Essay 16: THE DOCTRINE OF CAUSE

“It is the doctrine that transfigures and delights the pathway which interprets Scripture as God.” (Esoteric Philosophy page 60:2)

In 1970, a song by the Five Man Electrical Band told us about “signs, signs, everywhere a sign, blocking up the scenery, breaking my mind.” While the song was mostly tongue-in-cheek and counter-culture for the time, it had something important to say about dogma, doctrine, and the ways that our human personalities seem to reverse-engineer our consciousness.

Doctrines are what seem true when Cause is hidden from us by matter in some way. Doctrines come to us from every direction: religion, culture, legal and moral authorities, peerage, etc. In every instance, doctrines attempt to establish Truth by looking toward effects instead of looking toward Cause and allowing conditions to take care of themselves. Spirit is always superior to Its creation, and Principle is always a more expansive arena than ideas. While doctrine has the potential to light the way toward Immortal Mind consciousness, it is an instrument to that purpose and cannot rise above the human mind consciousness that created it.

It could be said that doctrinaire thinking is the Old Testament remnant that is still bound up in our human ego - the blood and body of our ancestors. Doctrines essentially control, regulate, and mitigate human behavior where Christ has not yet been realized and exposed in us. It could also be said that the Ten Commandments were and are a form of this kind of doctrine where the letter of the law must suffice, while the Spirit of the Law is yet to be fully realized. Jesus declared “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets; I am come not to destroy, but to fulfill.” (Matt. 5:17-20) The fulfillment of the law, or doctrine, is the restoration of Original Mind on earth, the letter of the law yielding to the Spirit of the Law, and finally, moving into the Mystical Mind of no-law and no-doctrine.

Some of the most powerful doctrines are those which we have ordained for ourselves, our own “individual religions,” for lack of a better term. Each of us embraces and/or fears aspects of human life, and consequently we construct doctrines to govern and rationalize our behavior in relationship to these aspects. These private doctrines become part of our personalities, the “letter of the law” that we live by. The inherent illusions of these personal doctrines and decrees subconsciously warn us that if we do not obey them, we will be punished, harmed, or diminished in some way.

Whenever we use the word “need” as a guide to living, we are controlled by some doctrine. Whenever we are obedient to conditions instead of to Cause, the density of doctrine rules. As we move, by faith, from what we feel we “need” to be or do, we begin to move into New Testament consciousness. Emma calls this movement “doing what we ought” and the Apostle Paul describes it as “our reasonable service.” Freedom from doctrine allows God to be God in us.

 Freedom from doctrine does not necessarily mean that what we do in everyday life will change at all, or perhaps everything will change. What is certain and vital is that what we are doing will not matter at all, but the consciousness we do things from will have been transformed forever. Cause will reign supreme in our lives, our ministries, and in every breath, “nearer than hands and feet,” in the words of Alfred Lord Tennyson.

As we ascend through higher levels of consciousness on our Homeward journey, each doctrine that we embrace as a “road sign” becomes less dense and more filled with Light. However, each has its foundation in some mortal mind thought or idea, the “letter of the law.” As such, the possibility of “everyday evil” (operating from effect to cause) becomes a stumbling block in all doctrine. “Evil” is “live” spelled backward, so it could be said that we only truly live and transmit that life when the “letter” that doctrine brings dissolves forever, exposing the “Spirit” which is the Christ.

Since we have an earthly presence and identity (our own Jesus), some doctrine may always be present in us. What we, as Initiates, aspire to daily is to operate from the thinnest, most transparent doctrine possible, that which sheds the most light on First Cause.

In the story of the marriage feast in Cana, related in John 2, Mary looks upon a “needy” condition and says to her son, “They have no wine.” (John 2:3) Jesus, the unattached and doctrineless Christ, replies “Woman, what do I have to do with thee?” (John 2:4). As Jesus well knew, when attention is taken off need, off the earth, off effort and off doctrine, Genesis is brought forth as what we call miracles. “Let it be” was Jesus’ only thought, and as the master of the feast observed, “you have kept the good wine until now.” (John 2:10)

Every time that by doctrine we specify, identify, or “need” in life, practice, or prayer, we are bound to the “letter of the law” in some way. As we surrender and ascend into true, unattached “Let it be” consciousness, we become free, and we bring the fulfillment of the law, “the Spirit,” as did Jesus Christ. Here, we bring Heaven to earth not only for ourselves, but for those we serve and all of mankind. This is the deeper meaning and the Passion to bring it forth that Jesus announced for us in His statement “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” (John 14:6)