DIVINE LOVE AND SELF-LOVE
REVELATION OF ST. JOHN – TAPE 6
CHAPTER 2:18-2:29
HERBERT FITCH
DIVINE LOVE AND SELF-LOVE
Last week we dwelt in the third letter to the churches meaning the qualities of God in Christ. And the letter was to the angel of that church in the city of Pergamos. And this was to the angel, which is Christ within you. Now we learned during this letter that Jesus was never crucified. That all self, being Spirit, individual self is Spirit and all that can be crucified is the image in mind called physical form. Which, when Spirit is realized, becomes a spiritual divine image and there is no body there to be crucified, to be sick or to be buried. And this was basically the essence of the letter to the church at Pergamos.
Now it was necessary for us to reach that point where we can understand that the Spirit of God cannot be crucified. And that the Spirit of God is all there is. It was necessary in order to reach into a new level of ourselves leading to the Fourth Dimension of consciousness. A level that is only obtainable when you have overcome the material consciousness of this world.
And now in the fourth letter to the churches there is a letter to the angel of the church in Thyatira. Now this is a message about love. But you would never recognize it because it is also about a woman name Jezebel, who represents self-love. And although it is very easy to do an inspiring talk about love and how beautiful love is and how divine love sustains the universe, most of us have heard inspiring talks about love. And they are only one side of the coin. We find something new must be added to our understanding of divine love. Something must be cut away. Something must die in us for the true higher understanding of divine love to come into our experience. And that is the purpose now of this letter to the churches.
And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write; These things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass; (Rev 2:18.)
Now the eyes like unto a flame of fire. This is the way of speaking of omniscience, having all wisdom. And his the feet of fine (burning) brass, again feet often refers to wisdom in the sense that that which you know you walk upon. And so this wisdom is of enduring qualities of brass. In other words he who is speaking to us is he who is omniscient with that wisdom which is enduring.
You are one with source when you hear the words of the Spirit through John. And he is addressing the Christ within you. The Father within who is the Son of the Father infinite. He is addressing that quality of love of the Father, which is omnipresent to your being. He is talking directly to the quality of divine love in you. To make your outer consciousness aware of this inner divine love that is they are awaiting your recognition.
I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first. (Rev 2:19.)
He is telling you and me that the quality of love in us is infinite. And, therefore, we are in a progressive state now rising from one level of releasing love to a higher level in which the quality of the last will be greater than the first. We are imperfect now in our understanding of the infinite love within us. But as we proceed, as we open, as we expand, and as we release concepts, that love within us will expand with us, flowing forth and we will be able to experience more divine love than we have in the past as we do certain things.
Paul has told us that love is the fulfilling of the law and there are certain aspects of that, that we should consider. Why is love the fulfilling of the law? Because when you have released all that is a barrier to love then that love flows infinitely, fulfilling the law of the Father in you. In other words, love flowing infinitely through you is a sign that you have attained the realization of one infinite consciousness. And when you have attained that realization then one infinite consciousness fulfilling itself fulfills all divine law. So you see it isn't that you become more loving to fulfill the law, it is that because you are fulfilling the law you become more loving. The love is the sign that you are fulfilling the law. For as you fulfill divine law, love flows to tell you that you are in the one consciousness now. And when that is happening when you are in the one consciousness and love fulfilling the law, then all that the Father hath is made manifest as your experience, progressively, continuously and without interruption.
It is to this infinite divine power of love in you that infinite Christ speaks to Christ within you. Saying awake thou that sleepest, Christ will give thee light. The light of love will flow. And in that love flowing there is no power between heaven and earth that can stand in the way of that perfect love. Now, of course, this would not be given to us if it were not a possibility. And so each of us is awaken to the fact that divine infinite love is already established as the basis of our being. It is not external to us. It is not waiting in the future. It is present. It is here. It is now. And it is within your consciousness. And when you have learned how to acknowledge its presence, it will manifest in your visible experience.
So this purpose now is to release that invisible infinite love into visible manifestation. Freeing you from the bondage of all that is contrary to that perfect love. Up to now you have experienced love, but only in a measure. Your last works will be greater than your first for you are mounting up the scale of love. Learning to cut away those qualities in you, which have been the barrier to the full realization of being.
Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, (and that notwithstanding refers notwithstanding the fact that up to now you shown some charity, some patience, some service some of the faith. I still have somewhat against thee because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto to idols. (Rev 2:20.)
Now Jezebel represents a quality common to every person on the earth. Historically, she married a king. He was the king of Israel in those days named Ahab. And the symbology there is that the King of Israel had divided his kingdom. He had married outside of Israel. He was in a divided consciousness. Israel standing for divine wisdom. And now the king had married a foreigner. The daughter of Ethbaal of Tyre (daughter of king of the Sidonians in Metaphysical Bible?) per Mary Fitch.
And Jezebel was a religious fanatic. So much, so that murder was one of her great long suites. She murdered anyone who opposed her, if he was a priest of God or not. And, now Israel or divine wisdom, man’s quest for the realization of oneness was challenged by this religious fanatic, who called herself a prophetess. And she was opposed by only one man. That one man knew that Jezebel had no knowledge of the one God. As a matter of fact, Elijah who opposed her single handedly and defeated her, his own name means my God is, I am. That is the meaning of Elijah, my God is, I am.
And so in the symbology you find, I am, the infinite self represented by Elijah, who worshiped within in the temple of the inner spirit, opposing Jezebel who was teaching the children of Israel to worship in the external—to worship idols and to worship golden calves. And this was then outer worship and inner worship. Brought face to face with material consciousness and spiritual consciousness. And now the Spirit is saying to Christ within you. You have tolerated this woman Jezebel in your midst. This self-love which is opposed to divine love. And the target is set, as divine love cannot be released into the fullness of being where you stand until you have outgrown, Jezebel, self-love.
And that is why we are not speaking today inspirationally about love, because the real inspiration will come when we learn how to over come self-love. Then we will experience that resident infinite love of our being and we will not be led as Jezebel was by her own self-love. Briefly, she started off murdering priests. Then she had her husband the King of Israel, hit upon a very interesting little scheme. Already, the knowledge of one God had disintegrated among men and when he came into the throne, they had already built a few other altars around the country and the very essence of oneness was symbolized by the Hebrew Arc.
The Arc was placed in Jerusalem. There you worshipped and no where else. There you worshipped that Arc. And they all made pilgrimages, to Jerusalem at least once a year to be in the presence of the Arc. This symbolized worshipping in oneness. Very few really know what they were doing. That was the purpose that was given to Moses to unify all Hebrew religion into the knowledge of one God. That, then deteriorated because men did not know what one God meant. To them it meant the opposite of many gods. They did not know that one God meant one being. Which embraces all and is the only being on the earth. Yes, Moses knew, Jesus knew, John knew, but now King Ahab knew nothing of this whatsoever and so what is the difference if we worship that Arc in Jerusalem or we have a few idols around here, just so long as people worship something.
And now the idea of Christ within was completely unknown. And people were said to worship Baal. Baal was the god that Jezebel brought. And whenever we worship not within, not of the Spirit but something outside of ourselves, we are worshipping Baal. Baal is the symbol of external worship. And, of course, prayers to Baal, prayers to these idols who are meaningless, sacrifices to these idols were meaningless no prayers could be answered by the idol. All external prayer was revealed as nothingness without divine substance.
But this was what was happening to the great message of one. And Elijah could not stand still. Now you see Elijah in you must come where self-love is. Elijah, who could stand and come to the King and say very briefly to him, I see we are going to have a rain. And the King would say a rain, why we have had a famine in this country for three years. I have been waiting for you to come and bring the rain. Where is it? And Elijah would send a servant to Mount Carmel and tell him to look out. The servant looked out. No rain! Come back and report, nothing! Seven times he was sent back.
Seven times! Just like the seven letters. The seven degrees the seven steps of initiation leading to Christ consciousness. And on the seventh time he saw a little cloud. That is all just a little cloud, far off. And he reported that to Elijah. Elijah said to the King, better get in your chariot and drive away before the rain prevents you from driving. In Christ consciousness he did not have to depend upon the external evidence. What he saw with his eyes did not determine the truth of being. What he knew in his consciousness was the truth. It wasn’t long before the rains came, before the famine was over. Christ consciousness alone could accomplish what nothing else could. Christ consciousness could manifest as the harmony of being a need fulfilled. Not the worship of the idols of Baal. Not external worship.
And then there was another scene—where all of the priests of Baal, in this case 450 of them were challenged by Elijah. The challenge in those days was who could bring fire out of the sky to the altar. He personally was going to see that Jezebel’s ways of worship was banished from Israel. And so they went about their frenzy and frantic way bringing fire from the sky to the altar. They whipped themselves, they rolled in the aisles, they prayed, they chanted. They did everything they knew but no fire. And Elijah simply said is your God sleeping? Where is this fellow Baal? What is he doing? Doesn’t he hear you praying to him? And then Elijah very simply went inside to his own inner self praying for nothing recognizing that every need in the Father is fulfilled now. Finished, waiting to appear visibly through the witness of a consciousness that knows. And lo and behold there was fire on the altar. And this was the symbol of the Christ within overcoming the impossible odds of 450 who opposed Elijah.
And so now Jezebel had to go to more stringent methods. She had to murder a few more people. Because here 450 priests lost their lives after having lost this wager with Elijah. So she determined Elijah was on her list. She would have to get rid of him. Again there is your symbology the self-love in us when it sees the handwriting of the Christ; it begins to more belligerently oppose that Christ. Associate on all kinds of methods. But it was enough for her to introduce idolatry and worship of false gods; she was a demigod at heart. So once on she discovered that there was a landowner that would not sell his land to her husband who wanted it. The husband would not do anything about it but she would. On some trumped up charges she got rid of him. Murder!
And now we find that her false worship overlapped into other ways of life that were false. She used the government for personal gain. She introduced new ways of corruption. Always within us self-love looks for self-gain. Self-love does not love our neighbor. Self-love plans, self-love desires, self-love seeks. And then we must then learn that the Jezebels, the self-love, representing our lower self is the fanatic within each material consciousness that is ever at war with Elijah, the Christ, the will of the Father.
Jezebel ultimately died in a very strange way. It is said that the dogs ate her carcass. All that was left was skull, palms, and I think her feet. Nothing, you see! And this is the symbology, that we ought to come to that place where all that is signified by Jezebel, in this world, in us, is routed out of our consciousness. Now you might say, “I’m not a religious fanatic! I am not corrupt! I am not in favor of the government threatening people and coming down and restricting human rights.” But there is, in each of us, an age-old bondage to the past. Something that will not let us move out of old habits. Even though we see the benefits of the new, we will cling to yesterday.
And what this is trying to make us do is to see the need for a total shakeup. A major change and establishing a new set of motives a whole new way of life—a complete break with yesterday. So that all bondage to the past habits of the world consciousness that are clinging to us, trying to expel the higher impulses are carefully found, discovered, probed within us until by clearing out by purifying; by reaching the point where I am not in a state of self-love but in the state of glorifying the love of the Father, I can be that place where the light of the Christ shines through.
As long as there is self-love there is a second self. I die daily says Paul to self-love. I am reborn of the Spirit says Jesus. Reborn from self-love to that which is Christ love. Now how can you avoid self-love if you still have a self? A very natural instinct of each of us is to preserve this self. To hold on to it, to improve it. And we must learn that divine love cannot flow in a human selfhood. There is no place in a human selfhood that will permit divine love to flow. Jesus realized that only the Spirit of God is a channel for divine love. And all though the Bible you will hear walk in love, love one another as I have loved thee. Whoever loves this world is not loved by the Father. What are they telling us? They are telling us one of the greatest revelations we will ever hear. And one which we have never had to face. That we must do as Jesus did. Not only to be reborn of the Spirit, but to realize that we never were born into form.
Deep back in your past is a birth of a form. And as long as that birth to the form remains in your consciousness, that which was born, you will love. You will protect it; you will strive to preserve it, to improve it, to build it, to glorify it. And out of that hypnosis we must move as quickly as we become aware that to follow the Christ is not to glorify the human selfhood. We have all sought and yearned for divine love and we have not found it because that human selfhood, which we think was born one day, is the barrier.