Swami Nirmalananda Giri (Abbot George Burke)

A continuation of our series of postings on the early Christian writings, the mystical Odes of Solomon, written in Apostolic times.

Open ye open ye your hearts to the exultation of the Lord, and let your love abound from the heart and even to the lips.
To bring forth fruits to the Lord–a holy life, and to talk watchfully in his light.
Rise up and stand erect, ye who were sometimes brought low.
Ye who were in silence speak, for your mouth hath been opened.
Ye who were despised be lifted up, now that your righteousness has been lifted up.
For the right hand of the Lord is with you, and he will be your helper.
And peace hath been prepared for you, before your war ever happened.
Hear the word of truth, and receive the knowledge of the Most High.
Your flesh may not know what I am saying to you, nor your garment what I am showing to you.
Keep my secret ye who are kept by it; keep my faith ye who are kept by it.
And understand my knowledge ye who know me in truth; love Me with affection ye who love.
For I do not turn away My face from My own, for I know them.
Before they came into being, I took knowledge of them, and on their faces I set My seal.
I fashioned their members. My own breasts I prepared for them, that they might drink My holy milk and live thereby.
I took pleasure in them, and I am not ashamed of them.
For my workmanship are they, and the strength of My thoughts.
Who then shall stand up against My handiwork? Or who is there that is not subject to them?
I willed and fashioned mind and heart, and they are Mine. And upon my right hand I set My elect ones.
And My righteousness goes before them, and they shall not be detached from My Name, for it is with them.
Pray and increase, and abide in the love of the Lord;
And the beloved ones in the Beloved, and those who are protected in him Who lives, and those who are saved in him Who was saved.
And ye shall be found incorrupt in all ages, on account of the Name of your Father. Alleluia.
–Eighth Ode of Solomon

• Open ye open ye your hearts to the exultation of the Lord, and let your love abound from the heart and even to the lips.

The necessary thing here is to open our hearts, then everything will follow as it should. But what is the heart? Not the organ that pumps blood, but the very core of our being which is the pure consciousness that alone is spirit. We need to open our consciousness, our spirit, but a multitude of things are in the way: body, emotions, desires, mind, intellect and will: all of which have been distorted by our chaotic earthly experience.

They are meant to be instruments for our evolution, but instead they are instruments of stagnation and often regression rather than progress. Unless they are purified and made responsive to our spirit it will never be fully opened because they are like mountains of debris under which it is buried. Not only that, but they are continually being mistaken by us for our spirit and erroneously called “me” by us daily.

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Part 4 of Making Attraction and Aversion Work For Us, Not Against Us, a commentary on the 7th Ode of Solomon, written in Apostolic times.

• The Seers shall go before him, and they shall be seen before him. And they shall praise the Lord for his love, because he is near and seeth.

Those who see God are ever before his Face, and wherever they go they bring with them that sacred Presence. Fortunately I have known quite a few holy people like this. If I wanted to be with God I went to spend time with them. They have been of various spiritual traditions, for God knows nothing of our artificial boundaries and foolish attempts to have an exclusive franchise on his love.

When one man I knew would speak to a group there would an all-pervading sense of heavenly joy and sweetness. What he said was wise, but the inner experience was beyond all words. I was only a teenager then and had not yet read Yogananda’s definition that God is joy, but I certainly experienced it. Another blessed soul was a frail little lady who literally blazed with white fire which I could feel from a distance. She lived in constant spiritual vision.

It is true: God is “glorified in his saints” (II Thessalonians 1:10). He is their song and they are his. So before we see God he sends his holy ones to give us a “foretaste of glory divine” as Fanny Crosby put it. Such exalted souls dwell in God’s love “because he is near and seeth” them as surely as they see him.

• And hatred shall be taken from the earth, and along with jealousy it shall be drowned. For ignorance hath been destroyed upon it, because the knowledge of the Lord hath arrived upon it.

All the evil passions that are as demons tormenting humanity on this earth which they have turned into a hell spring from one cause: ignorance. This is why the great teachers of India, especially Shankara, insist that spiritual wisdom (jnana) alone brings liberation from the bonds of ignorance. When the knowledge of God (Brahmajnana) enlightens the consciousness then hell becomes heaven without our needing to go anywhere.

There was a spiritual adept in China who was a devotee of Amitabha Buddha, the Buddha of Infinite Light. Once as she was walking along softly reciting the invocation of Amitabha a spiritual wiseacre said to her contemptuously: “Tell me grandmother, do you think Amitabha Buddha is listening to you in his paradise?” To his surprise she shook her head, continuing her invocations. “Then if Amitabha is not in his paradise, where is he?” insisted the smart-aleck. She pointed to her heart and kept on walking and reciting.

The idea of peace on earth in a social and political sense is as silly as expecting mental institutions to cease having mentally ill people living there. This earth is where the spiritually crazy are put. Someone once asked Yogananda if he believed in hell. The Master smiled and asked: “Where do you think you are?” But peace and joy can prevail in the heart of God’s devotee wherever he may be. It is an individual matter, but none the less glorious for that.

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