Odes of Solomon Archives

Tuning Into God: Growing in Knowledge Through Spiritual Life

Growing in Knowledge through spiritual life

Part 2 of the Eighth Ode of the early Christian writings, the mystical Odes of Solomon. (See part 1 here.)

Hear the word of truth, and receive the knowledge of the Most High.

The Word of Truth is spoken in the depths of our spirit; it is not something spoken by any human being: it is the voice of God that has always been speaking to us, but which we were unable to hear. Again we see that interior life is absolutely indispensable, otherwise we will remain blind, deaf and mute in the inner kingdom of the spirit. Therefore: “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.… Work out your own salvation,… for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:5, 12-13). And God does not fail.

Your flesh may not know what I am saying to you, nor your garment what I am showing to you.

To be “carnally [fleshly] minded” (Romans 8:6) is to be blind to things of the spirit. “As it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him” (I Corinthians 2:9). So our five body-garments: body, emotions, desires, mind, intellect and will, have no idea what awaits the liberated spirit. But our spirit even now knows, because “we have the mind of Christ” (I Corinthians 2:16).

Keep my secret ye who are kept by it; keep my faith ye who are kept by it.

However, when we do come to know the full life of the spirit, we are not to speak of it, for it is a secret between us and God. What we need is not to brag about it and expound our spiritual life to others, but to “keep faith” with God, Who will then keep us secure in the spirit.

“My beloved is mine, and I am his” (Song of Solomon 2:16). “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine” (Song of Solomon 6:3). It is between the spirit and God alone.

Open Your Heart Through Purification and Meditation

open your heart

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.

Those Who See God: Alive in Divine Consciousness

alive

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.

The Journey to God Through the Practice of Yoga

Journey to God-practice of yoga

Part 3 of Making Attraction and Aversion Work For Us, Not Against Us, a commentary on the 7th Ode of Solomon, written in Apostolic times (to be available as a paperback and ebook later this year).

For he it is Who is incorruptible, the perfection of the worlds and their Father.

This is an exposition of the nature of Ishwara. If we unite ourselves with him through yoga sadhana we shall become like him.

He has allowed him to appear to them that are his own, in order that they may recognize him that made them, and not suppose that they came of themselves.

One of the greatest flaws of any religion or spiritual philosophy is the presumption that spiritual truths can be figured out intellectually or by applying logic. Anyone with a modicum of self-observation is aware of both the limitations and the unreliability of the mind. This is why all authentic spiritual traditions tell us that the only viable working with the mind is that which enables us to go beyond the mind!

Maharshi Patanjali In the Divine Unity, the Supreme Spirit fosters the evolution of all the individual spirits which draw their being from It. Patanjali tells us in the Yoga Sutras that God himself is the Guru of all. (“Being unconditioned by time he is guru even of the ancients” 1:26.) Mostly he teaches through providing the experiences that their own higher minds determine, but he does at times teach them through intuitions that arise from the depths of their own beings where God is to be found.

The ancient tradition of India tell us that the primeval sages, the rishis, turning within in profound meditation, discovered Brahman as the essence of all Being, just as the ode says in this verse. Brahman is also our Source, the power which has enabled our manifestation within relativity and which empowers us to ascend to the Absolute.

For knowledge he hath appointed as its way; he hath widened it and extended it and brought it to complete perfection.

This is why we must persevere in the practice of japa and meditation, simple as they may seem. On the mechanical level they are simple (even childishly simple) but on the level of their effects they are as complex as relative existence itself. That is why the practice of yoga can deliver us from the nets and snares of relativity.

You will find that your experience of yoga practice will be infinitely varied. On occasion, of course, your meditation and japa may seem to be the same day after day, but that is because your inner and outer bodies are adjusting to the plateau of evolution your practice has brought you to. The effects are being assimilated and permatized during such periods. But after a while you will perceive yourself moving on in the depths of meditation to new areas of development.

How and Why God Draws Us to Himself

God draws us

Part 2 of Making Attraction and Aversion Work For Us, Not Against Us, a commentary on the 7th Ode of Solomon, written in Apostolic times (to be available as a paperback and ebook later this year).

My joy is the Lord and my impulse is toward him.

This is a completely theocentric matter. God is the total focus. As the desert father, Saint Arsenios the Great, said: “Unless you say: ‘God and I alone exist,’ you will never find God.”

Certainly religion is important, even essential, but it is only a instrument. No one admires the piano or the violin, but rather the brilliant pianist and violinist. Religion is a tool to be used by the seeker; the seeker is not to be a tool of religion.

On the other hand we cannot imagine a sane pianist or violinist claiming they have no need of a piano or a violin, so neither should we credit someone who says they need no religion. Nonsense is never sense.

There is within each one of us an elemental impulse toward God. Although our intelligence (buddhi) must cooperate in our return to God, still it is never a merely intellectual or emotional impulse. Rather it is inherent in our essential being itself. It is part of our eternal nature. Therefore to be an awakened person means to be experiencing and acting upon this godward impulse.

This path of mine is beautiful.

How is the path beautiful? “The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day” (Proverbs 4:18). It is beautiful because it increasingly brings us nearer the Divine Beauty: God. Again, God is the measure of the matter, not the seeker or the mechanics or requirements of the search.

For I have a helper–the Lord.

We are not alone on the path. The Lord of Beauty himself is our companion. But he is not a passive companion. Rather:

The Deifying Work of the Holy Spirit in Man

deifying holy spirit

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

Many of the Odes of Solomon are expressions of the illumined soul, as is this sixth ode. It is also an exposition of how the deifying power of God, the Holy Spirit embodied in (and as) the Divine Word, accomplishes its work in the individual.

As the wind moves over the harp, and the strings speak, so speaks in my members the Spirit of the Lord, and I speak by his love.For it destroys whatever is foreign, and everything that is bitter.
For thus it was from the beginning, and will be to the end.
That nothing should be contrary, and nothing should rise up against him.
The Lord has multiplied the knowledge of himself, and is zealous that these things should be known which by his grace have been given to us.
And the Praise of his Name he gave us, our spirits praise his Holy Spirit.
And there went forth a stream and became a river great and broad, for it flooded and broke up everything and it shattered and brought it to the Temple.
And the restraints of men were not able to restrain it, nor the arts of those whose business it is to restrain waters.
For it spread over the face of the whole earth, and filled everything.
Then all the thirsty upon the earth drank, and thirst was relieved and quenched.
For from the Most High the drink was given.
Blessed then are the ministers of that drink, who are entrusted with that water of his.
They have refreshed the parched lips, and have aroused the paralyzed will.
And souls that were near departing, they have held back from death.
And the limbs which had fallen, they straightened and set up.
They gave strength for their coming, and light to their eyes.
For everyone knew them in the Lord, and by the waters they lived an eternal life. Alleluia.
–Ode of Solomon 6

As the wind moves over the harp, and the strings speak, so speaks in my members the Spirit of the Lord, and I speak by his love.

Just as “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2) in the beginning of creation, so the Holy Spirit, the Holy Breath, moves upon the inner constitution of the progressing individual and “speaks” within him. From that proceeds inner development (evolution) as well as intuitive illumination of his intellect to guide him in the ways of continual unfoldment of his spiritual potential. Eventually he in his turn “speaks” by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Love of God.

This has the implication that what has been automatic in the individual because it is the action of the Holy Spirit alone becomes in time the “doing” of the individual himself. The flame is passed from the Holy Spirit to the aspirant, so that what was heretofore subliminal becomes a matter of full consciousness and intention so that he is competent to evolve himself and “work the works of God” (John 6:28).