The Sayings of Melchizedek

1; The Appointed Path for Man on Earth

The Sayings of Melchizedek
Introduction to The Way of Perfection
1; The Appointed Path for Man on Earth
2; The Way of Sinful Man
3; Starting to Take the Higher Path
4; The Effect of Taking the Higher Path
5; A Major Change
6; The Man of Faith
7; The Final Testing: Teaching Others
8; The Struggle Within
9; The Journey of the Human Soul
10; Transforming the Lower Self
11; The Progress of the Higher Self
12; The Twin Laws of God
13; Guidance on the Path.
Summary
The Parable of the River Nile

The Sayings of Melchizedek provide a timeless insight into the Way of Perfection and for those with eyes to see, have done so for more than 4000 years.

 

This Commentary has been written to provide for 21st century Seekers an insight into that Ancient Wisdom, with the actual text of the Logia (Sayings) of Melchizedek set out side by side with the appropriate section of commentary. Each Web Page is a complete chapter, and the first, entitled

 

THE APPOINTED PATH FOR MAN ON EARTH

 

is given below.

Sayings Text                                            Commentary      

Chapter One

 

The Appointed Path for Man on Earth

 

1.   Love of Possessions causes us to wander away from the presence of God in search of pleasure.

2.    In earth life the man who is obsessed with material possessions, erases his idea of God.

3.    The Man who is of God is goaded on by Him.

4.    Thus adorned he follows the flowing stream of life. 

 

5.    With sounds of joy hovering over him he returns to God from the Path of Possessions agreeable because he has been taught surely.

 

6.    The appointed path for fallen man is this: He must repent of his sins and praise God.  

7.    Thus enveloped in the Divine Life Force he is initiated and goaded by God and will dwell in Him.

8.    Possessions give way in importance to ideals and they are used not abused.

9.    The desire to acquire physical possessions gives way to an urge towards spiritual acquisitions.

10. Emotions are not destroyed but directed towards God.

11. In the end, the physical body returns to its basic material components, and the astral body also fades away.

12. Finally even the Spiritual body gives way to the Divine Spark, which retains the essences of all physical, emotional and mental experiences.

 13. These will be transmuted still further as the spirit wings its way towards God at the Highest Level of Consciousness.

14. It has trodden the Path of Possessions and found it wanting, but by the Appointed Path for Man it has found the way back to God.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

15.  The Spiritual body is completely covered by the Psychic.

  

 

 

 

 

 

16.    This intoxicates the human spirit, making it sorrowful and fearful.

 

 

 

17.    This fear is exactly like a fire that spreads destruction. 

 

 

 

 

 

18.  The only remedy is hard, unremitting work which makes the spirit sorrowful, but it works, for thereby God helps to set it right. 

 

 

19.  The result is the perfected human spirit, a precious stone of joy, pure gold, made well-pleasing unto Him because of the purging it has received in the fire of mortal life. 

Firstly we are told that love of Possessions causes us to “wander away from the Presence of God”. Jesus said exactly the same thing when he told his disciples “Ye cannot serve God and Mammon”. Here, however we are also told why this causes us to wander away – it is because we are in search of pleasure – after all this is the main purpose of those whose primary interest is in material things.

 

Then we are told that the reason we should avoid this attitude. It is not because possessions are bad in themselves, but because the pursuit of worldly things actually “erases” our concept of God. The extreme materialist not only cannot serve God – he automatically ceases to have any real belief in Him, and as a result, after death such a spirit will pass to the Realms of Unbelief (Hell).

 

The Man who is of God is goaded on by Him – in other words God does not just lead him - he goads him into action through the “pricks” of his conscience[1]. And it is the results of these pricks of conscience that in God’s view “adorn him, as he is swept along the Path by the spiritual life-force of God, here called “the flowing stream of Life”.

 

It is this Life Force that is the source of the “Sounds of Joy hovering over him” - a turn of phrase which can only remind us of the way the Holy Spirit “hovers” over one who responds to the pricks of his conscience. Abandoning the Path of Possessions he returns to God – not just in the figurative sense, but ultimately also in the literal sense.

 

The final phrase of verse 5 perhaps the most significant – he is agreeable (that is pleasing in God’s sight) because “he has been taught surely”. There are at least two separate meanings to this passage; Firstly, of course it refers to the fact that he has been taught by the Holy Spirit, through his conscience, but it also seems to indicate the belief of the author, that these Sayings provide the “Sure” or “True” way of leading man back to God.

 

Verse 6 summarises this; if we fall and turn away from God, and we are all guilty of this on occasions, the only thing for us to do is to “repent of our sins” and turn back to Him. Then we must praise God, (meaning give Him thanks) for his forgiveness and help in thus enabling us to return to the right Way. 

 

By the twin virtues of repentance and praise, the developing human spirit is made receptive to the Divine Life Force, and is described as being enveloped in it. This is apparently a reference to mystical initiation – for the first time, the spirit consciously comes into the presence of God; it learns to know Him. And again by continuing to follow his conscience, whereby God constantly “goads” him to do right he comes to abide continuously in God - a state which St Teresa calls the Seventh Mansion.

 

To such a person nothing physical matters to them any more. We are told that “Possessions give way in importance to ideals”, but the second part of the phrase is equally important. Possessions are not to be abandoned, but neither are they to be uses for selfish ends. They must be dedicated to the Service of God and used therein. As a result, “the desire to acquire physical possessions gives way to an urge towards spiritual acquisitions”.

 

Spirituality this urge continues to develop, but this does not mean that emotions are destroyed - rather they are directed towards God instead of towards physical things. Ultimately we progress beyond the mortal stage, when we no longer have the need for a physical body. This, as we are told in Ecclesiastes; “returns to the dust as it was”. But here the process of achieving the end of our earthly journey is described in more detail.

 

After a time the Astral body also fades away, which, as we know happens after every incarnation, when we are ready to pass on to the Spirit Plane, but then we are told that eventually even Spirit Body gives way to the Divine Spark. This does not happen after every incarnation. Normally our time on the Spirit Plane comes to an end before the Spirit Body or Spirit Form, fails, and the Divine Spark returns to earth life in another physical body. However, when this is no longer needful, the Divine Spark is able to shed that very last vestige of earth, the earthly form that the spirit still retains on the Spirit or Form Plane Spirit.

 

Freed from that last earthly encumbrance, the newly perfected human spirit shine forth in all the newly perfected radiance of its Eternal Essence, which is the Divine Spark within it. Not that it has lost its earthly knowledge and experience – far from it, for it not only retains the essential essence of all the “physical, emotional and mental experiences” of its last incarnation, it has also re-gathered all the knowledge of its past lives as it enters the realms of the Saints. But even then it is far from perfect, and it is only as it “wings its way towards God at the Highest Level of Consciousness” that it will become yet further enhanced in the Higher Angelic Realms.

 

To sum up; the human spirit “has trodden the Path of Possessions and found it wanting, but by the Appointed Path for Man it has found the way back to God”.

 

This last section of CHAPTER ONE could perhaps have been placed in a chapter of its own, for it seems to jump away from the brief but eloquent description of the journey of the human spirit back to God and begins to deal with some of the problems that beset such a spirit when it starts to assay the Path.

 

Verse 15 simply tells us that “The Spiritual body is completely covered by the Psychic” but this has a number of meanings. Firstly, of course it can be seen as a reference to the various envelopes in which the Divine Spark is enclosed (Spirit Body, then Astral or Psychic Body and finally the Physical Body) but it also has a second and deeper meaning. When one first begins to tread the mystic path, one is usually fairly psychic and often this means that one “sees” things that one does not understand, such as auras and thought-forms.

 

It is this second meaning that is reflected in the next verse. Many people regard such psychic phenomena as “all there is”, pursue psychic abilities and become “intoxicated” thereby. This, however, is a digression from the Mystic Path and those who do so, will often thereby be prevented from further advances on the Mystic Path for many lives. In other words, their contact with higher realms is blocked by their pre-occupation with more easily-seen Astral world. Subconsciously realizing this, the spirit of those who succumb to it becomes both “sorrowful and fearful”. Sorrowful because it realises it has lost something, although they may not know exactly what, and fearful, both of the possible consequences of that loss and of the often imperfectly understood things that it perceives through its psychic abilities. This fear, we are told “is exactly like a fire that spreads destruction” – in other word, like all fears it quickly destroys that which is of spiritual value. Unless this can be cured it will not succeed in this life, and will have to come again in a physical body without either psychic or mystic propensities and begin the mystic quest all over again

 

The prescribed remedy is a well-tried one. We must stop thinking about the problem and concentrate on doing something else and the “hard, unremitting work” that is recommended is best satisfied by ordinary physical labour. Whilst this may be resented by such an evolved spirit which thinks itself above such things, being forced to concentrate on the purely physical may well be the only way for it to stop thinking about the psychic world. If it can do this then God may be yet be able to set it back on the right path in this incarnation.

 

This will result in it achieving perfection and here for the first time we have the simile that has been used so often by later mystics, such as the Biblical prophet Malachi (Malachi 3; 17) and John Ward himself, (4th Apocalypse 2; 11) The “perfected human spirit” is called a “precious stone of joy”, clearly referring both to the joy of the Father in receiving His child back home and also to the joy of the child. Note, however, that we are also told why it is “precious” - it is because “of the purging it has received in the fire of mortal life”. Thus it can also be described as “pure gold”, purged of the impurities that hitherto had bound it to earthly life.



[1]

A goad is a pointed stick that is used to prod a large reluctant beast of burden (Most commonly an ox or elephant) into action. The description of our conscience as “pricking” us, which we still use, is based upon this simile.

Please click to go to next chapter The Way of Sinful Man
The Ancient Wisdom for Modern Man