Special Easter Meditation Service
to increase love for Christ
Opening prayer
Father,
As we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus this Easter let us pray that the whole world be reborn out of the blazing tomb of anger, hatred, violence and war.
Let us build in our hearts an unseen monument to the mightiest miracle of love—Jesus’s words: ‘Forgive them, for they know not what they do.’
Jesus willingly sacrificed his body so that we, God’s beloved children, could be shown the power of divine forgiveness over brutal human force, of compassion over cruelty, of the apparent meekness of divine power contrasted with the egotism of temporarily-triumphant-material power and finally: full victory over death itself.
In doing so Christ showed us how to heal the cataract of hatred so we might see our enemies as they really are; as our brothers and sisters — though sick and sleeping.
Beloved Lord, help us this day to resurrect both our own hearts and the hearts of others from the sepulcher of ignorance of your loving ways. Help us to follow Jesus’s loving example so that when we are carrying the cross of others unkindness we may also offer understanding for misunderstanding, kindness for unkindness, calmness for anger; love for hate; good for evil.
Amen.
Opening reading
Power, renown, and the ability to hold sway over others are prized in this world. Whether on the world stage or in the individual dramas of one’s daily life, desire to put oneself above others — to always be “right” and have one’s own way — keeps souls enslaved to the selfish ego. Christ demonstrated that true greatness comes not through mastery of others, but of oneself — not through domination of others’ hearts, but through purification of one’s own. A pure heart is a channel of God’s all-embracing love: a love that reaches beyond personal needs and desires to an understanding of others, to feeling their needs as readily as we feel our own, and to helping them as a part of our greater selfless self — our soul. In a show of divine force, Christ could have called forth “twelve legions of angels” to overcome his enemies. He chose instead to respond with love and forbearance — to offer his own life to alleviate the sufferings of others, and to immortalize the message he brought from God.
Let us now revisit a key part of the timeless message Jesus brought us, so that we may fully apply it to bring peace and harmony into our own lives as well as the lives of others.
‘Ye have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:
But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.’ (Matthew 5:38-39)
The eye for an eye law serves only the purpose of punishment for the sake of revenge. It does not teach right actions to wrong-doers, but may well make them more hateful. To take revenge does not stop the recurrence of an evil act; rather it is more likely to create evil thoughts and further acts of retaliation. Therefore Jesus in the above statement speaks of the ideal of non-injury to any human being — in thought, word, speech and action. Practising this principle effectively frees us from the desire for revenge and resisting evil by evil means. Jesus teaches us to conquer evil by the infinitely powerful virtue of forgiveness and love. He speaks metaphorically of turning the other cheek to demonstrate the influence of goodness over hostile behaviour. If anybody vents their anger with a slap and receives a slap in return, it only increases their anger and the desire to deliver stronger blows — and maybe even a thrust of a knife or a bullet!
‘A soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger.’ (Proverbs 15:1)
A calm response on the other hand is quite disconcerting and disarming. With a resentful second blow the angry person’s physical wrath is quite likely to be spent. Anger is increased by anger as fire increases fire, but as fire is extinguished by water, so also, wrath is extinguished by kindliness.
Anger, whether arising from an actual cause or arising from an imaginary perception, obliterates clear thinking and prevents the mind from discerning the right course during important events. Anger gives birth to jealousy, hatred, spite, revengefulness, destructive instinct, wild ideas, brain paralysis and insanity — any of which may lead to horrible crimes. It is poison to peace and calmness. It is poison to understanding and a magnet of misunderstanding. This is why we must recognize it as a thief of inner peace and happiness and apprehend it immediately as it arises within us. When you are angry say nothing. Knowing it is a disease, like the coming of a cold, break it up with warm mental baths consisting of thinking exclusively of those with whom you can never be angry, no matter how they behave.
When anger comes, set your machinery of calmness in motion to manufacture the antidotes of peace, love and forgiveness, which banish anger. Think of Jesus’s love and reflect that even as you do not want others to be angry with you, neither do you wish others to feel your ugly anger. When you become Christ-like and look upon all humanity as little brothers and sisters hurting one another (‘for they know not what they do’) you cannot feel angry with anyone. Ignorance is the mother of all anger.
When you find yourself on the receiving end of someone’s anger don’t be demonstrative in your love for them. They will not be in a mood to appreciate it with their reasoning faculty and good nature being temporarily paralysed. All you can do is give your good will. The expression of righteous indignation for the purpose of averting evil may also produce good.
It should be understood that the ideal of non-retaliation does not justify passive surrender to wrong doing or tacit approval of evil. To turn the other cheek is not calculated to make a person into a mental or moral weakling, or to suggest enduring an abusive or violent personal relationship, but to instill the strength of self-control gained by overcoming the impulse to act under the influence of revenge. It is an easy reflex to retaliate, but it requires great mental strength not to strike back. It takes a highly principled person of strong spiritual character to resist evil with virtue. If one can courageously face down an erring brother or sister with love; that is to possess a mighty spiritual power — the transforming healing power of divine love. A person perfected in nonviolence lets no-one steel their inner peace.
The early Christians were considered to be fools for their non-violent resistance against Roman tyranny, but the kingdom of Jesus’s teachings endured and flourished while the Roman Empire deteriorated into oblivion.
‘Ye have heard that it hath been said, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.”
But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;’ (Matthew 5:43-44)
Never allow hatred to arise and dwell in your consciousness. Hate-filled, angry people burn themselves with their hatred and anger which consumes their inner peace. Besides inviting destructive circumstances and events; hatred and anger also fries the nervous system which is why bitter, angry people often suffer numerous, serious health problems — often leading to their own premature death.
The cure for hatred is love and forgiveness. Love and forgiveness form the very nucleus of Christ’s teachings. Far more than just a noble ideal, the principle of love is nothing-less than the manifestation of God in his creation. The universe endures by a play between good and evil. The effect of evil is to divide and obscure and cause disharmony. Love is the attracting power of Spirit that unites and harmonizes. The force of God’s love, consciously directed by people neutralises the power of evil. Hate, anger and revenge reinforce evil.
Thousands of years of resisting evil by retaliating in kind have never succeeded in eradicating the scourge of hatred from human hearts. God could instantly destroy evil doers; but instead, he uses love to coax created beings back to him. In the simple words, ‘Love your enemies,’ Jesus urges us to co-operate with God in his divine plan of redemption: to love one’s neighbours and to have a place in one’s love for enemies as well. A wise person beholds in the circumference of their cosmic love a galaxy of friends and also those who consider themselves to be his enemies. Naughty or good, all people are equally God’s children.
Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
(1 Corinthians 3:16)
Hatred and anger cloud the divine image in vengeful persons and delusion makes them lose the consciousness of their inner divinity. They forget that all human beings are made in the image of God and are brothers and sisters. Why give hate for hate and thus imitate the vileness of ignorance? One must cultivate the consciousness of justice and love by knowing how to separate the God-image in the soul of a person from the evil in their misguided ego. To see God equally in friend and enemy is a testimony to one’s spiritual realization.
One who extends his love to friends and enemies alike ultimately beholds the presence of God’s one love everywhere — in flowers, animals and especially in the hearts of God’s human children. In order to see this omnipresence of God, one must behold him not only through the open porthole of friendship, but must tear away the dark screen of hate and behold his hidden presence even in the heart of enemies.
It is not necessary to mix with one’s enemies. It is often better to love them from a distance, unless by acts of kindly association one’s love can affect a change in those persons. If we do happen to come in contact with enemies we should remember that it is our spiritual duty to do so in love, because God is in them trying to straighten out the crookedness in their hearts. Keeping our inner calmness we can attempt to reason with them whilst maintaining the respect for them that comes from regarding all people as our own brothers and sisters in our own one very large human family. That will help us solve any difficulties and if we ever have to criticize anything we will express ourselves with humility and courtesy, which leave no sting behind them.
Of course when assailed by someone, it is hard to give love. The best way, while taking commonsense steps to remedy the situation, is to pray to God to change the heart of that person. Never ask God to punish anyone. It is surprising how sincere prayer will change the attitude of an antagonist. If that person becomes penitent, the giver of love has won that heart.
‘… Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.’ (Luke 23:34)
Obviously it is much easier to preach these truths than to actually live by them. Two-thousand years ago Jesus not only taught these great truths but he lived them fully, setting an example of non-violence and forgiveness that has reverberated down through the ages. When Jesus was arrested he offered no defence — even though he had done no wrong. He knew perfectly well what his fate would be, yet he didn’t avoid it. Even when facing the cross he refused to save his body when he was perfectly capable of using divine powers to protect himself. After he had been crucified he asked his Father to forgive those responsible showing that his love was truly unconditional and easily extended to enemies. Such was the power of this single act that many were liberated from the blinding insanity of their vile thoughts and behaviour and subsequently purified through remorse.
‘For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell;
And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.
And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled.’ (Colossians 1:19-21)
We are creatures of habit so any evil thoughts we think and any evil actions we perform soon lodge themselves deep in our subconscious as evil habits that obliterate the soul’s inner light of discriminative guidance or wisdom. Because of ‘things in heaven’ we also live in a world of cause and effect where we inevitably reap what we sow. Jesus freed from ignorance many who were caught up in endlessly repeating cycles of hatred and violence that were leading them down the path to their own destruction and the destruction of their society. He showed ignorant, suffering humanity a way out. Jesus demonstrated to the world by example the narrow path individuals must follow if peace is to reign permanently in their families, in their communities and in the whole world. This great purpose of his mighty act of love and sacrifice is so often overlooked and forgotten.
It may seem that Christ’s great example of unconditional love and total surrender to God’s will is beyond our human capacity to follow. But he demonstrated for us that spiritual strength is the culmination of many daily victories — of compassion over unkindness, of self-control over temptation, of forgiveness over resentment.
The uplifting influence of Jesus’ tremendous love should motivate us in our own interactions with others: Give love — and persist in giving it, even if there is non-understanding or no return of that love. Unconditional love attunes the giver with the harmonizing power of God’s infinite love, which can change and help others. The heart that serves as a channel of divine love will always be at peace in its attunement with God. Loving forgiveness alone can bring healing of divisions and conflict and break the cycles of enmity that cause untold suffering in individual families and in our world family.
And when we care for others and go out of our way to help them, when by spiritual example we are peacemakers in this world, Christ’s love is flowing through our hearts, and the spirit of Christ is living and acting through us.
‘Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.’ (Matthew 5:9)
Devotional Hymn
Prayer
Please teach me, O Father, to discern all laws of virtue not with dread, but with love. Teach me to remember that virtue may be difficult to follow at the start, but that when I obey its laws, it will adorn me finally with the laurel of your happiness. Teach me to remember that evil promises a little pleasure in the beginning but always brings great sorrow in the end.
Teach me to love virtuous laws, which exist for my interest and my good, and to shun vicious actions, which react against my interest. Implant in me that habit by which I may always perceive virtuous ways to be more charming than vicious ways.
Help me to remember that virtue, though bitter of taste in the beginning, eventually becomes nectar; and evil is that which tastes sweet in the beginning, but always acts as poison in the end.
Amen
Reading
A practical guide to generating soul force through the science of non-violence to bring peace to individual families and to our world family
So there maybe no misunderstanding about the depth of Jesus’s teachings on non-violence let us now probe ever deeper and examine the science of non-violence and its limitless spiritual potential for harmonizing life.
Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount teachings as well as his powerful demonstration of them have continued to transform lives through the centuries. In more recent times, one whose life was transformed was Mahatma Gandhi. Inspired by Jesus’s teaching about turning the other cheek, Gandhi decided to scientifically test non-violence in all aspects of his own life. Through years of continuous practice he succeeded in thoroughly mastering all aspects of it.
Here is a brief account of that mastery:
‘In one village a notoriously fierce communal agitator came up to Gandhi in front of hundreds of paralyzed onlookers, put his hands around Gandhi's slender throat, and began choking the life out of him. Such is the height to which Gandhi had grown that there was not even a flicker of hostility in his eyes, not a word of protest. He yielded himself completely to the flood of love within him, and the man broke down like a little child and fell sobbing at his feet. For those who watched, it seemed a miracle. For Gandhi, who had got used to the "miracles" of love, it only proved for the hundredth time in his own life the depth of the words … "Hatred does not cease by hatred at any time; hatred ceases by love. This is an unalterable law."’#