CHAPTER 22.
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Levi
The friendship of Jesus and Lamaas. Jesus explains to Lamaas the meaning of truth, man, power, understanding, wisdom, salvation and faith.
Among the priests of Jagannath was one who loved the Jewish boy. Lamaas Bramas was the name by which the priest was known.
2 One day as Jesus and Lamaas walked alone in plaza Jagannath, Lamaas said, My Jewish master, what is truth?
3 And Jesus said, Truth is the only thing that changes not.
4 In all the world there are two things; the one is truth; the other falsehood is; and truth is that which is, and falsehood that which seems to be.
5 Now truth is aught, and has no cause, and yet it is the cause of everything.
6 Falsehood is naught, and yet it is the manifest of aught.
7 Whatever has been made will be unmade; that which begins must end.
8 All things that can be seen by human eyes are manifests of aught, are naught, and so must pass away.
9 The things we see are but reflexes just appearing, while the ethers vibrate so and so, and when conditions change they disappear.
10 The Holy Breath is truth; is that which was, and is, and evermore shall be; it cannot change nor pass away.
11 Lamaas said, You answer well; now, what is man?
12 And Jesus said, Man is the truth and falsehood strangely mixed.
13 Man is the Breath made flesh; so truth and falsehood are conjoined in him; and then they strive, and naught goes down and man as truth abides.
14 Again Lamaas asked, What do you say of power?
15 And Jesus said, It is a manifest; is the result of force; it is but naught; it is illusion, nothing more. Force changes not, but power changes as the ethers change.
16 Force is the will of God and is omnipotent, and power is that will in manifest, directed by the Breath.
17 There is a power in the winds, a power in the waves, a power in the lightning’s stroke, a power in the human arm, a power in the eye.
18 The ethers cause these powers to be, and thought of Elohim, of angel, man, or other thinking thing, directs the force; when it has done its work the power is no more.
19 Again Lamaas asked, Of understanding what have you to say?
20 And Jesus said, It is the rock on which man builds himself; it is the gnosis of the aught and of the naught, of falsehood and of truth.
21 It is the knowledge of the lower self; the sensing of the powers of man himself.
22 Again Lamaas asked, Of wisdom what have you to say?
23 And Jesus said, It is the consciousness that man is aught; that God and man are one;
24 That naught is naught; that power is but illusion; that heaven and earth and hell are not above, around, below, but in; which in the light of aught becomes the naught, and God is all.
25 Lamaas asked, Pray, what is faith?
26 And Jesus said, Faith is the surety of the omnipotence of God and man; the certainty that man will reach deific life.
27 Salvation is a ladder reaching from the heart of man to heart of God.
28 It has three steps; Belief is first, and this is what man thinks, perhaps, is truth.
29 And faith is next, and this is what man knows is truth.
30 Fruition is the last, and this is man himself, the truth.
31 Belief is lost in faith; and in fruition faith is lost; and man is saved when he has reached deific life; when he and God are one.