Understanding Through Striving
Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I proceeded and came forth from God; I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to (‘bear to’ is not in the Greek version) hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But, because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? He who is of God hears the words of God; the reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.” John 8:42-47

Understanding is not a product, it is a process. It is not just a matter of opening our ears, we must engage in the process. The following words have resounded in the hearts of Initiates down the ages. If God held truth in one hand and the striving after truth in the other, I would choose striving after truth. The process of striving sets us free. According to the amount of effort we put into understanding, by that much we are free.

In this text, Jesus was speaking to people who were not used to thinking for themselves. All his wise words were taken at face value; they did not become a living experience, a belief. If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Perhaps Jesus over estimated their ability to understand – after all he was a bit ahead of his time! If we simply accept the words of the wise already spoken or written we will never be free. A thing once said must only ever be the basis for the process of understanding, not held as the finished product. As soon as we repeat ‘the thing once said’ it is second hand. When we strive for new connections between ideas, we create more neural pathways, pathways of consciousness, in our finer bodies.

This results in a stronger connection with our I AM and with the mind of Christ. Hear Christ saying those words “Why do you not understand what I say?” We cannot understand what Christ says with our earthly, rational mind. When we think with our head we cannot understand (perceive) with our heart. Ahriman, the father of lies, will always induce us to drown out our heart thinking with our head thinking. This is a fundamental problem for any of us walking the spiritual path.

One example of this is how head thinking gives us the wrong idea about our soul. The soul is spoken of as a lofty part of our being, equal to our “I”, sometimes confused with our “I”. The fact is, our soul must become the instrument of the “I” but instead it often dances to the tune of the astral consciousness. The soul is actually the battle ground between God and the devil. The winner is determined by the amount of striving we do. When we descended into matter, to us, matter was an illusion. We knew ourselves as spiritual beings, but we were not free.

Hence, through our own misunderstanding we called the earth maya, illusion. We couldn’t see through the mirror that reflected the plants, animals, colours, sounds etc. back to us. Christ came to give us the possibility of setting ourselves free from the illusion, to assist us to see through the mirror. We have been striving to experience the freedom that gives us this ability for the last two thousand plus years. It wasn’t until Archangel Michael became regent again a hundred or so years ago that we could really start to understand. But at the same time Charles Darwin and others were busy weaving a more vivid tapestry of the illusion – assisted by the father of lies (which is his job anyway). So then we saw a picture of our animal nature eclipsing our spiritual nature.

This is also why the metaphysical tenet: “We only ever confront self” cannot give us an accurate understanding of who we really are. We are much greater, much higher than the view that confronts us in the behaviour of others and the events around us. In our freedom, which is the reward for striving, we can explode the myth of maya. When we make the choice to work with the Christ force and see spirit within matter, then we create the balance between the devil and God. That is human destiny.