ON LOVE; PART MCLXXXIX
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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).
In the last essay we discussed some of the more esoteric ideas regarding the relationship of the Aspects of God and the way that these same Aspects ARE the Life of everyman. We discussed also the way that the Christian view of God, as a personality and generally as a male personality, has become a barrier to a Truer understanding of the Godhead as that “One Boundless Immutable Principle; one Absolute Reality which, antecedes all manifested conditioned Being. It is beyond the range and reach of any human thought or expression“***. In previous essays we posited that this Theosophical idea IS considered as blasphemy by much of the Christian world and we should ask here why?
This IS a much Truer presentation of God than ARE most ALL of the Christian ideas which see Him as a person; it captures the awesome nature of the Godhead and His Transcendent Nature as well as the necessary idea that there can be ONLY One; two Boundless and Immutable Principles, two Absolute Realities, CAN NOT exist in the same time and space. This IS the One God of ALL world religions and the idea that He may be worshiped according to His Aspects DOES NOT alter this reality. Much of the blame for the Judaeo Christian idea regarding false gods and idols IS found in the presentation of God given us by the Old Testament writers. While we continue to use the personal pronoun of Him in our writing, this IS because there this IS no better idea in English other than to repeat the word God and refer to Him as It.
In the most superstitious and barbarous times before Moses there was an apparent tendency to for men to worship things, statues, idols and the like, but we should try to see that the True worship was what these worship things represented. It IS NOT our intent here to go into the vagaries of ancient religious beliefs here but ONLY to point out that the very idea of baal as a god DOES NOT appear until the Book of Judges and that the idea of baal against which the the Jewish God railed IS NOT so much a godly entity as it IS a principal of worldly living.
We should try to see here that baal IS the antithesis of the Truth of the One God that IS presented in the Great Commandments and IS ALL things focused upon that ARE NOT Truly the things of God. This IS NOT to say that there IS NO entity or principal by that name in those days but rather that whatever baal IS represents one’s focus upon things that may be deemed as gods but which ARE in fact carnal pursuits. Add to this the idea of the confusion in these most superstitions days between their idea of gods, the effect of such gods upon the lives of men and the actual men who ARE seen as gods. And so these barbarous and superstitious people erect for themselves idols to worship and perhaps here it can be clearer to see baal as the proclivity to worship idols in hope of assuaging human peril.
Alexander Maclaren reminds us of the greater intent of the creation story of Genesis saying: We are not to look to Genesis for a scientific cosmogony, and are not to be disturbed by physicists’ criticisms on it as such. Its purpose is quite another, and far more important; namely, to imprint deep and ineffaceable the conviction that the one God created all things. Nor must it be forgotten that this vision of creation was given to people ignorant of natural science, and prone to fall back into surrounding idolatry 12. We should try to see here how that the entire Old Testament historical account has this same objective….to show One God to the Jews who continually fall back into surrounding idolatry and are pulled back again and again by the prophets and a select few of the kings.
We should note as well that the recorded prophets stopped appearing more than 400 years before the advent of the Master and while there may have been men of Power in this gap, they ARE NOT a part of the Jewish historical record. We can view this in a number of ways; first, based upon the idea that the personality of God was the actor, we can presume that God had just given up on the Jews or we can see this according to some other doctrinal ideas based in this view of God. Second we can suppose that there were other prophets whose message was ever further from the established Jewish doctrine and that these men of Power were NOT recognized as prophets and their teachings were ignored….we see this dynamic in the Jewish presentation of the teachings of the Master.
Third, we can suppose that the time here IS simply the time between the end of one dispensation and the beginning of the next; some refer to this as ‘the silent period’ in accord with our first premise above. Our view would be some cross between the second and the third ideas here with the footnote that there ARE always men who could be considered as prophets among us and that these men of Power recognize the failure of most ALL doctrinal approaches to God. Here we should see that after Christ there could NOT be another Jewish prophet; what would he teach that would be accepted? They had already rejected the Truth. Neither could there be a Christian prophet as he would certainly NOT teach the separatist ideas of the church fathers with their rites and rituals nor the somewhat mystical ideas of the Gnostics and other groups which were called heretical.
Over the centuries, through the continual fragmentation of Christianity, there could be NO prophets because ALL of the denominations and the sects had created their own Truths as did the Jews and a True prophet of God can ONLY present the Truth. Can we see the point here? To be sure, there ARE and have been modern day prophets among us over the last 2000 years, men who have come among us with some measure of the Truth which was missed by the doctrinal authorities because their words and their example DO agree with such doctrines.
While these ARE ALL difficult ideas to present, this IS largely because the doctrines that surround the Old Testament narrative have been steeped into the minds of the men who have translated and interpreted the words and the ideas to their own benefit and this includes some of the most fantastical ideas presented in the ‘visions’ of the prophets. This same dynamic effects the doctrines that ARE the result of the New Testament writings which ARE translated and interpreted by men according to the beliefs of the early church fathers who were yet somewhat bound to the Jewish ideas of the day and the way that much of the apostles’ writing IS addressed to the Jews.
We will never KNOW how many prophets and men of Power have come among us over the last 2000 years and have left bits and pieces of Truth which themselves have been turned into doctrines proverbs; perhaps we can see some of this in the more esoteric writings that ARE called occult by the organized church and in in the words of science and literature that ARE NOT seen in a religious way and ARE beyond the ken of the men of their era. There has ever been an organized flow of new ideas, both philosophical and scientific that have served to change the course of humanity and while we ARE hesitant to name names because we DO NOT KNOW who it IS that IS the prophet or the man of Power, we can see them if we choose by their fruit.
And we should remember that the idea of a prophet IS NOT limited to those who can predict some future events but rather that this idea includes ALL who bring some measure of the Truth in a way that it can be used by mankind to further the thinking of the next generation. In this we should try to see the role of such ideas as reincarnation and the steady movement of Souls through the human experience; we should try to understand that it IS the Soul who IS able to express a greater measure of Truth and Love through a Life in form that has been built upon a measure of spiritual collateral which allows for yet greater expressions of Truth in that Souls next encounter with this world.
We should remember as well that as men ALL Souls must perforce act through their personalities which color their expression of Truth. And it IS NOT unlikely that for some of these Souls their focus upon their own purpose detracts from any view that they ARE prophets as well and scientists, philosophers, and others whose message of Truth and Love changes the course of Life in this world. We CAN NOT be in the hearts and minds of any of the men and women who have come among us and we DO NOT KNOW how it IS that they viewed themselves and understood their own mission of Truth and Love, nor DO we KNOW the nature of their own struggle to overcome their carnal proclivities; we CAN however KNOW them by their fruits and this despite the way that they may NOT fit into the common perception of the prophet or the saint.
In the end ALL of the historical ideas that have become the foundation of the religious thought of most ALL religions ARE but words on pages. It IS the fruit of the historical lessons that IS of importance and it IS the fruit which remains that IS ever the True motivation for the next generation of men. When we can see the scientific and the philosophical world changing ideas in terms of spiritual accomplishment we can then better understand the relationship between God and man and come to see that it IS ever men who ARE the voice of God, and that such men ARE NOT necessarily those who proclaim to be such. Jesus tells His apostles “that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain” (John 15:16) and it IS worth our while to view history in these terms.
While religions and denominations and sects debate whose God IS the True God and whose interpretation of that God IS the True God, the reality that there IS and can be ONLY One God IS diminished by their constant wrangling. And this failure largely afflicts those who claim that they ARE religious and spiritual; and the more doctrinally oriented one IS the greater this affliction and the greater the diminishment of Truth in the minds of those whom they teach. Again, much of the problem here, the most basic problem if you will, IS the doctrinal view of God as a personality who dictates the rules and who intervenes in the lives of men based upon the nebulous ideas of doctrines that NEVER see the Truth deeper Truth: that ALL that comes from God IS spiritual in nature, that ALL comes from the Spirit, the God Within, and that it comes in accordance with the Master’s teaching regarding the focus of one’s Life as we see again in our trifecta:
- “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).
If we can see that it IS the man who can keep His words that has the Truth, His Presence and His Kingdom here and now, we can then see who IS and who can be the saint and the True disciple and that it IS those who strive to keep His words that ARE the True aspirants to discipleship. And here too we must ever remember that “Ye shall know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16); while Jesus tells us this regarding false teachers, it IS equally True of the teachers of Truth. We should see as well that this idea of fruit IS NOT that which IS seen as fruit by the doctrinal thinker, this idea of fruit IS that which makes a man a disciple as we read above in Jesus words saying “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed“.
We should remember that the Master Himself defines the disciple; He defines it in these words from our trifecta and he defines it in His saying that “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples” (John 15:8) as He teaches us about abiding, about staying connected to Him. We should see this abiding in terms of His words; He shows us above to “continue in my word” and He shows us this same idea in His words on the vine and the branches saying “every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you” (John 15:2:3). The context of both ideas IS bearing fruit and keeping His words and here we should try to see that these ideas ARE synonymous.
We should note here that the idea of clean IS from the Greek word katharos which IS most often rendered as pure. The common idea of clean DOES NOT work here in this saying as it DOES NOT carry the deeper intent which Thayer captures for us as he defines katharos as: clean, pure (free from the admixture or adhesion of anything that soils, adulterates, corrupts)9 . The point here IS that it IS His word that makes one free from anything that corrupts and if we can summarize Jesus’ words here we can see that it IS those who ARE clean through His words that “may bring forth more fruit” and in so DOING these “shall ye be my disciples“.
We should try to understand here that ALL this fruit IS in regard to keeping His words….DOING so IS the fruit itself as ARE the results of so DOING. Paul summarizes the results for us in his words on the “fruit of the Spirit” telling us that this fruit IS “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance” (Galatians 5:22-23); he tells us also that “the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth” (Ephesians 5:9). The idea of goodness here and in Paul’s words from Galatians IS from the Greek word agathōsynē and if we can see goodness as an expression of Love, we can perhaps see deeper into the apostle’s words on the equivalency of these ideas of expressing Love and keeping His words which we read again:
“Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed” (Romans 13:8-11).
In the combination of these ideas we should see that the disciple IS the man who Loves which IS the man who keeps His words and these ideas should NOT be confounded by the common understanding of Love as that emotional and mental attraction and attachment to others and to the things of this world. It IS the disciple who becomes the saint and it IS the saint who can become the voice of God and we should remember here that we CAN NOT define the saint according to any doctrinal ideas but rather as the Soul who IS able to express his Truth and his Love through his Life here in this world.
Most ALL who have served as the voice of God have had some measure of their carnal personality reflected in their actions; ALL who have come among us and have borne fruit have done so based in the measure of spiritual collateral which had previously been garnered and while they ARE able to focus upon their own mission, they ARE yet “made subject to vanity” (Romans 8:20) as ARE ALL men who come into this world. We CAN NOT KNOW or understand how that these men maintain their focus nor DO we KNOW how many may fail. We can ONLY KNOW that the appearance of great men, be they be in the field of religion, science, philosophy or any other field that can change the course of men’s lives, IS NOT happenstance and IS NOT based in the idea that God will ‘gift’ men differently and make one an Einstein and another a Quasimodo.
We should see that in the spiritual realm Einstein and Quasimodo ARE the same both in nature and in the eyes of God if we can use that idea here. It IS in this realm that we should understand the depth of the idea that “there is no respect of persons with God” (Romans 2:11) and understand that the differences evident here in this world ARE based in the same idea of spiritual collateral in combination along with the effects of the vanity and the corruption that IS Life in this world. God DOES NOT make one blind or lame as a child and while there ARE some deeply spiritual reasons behind this phenomenon, they ARE beyond our ken as men in this world. We should understand here that the insight of men into these things IS limited ONLY by one’s own measure of revelation and realization which comes to those who keep His words.
We close again today with Paul’s words to the Corinthians which should show us the reality of agape as the tool of men in this world, a tool that brings to everyman an ever greater measure of the revelation and the realization which IS necessary to bring forth the fullness of Truth that the True man ever has. The Apostle John tells us that “ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things” (1 John 2:20) and if we can see this in terms of the Soul as the anointing of the body nature with the spiritual reality of the Soul through the realization by men according to the trifecta, perhaps we can see how this once dormant unction can become the expression of one’s Life. Repeating Paul’s words on Love again we read:
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
“Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8).
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 change our Quote of the Day today to the words from Solomon on Wisdom along with our thoughts on them from the original postings of them in In the Words of Jesus parts 46 and 556. These words ARE a testament to those things that we should be asking of the Lord and which are representative of the Holy Ghost. Wisdom, understanding and knowledge which will lead us to understanding the fear (reverence and respect and awe) of the Lord and the knowledge of God so that in this world we can understand righteousness and judgement and equity and be preserved by discretion and understanding. Thus are we in a position to treat everyone as we would want to be treated ourselves.
Since we are centered on the ideas of Wisdom today we offer the following from Proverbs as our Quote of the Day. Solomon, who is KNOWN for his Wisdom, which we read in the story of his Life was His gift from God, a gift that he receives because he does not want for the things of the world. But Solomon gains as well the things of the world in plenty and as his Life story proceeds we can see clearly that it is his Life in the world that is to his detriment. The wisdom however produces for us the writings of the Book of Proverbs and it is this that he is remembered for. His Life is interesting reading and is well documented in the Books of Kings and Chronicles.
….incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding; Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God. For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly. He keepeth the paths of judgment, and preserveth the way of his saints. Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path. When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul; Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee (Proverbs 2:2-11).
Let the peace of God rule in your hearts
- 9 Thayer’s Greek Lexicon on blueletterbible.org
- 12 Expositions of Holy Scripture–Project Gutenberg’s and Baker Book House’ Expositions of Holy Scripture, by Alexander Maclaren–(1826-1910)
Those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.
Voltaire,
Writer and Philosopher
