ON LOVE; PART DCCCXXIX
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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. While this IS from an older definition of Charity, which IS rendered in the King James Bible from the same Greek word agape which IS generally rendered as Love, we should amend our own definition here to include the idea that in the reality of Love a man will accord to ALL men ALL things that he would accord to himself and to say that Love IS our thoughts and attitude of the equality of ALL men regardless of their outward nature or appearance…that ALL ARE equally children of Our One God
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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)
As we complete our discussion on the sixteenth chapter of the Gospel of John, we will finish as well with the Quote of the Day that we have been carrying for many essays and move on to another from the sayings of the Buddha that can help to show the reality behind Jesus words. In this last Quote of the Day we have a rather simple thought that can magnify the idea that has been the central point of our discussion since we began writing on the fourteenth chapter of John’s Gospel and its relationship to the very grace of God. While the idea of grace IS seen by most doctrines in a very nebulous way, we have given it a defining quality that IS found in the Master’s words on the Presence of God in one’s Life. In this view our own idea that grace IS ALL things that come from God takes on greater meaning and as we can understand that ALL things that come from God DO come as one’s realization of His Presence in Life, we can then see that the great gateway to grace, the gateway to His Presence IS found in keeping His words. This IS what we read in Jesus words which we repeat 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).
In this we should see that the grace of God IS a keenly spiritual affair as there IS NO thing carnal to be found in things spiritual….NO thing carnal in the things of God. And in the reality of keeping His words we find our idea of focus upon the things of God and understand that this focus IS upon His words and their True meaning in the Life of the man who Truly seeks God. The dichotomy between things carnal and things spiritual IS shown us by the Master but in words that DO NOT resonate as such in the minds of men whose focus IS yet carnal; in His words on the “treasure of the heart” (Luke 6:45) we should see the reality of focus as well as the division that IS painted for us in His words saying “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:21). Here, as we have ofttimes said, there IS a reality block in the hearts of men as they interpret this idea of treasure as wealth and possessions and then refuse to see how that even the reality of this interpretation eludes them. Similarly with the division of “God and mammon” (Luke 16:13) and the Master’s words saying that a man CAN NOT serve both; here again the idea of mammon IS interpreted in a most carnal sense as treasure and riches according to the lexicon 2.
In the intent of His words saying that “Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24) we should see the overall idea that He previously shows us in the “treasure of the heart” and understand the psychic reality over the physical and the carnal. We should understand here that the KEY to His meaning IS found in His words saying “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh” (Luke 6:45) which the Apostle Luke places into the Master’s Sermon on the Mount along with the Apostle Matthew’s words above. Can we see here how that the word that IS rendered as treasure must be so much more than simply wealth and possessions? And this IS ever the point of scripture, not just Christian but the Truth behind the scriptures of every True World Religion: that the man in the world must come to see the greater reality of spiritual Life and come to express THAT reality through his Life in this world. This IS the greater reality of keeping His words as in His words IS this great Truth of focus….focus upon the reality of spiritual Life….focus upon the things of God.
It IS in this focus upon the things of God, which ARE the reality of spiritual Life, that men can come to those necessary realizations of Truth which IS the Presence of God in revealed in one’s Life. It IS when we can take these ideas away from the carnal understanding that we can have True realization and it IS in the growth of our focus that we come to the fullness of keeping His words which IS the fullness of the Presence of God in one’s Life. And this IS the unseen idea that IS found in the Master’s words above; words that elucidate the idea of a reciprocal action in the Life of the Man who will keep His words; this IS the unseen reward, or better the wages, to the man who can focus his Life upon the things of God. While the clarity of this quid pro quo IS missed and even staunchly denied by most Christian doctrines, the Truth IS ever apparent to the man who can look past such doctrines and understand His own responsibility as this IS outlined for us by the Master and His apostles.
We ofttimes speak of the way that the doctrines of religions obnubilate the Truth and the depth of the importance of this reality IS found in the Life of the man who IS focused upon the things of God through the prism of his own sense of doctrine. This IS the bane of True spiritual advancement that IS found in the greater Truth behind the Master’s injunction which He expresses in that rhetorical question saying: “why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46); and the equally stark reality found in the Apostle James’ words saying “be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22). While the other New Testament writers ALL offer us these same ideas, it IS in these words that we DO see the clarity that we ARE intended to understand. While it IS the natural action of Life in this world that contributes to this reliance upon the doctrines of men for salvation, it IS ever the expectation that men will break free of the illusion and the glamour that keep him bound to this carnal existence and keep him from True realization of the those things that ARE being revealed to him from His own Soul, his own unction or anointing as the Apostle John calls this. It IS this reality of illusion and glamour and the end result of deliverance that IS the idea that we should take from the Apostle Paul’s words that we frequently quote from his Epistle to the Romans; we read:
“For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope expectation because 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).
This IS our own rendering of the idea that the Apostle IS bringing us and we should understand here that this idea of expectation IS the idea behind most ALL of the New Testament usage of the Greek word elpis which IS always rendered as hope and faith in the King James Bible. In this idea we should see that our common understanding of hope as wishful thinking or like ideas CAN NOT work here where the subject IS God. To this we have added our change from the English rendering of because to our understanding of that; this IS supported by Vincent who tells us: The best texts transfer these words from the preceding verse, and construe with was made subject, rendering ὅτι that instead of because 4; and this IS how this IS rendered in many other translations. These ideas, while they may not seem important, DO change the basic meaning of the apostle’s words here and show us that IS is the expectation of the Godhead that we, as men, “shall be delivered“. It IS this deliverance that IS our destiny then and which IS made possible through our individual realization of the Presence of God which, as the Master shows us above, IS the resultant action in the Life of the man who will keep His words.
It IS this same realization of the Presence of God, this same realization of the Truth of His words, that we should try to see as the idea behind this excerpt from Lord Tennyson’s poem The Higher Pantheism that we had been carrying as our Quote of the Day for many essays. Whether or NOT we believe in such doctrines as espoused by Pantheism DOES NOT matter here as it IS in the reality of these words that we should be able to see the Master’s intent which He tries to express to His apostles in a way that they might grasp this; we read again this most important saying: “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you” (John 14:20). This IS the greater reality of “the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27); this IS the reality of the God Within and the Christ Within as the spiritual essence of the Life of man. When we can begin to see that the True man IS NOT this form in this world but IS this spiritual essence, this God and Christ Within, then we can see the deeper idea behind this Great Truth that “Spirit with Spirit can meet” from the perspective of the man in the world. Then we can see the deeper Truths found in our realization of His Presence, the Presence of the Holy Spirit, in the consciousness of the man in the world and the expression of this Presence in Love which IS the greater Truth of keeping His words. We repeat Lord Tennyson’s words once more:
Speak to Him, thou, for He hears,
and Spirit with Spirit can meet
Closer is He than breathing,
and nearer than hands and feet.
(Alfred, Lord Tennyson 1809–1892)
In the sense of closeness that Lord Tennyson shows us we should be able to understand that not ONLY IS this Presence in us but that this Presence IS us, IS the Soul, the True man. Can we see here how that breathing IS the very Life of the form of man and that this Spirit that IS God, this Spirit that IS within, IS closer to the lesser truth that IS the Life of the form. While this understanding may not have been Lord Tennyson’s intent, the overall idea of the God Within in communion with our own part of this Presence IS the reality that “Spirit with Spirit can meet” and it IS the realization of this Truth that DOES cause the deeper Truths found in the idea of “Speak to Him, thou, for He hears“. And while this may be construed by some to be an expression of prayer by the writer, the reality of the whole of the statement should show us that same Oneness that the Master expresses saying “I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you” and that Paul expressed in his words to the Colossians. And this IS the same Truth that IS found in our previous Quote of the Day from the Édouard Schuré translated reference from the Bhagavad Gita where the Presence of God IS shown as a sublime Friend. We read Mr. Schuré’s words again saying:
“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.
That doctrinal Christianity denies these Truths IS NOT important; what IS important IS that the man who Truly seeks God through the expression of Love and keeping His words DOES see these Truths through the most natural action found in attaining the Presence of God in his Life. It IS this natural action that IS the grace of God and it IS this natural action that creates the True disciple in this world; it IS this natural action that allows a man to be “transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2). ALL lies in the idea of focus, ALL lies in the idea of what IS a man’s “treasure of the heart“, and in the dichotomy that we must come to see between the things of the world and the self in the world as these ARE opposed to the things of God. It IS in this view that we should see Paul’s words saying “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 2:14). It IS here that we must come to understand and to see the reality that “ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things” (1 John 2:20); how that it IS as “Spirit with Spirit can meet” through the prism of Love and of keeping His words that a man can come to have the revelation and the realization of “all things“….the reality of the Presence 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.
Live in joy, in love, even among those who hate.
Live in joy, in health, even among the afflicted.
Live in joy, in peace, even among the troubled.
Live in joy, without possessions.
Like the shining ones.
The winner sows hatred because the loser suffers.
Let go of winning and losing and find joy.
There is no fire like passion, no crime like hatred,
No sorrow like separation, no sickness like hunger,
And no joy like the joy of freedom.
Today’s Quote of the Day is from the Dhammapada (on JOY) ; a collection of the sayings of the Buddha. These words and ideas ARE much the same as those we discuss in our In the Words of Jesus essays. And what is this freedom but the release of our hearts and minds from loving this life in this world and attaining the Presence of God. This word Joy has many meanings as DOES the idea of Love, but in the context that it IS used here we should see the idea that Joy IS Love, Joy IS health, Joy IS peace and that Joy IS without the burdens placed on a man by the illusion and the glamour of the ways of the world. We should try to see that it IS the antithesis of these ideas in hate, in affliction and in troubles that ARE among the possessions of the carnal man, that ARE among the “evil treasure of his heart” (Luke 6:45) according to the Master.
And it IS in the second stanza above that we see the basic psychic ideas that can eliminate the harm caused by such “evil treasure” as a man looks past himself and at the welfare of others which IS the greater reality of Love as the Master teaches us. It IS in losing such possessions, losing such carnal thoughts and attitudes, that one can truly find the “joy of freedom“….this IS the Truth of deliverance.
Let the peace of God rule in your hearts
- 2 from New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
- 4 Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
- 5 The Dhammapada Translated by Thomas Byrom
