|
Mysteries of John
Chapter 17
[<- Go back to Chapter 16]
[Mysteries of John]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
John: Chapter 17
These things spake Jesus; and lifting up his eyes to
heaven, he said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son,
that the Son may glorify thee: 2 even as thou gavest him
authority over all flesh, that to all whom thou hast given
him, he should give eternal life. 3 And this is life
eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and
him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ.
IN THIS SCRIPTURE Jesus was asking of the Father as never
before. To glorify means to magnify with praise, to enhance
with spiritual splendor. to adorn. Jesus was asking for a
full and complete unification of His consciousness with
that of the Father. Jesus realized that He had been given
all authority over the flesh. He was holding the
realization not only for His own glorification but also for
that of His disciples. Jesus realized that in this union a
full understanding of God and His laws would be revealed,
which would naturally make clear to Him the way of eternal
life.
4 I glorified thee on the earth, having accomplished the
work which thou hast given me to do. 5 And now, Father,
glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I
had with thee before the world was. 6 I manifested thy name
unto the men whom thou gavest me out of the world: thine
they were, and thou gavest them to me; and they have kept
thy word. 7 Now they know that all things whatsoever thou
hast given me are from thee: 8 for the words which thou
gavest me I have given unto them; and they received them,
and knew of a truth that I came forth from thee, and they
believed
Page 148
that thou didst send me. 9 I pray for them: I pray not for
the world, but for those whom thou hast given me; for they
are thine: 10 and all things that are mine are thine, and
thine are mine: and I am glorified in them. 11 And I am no
more in the world, and these are in the world, and I come
to thee. Holy Father, keep them in thy name which thou hast
given me, that they may be one, even as we are. 12 While I
was with them, I kept them in thy name which thou hast
given me: and I guarded them, and not one of them perished,
but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be
fulfilled. 13 But now I come to thee; and these things I
speak in the world, that they may have my joy made full in
themselves. 14 I have given them thy word; and the world
hateth them, because they are not of the world, even as I
am not of the world. 15 I pray not that thou shouldest take
them from the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from
the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am
not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth: thy word
is truth. 18 As thou didst send me into the world, even so
sent I them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I
sanctify myself, that they themselves also may be
sanctified in truth. 20 Neither for these only do I pray,
but for them also that believe on me through their word; 21
that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me,
and I in thee, that they also may be in us: that the world
may believe that thou didst send me. 22 And the glory which
thou hast given me I have given unto them; that they may be
one, even as we are one; 23 I in them, and thou in me, that
they may be perfected into one; that the world may know
that thou didst send me, and lovedst them, even as thou
lovedst me. 24 Father, I desire that they also whom thou
hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold
my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me
before
Page 149
the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, the
world knew thee not, but I knew thee; and these knew that
thou didst send me; 26 and I made known unto them thy name,
and will make it known; that the love wherewith thou
lovedst me may be in them, and I in them.
Jesus must have been the product of a former cycle of time,
and He had previously made the perfect union in the
invisible with the Father.
In proportion as people understand and have faith in Jesus
as their actual Saviour from sin, and in proportion as they
are set free from appetite, passion, jealousy, prejudice,
and all selfishness, they experience wholeness of mind and
body as the result. The ultimate result of this knowledge
and of daily practice in overcoming (even as Jesus Himself
overcame) will be a new race that will demonstrate eternal
life--the lifting up of the whole man--spirit, soul, and
body--into the Christ consciousness of oneness with the
Father. This is indeed true glorification. By means of the
reconciliation, glorification, and at-one-ment that Jesus
re-established between God and man we can regain our
original estate as sons of God here upon earth.
To comprehend this glorification requires a deeper insight
into creative processes than the average man and woman have
attained, not because they lack the ability to understand
but because they have submerged their thinking powers in a
grosser thought stratum. So only those who study Being from
the standpoint of pure mind can come into an understanding
of the transfiguration and of the part
Page 150
that Jesus played in opening the way for humanity to enter
into the glory that was theirs before the world was formed.
In its highest form, prayer is an exalted state of
consciousness in which self-interest is lost in the desire
to do good to everybody. Jesus always prayed the unselfish
prayer. There are as many kinds of prayer as there are
people in the universe. Those who pray for some personal
good have no conception of the ecstasy of those who utterly
forget self in their supplications for the good to be given
to others. Yet all kinds of prayers are fulfilled. "Ask
whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you."
Those who spend much time in the Spirit come to be so much
in love with it that they find it hard to endure the
selfishness of the world, which they are tempted to leave
entirely. Mystics and spiritual adepts withdraw to caves
and the wilderness, as far from the haunts of men as they
can get, because of the evil they see and feel so vividly.
Then it becomes a real struggle to keep the self in the
world. It is not right for one who has found this divine
Truth within himself to withdraw from those who are
ignorant of it and enjoy his riches alone. We should not
think of being taken out of the world, but rather should we
strive to keep our faculties from evil.
When we have found our being in God, we are no longer
identified with the world; our interest is in spiritual
things, and all our prayers are lifted up. "They are not of
the world, even as I am not of the world." Through our
intense realization of
Page 151
the eternal good and our unity with it we become so
saturated with the thought of good that we are impregnable
to evil. Thus we find that the doctrine of sanctification
is based on Truth, and that it is possible for us to become
so good in purpose that everything we do will turn to good.
But we must certainly sanctify ourselves in Christ and
persistently send forth the word of purity and
unselfishness to every faculty in order to demonstrate it.
We must not confine our prayer for perfection to ourselves
alone but make it for them also that believe on Christ
"through their word."
The realization of divine unity is the highest that we can
attain. This is true glory, the blending and merging of the
whole being into Divine Mind. "I in them, and thou in me,
that they may be perfected into one."
This merging of God and man does not mean the total
obliteration of man's consciousness but its glorification
or expansion into that of the divine. This is taught in
Hindu philosophy as the absorption of the soul into
Nirvana, which has been erroneously interpreted as the
total loss of individual consciousness instead of its
majestic expansion.
Page 152
[Go forward to Chapter 18 ->]
[Mysteries of John]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
|