Abram and Lot Separate (Rabel)

METAPHYSICAL BIBLE INTERPRETATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
This is a series of lectures given by Mr. Edward Rabel, member of the faculty of S.M.R.S.
Fall semester 1975 - 2nd. Yr. Class. Lecture given on September 30 and October 3, 1975

Topic: 28
Gen. 13, pp. 113-117 of transcript.

Abram and Lot Separate

In Chapter 13, we find than there comes a time in our unfoldment when we are able to distinguish for ourselves, the different realms of activity going on in us. They are not cut and dried and unmistakable, but we begin, to recognize that all of me is not what you see on the surface, and all of me is not just how I feel at this moment; but I have different levels of depths in me, and there are factors on these levels that function in perhaps different ways. I can't always understand it all, but I'm becoming more and more aware that it's there. This is the emerging of the great faculty called judgment.

We begin to develop what will later become the judgment faculty, which is this discerning differences, first within ourselves. One of the differences we will begin discerning in us is that which Abraham stands for and Abraham is supposed to do and that, which Lot stands for and that which Lot is supposed to do. They are to inhabit different levels of our totality and accomplish different things. They are not to be mixed up with each other as the same, because they're not the same, although they are related.

Now, Abram, we learn stands for an active, quickened, obedient faith in God, while Lot stands - again, please understand I'm not pinpointing Lot's definition; I have to talk about him in a fragmentary way, so I'll shift once in a while - Lot stands for among other things, those factors in our subconscious which can believe in almost everything.

Believing almost in anything is not the same as faith in God. They're related because the power of belief is very definitely related to faith; but you can believe anything you choose, anything you will. You can believe in anything positive, negative, destructive, constructive, truth, error. You can believe all over the place, but faith is really faith only when it is faith in God. The two are not the same, and so we make an inner distinction between them, and we assign them two different purposes in the overall unfoldment or functioning of our nature.

Lot, who gets his choices, chooses to dwell in the plain of Jordan, which means the realm of outer things, the realm of outer happenings, outer appearances. Abram is to dwell in the unlimited territory chosen for him by the Lord. Abram does not, in any way try to manipulate the Lord or dictate to the Lord; he lets the Lord choose for him, and so he gets the realm of unlimited possibilities.

We will start today with Abram and his questionable liaison with Pharoah. This is not faith. That is not Abram as a simple faith, it's Abram as a symbol of the deciding ego of self. This will happen to all the main male characters, Joseph is another example, he doesn't always stand for just the imagination only. Sometimes he stands for the me ego, the deciding and directive self and you will notice when these things are occurring because there are certain things attributed to these male characters which the quality or the faculty they symbolize would not do, but the self would so, the self would give them permission or make the decision.

So, this is behind the strange fact that himself sends Sarai to do this sort of dealing with Pharoah but for the most part, the male characters will stand for the characteristic of his designated ordain in the Metaphysical Bible Dictionary. Now, we ended our last class with consideration of the possible meanings for the character of Lot.

He's a very ambiguous symbol. Sometimes it seems as though he must be one thing and then at another it seems as though he must mean another thing. Sometimes we wonder if he isn't meant to be a negative symbol, but then other times he is definitely used as a positive or desirable symbol. So, we have to not let ourselves be disturbed by the ambivalence of his symbolism in the story, but in general, think of Lot as that side of yourself, or that portion of yourself that you don't really understand yet. You're never quite sure of what's going on in that part of yourself.

Do you all agree that we have such an area in us? We say, "Why am I acting like this? Why am I feeling like this? So, in no way is Lot to be thought as a bad symbol, or a bad thought inside of us, but unillumined in a sense that we are not fully cognizant of what goes on to make up thought and we're not in control of it, because we don't understand. Anything we don't understand we can't really control it, except if we're in the Christ consciousness, but then, the Christ would understand. There's where the control comes from. The Lot factors in us certainly would contain the area of our current beliefs. We may have Lots, and lots of faith in God, and there's no doubt as to the genuineness of that faith. But, at the same time, we still have a lot of subconscious beliefs in the negative, in the realm of outer appearances. We still have many erroneous beliefs about our sense consciousness. We haven't cleared that up.

We still have people all over the world today who have faith in God, who have a believing desire for things spiritual and yet, at the same time, are under the control of certain sexual appetites which they would fight to the death to defend. It's hard to understand that aspect of human nature in its present phase of development. A lot of people try to ease their way out and say "it's all good".

It all works together for good, but a lot of things in their current form, or in their current mode of expression are causing a lot of harm. Even though good will result out of it in the long run, in the short term business there's a lot of unnecessary suffering going on. So, this Lot part of us, his name means "dark, hidden, concealed", and then subsequent things said about him kind of verify what we're saying here, but we're not to label him or that part of us bad. If he were a bad symbol, would he not have been designated to perish along with the ether Sodomites? He was singled out, he and his family, as Noah was, and was preserved, saved, because that parts of us, while it is in its unillumined state right now, is capable of total illumination. Now, maybe we'll get more light as we go along.

Abram's decision to very peacefully and generously effect a separation between himself and Lot, that should tell us something right there. But very lovingly, very generously, he gives Lot first choice as to what territory he wants to occupy. Quite typically, this phase of our human nature, Lot chooses to dwell in the easiest place to get to, and the most attractive to look at from a distance; the plane of Jordan, in which were contained the two cities, Sodom and Gomorrah.

Now, Abram didn't choose, Abram accepted what the Lord chose for him, which was the unlimited territory called the future. All the possibilities for good in eternity is what Abram's assigned land stands for. Lot's choice indicates that subconscious beliefs are attracted to whatever is sensually alluring or pleasing according to outer appearances. This realm of life contains the dangerous factors represented by the two cities, Sodom and Gomorrah.

Abram's allotment symbolizes the unlimited possibilities of good, which is the territory of light assigned to our active and obedient faith in God. Each part of us gets what it wants. Your faith in God wants God; unlimited Good, but your subconscious beliefs, the dark and the denser, more animal part of us wants the realm of excitement, pleasure, thrill, outer appearance type of beauty and allurement.

Part of a man is a very immoral, excuse the word, but I'm using a purposely exaggerated, vulgarized illustration. Let's say there's a wanton woman, if there are anymore such things left; who is voluptuously beautiful and very lascivious and all this. Now, she goes after a guy, what part of that guy is she appealing to - his faith in God? What part of a man is she appealing too? His subconscious beliefs, his more animal nature, his Lot type of nature, and yet, can we call that bad? No, it's just something that's there and it's not really understood and it's time is running out, of course, but right now it's capable of change and development and it's preserved.

Now, the plain of Jordan and its two cities represent that realm of life in which that kind of thing goes on. Lord, it does, and it's not to be condemned, but transformed. At first dissolved, purified and transformed.

Transcribed by Margaret Garvin on February 25, 2015.