IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 279

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON GOD; Part LXV

We ended yesterday with a discussion on the verses from the Epistle of James regarding deception and we meant to get to Paul’s words of a similar nature regarding seeing in a glass but we did not have the time. We left the words of Paul as our Quote of the Day and although this may seem to be a departure from our thoughts on illusion, glamour and deception it really is not as we did attach Paul’s ideas on Love to our topic from the perspective of Love being the way par excellence to escape the net and find the strait gate and narrow way. The Power of Love can dispel the glamour and can break down the wall of illusion and it is both of these that lead to our deception. We have spelled out quite clearly our view on Love and will state our last ideas here again for clarity: We should try to remember that if God IS Love then the Christ IS Love and if the Christ IS Love then the Christ Within IS Love also. Going further, if the Master IS the incarnation of the Christ, the Love of God, then we, as the Master tells us, are incarnations of the Christ as well when we reach that point of True discipleship; this Truth is in His words saying: “The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master” (Luke 6:40) and also in the words of the Apostle John who tells us that: “as he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). To this we can add today that Jesus was born the Christ and is therefore expressing the Love of God from the beginning while we have to develop to this point of being capable and accounted worthy to express the Love of God in its fullness as did the Master.

Looking again at Paul’s words regarding what Love is we should try to see the selflessness of its expression which is matched only by the words of the Master who tells us that we must Love ALL as we Love ourselves and that to Love oneself we must be willing to do to others only as we want done to us which shows us the fullness of self Love from the perspective of the man as well as the practical expression of our Love for ALL. So as to not leave us wondering too much at these concepts the Master gives us more and tells us that “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:44-48). How can the world have missed this for so long? illusion, glamour and deception! And we should note here how the idea of perfection is so intimately tied to Love. All things spring from Love and this is also Paul’s message in his writing to the Corinthians. The overwhelming Power of Love, of True Love, as the Love that is God, is lost in doctrine and in dogma and has taken on only the human ideas of sentiment and emotion and attraction. While these may be attributes of Love there is a greater kind and one that reflects our ONENESS with our brothers and with our God.

If we look closely at the nature of the illusion, glamour and deception through which the world suffers today we will see that is the LACK of the Power of Love that enlivens them. We said in the last post that it is when the idea of duality enters into a man’s Life that the sense of illusion becomes a factor in his Life and we should understand this from the point of view of the man’s recognition of it. To the masses of unenlightened people the illusion is the normal way of viewing things and they see it not as such nor as it Truly is or should be and this places upon those who do recognize the existence of illusion in any way the responsibility of shining their own Light on the Truth. This is the challenge of spreading the Truth and in this is the reality of the Master’s charge to His disciples. This is also the idea behind the Master’s telling us that we should “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16) and we should see in this that the good works are the works of Love and that the idea of glorify is meant in the same Light so that we see that is the good works  of Love that glorify. We should note here again what we said above regarding Love and relate these thoughts to the saying above; we should realize here that if ALL is Love then one’s good works must be Love and that it is Love that will glorify the Father. The Master amplifies this for us in this other saying: “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples” in which we should relate “that ye bear much fruit” in the same way to Love; that Love is the Fruit that we bear and that Love is essential to being a True disciple which he tells us in the balance of these sayings. “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love” (John 15:8-10). Can we see how this is all tied so tightly together in His words.

So we repeat what we have said here before; Love is the method par excellence to the dispelling of glamour and breaking down the walls of illusion and it all begins with our recognition of the Truths that the Master tells us and in their right application in the world. Heretofore there have been many excuses as to one’s misreading of the scriptures and reasons expounded as to what the application of Love is in the Master’s teachings. Perhaps this was all necessary because the world was not yet ready for the Truth as He expressed it to us. Today however is different; the groundwork is laid and we are in the thralls of the New Age where there is a steady breaking down of the walls of prejudice and hatred that have led us steadily into conflicts and wars. There has never been such a time as now where there is a Truer cooperation between races and religions, between nations and philosophies yet there is still an international distrust and dislike that must be overcome especially by those nations that profess themselves as Christian.

From Old Testament times it is written and repeated by the Master that mankind is in fact a sacred being. Jesus tells us that “Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken….” (John 10:34-35). Can we see the import here in this saying? Does this not tell us that we are divine when the “word of God” comes to us; that this is the nature of the True believer and the disciple? The actual Old Testament verbiage is yet more encompassing saying that “I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High” (Psalm 82:6) and while the Master tells us of the nature of them called gods, that they are those to whom the “word of God” comes, the Psalmist tells us of Unity and the Oneness of man being all “children of the most High“. These things and so much else that we have discussed in our 278 posts have been lost sight of in the doctrines and the dogmas that man has created as his illusion and behind which lies the Truth as the Master gave it to us so many years ago.

There is a saying by the Master regarding that with defiles a man and this is repeated in both the Gospels of Matthew, were it takes on a larger part, and in Mark where it is shorter but much more revealing insofar as the workings of the heart of men.

• “Then came his disciples, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, after they heard this saying? But he answered and said, Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up. Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. Then answered Peter and said unto him, Declare unto us this parable. And Jesus said, Are ye also yet without understanding? Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth inat the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught? But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man” (Matthew 15:12-20). Can we see the multiplicity of messages here that afflict the man of today as well as in Jesus time? “the Pharisees were offended“, because they were confronted with a Truth that they could not escape; their illusion of righteousness had been shattered. How many today act and teach in the same way which reflects on the next part; speaking of men, saying “Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up“, the Master is telling us that and these plants are the teachers and the leaders of the people that are not teaching Truth and are not leading by their right example. How many today are there that are “blind leaders of the blind”? We should note that Peter, speaking as he did for the group, did not understand the message that the Master was delivering and Jesus chides them and then answers. These answers from Matthew’s Gospel are however almost directly from the Ten Commandments and are all ‘evils’ that a man is warned against and in this men have found safe harbor even if they are of the likes of the Pharisees.
• The wording and the words from Mark’s Gospel are however not so circumscribed to ‘evil’ thoughts and actions. In this gospel the Master says: “And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness” (Mark 7:20-22). Note here the addition of covetousness, pride and foolishness which are some of the more mundane of ‘sins’ and ones that easily creep into our sense of good by way of the illusions that we may build.

This is the message then: that men create illusions to cover what it is that they do or want to do to make it ‘good’ and not ‘evil’ and by their justification of wrongs based on illusion and deception they go forward believing that what wrong they do is right. This is the glamour, the illusory thinking that one is doing right when one is doing wrong. Classic examples of this can be seen in the Crusades where men believed that they were fighting for God and in the more modern act of slavery where men justified putting another in bondage based upon clever, creative and illusory interpretations of scripture. How much today is built the same way? This is a question that only a man can answer for himself; is he free from those things that defile in this list according to Mark?

We never did get to our points on the Quote of the Day and the references near the end that correspond to the notes we made on the sayings from James in the last post. We will get back to this in the next post.

Note on the Quote of the Day