CHAPTER 22 *
The friendship of Jesus and Lamaas. Jesus explains to Lamaas the meaning of truth, man, power, understanding, wisdom, salvation and faith. [ * Very important chapter on basic understanding and knowing; universality. ]
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 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 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 their powers to be, and thought of (from) 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 the 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 is lost; and man is saved when he has reached deific life; when he and God are one.