Where all that glitters is gold!
When a person says something that is obvious, so self-evident, our retort is always, “Say it again!” At the risk of being greeted with the retort, I dare say we are living in the world of technological wonders. This was greatly in evidence in the run- off to this year’s Christmas Day.
From Washington to London, from London to Berlin, from Berlin to Paris it was glitters; there were unbelievable giant pyramidal flower arrangements. Public buildings glowed in artistic technological tinkering, draped in mind-blowing decorations which were unceasingly beaming fairy light, music light, all multi-coloured.
All these were brought to our living rooms and to our closets through the miracle robots called Android phones, iPhone, iPod, iPad and other gadgets in that family. Amidst the glitters, you could see and say that in several places, the streets were paved in gold and neat as accustomed. Apart from the wonders and apart from the beauty, what is increasingly obvious is the consciousness of the uniqueness of Christmas.
The Rays of the Season bring the awakening in our souls of something spectacular. And, indeed, something profoundly spectacular occurred at this period more than 2,000 years ago. A Part of the Most High, the Almighty Creator, descended into the world already engulfed in Darkness, bringing the Light that He was and still is to disentangle mankind from the suffocating mire. Something unusual is astir in our consciousness about the period even in places where memories of His descent have been smothered by unmitigated material pursuits. It cannot be otherwise given the forces of power that the Lord Christ bore and which accompanied Him; the power shot into the whole universe. The Light of God was accompanied by Angels. It is obvious the alert universe could not be indifferent to the immense power passing through.
There was dancing and rejoicing in all spheres from the Light Regions down to our universe, Ephesus. Urgent help was being rushed to mankind erring and groping in Darkness. So powerful was the impact of the herald of the advent that shepherds on the field fell on their knees, trembling. Every Christian will remember that an Angel appeared urging them reassuringly not to be afraid. The tidings of the earthly birth of the Christ were broken to them.
The shepherds, close to Nature, had been made clairaudient and clairvoyant so that they could bear witness to the joyous and momentous occasion. As the news spread a huge crowd massed around the stable in Bethlehem in which the infant Lord was born and He lay. So massive was the crowd surging to behold the greatest Gift of Love of God that Joseph the earthly father had to appeal to them to allow Mary have some rest. Three wise men vast in astronomy came from the East. They asked: “Where is He that is born King of the Jews for we have seen His Star, and are come to worship Him? (Matthew 2:2).
The crowd had gathered in Bethlehem for census for purposes of tax and the sorting out of ownership of landed property after the return of the Israelites from Babylonian captivity. The exercise necessitated the personal appearance of everyone in the land, including Mary and Joseph who had descended from the lineage of Davidic family. In the manner prophesies go, the gathering was in fulfillment of what Prophet Micah had foretold.
It is this same rejoicing we ostensibly attempt to re-enact in our celebration of Christmas and the Season. While we feel deep within us the import of the Day, celebrations have been made to overrun the significance which calls for reflection and genuine thanksgiving. The smothering has compounded the ignorance about the purpose of the coming of Jesus first instigated by the priestly Establishment of the time. The Priests found the Truth of Christ’s Teachings irksome, that they threatened their own power and influence, their hold on the people. They remembered the prophecies. “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6.) Prophet Micah did say of Bethlehem: “But thou Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel.” (Micah 5:2).
Resentment and scorn soon ended in hostilities towards the Lord and they conspired to get rid of Him. He was to ask what He had done that they wanted to kill Him. They accused Him of blasphemy for calling Himself the Son of God. They wondered from where He got His power to heal the sick, restore sight to the blind and raise the dead. “Tell us, by what authority doest thou these things? Or who is he that gave thee this authority?” He was asked at the commission of enquiry comprising high priests, scribes and elders seeking to entrap him from His answers. They were particular about getting Him to claim Divinity, the punishment for which carried a death sentence.
With all these to obfuscate the Lord’s true Mission, mankind were misled into believing the Lord was sent to die on the Cross to carry away the sins of mankind, He who was found sinless and who had brought Holy Peace. How could He harvest the fruits of sins the seeds of which He did not sow? Could He have taken the filth of sin and the darkness which it resultantly cast to the Realm of Light and Purity from whence He came? To do what there? To smear the place with sin and filth? These are questions we have not sat down to sufficiently reflect upon. Whereas His Mission was inconceivably sublime. It was to save mankind from the jaws of death and eternal damnation. It was the recognition of this that led to rejoicing in the Beyond and the Higher Planes. But on earth we rejoice over the account of His coming but not on the purpose of His Mission.
What could be more explicit about the purpose than His pronouncements thus: “Not everyone that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in Heaven.” (Matthew 7: 21).
“Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates.” (Revelation 22:14).
What the Lord Jesus brought was enlightenment about the Will of His Father. It is this Will that governs the entire Creation and also the Divine Realm. It is Divine Order. It ensures peace, bliss, joy and orderliness, development, beauty and everlasting life and motion. As we know, deviation from order engenders disorderliness, chaos and confusion, retrogression, ugliness and death. It is in a sense saying that the Almighty Creator does not need to interfere or intervene in the daily affairs of men. Reward and punishment are meted out in the outworking of the living incorruptible the laws bearing the Will. His Will has been perfect, flowing out of His perfection from the very beginning and from everlasting to everlasting. The choice for us human beings is between salvation and damnation.
The next logical question is how do we recognise this Will? You can only do what you recognise and understand. It is the enlightenment to which Teachers of mankind and the Prophets had sought to draw our attention, but to which mankind would not listen nor heed their admonitions. Indeed, in the obstinacy, mankind inflicted harm on them and in nearly all cases killed them. Those who listened and wanted to follow the teachings simply formed religions around them. In no time friction ensued and the teachings got distorted and mangled. The Ten Commandments handed down by Moses, for example, lost its lustre. Christ, Who is Truth and Life had to come in the expectation that given His Origin as a Part of God which is what the Sonship means, mankind would listen to Him. But alas, He, too, was brought to grievous harm, He was put to death!
The Will of the Creator is expressed in the Laws, variously called the Laws of Creation, the Laws of Nature, Spiritual Laws or the Divine Laws. Those who are familiar with the knowledge of the Ethereal World call them the Ethereal Laws. What they are called also confirms that they are in activity in all Creation as well as the Divine Realm which is above Creation in which is located Paradise of human spirits and the Paradise of higher spirits who were the ones created in the image of God. If this world is part of Creation, it sounds to reason that it must be part of the swinging in the laws.
In Paradise, we lived as unconscious spirit germs. There was this urge in us to become conscious and partake of the splendor which defined Paradise. Because the conditions there, such as the luminosity occasioned by the vicinity of the Light, would not permit of the development to self-consciousness, we had to be sent down to a cooler region where through influences of the material world assailing us we would mature and develop into self-conscious personalities.
Inherent in the human spirits is the free will to choose in view of the nature of spirit to attract. In the exercise of the free will, mankind chose to ignore the Laws, thus the Will of God. We sought to alter the ordinance of the working of the brains with the consequent one paralyzing the other. Yet, there is nothing anybody can do about the Laws, for they affect equally those who know about them as well as those who are ignorant about them. To draw our attention to the Laws and achieve the goal of becoming mature and of self-conscious personalities, Christ had to come after efforts by teachers and prophets sent at various stages of development and to different parts of the world were unavailing.
One of the Laws man has observed and over which he has drawn conclusion about its certainty is the Law of Sowing and Reaping which many call the Law of Karma or the Law of Retributive Justice. It is what those who stand in knowledge call the Law of Reciprocal Action. And Christ explained this in a direct pronouncement as “whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap, and many times over.” Not only do we sow physically which is visible in the planting of corn, we also sow through our thoughts and speeches and actions. As the seed, however, so are the fruits at harvest. So is it that murder will attract murder—if not in this earth life at a subsequent reincarnation or reincarnations and perhaps in another country if conditions in his original country he committed the heinous crime have changed and would not permit of such an act.
The second Law is the Law of Attraction of Homogenous Species which may also be referred to as the law of similarity. The law stipulates that all who have a lot in common pull together. So immutable is it that in gatherings it does not require any effort before smokers find themselves or drinkers the same. Don’t we consider it amazing how men of the underworld recruit members of their gangs? It is the law at work. It also ensures that people of noble character find themselves and form their own circles, be they in clubs and associations or in bonds of friendship. Towns and wards within towns are the consequences of the silent outworking of the Law of Attraction of Homogenous Species. As it applies to man so does it apply to animals, fishes and birds, and indeed plants and soil. Don’t we talk about sedimentary rock or metamorphic rock? Is it not in the saying of our forebears that birds of the same feather flock together? Are we not familiar with the saying, “show me your friend and I will tell you who you are? Like father like son! This shows the incorruptible role the law plays in the formation of families and the children they attract to themselves. In the case of children, if an expectant mother keeps the company of a strong character who influences the nature of the soul into her womb at incarnation this can lead to the birth of a black sheep in the family! A soul among the multitude keeping vigil for opportunities of incarnation to enters when pregnancy has gone halfway. In a nation in which people have pronounced dissimilarity, either of culture, worldview, aspirations and goals, for there not to be intractable hostilities, there must be a loose union so that each group can move at its own pace and in its own light without interference.
The third Law is the Law of Spiritual Gravitation which scientists call the law of gravity. The law determines whether a person is to ascend to high realms in the Beyond or not upon discarding the physical body at death. If burdened by the weight of the dross accumulated on his soul, a person sinks to the Dark Region in the Beyond, a region which is itself in gradations. There are planes of unceasing torment and planes of unspeakable rowdiness all of which produce hellish conditions. Planes of blindness, of deafness, of broken sharp objects and rocks. The law is illustrated on earth in an iron sinking to the bottom of a river but a balloon floating on top of an ocean.
We also have the Law of Movement. Everything is driven by motion. It is such that even during sleep, we role from one side of the bed to the other. Where there is no movement, there is no preservation. A man long on a hospital bed may lose the use of his limbs. In the same token, what is used develops and becomes strong and firm. We can see this with the legs of footballers or the arms of boxers or weight lifters. This law in activity can be observed in the osmotic law that proves that the stronger will always pull or indeed, suck in the weaker, if care is not taken. This was illustrated to mankind in the Parable of the Talents in which the Lord Christ said from whom who hath not that which he has shall be taken and given to him who has.
The coming of Christ, therefore, was to free us from our entanglements brought about by non-observance of the Laws. It was to turn our gaze upwards. He sought to bring us, through parables and primordial wisdom to the recognition of the Will of His father and for us to live guided by it in all things and at all times. It is through the observance and internalization of it that can get us qualified to enter through the golden gates into Paradise with its streets paved with gold. In the land of meadows, gurgling brooks, endless stretches of columns of flowers. The land of indescribable of beauty which we are told cannot be adequately depicted by any artist no matter how accomplished he may be, for what is most beautiful is not yet beautiful enough by our comprehension and capacity. So is it, we are told that the tones of the unceasing expression of gratitude of those who inhabit the Land reach us as Holy, Holy, Holy, God Almighty.
Some of the videos of Christmas light made possible by the technological wonders, videos of fairy lights in cities gleaming in seeming streets paved with gold can’t be but a reminder of our home Above where all that glitters is gold! This powerful reminder is the gift of Christmas!
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