|
 To read aloud |
|
14.
TO LOVE THE LORD ABOVE ALL
AND ABOVE EVERYTHING
In the Gospel According to Matthew, Chapter 10, verses 37-39 it is said:
“He who loves father or mother more than Me is not
worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter
more than Me is not worthy of Me.”
“And he who does not take his cross and follow after
Me is not worthy of Me.”
“He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses
his life for My sake will find it.”
A similar statement, only in much stronger language, is also recorded in the Gospel According to Luke, Chapter 14, verses 26 and 27. There it is said:
“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father
and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters,
yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.”
“For whoever does not bear his cross and come after
Me cannot be My disciple.”
In the Gospel According to Matthew, Chapter 12, verses 48, 49 and 50, it is said:
“But He answered and said to the one who told
Him, “Who is My mother and who are My
brothers?”
“And He stretched out His hand toward His
disciples and said, “Here are My mother and My
brothers!”
“For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven
is My brother and sister and mother.”
This statement is repeated, with negligible modifications, in the
Gospel According to Mark, Chapter 3, verses 31-35 and in the Gospel
According to Luke, Chapter 8, verses 19-21.
What is the true meaning of these requirements? Why would Jesus
Christ go so far as to state that one cannot be worthy of Him unless one
hates one’s mother, father, sister, brother, wife, children and even
oneself personally?
The external, literal sense of the statement in Matthew Chapter 10,
verse 37 is very obvious: the Lord is to be loved more than anyone or
anything else, even more than those people who are in the closest and
most intimate physical relationship to that person.
The reason why one is to love the Lord Jesus Christ more than
anyone else is because no one can be as close and as intimate to everyone
as the Lord Who is ever present within everyone and Who, from that
position, generates and sustains life in everyone. Moreover, this is also so
because everyone is a carrier of a very unique and a very different
manifestation of the Lord’s presence within everyone. This manifestation
is the most precious and the most valuable thing everyone possesses and
has because it constitutes everyone’s unique being and existence. If it
were possible to withdraw that presence and its manifestation from that
person, which constitutes his/her unique and unrepeatable mind and
personality, that person would no longer be a self-aware, unrepeatable
and unique “I am,” but only an empty shell which would fall apart and
turn into nothingness.
This is the external or literal meaning of verse 37 in Chapter 10 of
the Gospel in Accordance with Matthew.
But, of course, for very important spiritual reasons, Jesus Christ
never spoke in the external or literal sense only. In all situations of His
life and teaching, Jesus Christ used carefully selected words and
statements that would convey multiple meanings understandable to all
levels, degrees, steps, regions, worlds and dimensions of His/Her entire
Creation and the Zone of Displacement.
It is necessary to realize that, as Swedenborg already pointed out,
when Jesus Christ spoke, He/She was listened to by all members of
His/Her entire Creation and the Zone of Displacement. His life and all
events of His life, as well as every word He ever spoke, were
meticulously, in all minute details, followed, observed and recorded by
every single individual in the entire Creation and not only by those who
were physically walking and talking with Him on this planet.
This is the reason why Jesus Christ always spoke in the language of
correspondences and parables, that is, in representative and symbolic
meanings. This language is an all-universal language and able to convey
the important spiritual ideas to all worlds and dimensions in the Most
High’s Creation in a simultaneous and synchronous manner.
Thus, all statements by the Lord Jesus Christ have very little or only
marginal relevance to the very narrow, one-sided and rigid
conceptualization of earthly relationships and events. So, when He
speaks about mother, father, son, daughter, sister, brother, wife,
husband, lover or whatever one has, it never means, or it indirectly
means, the earthly, physical, or blood relationships among those
relatives.
The words “father”, “mother”, “son”, “daughter”, “sister”, “brother”,
“wife”, “husband”, “lover”, etc., have manifold or multiple meanings and
significance. By these words very important and significant spiritual
ideas are being conveyed to the entire Creation at all its times, levels,
degrees, steps, dimensions, conditions, states, places, para-times, or
whatever is in being and in existence.
Such is the meaning of every external language and its words used by
people for communication with one another. Unfortunately, most people
do not realize that their language and all its words has such an
important meaning and significance and they limit the understanding of
their language only to the external, literal conveyance of their everyday
external living.
However, every single word that people use or utter contains much
more than what people are trying to convey by it to each other. This is
the reason why Jesus Christ stated:
“For by your words you will be justified, and by
your words you will be condemned.” (The Gospel
According to Matthew, Chapter 12, verse 37).
The words used and their adopted manner of speech, through their
correspondential meaning, reflect everyone’s current spiritual condition.
This condition determines one’s true relationship with the most
important factor of one’s life — the Most High, the Lord Jesus Christ.
This factor is decisive in the matter of one’s justification or
condemnation.
In view of the above revealed facts, what was it, then, that Jesus
Christ was trying to convey to everyone?
This becomes obvious from the symbolical, representative, or
correspondential meaning that the words, “father”, “mother”, “brother”,
“sister”, “son”, “daughter”, “wife”, etc., have.
These words in the positive sense reflect various aspects of love and
wisdom, of good and truth, of charity and faith, and how they relate to
people and to all their establishments and their various forms of
manifestation. In the negative sense these words reflect various aspects
of all evils and falsities and how they interrelate and what forms of
manifestation they take.
“Father”, in this connotation, as relevant to this topic only, signifies
the various loves and their affections that one adopts during one’s
earthly life or during a certain phase of manifested life at various levels,
regions, and dimensions of the Most High’s Creation or in the Zone of
Displacement. These loves and their affections become one’s life style and
one’s mode of living with which one fully identifies oneself.
The reason why the word “loves” is used in plural instead of
singularly (as the English language would require) is to reflect
corresponding significance of the fact that one consists of many very
specific and intimate loves and their very specific and intimate subjective
and personal affections that constitute one’s life. Each specific love of
one’s life corresponds to different spiritual states and processes either in
a positive or a negative sense. The singular mode of the word “love”
cannot convey the multiple specific meaning of each particular love. It
can convey only a general summarized and all-inclusive condition which
is not sufficient for dealing with the specificity and intimacy of the
content of each love one has and experiences. This is the reason why it is
very often necessary to use the plural mode of such words as “love”,
“evil”, “good”, “truth”, “falsity”, etc. (that is, “loves”, “evils”, “goods”,
“truths”, “falsities”, etc.).
In this respect the stifling rules of grammar must be broken since the
law of spiritual correspondences supersedes any external grammatical
rules that very often don’t allow expression of the true meaning of
correspondences contained in a used word.
Thus, the word “father” here means various specific, private,
individualized, intimate and very often secret loves and their numerous
affections that constitute or entirely influence one’s current life style,
one’s personality, one’s behavior, one’s mentality and everything else in
one’s everyday living.
To love one’s father more than the Lord signifies, in this connotation,
to give preference to one’s external attachments that one is affected by
and that one learns to love, to follow and to abide by in one’s life. When
one starts to love one’s various attachments on the account of loving the
Lord above everything, one falls into a trap by being ruled and enslaved
by one’s attachments. In this respect, one loses one’s freedom and
independency.
However, if one continues to love the Lord above all one’s
attachments, one loves one’s true essence and substance, one’s internals
where the Lord always is and one maintains one’s freedom, independency
and individuality. In this case, one rules and controls all one’s loves and
their affections. To rule and control all one’s loves and their affections is
possible only from the Lord within because only the Lord knows exactly,
in an absolute sense, the full nature, content, meaning, outcome and
consequence of any loves, affections and attachments. As long as these
loves serve one’s ruling love — love to the Lord Jesus Christ above all
other loves, they serve their use and they support the positive state and
one’s freedom and independency.
On the other hand, in the Gospel According to Luke, Chapter 14,
verse 26, the word “hate” is used. It says there:
“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his
father... “
In this connotation the word “father” signifies all one’s loves and their
affections, attractions, ideas, concepts, attachments, etc., which are of an
evil and destructive nature. They close the way to the Lord Jesus Christ
and make it impossible to establish any proper relationship with the
most important factor in one’s life — with the Most High, one’s Creator.
In a deeper and more spiritual sense, the word “father” means to love
external doctrines, ideas, concepts, religions, churches, philosophies, etc.,
more than the internal presence (in one’s Inner Mind) of the Lord Jesus
Christ Himself/Herself.
In the connotation of the Gospel According to Luke, the word “father”
signifies to love all productions and fabrications of the hells that
fabricate various pseudo-religions, doctrines and ideas which destroy the
true meaning and understanding of any spirituality and, most
importantly, of the Most High.
If one is ever to establish a proper, correct and loving relationship
with the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is the true Most High, one must learn to
despise and hate all evils (plural) and falsities produced by the negative
state in the hells. One can never find any proper path to one’s true self
and the true Most High as long as one adopts, accepts or identifies
oneself with any such hellish ideas, concepts, doctrines, religions or
whatever they have there. One can never become a true follower and
disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ by such evil means.
Unless one is a disciple and follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, one can
never find oneself and determine who one is and why one lives here or
anywhere else. This can be found out only from within, from the Lord
Jesus Christ’s presence in that within, that is, in one’s true Inner Mind.
However, any acceptance, adoption of or identification with any form of
hellish loves to evils closes the way to that within, that is, to the Lord
Jesus Christ.
This is the reason why the Lord Jesus Christ used such a seemingly
harsh word as “hate”. One must truly hate evils and their falsities
because otherwise they destroy one.
The word “mother” in this particular connotation, as relevant to this
topic only, signifies all churches in being and existence and their
particular respective doctrines, dogmas, rituals, procedures, taboos,
prescriptions and dictates and all truths or falsities respectively, that
they contain. To love one’s mother more than the Lord signifies an
infatuation with giving preference to and considering the external
institutions, organizations, customs, conventions, traditions, cultures,
churches, religions, etc., adopted by various societies, more important
than anything else, and deriving all knowledges, understandings, and
truths from them instead of from one’s internals, that is, from one’s Inner
Mind where the Most High can be found. Thus, instead of relying on and
deriving everything from the Most High in one’s true Inner Mind, one
relies on and derives everything from those external establishments and
organized churches that supposedly have a license on the real truth.
Therefore, one is to learn to love the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is the
true Most High, above all those mentioned external establishments and
to consider them, if they contain any positive connotation at all, only a
means to getting inward into the presence of the Most High for the
purpose of loving Him/Her more and more everyday and for the purpose
of deriving all knowledge and truth from the very source of that
knowledge and truth — the Most High.
On the other hand, in the connotation of the Gospel According to
Luke’s statement, in verse 26, Chapter 14, to hate one’s mother signifies
to despise and to reject all numerous falsities produced in the hells and
adopted and manifested in the form of various religions, churches and
their doctrines as well as by all external institutions, organizations,
states, conditions, customs, traditions, conventions and cultures that
either deny the being and existence of God or proclaim false gods to be
the true God.
It is obvious that any identification with the above (“mother”) leads to
one’s destruction and the total closure of the path to the true knowledge
of the Most High, the Lord Jesus Christ, others and oneself. Without
such knowledge and its application one will remain totally lost as long as
one clings to one’s “mother” and “father,” etc.
The word “son,” in this particular connotation, as relevant to this
subject only, signifies all consequences, results and outcomes that one
acquires from one’s “father,” that is, as a result of accepting, adopting
and identifying with all one’s loves and their various affections. As
everyone knows, any love and its affection produces or bears fruits.
Those fruits and the consequences of the manifestation of the adopted
loves and their affections is what the word “son” means and signifies.
“Son” means the result, consequence and outcome of one’s love and its
affection. If it is not love to the Lord above all and above everything, it
will result in the consequences and outcomes that will lead one away
from the Most High, and, thus, in an ultimate sense, from oneself. This is
the reason why it is necessary, vital and crucial to love the Lord Jesus
Christ more than all the fruits, results and consequences of one’s
affections and identities. If such affections and identities are of an evil
source they should be despised and not permitted to enter one’s life at
all.
The word “daughter,” in this particular connotation, signifies the
fruits, results, consequences and outcomes of reliance on and derivation
from all those establishments that are signified and symbolized by the
word “mother” (as described above). These either have to be loved less
than the Most High, if they have any positive connotation, or they are to
be totally despised and rejected if they are of the hellish origin.
The text in Luke uses the word “children” which signifies, in this
particular connotation, a summary of all consequences, outcomes and
results of the state of all one’s loves and their affections (“father”) and
the process of one’s infatuation with and giving preference to the
external factors as the only source of truth (“mother” — as reflected in
churches, institutions, traditions, customs, conventions, cultures, etc.) on
account of one’s own internal spirit. If these are solely of hellish origin
they should be totally rejected and despised because they lead away from
any good and from any truth and trap one into accepting evil as good,
and falsity as truth.
The word “brother,” in this particular connotation, signifies any other
than one’s own loves and their affections that can be found in other
people, which are either of a very similar nature or they follow a similar
life path. One should never give any preference, admiration and love to
other people’s way of life above the Lord, no matter how pleasant, how
admirable, how successful and how effective they are, because one’s life
can neither be derived from nor be dependent upon anyone else’s life and
love. Should such love and life be of a hellish origin, one should reject
and despise the evilness of that life and its love, and not that particular
person, so that one is not hindered by one’s inappropriate admiration of
other forms of love from the true source and origin of one’s life, that is,
from the Lord Jesus Christ within. One cannot find the way to the Most
High through others or by others or by their ways of living, loving and
functioning. One can do so only through and by oneself from the presence
of the Most High in one’s Inner Mind.
The word “sister,” in this particular connotation, signifies any other
concepts, ideas, doctrines, churches, religions, institutions,
establishments, traditions, etc., and their truths or falsities that are of a
very similar nature or content as those with which one is infatuated or
identified. The danger of loving one’s “sister” more than the Most High in
this respect is in using the similar ideas and concepts contained in those
other sources to justify, to excuse and to prove one’s own point,
philosophies, views, life style and particularly the need and bad habit of
deriving everything from the external establishments and factors. If
everyone else derives everything from these external factors, then one
tends to accept such a bad habit — deriving everything from the
externals — as an irreversible necessity and the only reality, instead of
considering it as a foolish choice that has no true reality and, therefore,
can be changed or totally rejected. This is what the Lord Jesus Christ
meant by the word “to hate” one’s sister.
The word “wife,” in this particular connotation, doesn’t refer to one’s
physical spouse (in this respect the word “husband” would have a similar
significance and meaning) but to a certain spiritual state into which
every person enters regardless of whether that person is a male or a
female. Thus, in this context the word “wife” is in no way related to a
woman only. It relates equally to both men and women.
In this respect, “wife” signifies appropriation, accumulation and
incorporation of a certain, specific life style and relevant to it certain
specific spiritual and non-spiritual ideas that become one’s professed life
philosophy and religion. This philosophy and religion becomes one’s
possession and property that needs to be jealously guarded by all means,
protected, preserved, adored, worshipped and never shared with anyone
or with only a very few selected people.
The very negative connotation of this meaning is obvious because
such a philosophy or religion (“wife”) leads one to the attitude of
self-righteousness, self-exclusivity, intolerance and all other similar
atrocities and abominations of the hells. This is the reason why the Lord
Jesus Christ stated that this “wife” must be hated, that is, totally
rejected and despised if one is to become His true follower and disciple.
One cannot very well be a spiritual human being, a follower of the
Lord, if one is in love with one’s spouse (symbolically speaking), that is,
with one’s own appropriations, identifications, accumulations,
possessions and properties. This kind of love takes away one’s ability to
love the Lord Jesus Christ above all and above everything. It closes all
paths to the positive state while, at the same time, it opens all the doors
into the hells, that is, to the negative state. It also repudiates one’s
ability to truly love oneself and others and, therefore, it closes any path
to within and to acquirement of the proper knowledge of the Most High,
others and oneself.
“To hate his own life also,” in this particular connotation, as relevant
to this topic only, signifies to reject and to despise everything that one
considers to be one’s life from the standpoint of one’s external mind.
“One’s own life” means everything related to earthly, worldly, corporeal,
material and sensual matters or to what Swedenborg called “proprium,”
that is, one’s own, as produced from the sensory inputs and outputs of
the physical senses and all consequent derivatives which are assumed to
constitute one’s life beyond which no other life exists or even is possible.
Whatever is one’s own, in this particular sense, does not come from the
Lord, and, therefore, the Lord cannot be present in it. If it doesn’t come
from the Lord, then the only place or state it can come from is from the
negative state of the hells.
Thus, whatever is one’s own, in this connotation, is always evil,
unless it is surrendered to the Lord for some specific use. If one doesn’t
reject this kind of personal or proprial life, one has no true life at all
because the true life can come only from the Absolute Source of Life —
the Most High.
This is the reason why in verse 39 of Chapter 10 of the Gospel in
Accordance with Matthew, Jesus Christ said:
“He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses
his life for My sake will find it.”
“To find one’s life” means to lose it because what one finds is the
temporary, transient, material and external factors of life that are
fallaciously considered to be one’s own life. The moment one begins to
consider this to be one’s true life, one really loses life because there is no
true life possible in worldly and earthly things by themselves and in
themselves. Thus, one turns one’s back on the true Source of Life — the
Lord Jesus Christ, and considers what is not life to be true life. This is
the loss of one’s true life.
On the other hand, “he who loses his life for My sake will find it,”
signifies that once one realizes that what he/she considered to be life is
not a true life but that there is a true Source of Life — the Lord Jesus
Christ, he/she will stop considering something to be life which is not true
life, and therefore will lose that kind of life. At the moment of this kind of
realization, the door to the true Source of Life is open and one will find
one’s true life in the Lord Jesus Christ Who is ever present in one’s Inner
Mind.
From this it obviously follows that there is no true, genuine life in the
externals, in anything worldly, material, earthly, or sensorial. The true
life can be found only in the states of the internals, in the Inner Mind,
because it is there where the true Lord Jesus Christ, Life in
Himself/Herself and by Himself/Herself, abides and can be found. The
true reality is there, the kingdom of God. After all, the kingdom of God is
within everyone (Luke, Chapter 17, verse 21).
The realization and actualization of this fact in one’s life brings about
the loss of the found life (earthly, external life) and that loss, in return,
gives one the opportunity to find the true life in the Lord Jesus Christ.
In verse 38 of Chapter 10 in Matthew and verse 27 of Chapter 14 of
Luke, Jesus Christ states:
“And he who doesn’t take his cross and follow after
Me is not worthy of Me.”
Luke’s version is as follows:
“And whoever doesn’t bear his cross and come after
Me cannot be My disciple.”
“To take or to bear one’s cross” signifies, in this particular
connotation, to recognize an important fact that whoever volunteered to
participate in the negative state, no matter where or when, he/she
volunteered for certain important spiritual reasons, with a certain
specific assignment, purpose, and mission to illustrate, demonstrate and
exemplify by one’s life certain aspects of the positive or negative state, or
both. Mostly, it is both. The consequences and outcomes of such a
mission, because it is, after all, a mission into the negative state, is not
always a pleasant one and contains a lot of problems and sufferings.
The recognition of the necessity to bear the consequences of one’s
voluntarily chosen assignment in the negative state and accept this in
modesty, humbleness, and humility means to bear one’s cross and, of
course, it means to do the will of God. Whoever doesn’t want to accept
this fact in modesty, humbleness and humility, and constantly complains
about his/her fate, deal, or condition, and desires to recede or to give up
his/her assignment and mission is the one who does not bear his/her
cross and, therefore, doesn’t do the will of God. Such a person is not
worthy of Jesus Christ or to be His disciple. The reason is that such a
person breaks his/her promise and vow to do the will of God in the
negative state, which he/she volunteered to do in the first place.
When one hears the Lord and does His/Her will from one’s own free
will and by one’s own free choice, one becomes the Lord’s “mother,”
“brother,” “sister,” etc., meaning that one adopts the true spiritual
doctrine of Jesus Christ from within and with all its consequences,
results, outcomes and fruits. In those kinds of fruits, Jesus Christ is
always present as in His/Her own and from them one can properly relate
to the Lord in the most loving and wise manner and way.
To do the Lord’s will, with deep love and appreciation, with patience,
devotion, faithfulness, loyalty, without any complaints and bitterness but
in modesty, humbleness and humility and to consider doing the Lord’s
will to be the most important thing that has the highest and the foremost
priority of all, this is what is meant by loving the Lord Jesus Christ
above all and above everything.
Source: MAJOR IDEAS OF THE NEW REVELATION
