Jesus: Master of the Existential Encounter
Guest Editorial: Christ Consciousness - Way of the Heart Vol 12 Issue 4, November 2007
Call it the "second coming" if you'd like to, but the truth is it's here now. Think about it: How can it come back if it has never gone away? Christ Consciousness interpenetrates every speck of cosmic creation, and this Christ Intelligence is inherent within all beings. So it is not the Christ that has gone away from us, but rather we who have not expanded our consciousness to realize the truth of our fullest spiritual potential.
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When you contemplate it, enlightenment is the only guarantee that we have in life-everything else changes except the nature of our Spirit-soul. Eventually, in one dimension of living or another, we will awaken to the truth of our existence as enlightened beings, one with every atom within and beyond creation. The physical body will drop away, even the astral and causal bodies will eventually drop away, and what will remain is authentic Being. The question becomes, are you willing to commit and follow in the footsteps of Jesus by practicing as he did? His Christed state was not ready-made; he worked for it through his disciplined spiritual practices of meditation, prayer, taking retreats, and then putting into practice what was revealed to him. He was Jesus the man who became Jesus the Christ.
The Christ is who and what each of us is when we become fully orbed. It awaits our knock at the door of consciousness, ready to introduce us to our true Self. There is a promise hidden within us, an indelible contract that was forged at the time each of us was brought into existence. This contract is the promise etched in forever.
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
So Jesus the Christ came along and not only spoke about how we may honor this contact, he showed us the way by being the great example, not the great exception. "Ye are the light." he said. Have you ever glanced at your face in the mirror after deep meditation? Have you seen the glow, the radiance, that emits? It is this Divine Light that lights up every man, woman and child that we are to shine from within out onto our world. That is the purpose of meditation, to contact and commune with the unconditional Love that is the essence of this Light, that is our core Reality. Only then may we shine it upon all who cross our path, be they in our physical presence or mentally held in our prayers and visualizations. Then, when we stand before the mirror and ask, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?", our Original Face will be seen in our reflection, and we will know that we are now and always have been Divine Substance, exquisite beyond description.
Where Is the Christ Today?
As we look out upon our world we may feel that we don't see evidence of the Christ Consciousness, or Divine Love, or awakened beings. Christ-like love seems hard to come by, even from those who profess to follow the teachings of Jesus the Christ in whose name intolerance, bigotry, war, and crimes against humanity have been practiced down through the ages. "All who take the sword will perish by the sword" he said, and "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God."
We may wonder what has happened to Jesus' teaching, "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." This couples with his asking, in substance, how can we love God, whom we can't see, if we don't love our brothers and sisters whom we can see? Other Yogi-Christs such as Buddha, Krishna, Rama, Gandhi-all taught their followers to love the One who resides at the center of all beings, and to have compassion for the ignorance that has not yet given sway to Love. This brings to mind the words of the Christian mystic, Howard Thurman, who said that love is to meet a person where they are in consciousness, but to treat them as though their spiritual potential were actualized.
In spite of wars and the ignorance that is the father of wars, the Christ energy remains fully present in our world. It is our divine charge to become conscious vehicles so that it may manifest in, as and through us. Where else is it going to come from? First, we must have the desire to cultivate the Christ Consciousness inherent within us. Secondly, we must have the willingness to do the inner work to awaken it. And third, we must shine it out upon our world in the ordinariness of everyday life-in traffic, in the check out line, at work, in the temple, at the gym-you get the idea.
Newspapers: The Prayer Lists of Our Times
Newspapers and television news create what I like to call "prayer lists," which provide the names of individuals and circumstances that would benefit from our prayers. For some years now, when speaking at Agape or other spiritual communities, I've been saying that newspapers don't deliver the real news; they do not describe reality; rather, they carry a message of a sense of separation of one group from another, one people from another, and so on. More accurately, newspapers describe a global society that is begging to be liberated from the illusion of separation.
Now if we take a look beyond newspapers, television and radio, we will see that there is a simultaneous global movement towards the creation of peace, that there are indeed individuals who practice Christ-like love. One such individual whom I know is Dr. A. T. Ariyaratne of Sri Lanka, who, with his "soldiers" walks directly, silently through the spray of bullets in civil wars. I'm thinking of individuals during 9/11, Katrina, and other disasters, who were willing to sacrifice themselves so that others may live. "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for another," the great Way Shower said.
Today there is a proliferation of books and magazines like Christ Consciousness, Way of the Heart and many others that, each in their own way bring the message of love, evolving consciousness, peace, and joy, instilling hope in the minds and hearts of their readers. Spiritual teachers of the world's wisdom traditions are setting aside their differences of dogma and belief to speak out and foster understanding and love. There is a movement dedicated to the development of a Department of Peace within our governmental structure that would offer nonviolent solutions to international conflict. These are examples of living the Christ-ideals that must find a way into our own hearts and impact our spiritual practices so that peace, global citizenry, being a beneficial presence on the planet are not just tea-time conversations, not just books in our library, not just degrees decorating our walls, not simply a matter of being "spiritually correct" to impress others with our evolved awareness. When we embody the ways in which to be a peacemaker, when we practice putting down our sword of aggression in our thoughts, speech and actions, then our religion, like the Dalai Lama's, will be kindness; it will be compassion, forgiveness, peace and joy.
20/20 Vision
Jesus also taught that "If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." Metaphysically, he was defining for us the truth that we are made of Divine Energy, Divine Light. But how do we make our eye single? By communing with the light-energy of the Christ Consciousness within us. We keep our eye single when in meditation we close our two eyes and gently place our focus on the third eye, located in the middle of the forehead, thus making our two eyes single and flooding our entire body temple with Light. The third eye is one of light, and is the light-tunnel through which we leave our physical body at the time of transition. Many who have had near-death experiences have reported entering this light, as do those who enter deeply into meditation. In India it is called the Kutastha Chaitanya, the ajna chakra, and you will find it a very centering experience to place your awareness at this point between the eyebrows during meditation. It is also a power spot for visualization practices used by Buddhists. Experiment in the laboratory of your own consciousness and see how you will develop 20/20 vision.
Cosmic Energy: The Omnipresent Reality
Through his resurrection Jesus proved that the physical body is part of a cosmic energy field; it is not solid matter. In his Christ-conscious state, he had mastery over the physical realm so was able to command the atoms of his body to reconstruct themselves, to raise Lazarus from the dead, and to perform many healings. By walking on water he proved that it was possible to change the vibratory rate of the body, making it lighter than other elements. There are yogis and fakirs in India who walk through walls, levitate, and are bury themselves the earth for weeks at a time living directly from the prana, the life-energy force that sustains creation. Many of the Catholic saints were able to bi-locate. Quantum physics is catching up with what has been realized by spiritual masters throughout the ages, that we are electromagnetic waves of energy. Masters will display their powers, or perform healings, not to extol themselves, but to settle our doubts, to encourage us, to help us realize that the same potential lies within our consciousness if we do the inner work.
Doing the Work
Jesus encourages us to pray "in secret" saying, "And whenever you pray.go to your closet and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret." Now he didn't mean we should take up permanent residence in the Himalayas or a local cave. In this statement he is encouraging us to daily spend time devoted to meditation, to shut the doors of our senses, set aside the cares of everyday life and commune with the Spirit in "secret," meaning in the secret-soul of consciousness. He also cautioned us to be humble about our spiritual practices saying, "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them." He is saying to meditate, pray and serve selflessly, not to be admired by others. That is why Buddhists, at the end of each sitting, offer the merit of their practice for the benefit of all sentient beings. Those who have merged with the Christ Consciousness have no need to speak of it; their example is sufficient.
When we enter the Christ Conscious state we anchor heaven on earth; we join heaven and earth in our everyday activities. We are just as spiritually realized at the kitchen sink as we are on our meditation cushion. At first we experience it more deeply when meditating, and the days comes when we are able to live, move and have our being in the aftereffects of meditation. In fact, it could be said that the work we do in the laboratory of our consciousness is most clearly revealed when we leave our meditation seat and engage with the world.
We are on the planet to prepare ourselves for rapture, bliss, expanded awareness. It is then that we perceive the light that lighteth up every man, woman and child, even if they don't see it within themselves. We now have the prerequisite inner vision to see that all beings are made of Stuff Divine, and that we are all spiritually related. How, then, can we harm any living being or creature? When Saint Francis had his experience of Christ Consciousness, wolves came and sat at his feet. Gandhi could not bear to walk on the grass because he felt its groan under his feet. Tigers became as tame as house cats in the presence of the Buddha. Although it may not at first seem like it, living as an awakened master is the most practical way to live. But first we must relinquish our attachment to many of the world's toys that keep us distracted. This may sound quite unappealing, boring, or even frightening in our acquisition-based, info-tainment nurtured society. But once having tasted the nectar of self-realization, there is no turning back to lesser attractions. Material possessions are appreciated in their right place, but they do not become our gods, or pseudo examples of spiritual accomplishment through the manifestation of things.
Jesus said, "Strive first for the kingdom of God and all else shall be given to you." The kingdom of God is your inner castle of self-realization, which you may enter every time you sit in meditation. In that inner castle you are the king or queen, ruler of your world, determining that to which you will devote your energies and talents in this lifetime. Meditation brings our light out from under the bushel of our all-caught-upness in the ego and its constant desires, getting hooked on the sense of "me, me, me," and shines forth our true nature of unconditional love, bliss, tranquility, compassion, divine intelligence.
The Most Practical Way to Live
You may think that a life centered in meditation is not grounded enough on the earth. But I tell you again that being spiritually enlightened is the most practical way to live. It is then that we may live as Jesus did by not worrying "about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them." Now this does not mean that we ignore our worldly responsibilities or that we don't get our physical needs or those of our family met. Nor does it mean we forget about abundance, beauty, and so on. If Jesus walked the earth with us now, he would adapt aspects of his teaching to meet the times; a new New Testament would be written. (One wonders if Jesus had written the Bible himself how differently it would read.) Regardless of the times, there are timeless truths that serve humanity throughout every cycle of creation. Jesus realized that the most practical way to live was to put God first, to make meditation and prayer our first activity of the day, to place our trust in the changeless Spirit, so that as we experience the inevitable vicissitudes of life we navigate them in a state of awakened consciousness. Striving first for the kingdom of God, which is the kingdom of ever-evolving Good, is the foremost way to honor our divine contract. Heaven is our ever-increasing realization of the kingdom of God within. Residing in our inner heaven through meditation, we experience the promise etched in forever: that we are and always have been enlightened beings.
It is not enough to simply believe in spiritual principles, nor to parrot affirmations, mantras and slogans. Reading books, listening to sermons, going to seminars are all good, but they are not substitutes for sitting still and practicing. Meditation may not be as stimulating as our outer activities, or we may think that we are not the "meditative type,." but these are just excuses. Meditation is a natural state of being: stillness, awareness, awakened consciousness-this is our true nature.
It is important to understand what constitutes meditation. Meditation is learning how to place our attention on the Real. While other activities such as exercise, listening to music, experiencing the beauty in the arts are inspiring-even breathtaking, they are not substitutes for meditation. "Be still and know that ye are God." This is honoring our contract through sitting still in meditation.
An Introduction to the "Angel of Change"
I want to introduce you to an energy dynamic I call the "angel of change." This energetic, however, seems hellish to individuals who resist change. The egoic structure of the little self balks-it wants to stay the same so that it may retain the illusion of control over the external world, including other people and circumstances.
Challenging circumstances are the calling card of the angel of change. They serve to loosen our octopus grip on limited thinking; they shift our everyday reference points, creating a gap through which Reality may enter our Reality.
In Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus, the word satan meant "crazy thought." When you are tempted to believe that you are not enough, that's crazy thinking. Seducing yourself into believing you are superior to others is not sane thinking. We must free ourselves from the limitation of inferiority or superiority by rising to the realm of a clear perception of our true nature. Gently, and sometimes not so gently, the angel of change is telling us that it is time to trust in our capacity to let go, unfold, expand, evolve, awaken.
Standing on the Shoulders of the Great Ones
Mahatma Gandhi's quality of Christ Consciousness was that of a peace that surpassed human understanding. His spiritual awakening became the conduit for the emancipation of India. George Washington Carver communed with the Divine Presence behind nature's beauty and saw the face of Spirit peering back at him through the flowers and plants. His great love caused them to yield their secrets to him. He became a great mystic, teacher, healer and inventor. The common denominator among all the enlightened ones is that they put self-realization first in their lives. They were filled with the fire from heaven, burning with the desire to consciously commune with the Reality.
Follow the example of the Great Ones! Stand on the shoulders of their inspiration and ignite a fire of desire to experience your own Buddhahood, your own Christhood, which is your own Selfhood. You may begin by choosing a quality of Spirit that speaks to your own heart, that you have always wanted to cultivate and express. Make it your aspiration, your practice, and watch your life transform. Why does this simple technique work? Because when you set your intention and remain unswervingly faithful to it, evidence emerges in your experience that this quality has been within you all along. How else could it come into expression if it didn't exist in your spiritual DNA? When you act in faith believing that the quality of the Spirit you have chosen to cultivate already exists within the fabric of your true nature, the law of mental equivalents moves upon your intention and produces it in your outer experience. This is what Jesus meant when he taught, "It is done unto you as you believe." If you sincerely surrender to the soul-quality you have chosen, your openness to the vibration of that quality will impress itself upon your consciousness and become your experience.
Energize Your Personal Magnetism
Endeavor to make the soul-quality you choose to cultivate alive and real to you. You might want to record your own voice claiming ownership of this quality. Maybe add music in the background that you feel energetically vibrates in harmony with its essence. Listen to it in your car, when performing routine tasks, and when you fall asleep at night. This will energize your magnetic field-your aura-and draw unto you all that you need to support cultivating your soul-qualities.
Deliberately pause at intervals throughout your day's activities and check-in with yourself. For example, let's say that you have chosen the quality of compassion. Experiment with this simple exercise. Gently close your eyes. Breathe in a long inhalation and slowly exhale. Softly ask within, "Right here and right now, do I feel the vibration of compassion flowing within my consciousness?" Without patting yourself on the back or berating yourself, call forth a deeper attunement with the vibration of compassion. Develop the habit of checking in with your consciousness and see how your day becomes one of more clarity, mindfulness, more complete living and being. Mindfully practice your Christ-like quality and watch how your life transforms into a blessing to all with whom you come in contact, beginning with yourself.
The Law of Liberation
With the inner realization that there is only one Reality governing the cosmos through Universal Law, we place ourselves in league with the law of liberation. When we live in alignment with spiritual laws, every ceiling we haveconstructed in our mental household is blown off! We are born again, the second coming has arrived, because the Christ has been birthed anew into our conscious awareness. The law that we heretofore used to bind ourselves is transformed into a law of liberation. We have broken through into a new dimension of consciousness and being.
Honor Your Part of the Divine Contract
Throughout every speck of space, within every measure of time and into the timeless realm, Spirit is unconditionally honoring its part of the divine contract. Spirit is not fickle; it never contradicts its own nature. It is we who must awaken to what has already been given.
The first clause in our divine contract begins when we arrive at the awareness that such a covenant exists between us and our Source. The promise has been given, and we can no longer make excuses for our spiritual lethargy. This is the beginning of spiritual maturity. Spiritual Maturity means we have become awake, sensitive and responsive to the transforming touch of the Divine Indweller.
All illumined beings exhibit the spiritual backbone it takes to arrive at conscious realization of Christ Consciousness. First, they had the desire for enlightenment. Then they were willing to engage in spiritual practice-sitting through bodily discomfort, sitting through boredom, sitting through the wandering mind-until they broke through to Reality. Jesus role-modeled for us how we are to become immersed in the supreme spiritual truth that our oneness, wholeness, perfection and harmony are the pearl of great price that we must be willing to consciously evolve.
There appears to be a particular mindset that sweeps across the landscape of human experience when a person seeks permanent satisfaction from that which is powerless to give it. Seeking fulfillment from that which is outside of our own blissful nature, one remains in ignorance of the one desire that satisfies all our desires: Self-realization. Eventually sensory overload becomes hollow and the hunger for spiritual manna awakens.
It is our divine destiny to inherit the treasures of the inner realm of God-consciousness. So the second clause in the divine contract is to prepare ourselves for an experience of pure Reality. Make no mistake about it, there is no escaping the purpose for which we have been created: Spirit's fulfillment of Itself. It is through us that invisible Spirit drinks the nectar of its visible essence. It is the paradox that form arises out of emptiness, and that form returns to emptiness, when all the while both are one and the same.
Inner Revolution Births Spiritual Evolution
In metaphysics there is a process known as involution. Involution is the vibrational movement of Spirit's thought-energy, which is the activity of the creative principle in and upon the universe. Everything exists first as a vibrational thought in the mind of Spirit. Then there is that which we call evolution. So when science announces a so-called "revolutionary advance," the metaphysician knows this to be a revelation of an idea in the mind of Spirit whose time has come. Isness appears in the form of a "discovery" or an "invention" through an individual whose consciousness was receptive to involution flowing through him or her as an evolutionary experience.
So the third clause in our divine contract is to attune ourselves to the concept of involution. It is impossible for you to have something good come forth from outside of yourself. You must activate the inner evolutionary impulse so that you may become a transparency through which the involution of Spirit appears as the evolution of your individual consciousness. Pause. Breathe. And read that statement again. Contemplate it. Journal your thoughts about it. Above all, live it.
Anchor Yourself in That which Is Changeless
Observe without judgment how you walk through your daily activities. Throughout your day pause to ask yourself, "Where is my consciousness?" Are you waiting to be enthralled from the without, or are you enraptured from the within? Are you dwelling in the past or projecting into the future? Or are you mindfully present in the moment?
Don't place heaven in the future. Reclaim your dominion right now! Become anchored in That which is changeless amid the changing vicissitudes of life. Then, at any moment, you may turn to the authority within your own mind and say, "This does not move me! I have unshakable faith in the Infinite Presence, right within me and all around me."
Gratitude is the fifth clause in our divine contract. As you express gratitude for the good that is unfolding in, through and as your life, it becomes a springboard to leap into a greater expression of the promise etched in forever that you are, always have been and ever shall be One with the great Spirit of Life.
When you awaken each morning, before jumping out of bed briefly pause. Smile in grateful acknowledgment and self-acceptance of your life, exactly as it is. Then meditate, if only for ten minutes. Continue to pause throughout the day to notice where your consciousness is hanging out. At the end of each day, make it a part of your spiritual practice to introspect on your progress in honoring your part of the divine contract. Without judgment and with great kindness be honest with yourself. Meditate, pray, serve, study and smile, because you know that your life is carried in the palm of God's hand.
The divine light revealing itself in the heart of Christmas, Kawanza, and Chanukah, are expressions and celebrations of the One Light that lights up the world. May every aspect of your life by illumed by this Light, and may this be the season of your life to consciously live, move and have your being in the Promise Etched in Forever.
Michael Bernard Beckwith is the founder and spiritual director of the Agape International Spiritual Center in Los Angeles, California. He is the co-director of the Season for Nonviolence, and president of the Association for Global New Thought, convener of the Synthesis Dialogues with His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
He is author of
Inspirations of the Heart, 40 Day Mind Fast Soul Feast, A Manifesto of Peace, and
Living from the Overflow. He has appeared on the
Oprah Show, Larry King Live, and is featured in the book and movie
The Secret.
David Hoffmeister is an all-round nice guy who can nonetheless snap your head off with his non-judgemental approach to life as it comes - click to visit David's page in the Realm of ChristMind
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