The Gospels – The Gospel According to Matthew
Simplicity and Humility
Matthew 11:25-30 At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.
26 Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight.
27 All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
The understanding of Christ’s Words requires the use of the intuitive perception. It requires that the hearer exercise his intuition which is tantamount to saying that he must listen with an open spirit. It is impossible to understand Christ’s Words with the intellect and this is the reason that the men of intellect, the scribes and lawyers really could not grasp His Words.
Those who still retain within themselves some degree of spiritual activity strangely enough were the simple people and these were the people who understood Jesus and it was from their ranks that the disciples came. In fact, it is only the simple at heart who will always understand the Word of God because this Word in Itself is simple.
The Word of God does not require that we first go to University in order for us to understand Him. God speaks to our spirits and it is the quality of our spirits which determine how well we understand Him. The intellect has absolutely nothing to do with this. It would be a contradiction to expect that God Who stands above the earthly conception of time and space to communicate with His creatures through an implement with no mobility or life of its own. An implement which is unable to reach beyond the earthly limits.
The simpler we are the more our understanding for God’s Word increases. This simplicity is brought about because the confusion created through intellectual pondering is eliminated. Intellectual sagacity is not a sign of greatness. It may be important for earthly matters, but when it comes to questions that really matter, then it must indeed take a back seat.
The greatest human beings have been the ones who have used their intuitions and have received great things from the Creative Power that surrounds us. They are able to make great discoveries not through the intellect as have been widely believed but by the exercise of the intuition and the humility which is associated with it.
In fact the intellectual sophistry of the would-be great ones would never allow God to reveal Himself to them. They always doubt and will never be able to receive in all naturalness and simplicity. It is for this reason that they are now cut off from the greatest revelation of all time: the Word of God through Jesus.
Jesus went further to say that it was indeed the Will of God that it be so. The Will of God are the Laws of Creation and the Laws in their activities which are never arbitrary determines the place given to the intellect only as an earthly tool and adjunct to the spirit. God did not have to deliberately prevent any of the scholars in the understanding of His Words. They prevented themselves from this through themselves. Through their own wrong activities, they so distorted themselves that they placed their own intellects above their intuitions. In so doing they prevented themselves through their own hands from understanding the Word of God.
God is just and whatever happens to a man is a result or a consequence of his own wrong doing. If these people are incapable of understanding Christ’s words, then it is their fault and theirs alone in having so distorted themselves in such a way that they have rendered themselves incapable of doing so.
The Laws then takes effect naturally in them. Through their own activities, their spiritual aspects wither and degenerate because they failed to use it. It is a natural law that a part which one fails to use withers whereas those parts that are kept in constant use become stronger and stronger.
These people, having for centuries ignored their spiritual parts and paid attention only to their intellectual parts have had to watch as others who had not been so guilty found it easier to understand Christ’s words. It is simply their own fault that they have allowed this spiritual part to become so weakened as to be no longer of much use. They have therefore through their own wrong activity been bypassed by God. God has bypassed them as He could no longer communicate with them. They are now spiritually blind and deaf.
It suffices to note here that most of us would have noticed differences in human beings, and for good reason. There are those who have a strong conscience and intuition and there are those with not so strong a conscience. There are those who are spiritual and there are those who are not. There are those who find it easy to understand spiritual things and there are those who do not find it so easy.
There are of course reasons for this and often are the consequences of the ways that we have chosen through our free wills to develop ourselves. It is a shame that those with a spiritual part are now been ridiculed more and more by the not so spiritual. The spiritual are afraid of being ridiculed and more often than not do not like to make it known that they are spiritual. It is unfortunate that the great majority of mankind choose to ridicule the best human beings that are left and these mockers would very soon have to be the smallest on this earth.
Those with a substantial spiritual part should take heart. The time is now at hand. The time for the victory of the spirit. They do not have to hide anymore. It is time for them to show their hands. To raise their heads high and look the other man in the eye. It is those who have so distorted themselves that they do not concern themselves anymore with the great questions of this Creation that should be ashamed of themselves. They do not ask about God yet they would take of His bounties on this earth. They would enjoy the benefits that life on earth bestows without asking about Who made all these possible. They are the ones who very soon will have to hang their heads in shame. Being spiritually bankrupt it would be impossible for them to raise themselves for full activity when the time comes. Let us digress a little here.
There are two parts to the brain: a spiritual part which is the cerebellum (back brain) and an intellectual one called the cerebrum (frontal brain). The back brain through the solar plexus communicates with the spirit. It receives from the spirit and transmits what it receives to the frontal brain for further processing. Many of us would by now have seen a brain, whether on television or in biology classes at school. What will strike some of us is the huge size of the frontal brain as compared to other parts of the brain. It has been explained that the greater intellect of mankind was the reason for the development of the massive frontal brain. That the need for a greater intellect for man led to this. The back brain on the other hand is so small in comparison even though it looks very similar to the frontal brain in appearance.
The spiritually receptive part of the brain is much smaller than the intellectual part of the brain. That is the general story with mankind. All the brains that are examined have this characteristic. Is it then surprising to see that mankind of today is an intellectual one? All have developed the brain in the same way. The spiritual part of their brain is very small. Are we then surprised that there is no spiritual activity as far as this mankind is concerned? The tool that he was meant to use for spiritual activity lies within him, small, degenerate and shrivelled. This is a natural consequence of millennia of one sided overuse of the intellectual brain by the whole of mankind. Through the law of adaptation, that part which was more often exerted became bigger and consequently stronger, whereas that part which has been ignored never got to develop at all. This condition eliminated spiritual activity but strengthened intellectual activity.
Man of today therefore is an intellectual man and not a spiritual one. Both parts of the brain should have been developed absolutely equally for joint harmonious activity, the back brain receiving from the spirit and the intellect carrying out the instructions from the spirit here on earth. This distortion, however, became the normal condition of the physical bodies of earthmen since all human beings took part in this decision to follow the intellect. This condition of the earthly brain therefore became hereditary passing this characteristic from one generation to the other. This is therefore the hereditary sin which followed the fall of man, which fall was the momentous decision to follow the dictates of the intellect rather than the spirit.
The back brain is more or less active in various people and it is more active in some than others. Those in whom it is more active are better able to understand spiritual concepts and are the ones with the quality of “deep inner feeling”. These are also the people with the inner mobility to understand the Word of God. These human beings are very few indeed and are even getting smaller as materialism becomes more and more popular. The pursuit of only earthly ends without any thought for what comes after this.
Those who have stayed behind, however, and have retained their spiritual parts and have kept their back brains active are the simple and the babes that Jesus referred to here. They will receive the greatest gifts and witness the greatest miracles as they have retained their connection with God. All over the centuries, these are the people who have been persecuted, murdered and marginalized by those who are of the intellect. History proves this.
Human kind from time immemorial has divided itself into two. Those who belong to God through the quality of the possession of the intuitive perception and those who do not. The latter have always used force against the former, have killed, tortured and persecuted them. This is the proof that these people do not belong to God. Those who belong to God would never use these horrible means against others. Those who belong to God would never kill or torture other human beings.
It does not matter under what guise they do all these. Whether they are members of a Church or even heads of these Churches. “By their actions ye shall know them”. The very fact that they used and are still using means which have been censured by Jesus proves that indeed they do not belong to Him. The earthly authorities have often been on the side of these people as these authorities themselves were formulated through the earthly intellect. Do not then expect real justice from any earthly organization. Real Justice is to be expected only from God through His Laws. There would have been justice on earth if the earthly laws had been harmonised with the Divine Laws but they are not.
The laws were written by the intellect and have been used over thousands of years against those who hold a contrary opinion and who choose to live their lives differently. The narrowness of the intellect would rather have everyone live uniform lives, sanctioned by men who do not know the first thing about real life. We must therefore look about us more keenly in order to recognize who the enemy really is. We should look within ourselves and recognize that it is not our neighbours who are to blame for anything. It is the individual himself who must change first. If we change our own intellectual outlook and begin to live a spiritual life, then perhaps we may be able also to induce the same change in our neighbour. We are all uniformly bound. Until this is done, until we recognize that change starts with us, with each individual, there can be no question of any hope for mankind.
To continue with the next verse, Jesus said that all things had been given to Him by the Father. Jesus was the Son of God. He was an Envoy of God. Since He was an Envoy, He had been given all the authority of a Regent. When a regent sends an envoy on a mission, he grants this envoy full powers of negotiation on his behalf. The same is true here. Jesus had been granted all Powers and all Authority by God as the representative of God. If we wanted to see God we have to go through Jesus. If we wanted to communicate with God we had to go through Him. He had full authority in this Creation to act on behalf of God. There is nothing that would not yield to Jesus in the whole of Creation; there is nothing that would not be brought into line with His Name. There is nothing that Jesus would not be able to accomplish.
With the greatest Love in His heart, He asked those who would listen to Him to come to Him for succour and relief. To come to Him so as to lighten their spiritual burden through the Teachings that He expounded. He asked them to learn from Him and realize that it is not that difficult to know God as long as they trust Him and are willing to adjust themselves. They should throw off all earthly learnedness and wanting to know better. They should throw off all intellectual pondering and learn to be simple human beings. The burden that the people carried with themselves are husks which they had learned in their religious schools and which hitherto had been deemed necessary for an entrance in to the Kingdom of God. Jesus promised to make their burdens light by telling them to shake off these preconceived ideas which weighed like heavy pressure upon these people.
The Pharisees, through their strict religious rule put a very heavy yoke on the people indeed and many of them were made to believe that they had to adhere to so many of these rules before they could enter the Kingdom of Heaven. These rules were often mundane earthly externals which had nothing to do with real spiritual ascent. This realization was what Jesus wanted to bring to the people.