Commentary on the Aquarian Gospel–20–by Swami Nirmalananda Giri
What is Power?
“Again Lamaas asked, What do you say of power? And Jesus said, It is a manifest; is the result of force; it is but naught; it is illusion, nothing more. Force changes not, but power changes as the ethers change. Force is the will of God and is omnipotent, and power is that will in manifest, directed by the Breath. There is power in the winds, a power in the waves, a power in the lightning’s stroke, a power in the human arm, a power in the eye. The ethers cause these powers to be, and thought of Elohim, of angel, man, or other thinking thing, directs the force; when it has done its work the power is no more.”
Force and Power
Just as there is the silent word in the depths of the mind that precedes the spoken word from the mouth, so Jesus–following the Essene tradition as presented by Elihu in the tenth chapter of the Aquarian Gospel–makes the distinction by using the terms Force and Power. Force is the symbolic expression Jesus uses for the Father-God, indicating that, even though the Father is transcendent and has given all things (relativity) into the hands of the Son, He should not be thought of as passive or inactive. All things are done by the Father, but “done” in the sense that He is the Will, the Unmoving Mover through the agency of the Son and the Holy Breath.
In the body, the brain seemingly does nothing; but without its impulse not a single muscle moves. The brain is the actor, though only through the agency of the nerves and muscles. The same is true of the Father, Who therefore is Force, though not Power. It is Power that carries out the intentions of Force. I know this sounds like a lot of word-juggling, but it is important, as it is tied up with the statement of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita: “He who sees the inaction that is in action, and the action that is in inaction, is wise indeed.” In contemporary Indian thought it is usually considered that Brahman is absolutely inactive and uninvolved in the evolving universe. Some even believe that Brahman is so absolutely transcendent that He may not even know the universe exists! Jesus wanted to explain to Lamaas, as they walked in the plaza of the great temple of Jagannath (Krishna) in Puri, the correct perspective on these things. For even at the time of Jesus the vision of the Vedic sages had become eroded through the philosophizing and interpretation of the ignorant and needed a refurbishing and restoration (which was no more palatable to the religious authorities in India than their equivalents in Israel–both reacted murderously).
Illusion
Power is a manifestation of Force, a result of the Divine Will; yet “it is but naught; it is illusion, nothing more.” This concept is current in Indian thought today: the dynamic power (Mahashakti, Prakriti) Jesus calls the Holy Breath is the substance of which all “things” are made; yet it is ultimately illusory. A common misperception regarding the state of illumined teachers such as Shankara when they say that creation–and Power Itself–is “unreal” is that it is non-existent. This is erroneous. A hallucination is unreal, but it truly exists in the mind of the hallucinator. Even a thought exists, even if it is confined to the mind. It is an impulse in the energy field that is the mind. A misperception exists in the same way. So to say a thing is unreal is the not the same as saying it does not exist. An artificial flower is unreal, but it exists. As Krishna also says, it is great wisdom to know the meaning of “is” and “is not.”
Change
What is real, and what is unreal? Jesus presents the way to distinguish them when He says: “Force changes not, but power changes as the ethers change.” God in His essential nature as the Father is unchanging, but the Holy Breath constantly changes in its manifestations as the ethers–the building blocks of matter such as the atomic particles–join and disjoin in ever-changing and ever-varying recombinations.
Will and manifestation
“Force is the will of God and is omnipotent, and power is that will in manifest, directed by the Breath.” Divine Intelligence and Divine Energy bring about creation and its evolution. By the will of the Father, the illumination of the Son, and the power of the Holy Spirit, all things consist. “For in him we live, and move, and have our being.”
Whatever we experience outwardly are rays of the Power of God, the Holy Breath. “There is power in the winds, a power in the waves, a power in the lightning’s stroke, a power in the human arm, a power in the eye.”
A hierarchy of energies
Just as electricity passes through a series of transformers that step down the force of the current so it can power a light bulb without exploding it or burning it out, in the same way there is a chain of ever-lessening energies behind all that appears in the material world. “The ethers cause these powers to be, and thought of Elohim, of angel, man, or other thinking thing, directs the force.” Here we have four steps: 1) will, 2) thought, 3) power, and 4) ethers. Although God is at the top of the chain, the seven Elohim, angels, and even human beings participate in the movings of the ethers and the powers. This is what psychosomatic disease–and its reverse, psychosomatic health–are about; why when we see attractive food the digestive juices start to flow, and when we encounter fear-inspiring or unpleasant situations the glands start excreting appropriate hormones. “Thinking makes it so” is a reality for those who have opened the inner potencies of their minds. Mastery is the lesson we learn as we pass from form to form. And thought is the instrument of our mastery–not random mind chatter, but real Thought: extensions of our will empowered by our spiritual evolution.
The end of power
“When it has done its work the power is no more.” We climb a ladder until we get to the top. Then we get off and leave it behind. The same is true of power, but with a difference: the ladder remains when we abandon it, but in the case of our personal evolution, the power “is no more” because it becomes transmuted and resolved back into Force–into Divine Consciousness.
More Commentary on the Aquarian Gospel: |
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• The Seven Pillars of Aquarian Christianity
• The Silence and the Word
1. Introducing the Aquarian Gospel
2. Revelations in the Temple
3. Revelations in Egypt
4. The Two Selfs
5. Deliverance From Gods and Demons
6. About God the Tao
7. The Wisdom of Buddha
8. God and Prayer
9. The Mission of Jesus and John the Baptist
10. Sin and the Forgiveness of Sin
11. The Universal Law of Man’s Free Will and the Divine Will For Man
12. Understanding Death
13. The True Teacher
14. Vision of the Child Jesus
15. The Law Behind All Laws
16. Opening To The Truth
17. The Twelve-Step Ladder To Perfection
18. What is Truth?
19. What Is Man?
20. What is Power?
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21. Understanding
22. Wisdom
23. Faith
24. Healing and Healers
25. The Destiny of All Men
26. God and Man
27. The Voice in the Heart
28. Seeing the Unseeable
29. To God Through Man
30. Who Is Jesus?
31. The Real Versus The Apparent
32. The Brotherhood of Life
33. God…and Man
34. Relating To God
35. The Worthy Host
36. Come to the Light
37. The Kingdom Revealed
38. The King Revealed
39. Perspective On Death
40. Fire and Sword
41. Evolution: The Path of Glory
42. The Real Heaven
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Text of The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ
by Levi H. Dowling
• Sections I and II –Birth and Early Life of Mary, Mother of Jesus, and Birth and Infancy of the Harbinger, and of Jesus
• Section III–Education of Mary and Elizabeth
• Sections IV and V–Childhood and Early Education of John the Harbinger, and Childhood and Early Education of Jesus
• Section VI–Life and Works of Jesus in India
• Sections VII through X–Life and Works of Jesus in Western India, Tibet, Persia, Assyria, and Greece
• Section XI–Life and Works of Jesus in Egypt
• Sections XII and XIII–The Council of the Seven Sages; The Ministry of John the Harbinger
• Sections XIV and XV–The Christine Ministry of Jesus–The First Annual Epoch
• Section XVI–The Christine Ministry of Jesus–The Second Annual Epoch
• Section XVII–The Christine Ministry of Jesus–The Third Annual Epoch
• Sections XVIII and XIX–The Betrayal, Arrest, Trial, and Execution of Jesus
• Sections XX through XXII–The Resurrection and Appearances of Jesus–Establishment of the Christine Church
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1) Aquarian Gospel 22:14-18
[Go back]
2) Bhagavad Gita 4:18 [Go back]
3) Acts 17:28 [Go back]
4) See Robe of Light.[Go back]
