and we should understand the depth of this idea as it IS questioned by Peter and further explained by Jesus; we read:
“Let your loins be girded about , and your lights burning; And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately. Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat , and will come forth and serve them. And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. And this know, that if the goodman of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and not have suffered his house to be broken through. Be ye therefore ready also: for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not. Then Peter said unto him, Lord, speakest thou this parable unto us, or even to all? And the Lord said, Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Of a truth I say unto you, that he will make him ruler over all that he hath.But and if that servant say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to beat the menservants and maidens, and to eat and drink, and to be drunken; The lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware , and will cut him in sunder , and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers. And that servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more” (Luke 12:35-48).
While there ARE many lessons here in the Master’s words, there ARE NOT any more important than the sense of time. We should see in the parable, as well as in the answer to the apostle, the great Truth of DOING as we read “Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing“. And here IS the reality for the man who has glimpsed the Truth, the man who KNOWS that the KEY to the Kingdom IS in keeping His words: “that servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes“. There IS a different reality however for the man who lives his Life in this world unawares of the Truth of his own divine nature, this man “shall be beaten with few stripes“. In this we should try to see yet another cost for the grace that we receive by measure from God, from the Christ and the God Within; the cost of responsibility, the cost of duty, as we struggle with Life in this world where we live with the sense of duality through which we see both ways; the Way of God and the ways of the world.
Our intention was to finish with our ideas from the last post and go on to include our thoughts on these words from Paul and, since we did not DO this, we leave these ideas for the next essay:
“Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:12-14).
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
