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Cosmic Consciousness by Ali Nomad

X PAUL OF TARSUS

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He says:

"For I make known to you brethren, as touching the gospel as preached by me, that it is not after man. For neither did I receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through revelation of Christ.

"Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. But before faith came, we were kept inward under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. For ye are all sons of God through faith in Christ. For with freedom did Christ set us free."

This we take to refer to his former adherence to, and belief in, the system of worship taught by the Jews, as a necessary and probably the only "way of salvation" acceptable to God. He wishes his hearers to understand that he is not bound by adherence to any creed; neither the old one, nor yet the new one, but that what he preached came from the light of cosmic consciousness, in which there is no law, nor sense of law. Cosmic consciousness gives to the illumined one a sense of freedom (Christ means cosmic consciousness, and not a personality).

Cosmic consciousness confers, above all else, perhaps, a sense of freedom from every form of bondage.

The duty and the obligations that bind the average person, are impossible to the cosmically conscious one. Not that he displays indifference toward the welfare and the rights of others. Far from that, he feels an added sense of responsibility for the irresponsible; an overwhelming compassion for the unfortunate, and a relationship greater than ever to mankind.

But this sense of freedom causes him to do all _in love_, which he hitherto did because it was so "laid down in the law."

Again St. Paul makes this plain:

"The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, temperance; against such as these there is no law--neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature."

When we are armored with the "fruit of the spirit," we have no need for rules of conduct; for methods of salvation; or for any of the bonds that are necessary to the merely sense-conscious man.

Plainly, Paul recognized the fact that systems of religion, of philosophy, of rules and ethics of intercourse, are necessary only so long as man remains on the sense-conscious plane. When Illumination comes, there comes with it absolute freedom. God does not want to be worshipped on bended knee; by rites and ceremonies; by obedience to commandments, but the undisciplined soul acquires power and poise through these exercises, and in time grows to the full stature of god-consciousness.

Nor is intellectual greatness to be confounded with the godlike character of the one who has attained to Illumination.

Elsewhere in these pages we have made the distinction between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge alone can never bring a soul into the path of Illumination. Wisdom will point the way, but love is the unerring guide to the very goal.

St. Paul's expression of this fact is concise, and to the point. This observation alone, stamps him as one possessing a very high degree of realization of what cosmic consciousness is.

"If any man thinketh that he is wise among you in this world, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God."

The worldly wise man or woman asks "how much do I get?" The truly wise person cares nothing at all for possessions. He only asks "how much can I give?"

And although we find in the marts of commercialism a contempt for the gullible, and the credulous; the trusting and the confiding, let it be known that the "smart" bargainer will indeed smart for his smartness, for in the light of cosmic consciousness, this alleged "wisdom" of men, appears as utter foolishness; wasted effort; a perversion of opportunity.