The ease with which we can walk away from our human conditioning and perceive the truth is directly proportional to how much we suffer in this world.\u00a0 The more we are attached to our beliefs, which are a product of our personal sense of ego, the more we suffer.\u00a0 When we let go of our attachment to material belief, we can walk through the trials of this world relatively untouched until the truth comes into our awareness and lifts us into the spiritual realm of oneness. \u00a0We can look at the life of Jesus to see how this is done.\u00a0 Not only did he heal the sick and raise the dead, but also he went through the whole gamut of human emotions in being betrayed, falsely accused, tried, tortured and killed.\u00a0 What was it that was tried, tortured and killed but the human concept of power and belief.\u00a0 Did that ever touch the Christ?\u00a0 Not one bit.\u00a0 And Christ was the resurrection and restoration of Jesus to his divine selfhood.<\/p>\n
From childhood Jesus lived a life of freedom, fully aware of his Christhood. He loved freely, both friend and enemy.\u00a0 He taught freely, giving his consciousness of the Christ to all who had ears to hear and eyes to see.\u00a0 He healed freely, bestowing on those in bondage to mental and physical limitation the gift of wholeness.\u00a0 He saw his fellow man as children of God, brothers and sisters in Christ, and joint heirs to the Kingdom of Heaven.\u00a0 He recognized heaven, God-consciousness, to be within the individual, and when it came time for him to go through the portal of death, he forgave those ignorant enough to think that killing him would keep them in power, since the Christ indwells all men and can never be extinguished.\u00a0 Ultimately Jesus walked back through the veil to free mankind forever from the belief that life ends with physical death. <\/em><\/p>\n As long as we give power to human form, or we give power to an authority, or an enemy — as long as we are living in this world and being presented with pictures of joy and sorrow, disease and health, love and betrayal, we are going to have to make choices. Sometimes the choices are going to appear to have negative impacts and negative ramifications to our un-purged human beliefs.\u00a0 Most of our suffering has to do with our acceptance of material concept as Reality.\u00a0 Our freedom comes in the realization that whatever beliefs we\u2019ve accepted as our own, are not really personal to us, but are universal limitations tempting us to believe them to be real and thus having power over us.\u00a0 With Jesus as our example, all we need to do to experience our Christ freedom is to say no — \u201cAway with you, Satan!\u201d…[1]<\/a> \u201cYou would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n Mystics talk about the little dance, or double talk, we do to pay lip service to this world.\u00a0 We don\u2019t go around to those with no spiritual awakening and tell them that the tyranny of this world — whether it\u2019s political, medical, natural or financial — isn\u2019t real.\u00a0 When someone tells us his tale of woe, we inwardly correct the false beliefs and know the truth, because that is loving our neighbor as our self.\u00a0 But we say nothing to create an argument or controversy.\u00a0 As Jesus said, when you confront an adversary, \u201c…let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay; for whatever is more than these cometh of evil.\u201d[3]<\/a> Why?\u00a0 Because first of all, this world has no inclination towards nor interest in the things of God. <\/em>This world is asleep.\u00a0 It is in a dream. It is a mirage.\u00a0 This world is the belief that there is a power other than God.\u00a0 It is only when we have reconciled the appearances of this world, which is an activity of the Christ going on within us, to the truth that exists behind the appearance that we walk through this world untouched by its negativity.<\/p>\n The activity of knowing the truth that makes you free is an act of reconciliation. Our cultural background comes from the Judaic-Christian scriptures, so we are conditioned by concepts instilled in Western thought that misrepresent what we have to do to be reconciled to our spiritual center and experience the freedom of God.\u00a0 The main misperception is that the individual must first suffer and die before he can taste heaven. Once he\u2019s dead and buried, his spirit or soul, will rise up on the last day, and if he\u2019s been good enough he will join Jesus in Heaven with God. That’s taking a spiritual idea and turning it into a myth.<\/p>\n If we look at life solely as a human being, our egos want to live comfortably, experience pleasure, and have as little pain and suffering as possible.\u00a0 Our ego wants to be loved, and when the last day comes, die quickly without fear.\u00a0 That’s the perfect human ideal.\u00a0 But it\u2019s not necessarily spiritual.\u00a0 On the other hand, the orthodox view of a spiritual life consists of avoiding sinners, punishing every carnal thought, mortifying the flesh to drive out desire and lust, and living with no carnal distractions to communion so that your reward in the next life will be blissful.\u00a0 The conclusion reached is that one cannot spiritualize a human concept.<\/p>\n So here we are again with the problem of being in the world but not of it.\u00a0 We want to be of a pure heart and mind as prescribed in scripture, yet we don\u2019t want to miss out on the joys and pleasures of life.\u00a0 If\u00a0 desiring the pleasures of this life means experiencing some pain and postponing our spiritual revelation, we more often than not go for the pleasure.\u00a0 As mystics we are taught not to desire the good of this world, and not to fear its evil. There seems to be a conflict, then, between the spiritual life of no desire and no fear and normal human existence.\u00a0 In truth, there isn\u2019t.\u00a0 As Jesus taught, it is the middle path that is the way to freedom.\u00a0 Walking the middle path requires recognition of our true identity.\u00a0 It requires a detachment from fear and desire, which allows us to look temptation in the eye and not be moved.\u00a0 And it requires an attitude of non-judgment so that we may be instruments of Divine Love.\u00a0 Jesus told us that knowing the truth would make us free.\u00a0 Another great spiritual light of the last century said, \u201cDivine Love always has met and always will meet every human need.\u201d\u00a0 With this in mind, let\u2019s look at some aspects in Jesus\u2019 life that illustrate these principles.<\/p>\n In the Book of John, we have a different twist on the whole idea of Baptism and of the recognition of the indwelling Christ.<\/p>\n “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.\u00a0 The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.\u00a0 He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.\u00a0 That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.\u00a0 He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.\u00a0 He came unto his own, and his own received him not.\u00a0 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the children of God, even to them that believe on his name, which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.\u00a0 And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth.”<\/em>[4]<\/a><\/p>\n The activity of spiritual baptism recognizes our Light.\u00a0 I say “our” Light.\u00a0 There is only one Light, but this Light is universal and It expresses itself uniquely and individually.\u00a0 When It is recognized within the individual, first by the individual and then by another with spiritual discernment, then that individual experiences a spiritual awakening or illumination.<\/p>\n This Light is in the world, and the world is made by this Light.\u00a0 In other words, the\u00a0I<\/em> thatI am<\/em>, is the same\u00a0I<\/em> that God is, and It made the world.\u00a0 But the world does not know this\u00a0I<\/em>because this\u00a0I<\/em> is spiritual.\u00a0 So the world does not know anything about Oneness.\u00a0 The world is hypnotized into believing that there are two powers, but there are not.\u00a0 There is only one power\u00a0 When we realize we are not born of man, but that we are the children of God, eternal beings, expressing Light individually and uniquely, and when we are aware of this truth consciously while in the world, then the Word becomes flesh and this activity of truth and love in the world becomes the leaven that lifts consciousness out of the belief that there is power outside of God.<\/p>\n Once you recognize the activity of the Christ, you become aware of the mental belief structure of this world, and you can see how the power composition of this world temps you to glorify the ego.\u00a0 You can heal through the mind.\u00a0 You can get rich.\u00a0 You can get famous.\u00a0 You can have everybody worshipping you. You can have instant food.\u00a0 Instant gratification.\u00a0 You can become god like.\u00a0 With the awareness of being tempted comes the realization that we have a choice — once the Christ has been activated in us.\u00a0 With choice comes liberty, but also responsibility.<\/p>\n When we live a completely material life, we aren’t aware that we are being tempted, so there is no choice.\u00a0 Also, if we have not developed the discernment to know when the ego is pumping us, and we think the good coming into our lives is because of what we know, or what we\u2019ve done, we\u2019ll soon fall by the wayside because spiritual activity is not personal — it\u2019s universal.\u00a0 It is impersonal in that it is no respecter of persons.\u00a0 The spiritual rain of truth, falls on the just and the unjust.\u00a0 If the Christ in us says\u00a0“No!”<\/em> to temptation — that’s it.\u00a0 There’s no battle because our spiritual discernment reveals temptation as the belief that some good can come to us from outside our consciousness, and we know that is untrue.<\/p>\n The synoptic gospels show us how to deal with temptation through the example of the Master.\u00a0 They portray him as a man struggling to come to grips with his revelation of the Christ.\u00a0 You will note the chronology of being tempted by Satan comes right after the recognition of the Christ.\u00a0 After Jesus\u2019 baptism by John, God declared Jesus His beloved son.[5]<\/a> In each of these stories Jesus hasn\u2019t come into his full awareness as the Christ, therefore he must contend with the material expressions of good and evil.\u00a0 Also, we see a personalized concept of evil in Satan.<\/p>\n “Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.”<\/em>[6]<\/a>When this awareness of the presence of God is awakened in the individual, there is the realization that there seems to be two worlds.\u00a0 I’ve just experienced this overwhelming sense of oneness, and peace, and joy, but look, the world is still here and there are still people fighting, and there is still disease and poverty.\u00a0 So the spirit takes one into the wilderness, away from the world, to face the activity that has been recognized within.\u00a0 And in the wilderness, the tempter comes.\u00a0 The first temptation is hunger.\u00a0 Jesus is in the wilderness and he is hungry.\u00a0 Now in the mystical sense, when we are in a wilderness experience and are awake to the spiritual nature of our being — as it says in the Beatitudes,\u00a0“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness…”<\/em>[7]<\/a> — we want to be filled with the spirit of God.\u00a0 But, if we still think God is out there, that our fulfillment is going to come from something in the world, that our hunger is going to be fed by something outside of the\u00a0I<\/em> that\u00a0I <\/em>am, then we fall for the temptation.<\/p>\n “And when the tempter came to him, he said, if thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread,”<\/em>[8]<\/a> After all, you’re hungry.<\/p>\n Jesus said:\u00a0“It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”<\/em> [9]<\/a> Our good, our hunger, is not satisfied by anything outside of our spiritual Self.\u00a0 It will be satisfied by an inner Spiritual unfoldment because we are awake to the nature of\u00a0I,<\/em> have recognized It, so It is active.\u00a0 The more we seek satisfaction in the material world, the bleaker it becomes.<\/p>\n Then the next temptation came:\u00a0“… the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto him, if thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down, for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.”<\/em>[10]<\/a><\/p>\n Again\u00a0“Jesus said unto him, It is written thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.\u201d <\/em>[11]<\/a> <\/em>Thou shalt not put the Lord thy God to the test.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 What is the principle here?\u00a0 God knows nothing of the human scene because God is spirit.\u00a0 So if we say, “I’m going to go up to some high place and jump off, and I’m going to prove the power of God,” God is not going to come and save you because God knows nothing of this human sense of existence, this human ego that thinks it has some special relationship to God.\u00a0 All God knows is Himself, and that is one. \u00a0There is not God and man. \u00a0There is not God and Christ. \u00a0There is only one.<\/p>\n In the beginning of man\u2019s awareness of God, in our Western tradition, God was constantly making covenants with man, and every covenant had two aspects;\u00a0“If you<\/em>believe on me, then this is what I will do for you: I will protect you from your enemies and I will give you all that I have, I will give you<\/em> abundance.”[12]<\/a><\/em> This was the basis of the whole unfoldment of Hebraic history. This unfoldment of consciousness was always saying,\u00a0“If ye believe on me, then I will be your protection and I will be your supply,”<\/em>and this has been demonstrated and demonstrated.\u00a0 If you don’t\u00a0“believe in me,”<\/em> as Jesus said,\u00a0“You’ll be as a branch that is cut off.”[13]<\/a> <\/em>Why?\u00a0 Because God knows nothing of the material world.\u00a0 The material world is the acceptance of a belief in a power outside of God.\u00a0 There\u00a0is\u00a0no power outside of God.\u00a0 What appears as power is the acceptance of a belief, and God knows nothing of it. \u00a0It is the hypnotic state of material belief. \u00a0There is no way as a human being in the material world that we are going to go out and test God; that we are going to go out and beseech God to come down into this human level and heal a cancer or heal a broken arm or whatever.\u00a0 If we have that kind of relationship, it is a dualistic relationship and it is false.<\/p>\n Healing takes place with our recognition that there is only one, because in that state of consciousness where we are aware of the presence of God and rest in that presence, nothing unlike God can exist in our experience.\u00a0 No disharmony.\u00a0 No discord.\u00a0 No disease.\u00a0 No bondage.\u00a0 God never comes and heals anything.\u00a0 It appears a healing has taken place, but in reality the individual has become aware of his or her oneness with God to the degree that the erroneous concept no longer exists in their consciousness.\u00a0 Their consciousness is filled with Divine Love, and nothing harmful or negative can exist in the presence of Divine Love.\u00a0 With that realization, any discord, disease, disharmony or poverty dissolves.\u00a0 It is erased because of our conscious awareness of our oneness with God.\u00a0 God has not come down into the human picture to heal a disease or to make us healthy, wealthy and wise.\u00a0 That is a concept based on separation.\u00a0 God is always at the standpoint of completeness.\u00a0 God never withholds anything.\u00a0 How could God, who is constantly this Infinite Expression, Infinite Creation withhold anything and say, “OK, I’ll give that person a healing, and not the other person.” <\/em>That is\u00a0not\u00a0the nature of God.<\/p>\n Jesus does not resist the devil, or this tempter.\u00a0 Jesus does not battle or argue with the temptation.\u00a0 The Master just says, “No, that is not the truth.\u00a0 That is false.\u00a0 That is two plus two is five and I’m not going to fight with you over it.\u00a0 I’m not going to contend with you. I’m just going to say, that is not correct. I know the truth. No, I’m not going to turn the stone into bread because man does not live by bread alone.”<\/p>\n Then the third temptation:\u00a0“Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and saith unto him, all these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.”<\/em>[14]<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n The devil has said,\u00a0“If you worship me, I will give you the world<\/em>.“<\/em> That’s probably the greatest temptation, because it’s the temptation of personal power.\u00a0 What would happen if we would fall for that?\u00a0 We would be giving power to something outside of God.\u00a0 We would be worshipping a human concept, and accepting as truth the lie of personal power.\u00a0 Material knowledge and its manipulation would become our god, and our strength would be in mentally controlling every situation to our benefit.\u00a0 We might be able to sustain that kind of an attitude for a while, given the relationship of mind to matter.\u00a0 We might even appear to heal but it would not be spiritual and ultimately it would be subject to the karmic belief that there are two powers because, we have accepted a power outside of God.<\/p>\n Jesus doesn’t respond with anything except, in the King James version, a\u00a0“Get thee hence Satan”<\/em> — be gone! \u00a0Don’t come to me with this idea that there is a power outside of God“for it is written thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”<\/em>[15]<\/a><\/p>\n In Eastern philosophies God consciousness is termed as nothing — no thing.\u00a0 And that is true.\u00a0 When we are in a state of silence, in a state of peace, there is no thing.\u00a0 There is nothing in our awareness but being.\u00a0 We cannot make a concept of being.\u00a0 Being just is.\u00a0\u00a0 Being has no desire.\u00a0 Being has no thought of the future.\u00a0 Being has no awareness of the past.\u00a0 This sense of being, which we experience in the silence, is the\u00a0I<\/em> that\u00a0I am<\/em> and that\u00a0I<\/em>is universal.\u00a0 That\u00a0I<\/em> is unbound, unlimited.<\/p>\n When we become comfortable in this silence, we start to realize that this is the essence and nature of creation.\u00a0 We start to realize that it is from this nothingness, this no-thing-ness that our world takes form, takes shape.\u00a0 It is from this silence that all transformation takes place; because in the silence there is no human activity.\u00a0 There is no mental activity.\u00a0 There is a rest.\u00a0 When we come to the realization in this silence that there is no time or space,\u00a0 <\/strong>it wipes out past transgressions.\u00a0 This silence is not a void, or a vacuum, but it is Love Itself.\u00a0 It brings into conformity all outer expression.\u00a0 It brings us into conformity with Divine Love as the activity of individual being.\u00a0 Our individual recognition of this brings the freedom of God into our experience.<\/p>\n Jesus’ prayer to his disciples, which was one of his greatest gifts to the world, was this;“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; continue ye in my love.”<\/em>[16]<\/a><\/p>\n Our evolution into mystical living is the growing awareness of the meaning of “My love.”\u00a0 Not only do we perceive the importance of “My love,” we become aware of “My peace” and “My joy” — all of which are felt as we start relinquishing our attachment to the material concept of self and start experiencing the Christ.<\/p>\n These feelings are not personal.\u00a0 This love is the activity of seeing only one.\u00a0 It is the activity of forgiving all misconceptions to the point where there is no longer any condemnation, any guilt, any ego based reaction at all to the outer world.\u00a0 Then all that is left is peace, and this peace is active in Divine love.\u00a0 It ushers into our life a joy that cannot be taken away.\u00a0 This peace that we experience, “My peace,” is not a void.\u00a0 It is not empty.\u00a0 It is filled with understanding and compassion.\u00a0 The love that comes to up in this atmosphere of peace guides, motivates and directs each and every one living out from Soul.<\/p>\n “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love…”<\/em>[17]<\/a><\/p>\n And what are His commandments?\u00a0 He taught us “to love the lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul.<\/em>”\u00a0 If we love God with all our heart and mind and soul, our focus is on the spiritual nature of life.\u00a0 Because it is our Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom of heaven, His will is fulfillment.\u00a0 The will of God is not suffering.\u00a0 It is not limitation.\u00a0 The will of God is total freedom.\u00a0 We\u00a0can\u00a0experience oneness.\u00a0 We\u00a0can\u00a0totally give ourselves over to the will of God because we know that His love for us is expressed in fulfillment, joy and peace, harmony, happiness and freedom.\u00a0 Abiding in this love is life eternal.<\/p>\n And the other commandment is to\u00a0“love your neighbor as yourself.”<\/em>[18]<\/a> Loving our neighbor as our self is to see the Spirit of God in our neighbor.\u00a0 There is only one Love — the love God has for Itself, and this love expresses itself on every level.<\/p>\n “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.”<\/em>[19]<\/a><\/p>\n There is no sorrow; there is no suffering in “My kingdom.”<\/p>\n “This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you.\u00a0 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.\u00a0 Ye are my friends, if ye do whatever I commanded you.”<\/em><\/p>\n To lay down our life is to comprehend that I am not material.\u00a0 It is seeing the eternal Christ, God incarnate right where the appearance of a human being stands.\u00a0 It is seeing our Self as we are, spiritual and whole, perfect, as is our Father in heaven.\u00a0 I will lay down this material sense of life; I will completely shed all material concepts and live as I was created, in the image and likeness of God.\u00a0 This is dying daily to material sense.<\/p>\n Jesus taught that we must love our enemies.\u00a0 How do we love our enemies?\u00a0 How can we love the manifold examples of cruelty man has visited upon his neighbor?\u00a0 Here is the secret.\u00a0 Because there is only one, behind the most hideous example of humanity sits the Christ waiting to be called forth.\u00a0 In the presence of a Christ filled individual, the most vile human being is transformed in the twinkling of an eye.\u00a0 “Though your sins be as scarlet…”\u00a0 This activity of the Christ appears as forgiveness, and loves Its neighbor as Itself.<\/p>\n Now, because we have opened ourselves to spiritual judgment, allowing the Christ to mediate, we come to the realization that any negativity that appears as a person, is but the belief in a person separate and apart from God.\u00a0 God never created evil, therefore it has no stature, power, or influence except what human belief gives it.\u00a0 Removing in our own perception the attachment of a belief to an individual is what is termed impersonalization.\u00a0 Right where the negative appearance is, whether it appears as hatred, jealousy, sin, disease, poverty or death — behind it is life everlasting.\u00a0 Behind that appearance is the child of God.\u00a0 And as we love as Jesus loved, as we see through the appearance with Christ activated eyes, we nullify the hatred.\u00a0 We comfort the downhearted.\u00a0 We release the infirm from their bondage to mortal concept, and we discover that we have no enemies.\u00a0 To have an enemy is to admit to duality, where in reality, there is only one.\u00a0 Living out from spiritual oneness, we find that we are in a world of friends.<\/p>\n There is a spiritual activity in me that is greater than any material concept in the world.\u00a0 No matter what degree of illumination we have experienced, our mandate is that illumination be used to lift human consciousness. How else is that done but by recognizing only One? Recognizing this Christ activity in every individual.\u00a0 Elijah demonstrated this in the story of the widow’s son.\u00a0 The whole purpose of seeing material sense dissolve is to reinforce our spiritual aptitude.\u00a0 Because our senses are constantly reinforcing the material picture, we strive to live beyond the confines of sensory perception, in the realm of the unknown, where what the world calls \u201cmiracles\u201d validate our progress and keep us moving forward into the deeper experiences of the spiritual universe.<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Matt. 8:10<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [2]<\/a> John 19:11<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [3]<\/a> Matt. 5:17<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [4]<\/a> John 1:6-14<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [5]<\/a> see Matt. 3:17, Mark 1:11, Luke 3:22<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [6]<\/a> Matt. 4:1<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [7]<\/a> Matt. 5:6<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [8]<\/a>Matt. 4:3<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [9]<\/a> Matt. 4:3<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [10]<\/a> Matt. 4:5,6<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [11]<\/a> Matt. 4:7<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [12]<\/a> Genesis 15:1<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [13]<\/a> John 15:6<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [14]<\/a> Matt. 4:8,9<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [15]<\/a> Matt. 4:10<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [16]<\/a> John 15:9<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [17]<\/a> John 15:10<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [18]<\/a> Matt. 22:39<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [19]<\/a> John 15:11<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The ease with which we can walk away from our human conditioning and perceive the truth is directly proportional to how much we suffer in this world.\u00a0 The more we are attached to our beliefs, which are a product of … Continue reading
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