Bailey Critics -- Part 4
Friday, August 24, 2001 5:09 am
The Doctrine of Christ
Thanks for your comments. I wish I had more time to do them justice with a thorough response.
Keith writes:
"The part of the post I would like someone to clarify is Sean's comment that Bailey believed that Lucifer who fell in legend was just misunderstood.
Is this true? My guess is that it is not! I have not read enough of Bailey to know."
JJ:
Benjamin Creme said this, but Bailey did not. Bailey is no more responsible for what Creme says than Jesus is for the actions of Jim Jones or Christian
snake handlers.
Almost every time you read something strange that is attributed to Alice A. Bailey there is a 99% chance that she did not say it or the meaning is distorted.
This brings us to Distortion Number Five:
"Djwahl Khul, working through Alice A. Bailey, represents the Antichrist, is in league with Satan and opposes the teachings and work of Christ and the Biblical
teachings on Him."
Time after time when this idea is presented, Alice A. Bailey is then associated with fringe New Age teachers and movements that serious Bailey students avoid
like the plague. Then, instead of quoting from Bailey they will quote from some extremist teacher, far removed from the teachings of Bailey, and attempt to
establish guilt by association. As I have been reading through the numerous anti-Bailey web sites I am astounded at the number of quotes and teachings attributed
to Alice A. Bailey that were never written by her.
There is a principle to follow here. If you went to know what the Book of Mormon really teachers then read the Book, not some comments from an anti-Mormon. If
you want to know the teachings of the Koran then similarly, read that book. If you want to know what Buddha taught then read his words that are passed down.
This is a simple principle, yet many get caught up in believing the words of enemies of a teaching above the words of the actual teacher. This should not be so.
That being said, the best way for the reader to understand the belief of Djwahl Khul and Alice A. Bailey toward the Christ is to examine the actual words from
published books.
All the quotes but the last one are from Djwahl Khul as revealed through Alice A. Bailey.
Enjoy.
Actual words of Djwahl Khul (real modern day revelation):
"The Christian Church has laid so much emphasis on Christ's unique position as the one and only Son of God that great error has crept in and has been
fostered for centuries; Christ Himself foresaw the possibility of this error and tried to offset it by pointing out that we are all the 'Sons of God' and
that 'greater things than I do shall you do' -- a statement which no commentators have ever understood or adequately explained. The occult fact is that there is
no being on Earth, from the very lowest form of life to the very highest, who is not moving onward towards a greater and finer expression of divinity, and
Christ Himself is no exception to this universal evolutionary law. He is therefore, at this time and because He is preparing to raise the entire human family
nearer to God, laying Himself open to certain powerful inflowing energies, absorbing into Himself streams of spiritual force, and undergoing a dynamic stimulation
which is entirely new to Him; this constitutes His testing for the exalted initiation which now confronts Him; it constitutes also the sacrifice He is making in
order to complete His work on Earth and bring a new salvation to humanity.
"The Buddha, the perfect initiate, having reached illumination but not yet having developed to perfection all the attributes of divinity; the Christ, the
absolutely perfect expression of divinity for this cycle and, therefore, the Teacher alike of angels and of men.
"The Founder of the Christian Church - God in the flesh - availed Himself of this period and came to us in the dark of the year and initiated a new era in which
light was to be the distinguishing note. This has been true from several angles, even from the purely physical, for today we have a lighted world; everywhere
lights are to be seen and the pitch dark nights of olden times are fast disappearing.
"The idea of the return of Christ is a most familiar one, and the concept of a returning Son of God in response to human need has its place in the teaching of
the majority of the world faiths. Ever since He apparently departed to the sphere where the faithful have put Him, little groups of these people have reasoned
themselves into the belief that on such and such a date He will come back, and ever their prophecies and expectancies have been doomed to failure. He has not
come. Such people have been laughed at by the crowd and rebuked by the intelligent. Their eyes have not seen Him and there has been no tangible indication of
His Presence. Today, I tell you that He will come; that plans for His coming are already set on foot, but I set no date or hour. The time is known only to the
two or three, but 'in such an hour as ye think not, He will come.' (Matt. XXIV. 44)
"I would call your attention to the fact that the general concept of a World Saviour (always attached to the office of the Christ, no matter by what name the
exalted Son of God may be called in any world cycle) is in reality closely related to the far more important function of World Teacher. People love to be
saved, for it ignores their own immediate responsibility, which teaching definitely emphasises. It must be remembered that it is the teaching given by the
Christ which saves humanity--not any symbolic death upon a cross. Men must save themselves by their reaction and their response to the teaching given in its
purity by the Christ; this is a point which should be forcefully instilled by all of you; it is not man-made interpretations which save a man, but his
self-initiated application of his own understanding of the teaching. This must be brought today to the consciousness of as many human beings as the followers
of the Christ can reach.
"Here you have a brief account of the work which I undertook on behalf of the Hierarchy and for the Christ, Whom I most reverently regard as my Master.
"The Spirit of Christ is undying, and as He lives to all eternity, so that which He incarnated to demonstrate must also live. The cell in the womb, the stage
of littleness, the development of the child into the man--to all this He submitted Himself, and underwent all the processes which are the destiny of every son
of God. Because of this submission and because He "learned obedience by the things which he suffered," He could be trusted to reveal God to man, and
(may we say it?) the divine in man to God. For the Gospels show us that continuously Christ called forth this recognition from the Father.
"The great continuity of revelation is our most priceless possession, and into it the religion of Christ must, and does, fit. God has never left Himself
without witness, and He never will. The place of Christianity as the fulfilment of the past and as a stepping-stone to the future, is often forgotten, and
this perhaps is one of the reasons why people speak of a failing Christianity, and look forward to that spiritual revelation which seems so sorely needed.
Unless this continuity is emphasised and the place of the Christian faith in it, revelation may come and pass unrecognised.
"Must we not all be born again, baptised into the Spirit, and transfigured upon the mountain top of living experience? Does not the crucifixion lie ahead for
many of us, leading on to the resurrection and the ascension? And is it not also possible that we have interpreted these words in too narrow a sense, with
too sentimental and ordinary an implication, whereas they may indicate to those who are ready a special way and a more rapid following in the footsteps of the
Son of God?
"Love and sentiment and devotion are often confused with each other. Pure love is an attribute of the soul and is all-inclusive, and it is in pure love that
our relation to God and to each other consists. 'For the love of God is broader than the measure of man's mind, and the heart of the Eternal is most
wonderfully kind' -- so runs the old hymn, and thus is expressed that love which is the attribute of Deity and also the hidden attribute of every son of
God. Sentiment is emotional and unstable; devotion can be fanatical and cruel; but love blends and fuses, understands and interprets and synthesizes all
form and all expressions, all causes and all races, into one flaming heart of love, knowing no separateness, no division and no disharmony. To bring about
this divine expression in our daily life takes the utmost that is in us. To be an initiate takes every power of every aspect of one's nature. It is no easy
task. To face the inevitable tests with which one will assuredly be confronted as one treads the path Christ trod, takes courage of the rarer kind. To
cooperate sanely and wisely with God's Plan and to merge one's will in the divine Will must call into activity not only the deepest love of one's heart, but
the keenest decisions of the mind.
"In the New Testament there is depicted for us the life of a Son of God in full manifestation, wherein, freed from every veil, the soul in its true nature
walks the earth. It becomes apparent to us, as we study the life of Christ, what it means to develop the powers of the soul, to attain liberation, and
become, in full glory, a God walking on earth.
"The question arises whether Christ would be at home in the churches if He walked again among men. The rituals and the ceremonies, the pomp and the vestments,
the candles and the gold and silver, the graded order of popes, cardinals, archbishops, canons and ordinary rectors, pastors and clergy would seemingly have
small interest to the simple Son of God Who--when on earth--had nowhere to lay His head.
"Christ guarantees for us the reality of the inner significance and the true spiritual basis of all that is and ever shall be. Out of the relation of light
and dark that which is invisible emerges into visibility, and we can see and know. Christ, as the light of the world, revealed that reality. Out of the
darkness of time God spoke, and the Fatherhood of Deity was revealed.
"Or again, service can grow out of a fanatical desire to tread in the footsteps of the Christ, that great Son of God Who 'went about doing good,' leaving
an example that we should follow in His footsteps. People, therefore, serve from a sense of obedience, and not from a spontaneous outgoing towards the needy.
The essential quality for service is, therefore, lacking, and from the start they fail to do more than make certain gestures.
"This is the esoteric significance of the Biblical words, 'The blood is the life,' and also of the words 'saved by the blood of Christ.' It is not by the
blood of a Christ dying two thousand years ago upon the cross in Palestine that man is saved, but by the livingness of the blood of those in whom the
Christ life and consciousness, and the quality of the Christ, is perfectly demonstrating and expressed. Then, when the nature of the indwelling Christ
is fully, spontaneously and automatically expressing itself in and through the personality, the three fires of the creative process-the fire of matter,
the fire of the soul, and the electric fire of spirit-are blended, and there is then a perfect manifestation on Earth of physical living, of the emotional
and mental life, and also of the spiritual life of an incarnated Son of God, a Christ."
JJ:
For the last quote I thought I would give one from Alice A. Bailey herself, taken from her autobiography.
"I found that the Head of this Hierarchy of spiritual Leaders was the Christ and when this dawned on me, I felt that He had been given back to me in a
nearer and more intimate way. I found that He was 'the Master of all the Masters and the Teacher alike of angels and of men.' I found that the Masters of
the Wisdom were His pupils and disciples, just as people like myself were pupils of some Master. I learnt that when I, in my orthodox days, talked about
Christ and His Church I was really speaking of Christ and the planetary Hierarchy. I found that the esoteric presentation of truth in no way belittled
Christ. He was, indeed, the Son of God, the First Born in a great family of brothers, as St. Paul has told us, and a guarantee to us of our own divinity."
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Copyright 2001 by J.J. Dewey, All Rights Reserved
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