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 THE SPIRITUAL CHRISTIAN

The Teachings of Christ as a Way of Life

 

              

 

THE SPIRITUAL LIFE & CHRIST MEDITATION

One of the great truths Christ revealed to humanity is that we live, move and have our being in the divine presence of our Eternal Father. As living souls, we have been perfectly conceived and held in the mind of God as perfect beings. Spiritual Christians perceive and know the body is the temple of God, the spiritualized heart is the divine altar, the peace of the Kingdom of Heaven can be experienced within; and the life of Jesus Christ demonstrates the spiritual potential we all could experience if we would just awaken to it.

 

Each and every day, the body and ego-personality are captivated by worldly phenomenon, virtual reality, personal relationships, and sensual pleasures to the degree we forget we are divine, eternal souls having a human experience. We are bound to the biological/psychological organism of the human body on its journey from infancy to old age; it is primarily in the biological/psychological nature where changes are made in order to advance spiritually. This journey for the individual is defined by a unique path of destiny which contains the life experiences each soul needs for its spiritual evolution.

 

Awakening spiritually requires making a conscious decision to rise above the darkness, suffering and illusions of the world through spiritual knowledge and personal transformation. Many find comfort from this world through a variety of religions and/or religious practices. The spiritual Christian prefers the esoteric knowledge of the arisen Christ and the quiet solitude of meditation as the way to experience spiritual liberation through communion with the light, love and truth of the Holy Trinity.

 

Meditation is a practice for awakening this divine potential and reaching the point of light, stillness and grace within where all is one in God. The key to reaching the inner light within our spiritual heart and brain is to first recognize that living in the ignorance of this world has created mental, moral, and emotional obstructions or shadows between us and God. Through the meditation experience, these shadows can be dissolved and eliminated from one’s consciousness, life experiences, and dreams.

Through meditation, we learn to subdue the chattering-mind, the impulses and urges of the body, make the personal unconscious conscious, and balance the polarities of emotion. (See: An Overview of Meditation) Christ said, “Keep thine eye single and thy whole body will be filled with light.” It is the ability to focus light upon the Divine Presence within that oneness with the Christ Spirit is experienced. In this stillness and silence, the mind of God floods the consciousness as sunshine radiates through clear water and, upon the altar of the heart, blends the greater with the lesser through which the lesser becomes one with the greater.

 

By awakening to Christ-Consciousness within, we can know ourselves as we really are rather than as we have thought and experienced ourselves to be in the world of illusions. By having this realization awakened in our consciousness, we can experience for ourselves what God has already conceived us to be; we learn to let go and let God. The spiritual Christian’s work is to strive for perfection of being in body, mind, heart and spirit. As Christ has told us, “Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

 

It has been separation from God that has caused sin, sickness, poverty and death in the world. In the meditation experience, we understand that only in the mind does the idea of separation exist. Consequently, union with God causes us to rise above separation and to become a whole being or to become conscious of being whole in Christ.

 

Who we “think” we are is a mental construct of our accumulated past
experiences which forms an evolving “dream” of how we see ourselves;
this is our self-image. It is not who we are, but who we were.
Our true Self-Identity never changes.

 

Who Are We, Really?  

 

God is the omniscience, omnipotent, omnipresent Consciousness throughout Creation. Thus, it could be said that the history of humanity is also the history of consciousness as we were created in God’s image and likeness. Since the “fall” of Adam and Eve until the birth of Jesus Christ, the involution of humanity into third-dimensional materiality has been experienced through the awakening stages of consciousness in the first three days of Creation, and simultaneously, in the individual human consciousness. However, in the fourth day, the birth of Jesus Christ changed everything. (7 Days of Creation; scroll down)

 

With the spiritual baptism which took place in the body of Jesus, the son of man, the “collective body of humankind” ceased its involution of spirit into matter and began the process of evolution of matter into spirit. The death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ opened the Way of Life so the individual human consciousness and physical body could be spiritualized and awakened to higher consciousness. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was the seed of the transfiguration which awakened humanity to God-consciousness. The son of man and the Son of God became one, thus sanctifying human flesh by Jesus Christ taking on our collective sins which God, the Father forgave.

 

In the initial part of humanity’s life-journey there was no thought of “Who am I?” because consciousness in early humans had not yet evolved to the point of being able to self-reflect. Thus, prior to the Renaissance, humans had little to no awareness of being an individual; they were just another indistinguishable member of the family, tribe, and community. Although conscious of themselves and others, and their various human activities, humans lived in a state of unconscious oneness with those around them because no one had a sense of self or individuality; they had no understanding or recognition of what it was to be an individual. (See: Perceptions)

 

For each of us, the journey through life has been a journey through consciousness, primarily because everything we experience through the nervous system and senses of the physical body is consciousness. From the time of our birth into this world, we transition through 4 stages of consciousness in our development from infancy to adulthood (See: Recapitulation).

 

However, in this life, we don’t measure our experiences based on consciousness development because, in most cases, people don’t really understand consciousness; we are measured as individuals based on how we present ourselves: personal deeds, education, maturity, and experience. In the journey of life, each of our experiences becomes stored memories, and these past memories are the content of our life experiences.

 

The totality of this content forms our concept of who we are; the content of our experience is consciousness. So the conscious awareness of who we are is actually an awareness of who we were, since we are basing our personal self-image on past experiences. Let that sink in – who we think we are is actually a mental concept of who we were!

 

In reality, this means that almost everyone in the world has no idea who they really are, but instead, they only perceive who they were based on a concept comprised of experiences both: good and bad, painful and pleasant, joyful and frightening, harmful and beneficial, hopeful and disappointing, etc. And silently in the background, our true Self-Identity silently observes the play of life unfold as it watches and waits for us to awaken spiritually.

 

“Learn to distinguish ‘righteousness before men’ from ‘righteousness before God…’
righteousness before God is righteousness in the soul’s relationship to the spiritual world.
Righteous before God is the right relationship between a human being & the spiritual world;
it is the fulfillment of the spiritual mission of humankind on Earth.”
From: Christ and Sophia by Valentin Tomberg

 

The self-concept is our self-image, it is the platform from which we engage the world and the stability of this platform is determined by what kind of experiences we have had and what kind of environment we presently live in. How proficiently we are able to process these experiences in our psycho-cognitive mind will determine what kind of present moment experiences we are currently having. This knowledge about the functioning of consciousness in the ego-personality makes it clear that our self-image is fluid and changeable; on a daily basis our self-image changes as new experiences are encountered.

 

The ego-personality or ego-persona is a very significant part of who we think we are and like all things in the universe, it is comprised of consciousness; it follows the same pattern described above of identifying itself with the physical body and from the contents of its past experiences. The ego-persona does not know who it is either, but only what it has experienced. The many experiences the ego has been through by the time it reaches adulthood has established a significant framework of behavioral responses of: likes/dislikes, want/don’t want/, happy/sad, acceptable/unacceptable, plus an array of fears, anxieties, and insecurities.

 

It is through the filter of the self-image that the ego-persona experiences life and people, so all events and individuals are evaluated based on the content-filter of one’s life events. In other words, we do not see life as it is, but we see it as we are. Since every new experience is compared to and judged from a similar past experience, it is impossible for the ego-persona to be in the present moment. Yet, it is in the present moment where personal freedom is experienced; it is there that we escape the bias of our filters.

 

This framework of content has conditioned the individual so he or she is able to engage and function in the uncertain, fearful, and unknown aspects of the world, but this protective facade also makes it very difficult to know or to be open to who we really are, or to experience present-time reality. Not only does this protective conditioning of the self-image filter out those parts of the world we are reluctant to experience, but it also separates us from our divine Self.

 

One of the goals of Christ meditation is the healing of our psycho-cognitive nature so we can awaken to who we truly are by recognizing our weaknesses and the impediments we have established in our life and removing them (See: TheShadow-self). We do this by taking responsibility for our life, transforming and purifying our lower nature, becoming whole within, and putting on the armor of Christ Light which fills us with hope, confidence, and purpose. (Armor of Christ, see: Stage 3 Meditation)

 

Psychological Chaos & Uncertainty

 

A study of the history and evolution of consciousness reveals how our psychological awareness has dramatically changed since the time of Christ. When people learn about Jesus and the apostles, they automatically imagine the apostles and disciples as being conscious like we are today, but in fact, the apostles and disciples were not self-conscious in the way we are today. It took about 1500 years after the time of Christ before individual self-awareness such as we know it emerged in humanity; what we know today as the ego-mind made its first appearance in the Renaissance period.

 

This evolution of consciousness from the time of Christ is revealed in the evolution of paintings through these periods of time as revealed in the paper Perception. Consciousness has rapidly evolved since 1500 A.D. and so has the world’s population. Today, various peculiarities, erratic and divisive behaviors have arisen in the collective psychology of humanity. This is evident in the demise and instability in the political, economic, and social systems which support and sustain civilized societies.

 

As evidenced by the extreme division, chaos and confusion we see in the political, social, racial, national, and personal perspectives, it seems that there is a clear divisiveness emerging in the collective ego-mind. The root cause of these fluctuating and volatile worldly issues is the unstable and tenuous psychological state of the outward looking ego-persona we humans experience daily. The ego-persona is “losing its grip” and is being battered as it wavers lost and alone on the sea of increasing complexity, irrationality, and distractions because, in this world, it is unable to find its anchor – its own true identity.

 

This is why spiritual psychology is a vitally important aspect of the Christian teachings at this time in history because the ego will never find its own identity; it doesn’t have one! The real, foundational identity comes from the higher Self within and the ego-persona has borrowed a sense of identity from our higher spiritual Self which is why it has been referred to in ancient writings as the counterfeit spirit. Here’s the main issue we are confronting today – consciousness continues to rapidly evolve and in its present condition, the counterfeit ego-identity is unable to keep up. Thus, reason and restraint in society is unraveling.

 

The outward looking ego-persona is not capable of dealing with or calmly processing all that is happening in the world; we are at an evolutionary transitional point for the ego. Unfortunately, we see the casualties piling up all around us primarily from psychological instability in the world: lost souls, suicides, drug overdoses, senseless murders, mental illness, normalizing irrationality, gender confusion, sexual assaults, child abuse, straight-faced lies, anarchy, tyranny, deep irrational hatred, personality disorders, inescapable anxiety, terrorism, and wars.

 

Jesus taught us that we are “in the world, but not of this world.” Regrettably, those who are highly invested and attached to the world are going to suffer the most as the world order crumbles. (See: Wheat & Tares in Opposites) The challenge for those who follow Christ is to become anchored in the Light of their true spiritual identity, and the only way to do this is “to die to who you think you are” (ego) so you can awaken to the true Self within.

 

In other words, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ represents true spiritual liberation, meaning we must “nail our ego-persona and all its worldly attachments to the cross” and become clear, humble, selfless and spiritually awake. We must be like Paul when he said, “I am crucified with Christ; henceforth it is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)

 

A healthy and stable spiritual psychology can be achieved through the knowledge and practice of meditation and the followers of Christ can prepare for this personal crucifixion and holy resurrection so we can LIVE and BE in the Light of Christ in this time of psychological chaos and uncertainty.

 
The Light, the Truth and the Way

Inside the ancient tree of life,
There was hidden a great gift of light.
For the tree had grown from sacred ground,
Up from roots that went way down.
Then, when a simple artist took up a knife,
All its passion slowly returned to life,
And as time passed, the truth emerged,
The simple embodiment of the holy word;
And when I saw this great treasure was offered to me,
It broke my chains and set me free,
And then my eyes were opened indeed,
By the living light which came from a seed.
Now everywhere I walk is sacred ground,
And I cherish the roots which go way down,
As I feel the great artist who carves with light,
Slowly bringing my new heart to life.
O, mysterious passion, merge me with you,
Nail my mind to your tree and make me true,
That I might continue this very day,
To follow the light and the truth and the way.

 

 

 

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