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“And King Solomon sent and fetched Hiram out of Tyre. He was a widow’s son of the tribe of Naphtali and his father was a man of Tyre and a worker in brass; he was filled with wisdom and understanding to work all works in brass. And he came to King Solomon and wrought all his works.” (I KINGS 7:13, 14)
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In the center of man is forever burning the eternal flame of God. This center is the Holy of Holies in which abides the Absolute.
The buildings adjacent to King Solomon’s temple are your environment, family life, companionship, friends; in fact, every department of your life, business and social. There must be no taint in any of them. Purity of purpose, integrity of action, self-mastery of thought and emotion, generic virtue, all these are the fundamental basis for the erection of the Temple not made with hands. This is man’s participation and liberation. Thus can he seek entrance into the Holy of Holies. This is accomplished by following the advice of the prophets of old: “Whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things.” In other words, we must practice the Presence of God everywhere and at all times.
Practicing the Presence of God symbolizes the vast treasures of gold and precious stones necessary in the construction of Solomon’s temple, WHICH IS “YOURSELF.”
The Truth of Being is that the whole wide world and all things contained therein are the self expression of God. Man, not understanding this greatest of truths, forms false beliefs about the Truth. He sees limitations of all kinds around him; he feels himself to be separate from God and dependent on his own efforts. Let us realize that God is doing all things through us. If another person seems to behave badly—to the capacity of your thinking and feeling that God is working through him, will his conduct change. However, why should we dwell upon and magnify the seeming faults of others? Everyone has God-like qualities if we would only look for them. “Seek and ye shall find.” If you look for what is good, you will find it. For your own peace and happiness (if for no higher purpose) an effort should be made to seek out the good qualities in others. It is told that when Thales was asked what was the most difficult thing to do and what was the easiest, he answered: “The hardest thing to do is to learn to know oneself; the easiest, to find fault with the doings of other people.”
If you are, at any time, endowed with God’s ‘Grace’ to heal, realize that “God is healing this person through me.” This is building the temple of God—for you, the reader, are the temple of the Living God. “And he set up the pillars in the porch of the Temple; and he set up the right pillar and called the name thereof Jachin and he set up the left pillar and called the name thereof Boaz.” Jachin is Infinite Personality or the Presence of God in each of us. He is personal to each of us. The other pillar is the law of cause and effect “as you sow, so shall you reap,” which is impersonal; it may also be called Love. These two form the entrance to King Solomon’s temple in which is the Secret Place of the Most High within each of us. God abides in the silence; Truth is transmitted in the silence; the Truth is lived in the silence. Hiram, who builds the temple, is man who is now aware of the fact that his consciousness is God.
“It stood upon twelve oxen, three looking toward the north, and three looking toward the west, and three looking toward the south, and three looking toward the east; and the sea was set above them, and all their hinder parts were inward. (I Kings 7:25)
Oxen are emasculated bulls which simply means that before we can finish the temple and awaken from the illusion of suffering, evil and chaos to the reality of love, compassion and wisdom, we must discipline our faculties. Otherwise, like the bull we will run wild and our senses will become our master instead of our servant. Some men live to eat, drink and satisfy the passions and appetites. Such a man is referred to in the Bible as the snake that crawls on its belly eating earth. Therefore seek permanent values wherein is found the only Reality of a Divine Plan.
The three oxen looking toward the north are Andrew, Peter, and James which symbolize perception, hearing and right judgment. The three looking toward the west are John, Philip and Bartholomew, symbolizing love, emotion and the disciplined imagination of man; the three looking toward the south are Thomas, Matthew and James which denote turning your attention from the negative conditions and accepting desires and ability to pierce the veil. The three looking toward the east are Thaddeus, Simon of Canaan and Judas, who portray man in prayer, whereby he turns within and sings the Song of Triumph with the praise of God forever on his lips; he abides in a mystic feast of joy, peace and happiness and then he rests. The rest is “Judas” or complete detachment from all that would deny his good, the good for himself or another.
When we finally have disciplined Judas or the quality of dying daily to all false beliefs, there will no longer be a necessity for disciplining the other faculties, as Judas is the greatest of all disciples when disciplined. It means that we “die” to everything but the power of God and we simply live in the presence of God all the time. This is calling Judas to discipleship. Then do we reveal Jesus, our Savior. Therefore Judas must betray or “reveal” Jesus, who is our own consciousness— our “Savior.” “He that dips with me in the dish, he it is that will betray me.” He now touches reality in the depths of himself by appropriating a new state of consciousness and dies to all former concepts of himself. He has dipped with Christ in the loving state of consciousness or the universal dish called the subjective, or God in smiling repose. Jesus feeds Judas, Judas appropriates the sop. Before this Judas was always considered “poor,” now Jesus has fed him with the knowledge of the Savior and the Judas state has been changed to Jesus, our ideal state.
“And all their hinder parts were inward.” (I Kings 7:25) This means that in prayer we withdraw our faculties from the world of sense and turn inward toward the Real, the One, the Beautiful, and the Good. In other words we deny that which we see in the world of sound and go back to the Silence; God abides in the Silence. The Masonic legend states that Hiram was murdered by three ruffians before the temple was completed and dedicated. The three ruffians are our ignorance of the Truth, our race beliefs, superstitions, and fears. These three ruffians are in all of us and constantly slay the Christ principle. The Truth student and mystic of course realize that this means we go through three degrees or steps every time we die to an old belief. These three degrees are recognition that Hiram is the seat of causation; second, the new ideal or purified desire; third, the feeling or conviction of now being the person you desire to be.
This is the only crucifixion (change of consciousness) there is. The story of the crucifixion is a mystical drama and seen through the eyes of the mystic is one of the most beautiful stories ever told. Good Friday should be every day for the student of Truth. Good Friday is now dedicated by the Christian churches to sorrow and sadness. When man understands its true meaning it should be and will be a day of joy, celebration and happiness. The reason is perfectly obvious, we rejoice in the good.
We now have told the truth. The Jews did not slay Jesus, the Savior. How could they? He is always with us. He is our Savior and salvation. He abides in the heart of every man. Our Savior is slain only by man when he does not in consciousness recognize and sustain faith in the realization of his desires. This Savior is our own consciousness,— ”It was never born and will never die.” As we change our consciousness we die to our old state and are reborn in the new state. The Christ principle in man never dies. “Water wets it not, fire burns it not, wind blows it not away.” Therefore, “Why grievest thou for it?”
Jesus has many meanings; it means to save, it also means desire, i. e. your desires when accepted by you save you. Jesus also means your consciousness, the Liberator, the Emancipator, liberated-self. In order for you to realize your desire it must die or be stilled. You still it this way, by now entering into the mood of acceptance of your desire. Contemplate the joy that would be yours if you had your ideal now and feel it until it becomes a conviction. There must be no break in your sustained faith. Then follows the rest or Sabbath of the Lord.
You now have the inner knowing that tells all those who pray aright that “It is finished.” Man does not seek that which he has, your former state is slain and a new Jesus (saving state of consciousness) is resurrected; “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” This is the true meaning of the Resurrection scripture story. It is high time that Christians painted the true picture of Jesus to the world. If we do that, all will want to emulate the glorious picture of the true Jesus, who depicted the Christ (awakened man) or anointed state of consciousness. Man will become as Jesus, the Christ, the kindliest man that ever walked the earth, the noble dignified man who loves humanity, who has compassion on the multitude and feeds them, the ideal man who walks on the waters, who, translates his body at will, who says “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” The praise of God will be forever on his lips, Jesus always said “I thank thee, Father, that thou hearest me.” He it is who wore the seamless robe of consciousness, who ate only the best, the man who could read the thoughts of others and forgive and heal them. The man who never condemned anyone, but said “Forgive till seventy times seven.” The man who said to the thief “this day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” The man who knew nothing about laws of gravitation and motion, but could be where he wanted to be at will. The man who could go through the eye of a needle and revibrate himself again, the man who could go through barred walls, doors and windows, the man who awakened from the dream of being man and ascended in the clouds to the glory which was his before the world was,—the “I AM” state.
Therefore the ultimate mystical meaning of the crucifixion of Jesus is simply the psychological transformation and transmutation of consciousness whereby man awakens to his Godhood here and now and no longer asks for light but realizes “I Am the Light of the World.” He then becomes the radiance of the Light Limitless and his eyes are now God’s eyes, his forgiveness is now the forgiveness of the Absolute, the only One, the absolute Love of all mankind,—“The God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” When in books, in pulpits, and in classrooms we dramatize the Bible, the true story of Jesus the Christ, we will begin to change the consciousness of the nation and the world. We consciously become God’s radiation, dissolving the barrier between man and man. We must now paint the true picture of Jesus, the Christ and not the hideous picture painted for two thousand years of a man of sorrows, bleeding on the cross with a crown of thorns. It is small wonder that no boy wants to be Jesus the Christ, the victim. No, he would rather be a soldier or an aviator or a maker of an atomic bomb so that he may drop bombs of destruction on his seeming “enemy.” Science without Christ consciousness (wisdom of God) means the destruction of mankind! If we paint the true picture, every boy will want to be Jesus, the Victor. He will want to emulate the perfect ideal.
Now we have carved a model of perfection, which is good and beautiful. The basic pattern of the world is beauty and the particulars are suspended from the Universal like roses hanging from a vine. It behooves all of us to let Hiram build the temple; this represents a state of spiritual, intellectual and worldly emancipation. We must cease sacrificing the beautiful for what we consider the riches of the world. Let us begin now to change the superstition and discord into an ingot of spiritual gold. Meditating on these great truths, we will surely build Solomon’s temple here and now, which is your mind, your body and affairs.
We have been searching for “the lost word,” not knowing, not realizing that when discovered it would be in our own manger, surrounded by the animals and marked by a blazing star or burning bush. This blazing star is the sun or our own spiritual consciousness called I AM. I AM is the lost word; now having found
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Wheels of Truth, dr. Joseph Murphy
