Lucifer7, March 2008
Contents
New on Katinka Hesselink Net
Short Quotes
Editorial
What About Jesus?
Out of the way, you miserable wretch!
New on Katinka Hesselink Net
New on Squidoo
Short Quotes
Buddha, Dhammapada, Translation Juan Mascaro
290 If by forsaking a small pleasure one finds a great joy, he who is
wise will look to the greater and leave what is less.
N. Sri Ram, Thoughts For Aspirants, Second Series
Once we have set our will, which is an inclination of the heart, on
those things we can freely share instead of the things that divide,
brotherhood, freedom and co-operation will constitute our way of life.
Richard Tangye
During a very busy life I have often been asked, "How did you manage to
do it all?"
The answer is very simple.
It is because I did everything
promptly.
Talbot Mundy, Queen Cleopatra
"What superiority may we attain to without stirring enmity in
others?
Has it not been written on the face of nature? Wisdom counsels us to
seem
inferior, in secret gathering our spiritual strength, since enmity is
aimed
at virtue, seeking to reduce us to a common level with the human herd;
whereas
we should rise to an equal level with the gods."
Paul Brunton, The Secret Path, Chapter VIII
Once we push the gate of the mind slightly ajar and let the light
stream
in, the meaning of life becomes silently revealed to us.
What About Jesus?
This is a question frequently put by those who have been approached
by Theosophical propagandists. The man on the street, who rarely
goes to
church save on some high festival, often has more latent loyalty to the
Nazarene
than the professing church-goer. He senses something wrong with church
teaching,
he does not know what, and he is no student or scholar with ability to
put
things right. But reverence for Jesus comes natural to him, and he
feels
he can trust Jesus whatever the preachers may say, or threaten him with.
Whenever he opens his New Testament the first thing he reads is:
"His name
shall be called Immanuel," which, the church says, means God is with
us,
when it obviously means God is in us. There is the first difference
between church doctrine and the teaching of Jesus . . . Jesus taught
that the kingdom of Ouranos (the Greek word) is within you. The church
translates Ouranos as
Heaven and places it up in the sky or off somewhere in space.
Somewhere, at
any rate, not accessible by ordinary earthly means of communication.
That jars the man on the street, for he dislikes second-hand methods of
doing business.
The preacher tells him to pray for what he wants and his prayer will be
answered.
This does not stand experiment. The unanswered prayers are so far ahead
of
the answered ones that an answered prayer is always given publicity in
the
newspapers, like a testimonial for Soap.
Moreover, the man in the street believes in fair play, and agrees
that if he is to pray it ought to be as Jesus stipulates. So he turns
to The Lord's Prayer, and finds that there are only two things to be
prayed for that have to do with earthly life, and on inquiry he learns
from a friend that daily bread is a mistranslation and that the
petition is for "the bread of the Coming
Day," or as some preachers would say, "for the heavenly manna." As for
daily
bread and butter, he remembers that Jesus said that "your heavenly
father
knoweth that ye have need of these things" and it is needless to remind
him.
Never-the-less, the man on the street has often heard the preachers
reminding
God of his duties and giving him explicit instructions how he should
act
under the most complicated circumstances. The congregation always feels
that
with such a preacher God is in safe hands. The man in the street notes,
however,
that Jesus never attempts to advise God, but says, "NOT my will but
thine
be done, O Lord." The man in the street sees that Jesus is a positive
and
not a negative character, and must busy himself trying to find out what
the
will of God is, and concludes that Jesus expects him to do the same.
That
is what prayer is meant to do and why it should be done in secret, and
not
on the street corners like the Pharisees.
Another thing about Jesus that pleases the man in the street is that
Jesus is no accuser. He leaves that to the Adversary. Decent men do not
need to be accused. They will readily acknowledge their faults and make
good any damage
they may have done. Jesus only found fault with one class of men - the
Hypocrites.
Woe unto them, he said. They deceive themselves more than others, and
the
truth is not in them. To be lacking in truth, so that one cannot trust
one's
own judgment, is to be in a sorry case. Jesus was all truth, and the
man
in the street, in his weakness, swears by him.
The other thing in the Lord's Prayer, which was a request of a
personal kind was "Deliver us from evil." He found on inquiry,
that there were two Greek words used for evil or sin. One meant failure
or missing the mark and implies that a man has at least been trying. No
blame attaches to the man who honestly tries. The other word is
the one used in the Lord's prayer - Deliver us from uselessness or
worthlessness. That is a prayer indeed and few honest men fail to have
it in mind at all times. The man in the street likes fair play and has
no objection to the other petition with a condition bound to it -
Forgive us our transgressions as we forgive those who transgress
against us. This is a prayer for war times and for all who engage in
war, there is no other way to wipe the slate clean. A fair bargain,
thinks the man in the street.
All the rest is easy if we can fulfill these few rules. We need to do
so before we can hear the Hallowed Name, or expect the Kingdom to come
or the Will of the Father to govern the earth. The man in the
street had yet one more problem about God and Jesus who had said that
"I and my Father are one." That must mean one in mind and heart, for it
was not in things one could
see that such unity could be possible. Then he read what Paul had
written
to the Corinthians: "Know ye not that Jesus Christ is in you, unless
you
be reprobate?" That settled it. He read again: "Let that mind be
in
you which was in Christ Jesus." It was all a matter of mind and heart.
They
being right, the body would obey. So it is all in man himself,
whether
he enshrines the Divine man in himself or not. God is love.
Love
is not outside us but in our hearts. God is light. Light is not
outside
us for Light is Wisdom and Knowledge and enlightens the mind within us.
God
is spirit, and spirit is Breath and Life and is our very Being within
us.
None of the high and glorious things of life are outside us. God is in
us.
That is the precious secret that priests and soothsayers have tried to
hide
from us for centuries. So it may be that the man in the street, a
toil-worn pilgrim like Jesus himself, may become perfect even as the
Father in the inner
kingdom is perfect. For his is the power and the glory.
Out of the way, you miserable wretch!
A dervish was sitting by the roadside when a
haughty courtier with his retinue, riding past in the opposite
direction, struck him with a cane, shouting: ‘Out of the way, you miserable wretch!’
When they had swept past, the dervish rose and called after them: ‘May you attain all that you desire in the world, even up to its highest ranks!’
A bystander, much impressed by this scene, approached the devout man and said to him:
‘Please tell me whether your words were motivated by generosity of
spirit, or because the desires of the world will undoubtedly corrupt
that man even more?’
‘
O man of bright countenance,’ said the dervish, ‘
has
it not occurred to you that I said what I did because people who attain
their real desires would not need to ride around striking dervishes?’
Found online
Previous
issues of Lucifer7 can be found at the online index of
Lucifer7
If you appreciate the content of
this
newsletter, please
consider donating to Katinka Hesselink
Having problems with message search?
Fill out this form to ensure your group is one of the first to be migrated to the new message search system.
Offline 
Send Email