The Sermon on the Mount, Part VII of XL

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TEXT: Continuing with Mt. 5:

18. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

COMMENTARY: Jesus wanted his audience-- all religious traditionalists-- to open their hearts to his message of Love. So he made concession to their fanatical Biblicism by noting that the ancient documents did contain some truth. But the fanatics lived scrupulously by the minutest adherence to these "laws of Jehovah," and Jesus obviously rejected this extremism, for it is nowhere found among later Christians. He did not reject everything in Judaism, and wanted his audience to know this. But he did reject their Jehovah, and a large number of "His" laws.


TEXT:

19. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

COMMENTARY: The ideas behind much in Judaism, and Jewish Law, were good. They had a civilizing effect on the desert-nomads and barbarian-tribes to whom they were given. The Ten Commandments is a good example. Most of them would have a civilizing effect on any person, not just the Jewish culture. Jesus did not want to "throw out the baby with the bath-water." He wanted his disciples to respect the Scriptures of all faiths, but not necessarily scrupulously to arrange their lives around them.

TEXT:

20. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

COMMENTARY: The "scribes and Pharisees" were the ministers, preachers, and religious leaders of that time. So, Jesus used them as a bad example; while fanatical about "obedience to the laws of Jehovah," they lacked essential goodness. They turned deeper spirituality into mere religion, and transformed that religion into mere legalism.

Obedience to laws does not create goodness. It does not lead to enlightenment or "salvation." This legalism is useless in the face of ignorance.

Instead, the people of Love always obey Love as their living, interior Master. Early Christians were notorious for ignoring the ancient texts of the Jewish Bible, and obeying their Lovetrained conscience instead.

Beware the Anti-mystic

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The mystic is a being who makes honor, honesty, justice, fairness, and, most of all, Love the nucleus around which her entire life orbits. But there are truly anti-mystical people in this world. These mentally ill people are called, by psychologists, "sociopaths." (Sometimes, they are also called "psychopaths.")

A sociopath is a person who has sown the seeds of hatred, pain, obscenity, and violence life after life. In fact, he or she has created such a monstrous mind that, in this life, he or she is born without a conscience. This person is enormously, immensely unspiritual; in fact, the sociopath is spiritually crippled. All true spirituality is absent from his/her life.

The very ill sociopath often believes her/himself to be "superior" to the mystic, and to all others. For good people must live within the limits of a Love-trained conscience. Because the sociopath lives without any moral compass, or interior "gyroscope," he/she often sees him/herself as "free" of the need for goodness, honesty, decency, or responsibility.

The sociopath can lie outrageously. He/She can cheat, steal, gossip, ruin, and even kill without feeling a thing. In politics, the sociopath can be absolutely ruthless.

In public, of course, the sociopath must pretend to have "normal" feelings, but is often exposed by this single fact: The sociopath never really cares at all for or about other people. She can pretend, for short periods, to be charming, and even caring. But, sooner or later, her behavior-pattern will give her away. "For even her "acts of kindness" are contaminated by utter selfishness. She never performs a truly selfless act.

This nightmarish disease of the mind is always dominated by a naked, often absurdly cruel, selfishness. The sociopath is incapable of true kindness, empathy, goodness, selflessness, or Love. The sociopath, if she/he becomes a political leader, can mass-murder hundreds of thousands without feeling even a minor twinge of conscience. He/She can smile in your face while killing you-- or a friend, or a stranger. He or she can do absolutely anything, no matter how hideous or horrible, and never spend a single sleepless night; for the sociopath is totally without conscience. Because of this cruelty, ruthlessness, and total absence of goodness, the sociopath often creates much "personal success" in either politics or business. But she is always a miserable failure as a human being. For she/he has no idea in the world what even "goodness" means.

Since it is estimated that one out of every twenty-five people might be a sociopath, do not be surprised if you know one personally. The sick sociopath might be a member of your own family or neighborhood. Sociopathology is related to, but is not the same as, the mental illness called "paranoia." (The paranoiac believes that everyone is secretly acting against him/her, out to "betray"" him/her.

The sociopath is unable to love. He/she is in perpetual hell within her/his own mind, but cannot create a way out,for the way out of "hell"is Love. Best advice: If we do know someone who has the symptomology of the sociopath, and since we cannot change or heal her, it would be better for everyone if we simply avoided the agony that can be caused by the sociopath. For a sociopath, unable to love, devoid of Love, is as close
to true "evil" as any human being can come.
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