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5 Planes of Existence
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Five Planes of Manifestation
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JESUS OF THE GOSPELS
A symbol of the indwelling Higher Self (Christ),
or Divine Spirit in man, evolving towards complete manifestation. In
other words, it is the Divinised Soul, or Christ-soul, not yet but
almost perfected. It represents the personality towards the end of
the cycle, becoming perfect at the conclusion in the death of the
lower nature and the rise of the consciousness into the higher. The
meaning of the symbol varies somewhat between the exalted Christ and
the human, unperfected Christ-soul.
"Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus
answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end have I been
born, and to this end am I come into the world, that I should bear
witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my
voice." - JOHN xviii. 37.
The worldly, unstable mind (Pilate) puts the inquiry to the higher
nature, whether it is indeed a ruler of the soul? To this the higher
nature replies that the worldly mind always acknowledges the
sovereignty of that which is above it and incomprehensible to it.
The Christ within proclaims (verse 36), "My kingdom is not of this
world," for Christ reigns only over those qualities and souls which
are liberated from the lower nature and are of the higher kingdom on
the buddhic plane. To this end of victory over the lower, and
establishment of the higher, was Christ born into the evolving soul.
To this end did the Christ-soul become manifest in the lower nature
(world) that he might show forth the Truth that should overcome
illusion. Every quality and soul which is in harmony with the real
and true, responds to the call of the Christ and acknowledges the
supremacy of Love and Truth.
"The human soul conceived the Divine Life and brought it forth.
Jesus is, when born, the Life of the Soul in which he is born. Jesus
and the soul are one being, only the Life is greater than the soul."
- JOHN WARD, Zion's Works, Vol. VI. p. 276.
"Christ Jesus is no other than the hidden and true man of the
Spirit, the Perfect Humanity, the Express Image of the Divine Glory.
And it is possible to man, by the renunciation—which mystically is
the crucifixion—of his outer and lower self, to rise wholly into his
inner and higher self, and, becoming suffused or anointed of the
Spirit, to put on Christ, propitiate God, and redeem the earthly and
material. . . For, such of us as know and live the inner life, are
saved, not by any Cross on Calvary eighteen hundred years ago, not
by any physical blood-shedding, not by any vicarious passion of
tears and scourge and spear; but by the Christ-Jesus, the God with
us, the Immanuel of the heart, born, working mighty works, and
offering oblation in our own lives, in our own persons, redeeming us
from the world, and making us sons of God and heirs of everlasting
life. But, if we are thus saved by the love of Christ, it is by love
also that we manifest Christ to others. If we have received freely,
we also give freely, shining in the midst of night, that is, in the
darkness of the world." - The Perfect Way, pp. 112, 114.
See JOHN viii. 24. Notice, to begin with, that the word 'he' is not
present in the original. This makes a great difference. The passage
should read, "If ye believe not that I am, ye shall die in your
sins." The belief here referred to has a moral significance; it
implies the conformity of one's whole being, the concentration of
one's whole powers, upon a great and worthy object. What is that
object? It is here said to be Christ, the Christ who in this gospel
is not only identified with Jesus, but with the eternal Word by whom
creation exists, and who is therefore the source of humanity itself.
. . . The statement in the text thus amounts to this, that unless we
realise and trust the presence within us of that holy eternal fact,
that supreme reality, that humanity divine, which the world has come
to reverence as Jesus, we shall never escape from our moral
disabilities, we shall die in our sins. How is anyone ever going to
escape from the dominion of earthly passion and desire except by
relying upon something which is deeper and stronger than these
masters of the outer man?" - R. J. CAMPBELL, Serm., The Faith that
Saves.
"The Waldenses pretend that every man is a Son of God in the manner
that Christ was. Christ had God or the Holy Spirit for soul, and
they say that other men also have. They believe in the incarnation,
the birth, the passion, and the resurrection of Christ, but they
mean by it the Spiritual conception, Spiritual birth, Spiritual
resurrection of the perfect man. For them the true passion of Jesus
is the martyrdom of a holy man, and the true sacrament is the
conversion of a man, for in such a conversion the body of Christ is
formed (Jundt)." - R. M. JONES, Mystical Religion, p. 191.
"The individual can never say, 'I am not.' This 'I' which is the
knower, the actor, the thinker, the doer. It is the subject, not the
object, of thought. This is the genuine self, and it is identical in
its nature with the supreme knower of the world whom we call God. It
is one with God and inseparable from Him, as the sunbeam is one with
the sun and inseparable from it. The sunbeam has no life of its own,
but partakes of the life and nature of the sun. So does the Soul or
genuine Ego partake of the life of God, it is God within us. It is
unborn, it does not die; and it does not suffer." - K. C. ANDERSON,
Serm., The Buried Life.
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