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Word Gems
exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity
Soulmate, Myself:
Prometheus Denied
22: Kneading Bread and the Fist of Iron
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[an MLP plenary session]
L. Greetings to everyone, especially to our students, Kairissi and Elenchus. We have no official agenda today but only to wrap-up loose ends and to address final questions.
K. Day Star and Big Water have been so wonderful to us. We have learned so much under their wise guidance.
L. I am certain that is true. And, if I may ask, how are you both feeling
today about what is to come?
E. I’m coming to peace with our decision… it’s like leaving home-and-hearth to go far away to pursue a graduate degree. No one likes to be
away from the secure familiar, but the forthcoming benefits will be so
great that wisdom demands we do this.
K. Elenchus is right; for myself, I will add that I’ve had to face my fears
concerning losing him. I am still doing that, and I sense there is no perfect
peace for that; however, I also know that I need to do this, for many
reasons, not the least of which, to “become more” for the boy I love.
D. Allow me to offer a word of commendation: some weeks ago you
might have said “to become more that I might experience greater love
from him” – which, of course, is also true, but your focus is more other-centered now.
S. We have had many discussions concerning the deceptiveness of
the small ego, and I am pleased to detect a growing awareness in our
students of that detriment.
K. Thank you.
E. Kairissi is absolutely right. What we do, we do for love. And I am
learning there are many aspects of love – love of mate, love of self, love
for the world, and for God and all creation.
L. You and Kairissi once asked if the purpose of going to the Earth is
to grow in love. Arcnam informed us that “growing in love” is not the
problem. Love is built into our very natures – but we have trouble
accessing it. Arcnam would you care to further comment?
A. Thank you, Madam Grand Regent. Everything the spiritual person
does is motivated by love. Love comprises the very fabric, the subsuming
matrix, of reality. It is the essence of the mind of God. And what is love?
Love is that most sought-for exquisite feeling resulting from perceptions
of oneness.
K. Master Arcnam, please say more about this. There are degrees of
“oneness,” it seems, to be found in various relationships. For example,
could you explain how romantic love is also part of God’s love?
A. There is much confusion on this subject. The Earth-world knows a
form of romantic love which, in the main, is not God’s love – does not
represent “oneness” in any meaningful sense.
K. I am learning that those of the Earth easily view romantic “oneness" in terms of physicality.
A. It’s what they know. But the earthly romantic thrill and happiness is not necessarily the same as true love. Allow me to state the general rule: Happiness derives from "happenings," which is something external, but nothing external can ever satisfy us. Only Twins experience the healing balm of romantic Joy, which issues from the depths of the sacred soul, and it is this, only this Joy, that might fill our desires.
K. This is what I didn't understand.
A. Physical “oneness," while wonderful in its own right, can never satisfy the existential longings of the heart. At best, physical oneness constitutes metaphor of the true, spiritual oneness, two souls in ecstatic union.
E. Master Arcnam, how is true romance part of God’s love?
A. Let us begin to answer this question by first defining God’s love. Big
Water, since you have spent much time discussing the subject of love
with our students, would you please offer your insight?
B. Thank you, Master Arcnam. In one sense, the love of God will defy
any attempt at definition as it encompasses all endeavor, all activity,
within the Family of God. As stated, everything the spiritual person
does is motivated by love. But I am reminded just now of the teaching
of our brother Abu, the former ancient-Egyptian priest, and what he
learned from his sufferings as a mortal. He asserted that many religious
teachers on Earth are not fond of the phrase “love of God” as, to them,
it speaks of weakness. Instead, they prefer the “power” of God. By this
they mean coercive power, a forcible subduing, as they would have it, of
rogue elements in the universe.
S. An ultimate expression of this coercion would be the mythical, bodily, “Second Coming” of Brother Joshua to “rule with a rod of iron.”
B. Exactly so. If anyone in the Family of God were to exercise that kind
of military, brute-force “power,” why should we be considered different
from any despot of history, lording it over the plebs? But God’s “power”
in the universe does not express itself with the tyrant’s fist gripping a
“rod of iron.”
D. It is an oxymoronic view. The spiritually immature are very impressed
with what they perceive as the efficacy of the power of Evil.
B. Thank you, Dear. Abu expressed it well with the assertion that God’s
power in the universe is not one of coercion but of gently leading people
to the truth – softly forming and shaping recalcitrant ones into a better
frame of mind.
K. It seems to me that God is very respectful of people’s right to choose.
L. In our very first meeting we referred to this as a “prime directive” of
the Astral Realms.
K. Thank you, Madam Grand Regent. I mean, what good is forcing
people into obedient roles? The “iron fist” might appear to create a tidy
and efficient world in the short-term, but, underneath, people would
be seething with rage having been reduced to serfs and slaves in this
dystopian “well-ordered” society.
B. Quite right, Kairissi. And this is where the true love of God comes into
play. It patiently waits for people to wake up and to choose the way of
harmony and peace. Abu employed the term “kneading,” as in kneading
bread. God’s power is not harsh but “soft” as it “kneads,” fashions, and
shapes the spirit of wayward souls, leading them to higher planes of
thought.
D. As a teacher, I have learned that no student will truly and fully respond
to a lesson-plan unless the learner comes to respect and love the teacher.
True pedagogy is more than the dissemination of information but must
include mentoring. And the world at large will never voluntarily come
to God unless it senses that the power of God is also the soft and gentle
love of God. Those who are led by a darkened heart consider this “soft”
love of God to be weakness, but we should pay little attention to their
egoic delusion as they are part of the problem not the solution.
E. Day Star, I think that’s a beautiful way of putting it – unless the
student comes to love the teacher, there will be no true conversion.
And therefore God’s love must always present itself as a patient and kind
force in the universe.
K. I am so thankful to all of you in helping me understand the love of
God more clearly. Could someone now please connect all this with the
true romantic love?
L. Day Star tells me that you yourself did so well in recent discussions.
Why don’t you access your deepest sensibilities and bring the answer
to the fore.
K. (sighing)
L. Let me help you with a bit of prompting. Tell us of sacred “oneness” in
terms of God’s love just described.
K. Well… when people realize that God is not an angry God ruling with a
fist of iron, they will grow to love God and want to be a son or daughter
in the Family. In this affection for Divinity – an appreciation, really, for
rescuing one from the Darkness – people willingly align themselves with
God’s purpose, thereby creating harmony, unity, and oneness.
L. That’s very good. And we can feel the truth of that, can’t we. When
we perceive that someone loves us, we automatically want to draw near
and enter into relationship.
K. I like that so much, Lateece – “enter into relationship”! I’m
suddenly getting a vision of how God’s love relates to the true romantic
love.
L. Please share your understanding with all of us. I believe that God is
inspiring you this moment.
K. I’m just feeling a little overwhelmed right now. I’m seeing that
God’s love is all about us, drawing everyone into a harmonious Family
relationship… into a unity and oneness on all levels, with everyone
seeking the highest and best for all.
L. (smiling)
K. Authentic romantic love, the love shared by Twins, is just a subset of
this grand program of promoting cosmic accord, affinity, and oneness!
D. (very softly laughing) I joked with her recently about taking my job
now.
K. (small smile) Still not yet, dear sister.
B. (very softly laughing) As I’ve said, she does rather cheat at this.
L. Tell us more now of the “grand subset”.
K. “John and Mary” of the world know little of this spiritual
oneness. Spirit Guide Margaret asserts that each unconscious mate
will use the other to extract personal pleasure; and this domestic
Machiavellianism, Margaret says, causes more people to spend time in
“Dark Detention” than any other reason.
A. There’s an Earth-song about how people want to use and be used,
abuse and be abused. In these so-called romantic arrangements, do you
think people know when they’re being made into merchandize?
K. On some level of awareness, I think they do know… they well
know that they’ve not found the true love… and, as a result, I think John
and Mary, in their heart of hearts, do not trust each other in this “buying
and selling” of each other.
A. I take it that there’s little of the love of God in this merchandizing.
K. It will be very difficult for domestic Machiavellianism to inspire total
trust, a spiritual surrender, each to the other. In that political-domestic
atmosphere, John and Mary cannot experience a sense of being
“kneaded as bread,” formed and fashioned as another’s particularized
lover.
L. Speak more of this romantic “forming and fashioning.”
K. As we learned regarding brother Abu’s wisdom, the general application
of God’s love leads wayward souls to want to become like the Divine
Parent; they want to surrender egocentric agendas in favor of harmony
and oneness. It’s a kind of “forming and fashioning” of oneself as one
desires and chooses to become more like God.
D. This sounds like cause for concern – as you say, to “surrender,” to
make oneself vulnerable, like that – and possibly my words might remind
you of a very difficult ordeal awaiting you on Earth.
K. I know what you’re referring to, sister. Elenchus, please join this
discussion, as you understand this issue.
E. Day Star was alluding to the coming “betrayal” incident. Each
of us will take a turn at making oneself vulnerable, but… in this proffered
“kneading, forming, and shaping,” it will not work out well.
L. Not in the short-term, Elenchus. It will be your time to experience
living as “John and Mary” to each other.
E. I think that’s a good way of putting it.
L. But let’s put aside the hapless John and Mary and focus on the ideal.
How does vulnerability apply to the process of true love?
E. In the true romance, there is no private agenda, no turf protection.
Each lover proactively seeks the highest and best for the other. There
are no “games that people play”; there is no small ego with its incessant
pathological quest to seek for its own. Instead, each offers to the other
a sweet-surrender, always searching for ways and means to please the
other.
K. It’s a process of “forming and fashioning” oneself for the benefit of
the other, as each endeavors to make the other happy.
L. This “forming and fashioning” reminds us of the “blending of souls”
that we’ve heard about in the spiritual marriage.
D. (very softly laughing) I recall reminding a certain mate of mine that he
should be so lucky to be more like me.
B. (softly laughing) I’m still waiting for my paper to be re-graded.
K. I think it is a blending of souls – a synthesis to include a harmonizing
of plans, goals, aspirations – indeed, one’s very being – all in favor of
the beloved.
L. Will you summarize now how spiritual romance is like the love of God?
K. Please speak to this, dear Elenchus.
E. The love of God on every level of life, ever and always promotes
the best interests and happiness of all concerned. And on the level of
romantic Twin-Soul love, these sacred two naturally want to please
each other and will seek, each for the other, all good things in order to
make life happy for the beloved. In this process of sweet-surrender, each
becomes “kneaded, formed, and fashioned” – they fashion themselves.
– in the similitude of God.
A. Regarding your comment, “the love of God on every level of life,”
Rupert Sheldrake, in his biology-research, employs the term “nested
hierarchies,” useful to our purposes; in other words, God’s love is a
ubiquitous expression of “oneness,” from top to bottom, all the way
down to the most fundamental societal unit, the Twin-Soul union with
its legendary “One Person” love-relationship.
L. I think you are correct, Arcnum. God seeks to promote harmony and
oneness on all levels of existence. But this grand unity of all creation will
eventually be comprised of a super-collection, a vast confederation, of
romantic Twin-Soul units.
K. Multiplied units of the sacred “One Person”! Wow, Lateece, that is a
beautiful vision! This would mean that each mate, having been “made
in the image,” would reveal God to the other; each would mutually
teach the meaning of sacred affinity and harmony. And this is how the
knowledge of God, in most profound sense, will come to all the universe!
How amazing! – a magnificent cosmic integration, which, in its “atomic
structure,” will be characterized by an expansive array of Twin-Soul family
units!
L. There is good reason why our best mystics and philosophers speak of
God as “Mother-Father”! – as above, so below. That said, while we do not conceive of the mysterious “Divine Parents” as literal, anthropomorphic
male-female entities, in some sense, we believe “their” essence to issue
in terms of plurality.
S. As one of our teachers has well expressed: “How could God be a
‘father’ without also being a ‘mother’? The very term ‘father’ has no
meaning apart from, and in relation to, ‘mother’!” The notion of a stern
patriarchal “father-God” is a product of unenlightened, male-dominated
Earth society, blindly stumbling in its Dark Ages.
L. Thank you, Senbar. And now, Kairissi and Elenchus, we will not detain
you further today. We know your time is precious before embarkation.
If you require our assistance at any time, you know we are here to serve
you.
K. Thank you, everyone… we will always be in your debt.
E. Thank you…
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