ON LOVE; PART MCCXCII
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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).
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We ended the last essay with some thoughts on the way that the Christian’s belief regarding the nature of his Life, the resurrection of his body and other doctrinal points regarding death and eternity have contributed to their continual dilution and changing of the Master’s words. This, along with their reliance on their own created doctrines which ARE based in their misinterpretations and misuse of the words of the apostles….especially the words of Paul….have resulted in Christianity as it exists today. For centuries the doctrinal church has spread their illusions and their glamour to the masses from their self appointed role as the authority in such matters. A role that has been accepted by governments and woven into the social fabric, especially in the West. Still today outsiders can ONLY look into that same deception of which we ARE covertly warned of by Jesus and which the Apostle James lays out for us in most clear language saying “be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22). This deception IS ALL that the church seems to offer….few teach that the True Way IS in being DOERS, the True Way IS in keeping His words which idea has been subjugated to the relentless doctrinal ideas regarding the atonement by which they deem themselves ‘saved‘.
Today being “doers of the word” IS a seemingly impossible task as the doctrinal approach has been so entrenched in the Christian psyche which still insists that their own self created system of belief IS the ONLY True way to the Lord. They fail to realize that it IS their illogical approach that keeps millions upon millions away from their churches and causes many to seek a more logical reality in the doctrines of other world religions. Here in the twenty-first century the mind should rule over an emotional response to Life and indeed the human psyche IS better equipped for this than at any time before. There IS however NO serious religious approach that can accommodate the True seekers who demand that their approach to the Lord be sensical as opposed to what they view as the nonsensical approach of the thousands of denominations and sects of Christianity. Most ALL religions, especially Christianity, ARE based in a wishful hope which IS converted by doctrines to a sense of expectation that defies ALL logical defining ideas of God. The hope that the thinking man seeks IS based in fact but there IS NONE to teach this sense of factual ideas to the seeker who IS left to flounder, shunning common religious views while settling into a way of Life that borders on atheism. And it IS this view of atheism that should be noted over the strict ideas held by some….that there IS NO God. Most who may be referred to as atheists ARE NOT so much declaring that they DO NOT believe that there IS a God as that they ARE rejecting the defining ideas of God applied by the religions of the world, ideas that largely ignore the very Nature of the Godhead….agape. Here, while the Christian will say that “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16), they CAN NOT at the same time incorporate this idea into their doctrinal approach which leaves billions of men outside of the ‘grace‘ of God simply because of where they ARE born DOES NOT allow them to see things as the Christian insists that they must.
Where IS the problem? It IS this seemingly arrogant sense of glamour that keeps men away from the churches as many fail to see with their minds what others see emotionally as faith and as believing. It IS in the idea that the mentally oriented man IS looking for the tangible over the nebulous but DOES NOT KNOW where to seek as the Truth of the Master’s words has subverted by the doctrines which have crept into the fabric of society. Aside from those who may be seeking what the church IS NOT offering, there ARE many others that ARE in the church that also want more and in this we should see the dwindling numbers of people regularly attending church services. The exodus from the churches IS NOT a new thing and men’s unease with the teachings of any denomination or sect IS evident in the rapid expansion of the number of such in the world today. From our perspective, in the combination of both of these types, those who seek more from the religious experience and those who shun the way that religion IS presented, we can find a foundation for the teaching of the Truth and here we should understand that this Truth requires NO religious attachment as we understand this today. What IS needed here IS an understanding that this Truth IS NOT found in one’s doctrinal approach but it IS found in the Cosmic reality of the New Age, an Age that brings forth the precepts of Jesus teaching as a Cosmic impulse toward the Good, the Beautiful and the True. While there ARE still Old Age forces that seek to hold onto their former Power over the lives and attitudes of men, the New will eventually win out as has always been the case since the beginning of time. It IS the Cosmic impulse of Love, of agape to be more specific, which has been simmering in the hearts of men for thousands of years, that will change the world as men come to realize its deeply spiritual nature. The ideas presented by Moses 3500 years ago were seen by men as idle words; these same ideas, when presented by the Master 2000 years ago, took on slightly more meaning as they ARE at least spoken of as part of Jesus’ teaching. Unfortunately they ARE become but trite adages that have, from the beginning, lost their force in everyday living as men CAN NOT yet understand the deeply spiritual nature of agape.
There IS a point to ALL of this; NOT ONLY from the perspective of this essay but from the perspective of the reality of the world today. Jesus’ teachings on agape ARE NOT limited to the church alone, His teachings on Love ARE awakening in the masses of men as a part of the Cosmic impulses of the New Age and while the church decries the very idea of a New Age, it IS nonetheless upon us. NO one Truly KNOWS when this impulse began but to be sure it IS a gradual happening which will grow stronger and overwhelm the impulses of the self which have governed so much of humanity. It IS exceedingly difficult to clearly see such events on a worldwide scale as each segmented part of the human family reacts to it according to the ways of the society in which they live. For example, the reaction to Love and brotherhood IS largely different in a democracy than it would be in a country ruled by authoritarian leaders but, to be sure, the spiritual Power of this change will eventually reach ALL. The reach IS the reality of agape and NOT the common ideas of Love with which this IS ofttimes confused; it IS in the reality of Love that we find Goodwill, a sense of brotherhood and a greater intermingling of heretofore largely separated races and social stereotypes plus a greater acceptance of others who were before ostracized or viewed as of lesser importance on the world stage. The singular place where the Old holds on IS in the doctrinal religions of the world that have been built upon the illusion and the glamour of the past. This IS NOT to say that illusion and glamour ARE faded in the New, these forces of vanity will still exist, hopefully in a less selfish form. This IS to say that the abhorrent view that such religions have toward each other and toward the irreligious masses ARE preventing the free flow of the impulse to agape from taking hold in the minds of doctrinal thinkers whose sense of glamour still allows them to hold themselves above ALL others. In religion and outside of religion a clear and unbiased look at the events of the last several hundred years can allow us to see the effective realities of some of the New Testament prophecies that ARE concerned with the return of the Christ and perhaps teach us what IS the True meaning of this Name as well as the universal significance of this Power of the Godhead.
And should we look as this Cosmic impulse toward the Good, the Beautiful and the True, toward the expression of Love in this world of men, in terms of evolution, we can perhaps learn much about the history of the human family. We should try to see that there IS a separate evolution underway that has naught to DO with the religious debate based in the insistence of many regarding a ‘young Earth’ theory versus the theoretical ideas of Darwin and others. Much of Christian doctrine DOES NOT understand that the whole idea of evolution IS at least two fold; first there is the evolution of the form, an evolution that created a human animal capable of being used by Souls in this world and then the continued evolution of that form. Secondly, in this continued evolution those aspects of the form that interact with the Life Within, that allow for the expression of mind and emotion as well as the capacity of the form to think and feel have continually evolved and this can be most easily seen in noting the changes over time. The barbarous and superstitious man of Moses day CAN NOT be compared to the modern man or even the man 2000 years ago….this IS evolution. In today’s phase the form of the man IS better able to understand and express thoughts and ideas that were alien to the man of even a few hundred years ago but we should understand here that the effects ARE NOT uniform across ALL of humanity. While the impulse DOES move the whole forward there ARE other forces at play among which IS the recognition and the use of one’s new found abilities across the social strata of the world today. And so it IS with men’s acceptance of the primary motivation of the New Age that IS upon us; men must begin en masse to accept and to use the Power of agape as this IS the harbinger of the next era in the history of man and this IS the essence of the Return of the Christ.
It IS in the reality that “God is love” that we should understand that the Christ IS Love as well and here we should try to see that it IS the Christ that will come again and NOT necessarily in human form. We can ONLY understand the deeper realities of the idea that He will be “coming in the clouds of heaven” (Matthew 26:64) when we can see past the doctrinal ideas that it IS Jesus that returns. In the cryptic presentations from the gospels and from the Book of Revelation where we read that “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him” (Revelation 1:7) there IS much mystery as there IS in the idea that He IS “the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power” (Mark 14:62). While men have ever taken these ideas literally they have missed the greater point of both….that of “the Son of man” and what that Truly means; and how IS it that He IS “sitting on the right hand of power“. Men have ever seen such spiritual ideas in human terms based on the presentation of the writers who could ONLY express such things in understandable yet veiled words. Taking his whole idea back to Love, we should see how that “the Son of man” in the form of Jesus was One with God as “in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians2:9) and here as we consider the idea that “God is love” we should see that “the Son of man” IS expressing that same “fulness of the Godhead“. In the very idea of “the Son of man“, the locution which Jesus chose for Himself, we should try to see His reality in terms of humanity while seeing at the same time “all the fulness of the Godhead bodily“. As a human He IS born of a woman; that He IS conceived outside of the normal act of intercourse DOES NOT change this Truth. He IS a man. At the same time, He IS has within Him “all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” along with the propensity to KNOW what and who He IS. This propensity IS the flow of the Light of the Soul into His form and this propensity IS ALL that separates Him from the rest of the human family. We should here relate this to the Apostle John’s words saying that “ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things” (1 John 2:20) and understand that the word rendered as unction, chrisma, IS the noun form of the adjective christos, which IS always rendered as Christ, and that both have the same meaning from the root word, the verb form chrio.
We should try to understand here that we ARE ALL “the Son of man” and that we ALL have this same unction, this same Christness if we can use this term here; the difference between He and us IS that He KNOWS while we ARE yet trapped in that vanity into which we ARE born. If we can understand the unction and the idea of the Christ in terms of Love, we can then perhaps see how that the Cosmic impulse to the Good, the Beautiful and the True, IS an impulse toward Love and IS, in its essence, the return of the Christ to this world. God and Christ ARE the Cosmic Forces of Truth and Love and here again we must look past the carnal understanding of Love and see the deeper reality of agape where there IS NO emotion nor sentiment nor even thought of Love as we understand it. Agape IS the Oneness of ALL beings, a Oneness that can be easily seen in spiritual terms as a Oneness in which ALL ARE part and parcel of the One God, the One Cosmic Force by which ALL things ARE contained. We should understand that intertwined with these Cosmic ideas ARE the more simple ways that the Truth IS presented; first to the barbarous and superstitious peoples in the times of the Patriarchs, then to the similarly barbarous and superstitious peoples of Moses Day and finally to the more refined by still barbarous and superstitious people in the time of Christ. It IS these more simple ways of presentation that has become the doctrines of men, the religious and ofttimes cultural traditions of men through the ages. We should note here that just as there IS an evolution from the Cosmic perspective, an evolution of the Cosmic impulses that have brought us to the modern man. There has also been an evolution in the doctrinal views of men; unfortunately this latter evolution IS hindered by the refusal of doctrinal thinkers to see anything that IS arcane as they cling to the sometimes archaic religious formulas which ARE still today being built upon, ofttimes in most illogical ways. Our example here IS the strange fixation in some parts of the church on the idea of the ‘end times’ with its rapture, its Battle of Armageddon and its thousand year reign of Christ, ALL of which ARE interpreted from intentionally vague scriptural references that ARE viewed by men in strictly carnal terms.
The True impetus of these Cosmic impulses, impulses from the ‘Center where the will of God IS KNOWN‘, IS the flow of Truth and Love that IS undeniably affecting the whole of our Planet Earth. The effects of this inflow of Truth will vary among men and this based in their social, cultural and religious nurturing and indoctrination which have built the foundation for each man’s beliefs. However, as generations pass the Truer ideas will present themselves; beginning with the so called ‘baby boomers’, perhaps the first to feel the weight of the impulse to change, each subsequent ‘named’ generation has been able to portray some measure of the Truth and the Love and here we should try to see how that the human interpretations of this impulse treats it much the same way as the religious doctrines of men treat the original Truth brought to us by the Master. The earliest versions of these effects showed us an anti-war mindset in America and other places as well as the idea of ‘free love’ which was fully taken advantage of by the more selfish aspects of humanity. With this came an ever greater understanding of what IS happening around the world and today there ARE more people who ‘care’ about the plight of those in other countries than ever before. Much of this IS based in today’s ‘twenty four hour news cycles’ but the very idea that such things ARE covered in such depth IS itself due to the peoples desire to KNOW and to care. Christian missions play a role in this caring as DO the missions of organizations which hold NO religion; many of these work through the many NGOs of the United Nations. There ARE however many carnal forces that operate against the Truth and the impulse to Love and while many of these seem to be religious in nature, their sense of religion IS hypocritical and essentially selfish as men try to hold onto their archaic and illogical beliefs, beliefs that were intended for the barbarous and superstitious man of yesteryear. These ideas ARE NOT intended to show the scope of the play of forces on ALL sides, the intent here IS ONLY to try to show that there ARE forces at play that bring the reality of evolution to the hearts and minds of men and that there ARE ever opposing forces that ARE the from hearts and minds of men that seek to belay the changes that will nonetheless eventually consume the world. It IS here that we should try to see the generational changes which ARE more clearly evident and to understand Voltaire’s words which end our essays: “Those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road“.
In ALL of this we have the added opposition of the doctrinal religions of the world which seek to maintain the old ideas even while the new ARE changing the societies that they seek to serve. In this we have a clearer picture of the dwindling numbers in the doctrinal churches and the apparent growth of an irreligious agenda that sees past the doctrinal assertions. Most ALL doctrinal thinkers decry any ideas that bring harmony and equality among the masses; from their opposition to abortion, to their treatment of the homosexual in the open LBGT community. While the masses, and ofttimes the government, seek to promote the rights of persons to seek abortion or to live an LBGT Life, the doctrinal church ‘digs in’ to ever greater degree as they openly preach and teach against such ideas. Most DO NOT see that their very stance against the inflow of Love and Truth that IS motivating the more carnal approach to harmony and equality among the masses IS itself contributing to the exodus from the churches. Some however DO recognize this as they hypocritically claim that it IS God Himself who opposes such ideas thus further exacerbating the church’s problem. There ARE however some more progressive members of what the doctrinal thinker calls the ‘Christ’s church’, members that seek to let the flow of Truth and Love work itself out in the religious thinking of men; our example of this IS the words of Reverend Doctor William Barber who presented this idea before a national audience as a speaker at the Democratic National Convention in 2016; he says:
“that is why I’m so concerned, about those that say so much—about what God says so little, while saying so little—about what God says so much. And so in my heart, I’m troubled. And I’m worried about the way faith is cynically used by some to serve hate, fear, racism and greed“
Reverend Doctor William Barber
It IS in their self assumed ideas of religious authority that the doctrinal teachers and preachers state their claims about ‘what God said’ without ever understanding that it IS in their own imaginations that most ALL of their interpretations originate.
The force and the Power of Love and Truth will NOT be stopped by such carnal forces as we find in the church and in the governments of the world that seek to protect their own established views. Social and religious change IS upon us as IS evident in the movement toward such innocuous ideas as same sex marriages and the legalization of marijuana. In the former men and women were left without any claim to the benefits of marriage in their cohabitation while in the heterosexual world there were some ‘common law’ protections available; it IS this that formed much of the impetus for change. In the latter even the simple possession of some amount of marijuana resulted in jail time for millions of Americans while the more harmful results of drinking ARE NOT ONLY tolerated but ARE glamorized in much of our world culture. Here, the moratorium on hard liquor products advertisements has been overridden for the sake of sales with nary a word of condemnation while the drive to legalize pot staggers along from state to state relying mostly upon the vote of the people for change. Can we see the point here? Can we see how that such ideas which contribute to individual’s human expression, even when it IS the ‘will of the people’ struggle against the status quo which seeks ONLY to hold onto their own sense of power. And for the church’s role here we need ONLY look at the staunch refusal to accept the social idea of same sex marriage and at the way that this topic has overwhelmed the church itself where opposition to this has become for many their singular cause célèbre. We should look here at the reality of other men’s lives and how one DOES NOT KNOW anything of what IS Truly in another’s heart regardless of one’s appearance or what they may claim. We should try to see the LGBT Lifestyle of some years ago when the whole of one’s personal sexual proclivity remained ‘in the closet’, and compare this to the more open view of today where some rather proudly express their differences. Most ALL who ARE NOT homophobic readily accept and try to understand their LGBT neighbor and here we should note that the True Christian idea of neighbor IS everyman regardless of their manner of living.
And while the Church will NOT accept any ideas of homosexuality as a personality trait but ONLY see it as a Life choice or even a mental disorder, there ARE parts that to this day protect their own who have fallen to their own sexual deviations, ofttimes with children who likely begin in awe of the deviants authority. Homosexuality IS a complex and broad subject which should NOT be simply aligned with the ideas taken from the Greek and Roman past which ARE the ideas that the Apostle Paul writes about. There IS a difference between the activities of men and women in orgies, activities with a party mentality, and the reality of being gay in the world yet today. The church idea that being gay IS simply a choice IS based in the way that the Greeks homosexual and bisexual behaviors ARE perceived through the seemingly condemning words of Paul; they DO NOT address the True motivations toward a homosexual Lifestyle. Such motivations that have more to DO with the way that Souls ‘choose’ the type of Life through which they will exist in this world based in their own spiritual collateral against the eternal need which Paul shows us as “waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:23). Again, the idea of waiting here IS NOT DOING so idly but rather as the husbandman of whom James tells us that he “waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain” (James 5:7). The husbandman IS ever working to produce that “precious fruit of the earth” and this IS the same waiting that we should see in Paul’s words….we DO NOT idly wait for that Unity with God but we work toward it and the reward of “the fruit of the Spirit“. And what IS our point here? It is simply that LGBT people ARE as capable of overcoming the carnal ideas of Life and gaining the reward as ARE the so called normal man who has as much in his closet as the gay man of yesterday DID. We should to see here the hypocrisy which remains hidden in the lives of most ALL men, a hypocrisy which the Master shows us in His saying that “why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:3-5). Can we see the antithesis of this saying at work in the church over the last 2000 years? Can we see how that the closets of most every member who IS proclaiming his disgust against others ARE sealed against divulging one’s own thoughts, attitudes and actions in Life. And, most importantly can we see how the church’s attitudes toward those church ideals that they carry as their banner ARE divisive in nature and ARE an easy example of James True message saying “if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work” (James 3:14-16).
We should remember here the ideas that we discussed regarding the Greek words that ARE rendered as “bitter envying and strife“; that their Truer meaning IS as harsh emulation and factious divisiveness. Here we should try to see the very nature of the church as it exists IS built upon these ideas. Their emulation IS toward the apostles and the saints and we should see this in the hypocritical way that they present themselves as many purport themselves to be saints and holy by way of their doctrinal precepts. And their factious divisiveness IS easily seen in their us against them attitudes on a variety of issues from denominational superiority to their attempts at an authoritative stance against such social realities as abortion and a LGBT Lifestyle. While it seems that we have gone far afield in this essay we have NOT; what we ARE DOING here IS building a foundation for our discussion of the final word in Paul’s list of “the fruit of the Spirit“, egkrateia which IS rendered as temperance and commonly seen in relation to the proclivities of men, some of which we discuss above. Thayer’s tells us that egkrateia refers to: the virtue of one who masters his desires and passions, especially his sensual appetites 9. Strong’s simply tells us that egkrateia means: self-control (especially continence)9a. In these we should see the tendency of bible translators and interpreters to see ONLY the carnal and sexual ideas in the words of the Master and His apostles, ideas which ONLY offer a diluted idea of their message of Truth and focus upon the things of God. We should try to see that as a “fruit of the Spirit” the idea of egkrateia IS NOT carnal but IS a ‘vitrue’ which flows from the Soul, from the Christ and God Within, into the Life of a man who has already committed himself to carnal restraint and, in a way, this fruit IS his reward for such carnal restraint. We end today with Paul’s words on “the fruit of the Spirit” in the Greek and here we should refresh the spiritual ideas for these words from the last essay; Paul tells us that “the fruit of the Spirit” IS agape, chara, eirene, chrestotes, agathosune, and pistis; praotes and egkrateia. We close with our spiritual trifecta through which this fruit easily flows into the Life of everyman; we read:
- “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).
We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.
- 1 Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1828 and 1913 from https://1828.mshaffer.com/
- 2 New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
4 Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition - 8 Bible commentaries on BibleStudyTools.com
- 9a The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible on blueletterbible.org
- 9 Thayer’s Greek Lexicon on blueletterbible.org
- * Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
- ** A Treatise on Cosmic Fire by Alice A Bailey © 1951 by Lucis Trust
Those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.
Voltaire, Writer and Philosopher
