Foundation and Superstructure

These are the another correlatives in divine principles. The strength of foundation decides the the strength of superstructure. Not the other way, think about a weak foundation and strong superstructure, every kind of natural attacks will affect it. Whatever the strength superstructure posses doesn't matter.But if the foundation is strong , even if the structure is weak it will not fall away easily, the foundation will hold it.And as long as the structure stand on the foundation the structure will serve the foundation as a guard to certain extend.Means, they have an action and reaction between them.

There is a very beautiful advice from Jesus in the form of foundation and superstructure in Bible, Mathew 7: 24-27, as follows:

24“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

What does it mean? As long as we have some sound doctrines as our foundation, nothing will influence us adversely? Or we can stand with it against any kind of adverse situations? It doesn't mean that  following a sound doctrines is like staying there in Canaan where milk and honey flow abundantly. Shakespeare's drama "The Tempest" prophesies us the truth. If we are as innocent as Prospero and his daughter Miranda, then our place will be,sometimes, there in the  solitude of a remote island. And if we are Antonio and his son Ferdinand,  who send these innocent souls to the solitude of  island, then we might be in a luxurious royal cruise, the life floats smoothly and lavishly. But neither Antonio, nor his son Ferdinand, nor any of his crews could stand against the tempest that sent by the order of Prospero. We can see Ferdinand leap into the sea saying "The hell is empty, All devils are here", he felt that devils are around him in the royal cruise, because he couldn't stand against the situation. But Prospero and his daughter Miranda could stand against the situations in the solitude of a  remote island more than twelve years .

Here Jesus mentions two type of foundations one is rocky the other is sandy. The peculiarity of sandy foundation is that it can be influenced very easily by the environmental changes, but rocky is not. The question is that whether our principles or doctrines are so flexible that our situation can twist or water-down  it or  can we stand against, holding the doctrines, to make a  twist in situation ? In  most cases; whether in persons, societies, or in nations; we can see a sandy type foundation. According to the situations view will change. And those who adulterate their own view time to time will call this phenomenon as pragmatism.And what is the result of following this "pragmatism"? They cannot make any twist, break through or change in situation positively.

If we can look back into the history, we can see that all the great men survived the baptism of fire in their life because they held on the principle they believed in, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Abraham Lincoln are some of them. The name of Jesus, I needn't mention here as an example for that.

Selfless Activities make possible principles to live in us

In nutshell, selfless lives are lead by divine doctrine and they are eventful  . One of  such life is Hannah's life(1Samuel 1). She had to face many insults and hardships in her life. But she maintained a non-retaliating attitude which can be done only by selfless personalities. She went through all pains, because of selfless mentality and in turn that made changes even in her physiology. She was a barren lady, but she gave birth to a child at last. In selfless lives spiritual principles works vigorously and do miracles .

Another example is Paul the apostle. He was a Jew by birth. But one day, unexpectedly, his life changed . He began to lead a quite different life. He was well known among Jews in Roman Empire. He born and brought up in a noble family and educated under Gamaliel, the famous teacher among Jews. He abandoned all these facilities and titles. He starved for the sake of his mission and traveled all over the Roman Empire.He faced persecutions not only from enemies but also from fouls brothers.  According to the bible his possessions were his parchments and a blanket that he left in Troas(2Thimoty 4:13), so he reminds Timothy to bring it back, because,we know when we read bible, to buy one might have been beyond his capacity. If we make a close study of  life of Paul , we can see that he is the one and only man who shook the powerful Roman empire so powerfully. This happened not because of his wealth or weapons or the multitude of people behind him. The selfless life and thereby the principles in which he believed worked in him vigorously. If we want to know the real picture, we have to go through history of Roman empire and the information provided by encyclopedia.

These are the two examples to prove that principles work only in selfless lives. Most often what happen is selfish people twist the principles for  their selfish existence thereby bring bad reputation for the principles and scriptures. 

How the principles Live in us ?

I mentioned that there are two planes working in human beings. Spiritual  as well as physical. As we saw, if anything need to exist that should perform some functions obeying some laws or principles. Existence of two planes means principles work at two planes or existence of two set of principles. First one is physical plane or material body that performs all its functions spontaneously obeying some principles as it is the part of the matter or material world, needs scarcely any deliberate obedience. Means we have an attachment to material world. As much we have been attached to this material world so much vigorously all the principles perform their functions at physical plane. Attachment to the world means influence of the material environment upon us as well as our influence upon material environment and thereby the influence of the material environment upon our mind and sense organs. Every change in the environment, natural as well as social, affect us. The situations carve us, so situations become responsible for everything while we are here in the physical plane, a beast like life.(Genesis 3:12-13)

While this plane is vigorously active, the other plane, spiritual world in us, cannot perform very well or it might be away from us(Genesis 3:8-9) because of the dominance of the material plane or nature (Mathew 6:24-27). Nor it performs without any effort, whatever our knowledge about these principles it may be. So first we need a detachment from the world and worldly passions in order to deactivate the physical plane or make it passive and thereby activate the spiritual world in us. I know many of us may misunderstand the statement and control our organs of action. No, if we control our organs of actions, means control activity, and still our mind dwells on the sense-objects, then we will become hypocrites, because  this state is known as hypocrisy (The state in which the organs of action are not inline with the state of mind).  Don't control our organs of action but mind and sense organs. Do everything like a normal man but maintain a different kind of mind, a mind of renunciation. Means do everything as duty or office expecting nothing, selflessly.

At this stage the inducement from the material environment will not affect because of the state of selflessness or the control of mind over sense organs (Mathew 4:8-11). So then what will be the motivating force in our life to perform our activities?  Any way that will not be external material influences, but the internal spiritual influence or the principles that helps to perform the spiritual plane with in us. Now all the principles we know will begin to work spontaneously. The attachment to the material passions prevent us from putting the principles in practice. So how to make the principles  work in us spontaneously? Away from material passions.