ON LOVE; PART DCCLXXVIII
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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 thoughts regarding the Power of Love; again, not the emotional and mental attraction and attachment to others and to the things and ways of this world, but the unequivocal sense of brotherhood and Unity that we should share with ALL men. This sense of brotherhood IS GoodWill, it IS offering to ALL men the respect that one would desire for himself along with an understanding heart that realizes that save for one’s relative place in the social strata, ALL men ARE the same….Souls working our their own salvation through Life in this world. To see this reality it IS helpful to see Life as the reality of ALL men being divine in nature; as Souls or spiritual beings that are living through the human forms in this world. This radical change in Christian thinking however IS NOT required as the Master DOES spell ALL of this out for us without citing this precept as the cause. From the view of the Master the need to Love IS bound to one’s own individual measure of grace and to one’s own True salvation or deliverance “from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God“. In this view from the Apostle Paul’s Epistle to the Romans we should see our end point as Souls, as the True man who IS working out his salvation here in this Earth and we should try to understand the reality that we ARE, as Souls, “made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope” (Romans 8:21, 20). In the simplicity of these words the apostle shows us that it IS by the Plan of God that we are here in this Earth where illusion and glamour reign and that it IS from this that we “shall be delivered” eventually in a global sense, and, in the totality of the context of Paul’s words and the words of the Master and the other apostles, by the measure of grace received individually according our focus.
It IS our focus that IS our individual effort to attain the grace of God in our lives and it IS this grace, this Presence of God in the Life of everyman, that allows for his growth as a disciple of the Lord, and allows for the growth of the Kingdom of God Within. It IS in the growth of the Kingdom that we see in the Master’s words and parables that we attain more grace….more of the Presence of God in one’s Life; and we MUST understand here that this IS ALL predicated upon our application of this Presence through our lives here in this Earth. This application IS of course intimately tied to the Power of Love and how that we wield this Power in the world of men. The Master shows us that His Presence as the Presence of God in one’s Life comes to the man who will keep His words and, as we see in the Great Commandments that we have again at the top of our essay, the reality of Love IS the foremost of His commandments. The Master clearly tells us that His Presence comes to us as the reciprocal effect of keeping His words and while the apostles in that day DO NOT completely understand Jesus’ message, we have the added benefit of the entirety of their writings…..their own epistles along with their reports of the words of the Master. For us the simplicity of Jesus’ words can be seen in His rhetorical question to men saying “why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46) and while this idea IS expanded upon by Matthew so that we can see the sincerity with which we must DO, the reality of Jesus intent IS clear in this short saying. Here we must try to grasp the idea that if we consider Jesus the Christ to be Lord and to be God, then the True follower has NO choice but to DO as He says…..as He instructs us to DO. When we tie this to the Master’s other words on how that it IS that we can Love God, we see the added impact of His Truth and the gateway to His Presence. In the simple idea that He presents as “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15), there should be enough for the Christian world; and the Master DOES NOT leave us wanting as He gives us the further Truths regarding what keeping His words will bring; we read again:
“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. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, 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. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me” (John 14:21-24).
This IS the reality of Life in this world and the True Way to salvation and deliverance which, when these ideas ARE understood as they ARE intended, IS that “glorious liberty of the children of God“, that freedom from the illusion and the glamour, the vanity according to Paul, and the reality of being “born again” which the Apostle John tells us IS the Way for a man to “overcometh the world” (1 John 5:4). We should note here how that John uses this idea of overcoming while Paul offers us deliverance and we should note as well that like neighbor and deliverance, John DOES NOT use the idea of salvation nor of being saved. In this we should try to see that just as “love one another” and “love his brother” (1 John 4:7, 21) ARE used by John for the same meaning as “love thy neighbour“, overcoming the ways of the world has the same meaning as being saved or delivered; it IS ONLY the approach that differs. In the final idea, the man who can “overcometh the world” IS the man who has attained the fullness of discipleship and the Kingdom of God and we should see this in the reality that it IS the same criteria that IS attached to ALL of these ideas….the criteria of keeping His words. And it IS this division between the world and the Kingdom that we should see in these ideas from John:
“Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes…..Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever” (1 John 2:7-11, 15-17).
In the combination of these ideas from the apostle we should be able to see the link between Love and as Light and the failure to Love which IS darkness and, again, we should see this idea of hate in the same way as we view it from the Master’s words on discipleship: that this IS NOT hate as we understand it but that this IS Loving less or NOT Loving at ALL. We take this idea from the Master’s words according to Luke where we ARE told “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). Here of course we CAN NOT imagine the Apostle Luke using the Greek word miseo to refer to our common understanding of hate; in this we see the scriptural understanding of ‘loving less’ and, by extension, NOT Loving at ALL. And we should also see here the link between Love and Light as this IS opposed to darkness and the world. The apostle IS showing us these relationships as well as the reality that to Love the world IS to act contrary to the Great Commandments and, for a man to DO so, IS to hold the things of the world over the things of God. This is ALL but a deeper explanation of the Master’s words above where we see that to Love the Lord IS to keep His words and that it IS in so DOING that we can realize the Presence of God in Life in this world. From our perspective and understanding, there IS a deep Truth hidden in the apostles words at the end of this selection and this IS the basic Truth of deliverance and of overcoming; this IS the reality of our freedom from the bondage of worldly living in two ways.
First there IS the freedom from the illusion and the glamour in this Life. This IS that “glorious liberty of the children of God” which can be experienced here and now and this is the reality of John’s words on fear; that: “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“. While we use these ideas for the context of showing how that we ARE the same in this world as IS the Master, there IS a deeper understanding to be had. Here in the idea of Love, in the reality that “If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:17-18, 12) we find that “perfect love” and, we should understand that this IS the reality of keeping His words. Here, we must try to discern the apostle’s full meaning and see that this idea of fear IS a part of that trap that IS the world and which holds men spellbound in illusion and glamour as they see the worldly Life as their True Life. It IS in the elimination of this fear for the self in this world that we can Truly come among those who can “Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat , or what ye shall drink ; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on . Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?” (Matthew 6:5). It IS the elimination of fear that comes in the Truth of Love; that comes in the realization of the Presence of God in one’s Life. It IS in the elimination of fear that we can see the Truth of our freedom from “the bondage of corruption” which IS Life in the ways of the world.
Second, and of NO greater importance, IS the freedom from the cycle of worldly living, freedom from the ‘wheel of rebirth’ that brings men back to “the bondage of corruption” time after time. Of course to understand this we must be able to see the reality of reincarnation as a part of the Life of the Soul but, even short of this understanding, we DO have the words of the Master and His apostles that show us the idea of eternal Life….not that we get it as a gift of some sort, but rather that we come to the realization of our own Truth as Souls and the reality of the Kingdom of God and the God Within. We should try to see here that when a man DOES Truly follow the Lord, the reality of eternal Life and of John’s words that “he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever” come in that grace of God which IS the revelation of Truth. It IS the trap of worldly living that we must escape; the trap of “all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” which comes to us in the illusion and the glamour of Life in form. While we have not used the words of the Buddha for some time now, there IS a selection from the Dhammapada that fits with these ideas of the world rather nicely; we read:
“Do not live in the world, in distraction and false dreams. Outside the dharma. Arise and watch. Follow the way joyfully through this world and beyond. Follow the way of virtue. Follow the way joyfully through this world and on beyond! For consider the world – a bubble, a mirage. See the world as it is, and death shall overlook you. Come, consider the world, A painted chariot for kings, a trap for fools. But he who sees goes free. As the moon slips from behind a cloud And shines, so the master comes out from behind his ignorance and shines. The world is in darkness. How few have eyes to see! How few the birds who escape the net and fly to heaven!” (Dhammapada; on The World).
We should try to see here how that “he who sees” IS the same man who DOES “Follow the way of virtue” and that this Way IS the Buddha’s reality of keeping His words as the Master teaches us. The sense of virtue DOES NOT change and can be found throughout Jesus teachings on Love. And the Buddha reflects the Master’s words on the difficulty in achieving the Kingdom of God; Jesus tells us to “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). In this idea of “not be able” we should understand that the limitation is in one’s own ability to Transform and to complete the work of discipleship which IS the Presence of God in one’s Life, and this IS found in keeping His words. While the language here IS in absolutes, we must remember that the Presence of God, His grace, comes to us by measure; that the Truth IS revealed and realized by the man in the world in the same measure as his focus upon the things of God and that it IS this focus upon the Good, the Beautiful and the True that gives us the ever growing ability to keep His words. And we should remember here that to “Follow the way joyfully through this world and on beyond” IS the application of the revelations and the realizations in one’s Life and the True sign of the man who Truly keeps His words as we see in this next selection from John:
“whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him. For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment. And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us” (1 John 3:17-24).
There IS great meaning in the apostle’s way of framing his thoughts here and we should see the relationship between his words saying “let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth” and the words of the Apostle James who tells us to “be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22). These ideas should carry the same message and should show us the apostles’ expansion of the Master’s idea from His question “why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?“. In All of these ideas we should see the Buddha’s idea saying “Do not live in the world, in distraction and false dreams“; it IS in these “false dreams” that doctrines that dilute the Master’s words find their place and it IS the illusion and the glamour of Life, the vanity according to Paul, that causes men to see their Truth in the “commandments of men” (Matthew 15:9). And we should see that John speaks about the delusion of men, about their deception as they lean toward these “commandments of men” because the appear easier than the words of the Master and the commandments of God. In the apostle’s words we should see the idea that consciousness of men, their hearts and conscience, DO KNOW the deviations that men allow themselves to make; perhaps NOT in a constant flow of condemnation as John frames this realization, but in the occasional prompting of the Soul where most ALL men will glimpse that they are NOT acting in accordance with the Truth. Here, in John’s reality, the God Within, the Soul, KNOWS the way of the Life of the man in the world and it IS in the absence of condemnation that we should understand our own faith, our own KNOWING of the Truth of Life and of God.
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.
