n Mark 12:29-31, the disciples of Jesus asked him “what is the greatest commandment”, and he replied:
I The first (foremost) of all the commandments is “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 this…“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as (much as) thyself”. There is none other commandment greater than these
The term “love” features in the both of the commandments.
“Greatest commandment” means what is most acceptable to the Father. However, we tend to treat “love thy neighbor” as little more than a fanciful sentiment…one impractical in the face of certain challenges in our paradigm that demand a measure of ruthlessness. But that is only because they have a wrong picture of the kind of “love” Jesus meant.
Of course, the Old Testament representation of “God” is of a
“Lord above all gods” who exhibits propensities that make it almost irreconcilable with this disposition. From the books of the Exodus to Joshua and further on, the Children of Israel were called upon to kill their neighbors—anyone who stood in their path—sparing no living thing save cattle.3
In contrast, Jesus presents the Father as far more gentle and loving. In fact, in Matthew 5:38, 43 and John 8:3-7, Jesus distanced himself from basic tenets that the God of Israel had 3 See, for example,
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delivered in many a threat-filled order, and instead offered his own more compassionate version of things. This, however, is a topic outside the intended scope of this book.
The point is, rather than just good, warm feelings, true love is a “harmonious” outlook and behavior; one that essentially allows everyone else to flourish. It looks at the survival of the whole group rather than its own selfish interests. At the para vidya level, when mystics say that “God is love”, they are fundamentally talking about love as harmony, and God as the being who knits, welds and harmonizes everything together; who makes every element in the system function in due order and concordance with the other such that the entire system is sustainable and self-regulating.
At a human level, there are two main propensities we can exhibit: to work towards harmony or to delight in chaos and disruption. Individuals can be attracted to either polarity, and we have the inherent ability to do the greatest good or the greatest bad. It is our choice. No known animal has quite that ability. It all starts in our mind and its thoughts.
But if we did not have this freedom to choose, we would be as mere robots: not really alive and not really being free. It is clear that our thoughts, even our consciousness, are our very Life…which can only be (all considered) an aspect, a tiny drop of, “God”. But what ethos will reliably keep all Creation functioning reasonably well? Is utter selfishness a sustainable option in this case?
What we must remember here is that in our Phenomenal
“plane of existence”, actions merely follow thought. And some minds propel themselves towards what we can call the
“extreme left” (the negativity) and others towards “extreme right” (the positivity).
Those inclined towards the negative tend to despise and disrupt the natural order of things. As such, their thoughts and deeds are accompanied by unpleasantness toward others (including the environment). Those who, on the other hand, 47
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are inclined towards the positive achieve the opposite effect: they help themselves and others attain improved relations and better collective outcomes.
While it is obvious that we have inherited the natural choice to tend towards either way, we are also a confusing mixture of the two propensities. But all bad things are often done in the dark, and all good things in the light. Even crime has an
“underworld” not plainly seen on the surface of cities. It must
hide as it is parasitic to the “good” people—the “salt of the Earth”—who try to live and work harmoniously with others.
But we all need harmony. Even criminals need a certain critical mass of the “salt of the Earth” people. Just as too many parasites will kill the host and then die with it, if there are too few do-gooders in a location, that place becomes “hellish”.
And if do-gooders are the great majority, then that place is as good as “heavenly”.
So, even the evil (i.e. anti-life) beings of our planet have to attain a certain degree of harmony in their subparts in order to survive the environment and others. As such, even in their disruption of order, the criminal underworld has order, hierarchy, loyalty, and harmonious working relations within or between gangs in order to function “properly”. It’s just that if they were cells we would dub them cancerous.
The stark and overriding fact is that it is just not possible to function effectively without harmony. It is only that some do not extrapolate this crucial fundamental out to the wider world, but rather choose to act cancerously or parasitically on targeted areas of the world. And the target area must be small enough not to irreparably harm the host—as in society as a whole. As such, highly effective criminals ensure that their deeds do not overly impact the environment, or they will destroy their “host” and thus their own way of life. Then the wider world and everything there will grind to a halt.
Indeed, if everyone decides to live only by taking from others, who will be left to produce the goods? Who will do 48
the legal work that legally attains the goods that criminals target? Even the worst criminal knows that he has to look like an ordinary person in order to lull the intended victim into initial complacency. Brazen acts are done opportunistically under cover of darkness with preferably no witness at all, or it becomes a battle of wills as no one likes to be robbed.
Those that do evil—even governments—never rest easy because it is inevitable that the victims will ever-conspire to revolt. Leaders sleep with one eye open because that day of revolt has to come no matter how tight the restraints.
So, the concept of “God is love” has to be true if that God is a true God. That true God has to be much more than a nice
“gentleman in the sky” with “nice” fatherly feelings and emotions about us, his creation. God as a Creator is inevitably the Supreme Harmony that knits it all together.
In our paradigms, “love thy neighbor” entails more than just living harmoniously with another person. It speaks of a desire to maintain the harmonious functioning of our mind, physical bodies, society and the environment we subsist in. When the environment is right for a fruit tree to grow (enough sunshine, moderate temperatures, adequate rain, good soil, and so on) it blossoms with an abundance of sweet, juicy fruit.
As concerns a virus, black mamba, or scorpion, “love” in this case entails more than feeling good towards, or even living harmoniously with such deadly creatures. It prompts us to look at everything, and even try and understand what “God”
might be seek for us in this paradigm. It makes us desire a better paradigm, to seek the path that leads to the Father. And this is discussed in more detail in the last chapter Going back to the Primordial, each Soul is both cut-off and integral to the Father who is the Universal Soul. The apparent aim is that Souls should not only experience “independence”
but also be whatever they choose to be. Being thus cut-off, the receptors that keep it alive are the Surat (“that which hears”) which is the part of the Soul made to be the prime 49
Chapter Ten “God id Love” Is this True?
receptor of Sound, and the Nirat which is the prime receptor of the Light. Only the unfettered Soul can “hear” this essence, this “heartbeat” of Creation, and vibrate in sympathy with the essence-of-all-things.
But being cut-off means that we are liable to “drowning” in the ocean of maya and to forget how lofty we are. Then we might need “salvation”…whatever it might mean to different people. Often, the desire to be “saved” emanates from seeing the general cruelty and dysfunction of people and societies and nations and even the world at large. It makes one yearn for better way of life, a better paradigm.
And when they see no divine intervention, people rightly turn to themselves to try and better things, hence a movement towards humanism as opposed to “religion”—the worship of God as currently practiced.
More disturbing than a God who appears to be an Absentee Landlord is the fact that the very ethos of our paradigm is that “Life must subsist on Life”. And it applies regardless of whether one is fruitarian, vegetarian or is a meat eater.
National Geographic documentaries enthrall us with many a captivating drama hinged on the exigencies brought about by the demands of the food chain that dominates Nature.
Most plants and animals are fated to vanish down one greedy gullet or the other. No wonder a good section of our human population yearn for a different paradigm! And we don’t know too much about what other species think…
Is this the natural order of things? Why can’t things be less cruel, overall? Where is the Father in all this? Is this part of the Game? Is there no choice but to succumb to its dictates or is there a way to opt out? All this we discuss in the next chapter that looks at the question of “salvation”.
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