Putting on the Christ Mind

What did Jesus mean when he said, "The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head?"

Focusing on the miracles and resurrection of Jesus, I dare ask the question, "why can't literal events also have metaphorical layers of meaning?"

This talk on physical vs spiritual death was inspired by hearing a discussion on "The Resurrection at the end of time," and realizing that understanding the basic premise of physical vs spiritual death would result in an entirely different understanding of this Christian language.

In this video, I begin with a Biblical case for our potential to live from a place of knowing we are One with Christ .  From there, I answer the question of how exactly we can do that.  I give an example from my own life about mental / meditative techniques which helped me at a certain point -- but were not enough.  To destroy the negative thought patterns (demons) which had developed a foothold in my mind, I prayed to Jesus and let the Holy Spirit do the work I could not.  Demons are anything which prevents us from, as Paul wrote seeing that, "Christ is all, and is in all."  Colossians 3:11  So though I am wary of using that language because of how it can sound to the modern ear, this is also a testament of the power of the Holy Spirit to destroy demons and how to engage that grace.

Lost understanding of the Strong Man Parable! As part of my explaining the teachings of Jesus in the Bible, I focus here on the parable of the strong man.  I come with new perspective, asking, "what if Jesus is not the thief in this story?" which is the most common interpretation.  

Explaining this story of Jesus in new light, I'm able to draw out deeper, "hidden" meaning than is commonly attributed to this short and seemingly simple parable.  From this standpoint, we are able to see how this relates to the process by which we suffer spiritual wounding, and how Christ is able to repair our souls into the fullness of God.

A challenge to recognize Being beyond Divine Unity or Oneness as it is typically spoken of.  

Paul writes that we are One in Christ. In the video below,  I reference the Gospel of Philip which uses the metaphor of God as the dyer of our souls to illustrate the process by which we are changed as we discover states of Divine Unity, Oneness and beyond.  It is then that we know ourselves as the salt of the earth and do not lose our saltiness no matter the circumstance.  

This is how we allow God to shine through us as the light of the world.  

Do you want inner peace? One of the primary stumbling blocks to inner stillness and living a divine life is our own preconceived notions about religion and spirituality.  As Jesus said in this sermon on the mount, the rain falls on the just and the unjust.  If we cannot see past our own ideas about what is righteous, how are we to come into alignment with the source of the rain?

Only by releasing into the space beyond concepts can we live from the peace that passes understanding.

Christ said to be glad, for I have overcome the world.  (John 16:33)

  He would not have asked us to take heart in this news but that this was the example he was setting that we should do the same.  He would not have asked us to be glad if it were his accomplishment alone.  He was pointing out, for those with ears to hear, that he paved the way for the rest of us.  No solitary achievement was his, he returned from his time in the wilderness to show what was possible for humanity and to beseech us to follow in his footsteps.  

So what does this even mean, "Overcome the world?"  In his refusal even to turn stones to bread, we see his insistence upon living in his nature of Oneness with all things.  In so doing, he found, experientially, his Oneness with all that he encountered, including you and me.  He found in this witness, that those he perceived in this way were changed in this seeing.  In the presence of the Master, the ripe fruits simply fall from the tree.

Grace underlies this new paradigm of reality... 

the ripe fruits simply fall when ready.  But we are asked to be on our guard lest our "houses" (our inward souls and all that which compose them, our minds and energy bodies) be pillaged.  There do exist spirits which would hijack our progress, compelling us towards a divided life within the "world."

What is this world Jesus warns us against?  After all, he wasn't advising his followers to take up a life on a mountaintop, or in a monastery (though time alone is certainly advisable while undergoing the ripening process -- as Christ so well exemplified).  What Jesus cautioned us against was life caught unwittingly in the duality of the world.  

"Make the outside like the inside." (Thomas 22) This is advanced, and I'll cover this more deeply throughout this course of study.  But quite simply, in making the outside like the inside... we cease to be caught in the beliefs of separation, beliefs which bind us, causing mind spin around the happenings of the world.  

I was a voracious reader as a child. 

That was my escape.  For long hours and entire weekends, I would immerse myself in other worlds.  It was immersing myself in another time, not another world which led to my stumbling on what I would later recognize to be a powerful form of spiritual inquiry.

Around age 11, I became enraptured with a story centered around a boy of similar age in the 1700's.  The tales of a simpler time, the time without technological distraction, time with family and community seemed idyllic.  For some reason I kept returning to a vision of the main character walking down a dirt road around his house.  Though this wasn't a central part of the story, somehow this formed a bridge with my world.  So much of the going on's of that time were so foreign to me that I couldn't imagine myself in that world.  But walking down that rural path seemed somehow similar to the wooded lanes around my home and spurred a new type of thinking which would forever how I saw myself.

Somehow, that image stuck in my head and I could return to it and imagine it was myself in that world.  This wasn't so implausable as the syfi tales, with space stations and far out beings.  The humble community of the 1700's may have been idylic, but it didn't seem impossible.  And so I started to imagine myself in that century and what life would have been like.  

But then I realized... despite the changes being more plausible, the world would have been so different that those differences could not have escaped changing who I, myself was.  And I started wondering; how different would I have been?  

And more importantly... more significantly, what would have been the same?  

It didn't take long to understand the magnitude of any one change and the "butterfly effect" (though I didn't know that term) on not only circumstances, but the way I manifested myself in the world.  Attempting to find what would be the same led me to the core of what we are.  To the quality of attention itself.  

It would not be for decades that I would make the connection between this essential quality of life and Christ himself.  Of the pointers Jesus left for us, the most pertinent for this inquiry is, "Before Abraham was born, I Am."

Let's look at the entire passage from John 8.  

54 Jesus replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. 55 Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and obey his word. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.”

57 “You are not yet fifty years old,” they said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!”

58 “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” 59 At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.

Comments:  

54:  If Jesus glorified himself, it would not be from the core of Being.  He rested in that core, the presence of God, the "heaven within," and in so doing, was radiant with the energy of the Holy Spirit,  affecting all those around him.

56:  Some commentators believe Jesus appeared physically to Abraham.  He may well have.  But in light of verse 58 and the way this is written* ("seeing my day"), it makes far more sense to acknowledge the deeper reality of awareness as what Jesus was pointing to.  Let us not make the mistake of limiting ourselves to physicality and projecting that limitation onto Jesus and Abraham.

What part of yourself has never changed across time?  

Don't be satisfied with an intellectual answer.  Don't stop at "I Am."  It's too easy to come to that place and stop.  That's not the answer.  What is aware of the I Am?

As you find qualities of yourself, the things which make you, you, investigate.  Would those qualities be the same centuries ago?  Would those qualities be the same far into the distant future?  What would be the same if you were a stone age cave dweller?  

Even within your own life, there is something which has been there with you from infancy and will always be with you.  What is that?  Can you see how it is the basis for all you perceive?  Can you feel how this is there even before you know I AM?