LOVE'S SACRIFICE

Q. With all the talk, teaching, books and songs about love in the world, why are there so few truly holy groups out there?

A. Love is True. Love reveals. And Love will never support or encourage a lie or an illusion, tacitly or otherwise. That is why many saints and spiritual masters have been persecuted on this Earth, for mostly humanity clings to lies and hates the Truth.

There are various degrees and types of Love, and many people love as they are able according to their state of being.

However, there is a divine Love, which is one with divine Truth, that many people are unable to approach because they are not ready or even interested, neither are they sincere.

It may be, that like a few unusual others on Earth today, you are seeking uncompromisingly for the Highest? It may be that you love the Truth that liberates and that nothing less will do? If this is so, then you will not be welcomed in this land of the lie: planet Earth, and neither will you find any satisfaction in the world supermarket of compromised and imitation/selfish spirituality.

Humankind is not disposed to seek the Highest, and so if it is half awake, it will seek a lesser form of Truth and spiritual integrity, a dilution of divine Love: emotional/sentimental and therefore conditional love, which it can benefit from in giving and receiving, which does not liberate, but which, if it is sincere, is better than hatred.

Yet sincerity alone is not enough to manifest perfect Love, which includes Intelligence and Wisdom. And if we do not yet have that perfect Love, who are we to broadcast that we know what it is by assuring others that we love them, as so many people do, for example, when signing their messages "love and light"?

You will very often find that those who like to speak of love regularly (and remember that divine Love is sacred and dwells in the silence of the purified heart) are the ones still looking for it, hoping for it, wanting it or wishing to be seen as possessing it. But there is a very great difference between seeking for Love and seeking to Love.

Those who seek for Love will not find it, no matter how much they speak of it or profess to know what Love is, since Love must be given in order to be received.

You will also find that many seekers for Love will react in hostility or at best cool indifference to true Love when it knocks and reveals for potential resolution the illusions that prevent it from being received, because many seekers for Love have a preconceived notion of what they seek and how pleasant it will feel for them. Seekers for Love are seekers for self. Love, however, is of the All, not the self.

Most people who speak of Love do not realize that true Love, divine Love generally makes the ego very uncomfortable. Why? Because divine Love is completely other than the separative self, the ego, and since Love is True, there is no place for the ego to hide in it.

Persons who do not know Love can always be recognized by the way they defend for self, justify self or talk about what they have achieved, or in the way that they attack other selves, often as cleverly as possible in order to maintain their false spiritual airs. The dualistic human being can never produce or retain divine Love, because Love is beyond duality. So the search for Love for self is a delusion.

Many people think that the spiritual path is all joy and happiness, and that is precisely why they become 'spiritual': to seek happiness or something better for themselves.

This, of course, is the left-hand path of imitation or selfish spirituality, which is no spirituality at all, and it is a very busy road on this Earth.

Conversely, the true spiritual Path of Sanctification is narrow and far less populated, and the further one gets along that Way in this world, the fewer souls one meets upon it as the road is steep and only the strong and faithful may climb it, and they must leave all their baggage behind them.

The Way that leads directly to the summit of the mount of attainment is not for the compromised or half-hearted. It is a hard path full of pain, rejection, sorrow and persecution, and takes great faith, consecration and endurance. The burden in this world of the genuine lover of humanity is very great.

If you regard the lives of the saints you will observe much suffering, even and often especially after their enlightenment. Look at Jesus' perfect demonstration of the Way, for example. Did you know that Jesus was called 'The man of sorrows'?

Those who speak about the spiritual path as being one of happiness and joy and who do not indicate the spiritual suffering that is inescapable upon the Way of Sanctification, are often seeking to inspire less advanced aspirants towards the guaranteed rewards in Heaven. However, the more advanced seeker of Truth will always want to know the whole picture, the whole Truth, however much it upsets the ego.

Jesus showed the way, and the Christ-Spirit through him revealed to the inner disciples that all who go the Path leading to Truth and Salvation will suffer.

The Way of the Cross cannot be circumvented; the cup of karma has to be drained to the dregs.

There is no bypassing the dark night of the soul and the inevitable confrontation with what has been called 'the dweller on the threshold'.

All recipients of genuine divine Light (and thus also challenge: the trials of Fire) know that the true spiritual Path leading to Liberation is not for the compromised or self-invested. This is why so few are able to attain Deliverance in this world. It takes great courage and selfless dedication; the candidate for holiness must give up everything that belongs to this world, including their very own personal self, their life.

This is the symbolic meaning of the crucifixion on the cross of matter; it is an unconditional sacrifice of the lower ego-self for the sake of Love and Truth.

"Take up your cross and follow me through Christ into the path of true discipleship; this is the path that leads to life. This way of life is called the pearl of greatest price, and he who finds it must put all he has beneath his feet." - The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ.

I will share with you a little secret, which many people do not know, and frankly do not wish to know as they cling to their easy paths that lead round and round the mount of Life:

When a man comes into a binding with the Holy Radiation Field of Christ, embarks upon the Way of Transfiguration and so threatens to leave this world order (as all the Great Ones have done), then all the powers of darkness will make their greatest efforts to prevent him from proceeding.

This they do because if he succeeds in attaining the Goal of Liberation from the wheel of birth, suffering and death, they lose
something of their life-assurance, their psychic food, which they perpetually leech from mankind on Earth and have done for eons.

Therefore, if a man going the Way of the Avatars - the Way of the Sacrificial Cross, the true Path that leads to Freedom from the Earth-prison - expects the Path to be all roses and wine, then he will certainly be disappointed, and he will turn back and return to his familiar cell, locking the door behind him and throwing away the key, perhaps for another age or three.

But the man of Remembrance understands the requirements of the Path that leads from death to Life, as he knows also that there is no other sane choice but to go the Way that has been mapped out for him by the great Sages and Masters of yore who graced the Path with their hallowed feet by returning to Earth from Heaven to serve humanity.

In every race and nation, in every clime and part of the world, and throughout the endless reaches of time, back into the limitless past, exceptional human beings have discovered the Way that leads to Liberation. They have trodden the Path of I-demolition or self-sacrifice gladly, accepted its conditions, endured happily its disciplines and exemplified its virtues. They have rested back in confidence upon its realities, received its rewards, and, through its verities, they have realised the One Goal of Deliverance. Discovering that most cherished prize, they have entered into the Joy of Heaven, participated in the mysteries of Paradise, dwelled for a while in the glory of the divine Presence, and then always have they returned to the ways of the world, to serve. The testimony to the existence of this Path is retained in the priceless treasures of wisdom left behind by its witnesses who successfully transcended all desire for the personal self, all 'knowing' (borrowed knowledge) and all philosophical notions, and who consequently penetrated into the ever-expanding world of true meaning and divine purpose.

Perhaps, then, in understanding something of the inevitable trials, hardships and obstacles to be found on the real spiritual Path, we may come to see why there is so much false spirituality and sham religion (easy or pretend paths) in the world today; so much "love 'n' light" pretense. For man must endeavor to appease his conscience somehow.

It is all vexation of Spirit, and any true Pilgrim of the Way knows well that the Path leading out of suffering is the Way of Death. And since the ego really does not want to die it creates false paths for itself so that it may lie to itself and others that it now knows the Joy of Heaven or is at least on the right road.

Read The Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross; understand the symbolical meaning of Jesus' life-demonstration, penetrate to the Gnostic essence of any true religion and you can see for yourself what the true Path of Self-Sacrifice entails.

LOVING OTHERS

Q. Even if we empty our minds of self focused thoughts, that does not mean that we have "succeeded" in loving others, does it?

A. We, as personalities, are incapable of Loving others. Such a personal love would at best be affection, which is affected and thus conditional.

Many people are enamored with the idea of loving others and proceed therefore to try to love others and to be a good person. But such a love-effort made by the self can never produce Love.

If we wish to know Love we would do better to forget the idea of Love altogether (which is so often cleaved to by the self, thus creating only a notion of love, a false love at best) and instead simply seek the Truth. When one comes into contact with the living Truth by loving only the Truth and not ideas, Love will appear and radiate through a person in all directions.

Until we are again one with divine Love there will always be a yearning in the soul. As you rightly indicated, this pure yearning for God is most often tainted and stifled in many people by desire. And this is ignorance.

In our work we know that Love exists on its own plane but that this intelligent Love is more interested in these times in its servants laboring in the harvest fields than in merely striving to experience Love for themselves.

Divine Love is a paradox to the human ego; it must be given away to be received. Love will never remain in the heart of one who clings to it for self.