ON LOVE; PART CMLXVII

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. 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

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 two essays we tried to unravel the Truth behind the Greek word metanoeo and to understand how that it IS in Repentance that men ARE set upon the Path to that freedom which comes in the Truth that Jesus tells us comes to those who  “continue in my word“. It IS in the very beginning of the Master’s ministry here in this Earth that He sets the tone for ALL that He will teach and this tone IS the same as was spoken by John the Baptist….Repentance. In the context of the world’s doctrines it IS easy to see how that this tone IS missed as men seek out the convenient way to believe that they ARE in the Will of God. This IS apparent to the Christian in the way that the Jew’s doctrines were but a shadow of the Truth which interpreted the High Ideals of the Law of Moses in ways that benefited the man in the world, especially the religious man. This way of the Jews IS spoken against by Jesus throughout the gospels and the heart of His argument should be easily seen as He repeats the words of the prophet saying:

“Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do. And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death: But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free. And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother; Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye” (Mark 7:6-13).

We should understand that the prophesy that the Master shows the Jews IS rather timeless as the men in Isaiah’s day ARE the same as the men in Jesus’ Day as regards the reality of this message. We should understand as well that these things ARE True yet today; not for the Jews ONLY but for the Christian and the Muslim, for the Hindu and the Buddhist, for ALL men whose doctrines ARE but a shadow of the Truths revealed by the scriptures. In ALL religions men “honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me” and just as one’s realization of the Truth comes to a man by the same measure of His expression of Love, so this idea of realization IS also by the same measure: the less a man’s expression of Love as the Master teaches us, the further “their heart is far from me“. It IS NOT possible to separate the ideas of Jewish doctrines from Jewish traditions and in the same way it IS NOT possible to separate the ways of Christians from their own doctrinal beliefs. Perhaps the major difference here IS that the Jews traditions were nearly singular while the Christian doctrines ARE multifaceted so that “the commandments of men” differ and change dependent upon one’s sect, one’s division of Christ or, as Paul shows us, one’s faction.

Nonetheless the idea here of “teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” IS relegated by the Christian as ONLY applying to the Jews’ teachings of the time; men DO NOT see how that they ARE yet today caught in this same sense of illusion and glamour and that they ARE under this same rebuke by the Master. In the Christian view, in the Christian doctrinal interpretations of the words of the Apostle Paul regarding the law and salvation as well as their interpretations of the Apostle John’s words that form the basis for the doctrinal view of atonement, there IS the same effect: there IS men “teaching for doctrines the commandments of men“. Such doctrines that form the beliefs of generation after generation ARE those traditions “which ye have delivered“; traditions which ARE “Making the word of God of none effect“. This IS reflected in the way that most ALL doctrines DO NOT teach the Truth of Love and the need to keep His words as this IS presented for us by Jesus throughout His teaching and most clearly in what we call the trifecta which we repeat here again:

• “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free“ (John 8:31-32).
• “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).
• “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).

It IS based on their doctrines that men believe that they have the Presence of God, that they ARE accounted worthy of the Kingdom of God and that they KNOW the Truth of the scriptures. These doctrinal beliefs however ARE NOT founded in “the word of God” which we have in Jesus words above, they ARE founded in the “the tradition of men” and in the doctrinal assertions of men who have taken authority to teach. While these doctrinal assertions, and the many denominations and sects of Christianity they have produced, DO NOT reflect the Truth of the Master’s words, they ARE yet an important part of the fabric of humanity; a fabric that has existed in every religion and in every time. And they ARE an integral part of that vanity that Paul shows us saying that “the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same” (Romans 8:20). In this we can try to see that it IS in the very Plan of God that men ARE lost and that as Souls men ARE charged with breaking through the barriers of illusion and glamour; a charge that begins in Repentance and which results in one’s being “delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).

That this reality goes unseen by the many millions of men whose sense of religion IS based in their several doctrines IS itself a function of the illusion and the glamour, the mataiotes as Paul frames this for us and it IS here again that we should see the Apostle James’ words saying: “be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22). While the King James translators chose to render mataiotes as vanity, other translations use the ideas of men’s being made subject to frustration, futility and failure with others applying their own doctrinal ideas as “subjected to God’s curse” and “condemned to lose its purpose“. None of these ideas Truly captures the apostle’s intent and most ALL ARE tied by commentary to the ‘fall of man’ doctrinal view of Life. As we have discussed, Vincent DOES give us a better view of the reality of Paul’s words saying that mataiotes here IS in reference to a perishable and decaying condition, separate from God, and pursuing false ends ⁴.

This definition of mataiotes shows clearly our view of illusion as we use this word in the spiritual context of men’s believing the untrue IS the Truth and then pursuing these beliefs without ever seeing the greater Truths that ARE Jesus’ words. This IS, as we have ofttimes said, a normal human failing which afflicts ALL men whose focus IS NOT yet upon the Good, the Beautiful and the True….the things of God. And we should remember here that glamour IS found in at the heart of one’s illusory views of Life which ARE the product of his nurturing, his experience and his reliance upon doctrines of any kind. Glamour IS the product of those divisions of men, those factions and those sects that Paul speaks against in his “works of the flesh” and can be defined as men’s firmly holding on to their beliefs and seeing them as right and as above others’. It IS this same affliction of illusion and glamour, of vanity, that Paul cautions us against in these words that we repeat again:

“For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts” (Galatians  5:17-24).

It IS in men’s sense of illusion that they formulate the doctrines that explain the scriptures in carnal terms and it IS in this reality that we find the ideas of sexual deviation and the common understanding of idolatry that IS founded in interpretations of the Old Testament. It IS in illusion that we see the idea of witchcraft or sorcery as these are carnally understood in the apostles use of the Greek word pharmakeia for which the lexicon offers a metaphoric definition of: the deceptions and seductions of idolatry ² and which Vincent tells us IS from the Greek word meaning a drug ⁴. We should try to see the fuller ideas here in these Greek words and understand how that these ARE intended by the apostle who IS speaking to men who ARE beyond the base carnal ideas that which doctrines perceive them to mean. When we can see past the carnal interpretations and see past the doctrinal assertions, we can then see and understand that these ideas ARE those which ARE contrary to the first part of the Great Commandments which ARE an integral part of keeping His words.

In these words that ARE rendered as  Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry and witchcraft that we should see the reality of those things of which the apostle tells us that “that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God“. In these Greek words we should see the deeper ideas that ARE contrary to the Great Commandments and in this first segment this IS men’s looking at the carnal as the real and the focusing of one’s Life upon the interests of the self and the things of the self in this world. Again, in the deeper ideas of these words, we have the rather normal human tendencies that see Life in form as the True Life as men focus themselves upon the carnal rather than upon the spiritual and fail to see the Truth of the words of the Master and His apostles that show us the utter dichotomy that IS between the things of the world and the things of God.

That men DO NOT see these things IS found in the reality of that vanity, in the illusion and the glamour of men that IS propounded by doctrines that interpret Paul’s words according to the same flesh that the apostle speaks against. It IS in one’s glimpse of the reality that a man’s Life IS the Life of the Soul and NOT the temporal existence that he has here in this world, an existance that by its very nature IS illusory, that a man can Truly begin to see a glimmer of the Truth that comes in its fullness to the man who the Master tells us will “continue in my word“. And it IS His word that shows us the way of Love which the apostle also shows us according to the second segment of his list of “the works of the flesh“, as those things that divide men and cause those ideas that ARE the Greek words that ARE rendered as hatred, variance, emulations and wrath. It IS the factions and the divisions and the sects formed in the multiplicity of men’s doctrinal views of Life, views that stretch across most every human endeavor and pattern of thought, which separate men from the essential Truth of the Unity founded in our One World, One Humanity and One God.

We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.

Aspect of God	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.

This Quote of the Day is the antithesis of glamour and illusion. In this mantram are the thoughts about ourselves and our brothers in the world that can diffuse these forces that hold a man in the world of things and prevent his spiritual progress.

Mantram of Unification

The sons of men are one and I am one with them.
I seek to love, not hate;
I seek to serve and not exact due service;
I seek to heal, not hurt.

Let pain bring due reward of light and love.
Let the Soul control the outer form, and life and all events,
And bring to light the love that underlies the happenings of the time.

Let vision come and insight.
Let the future stand revealed.
Let inner union demonstrate and outer cleavages be gone.
Let love prevail.
Let all men love.

The Mantram of Unification is a meditation and a prayer that at first affirms the unity of all men and the Brotherhood of Man based on the Fatherhood of God. The first stanza sets forth several truly Christian ideals in Unity, Love, Service and Healing. The second stanza is a invocation to the Lord and to our own Souls asking that from the pain (if there can truly be any) incurred in focusing on the Spirit and not the world will come Light and Love into our lives and that we begin to function as Souls through our conscious personalities. We ask that the spiritual control of our lives will bring to light for us the Love that underlies world events; a Love that the world oriented man will not see working out behind the scenes and also that the Love that we bring forth, individually and as a world group, can be seen by all and ultimately in all. Finally, in the last stanza we ask for those things that are needed for Love to abound. Vision and insight so that we can direct our attention properly; revelation of the future in the sense that all can see the Power of Love in the world; inner union so that we do not fall back into the world’s ways, that we faint not; and that a sense of separation, the antithesis of brotherhood, ends as we know it today. Let Love Prevail, Let All Men Love.spiritual control of our lives will bring to light for us the Love that underlies world events; a Love that the world oriented man will not see working out behind the scenes.

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts

• ² New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
• ⁴ Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888