Tag: bible

The Living Jesus

YouTube: The Living Jesus

Today is the day the Christian world celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. As we think of what this means, most of us will probably respond from the first of two questions Jesus put to his disciples: Who do people say that I am? The last few years, I have focused on his second question: Who do you say that I am?

It occurs to me that the field of Christian belief is like the one of which Jesus spoke in his parable of the hidden treasure. In one sense, this field is owned by the established mainstream. They have clearly posted its boundaries with no trespassing signs, such as the Apostle’s Creed. Alternative views are not welcome in this field. The remedy to avoiding the trespass was recommended by Jesus. Purchase the field. Make it yours. Who do you say Jesus is?

As you know, my answer is Jesus was a mystic, a simple teacher who taught my connection with God was an internal and inseparable one. This was probably as radical a message to the mainstream Jew of his day as it is to the mainstream Christian of ours. I no longer require the larger-than-life, water-walking icon that others said I needed. I’ve especially taken note when Jesus asked the rich young man why he called him good. “Only God is good” (Mark 10:18). The mystic is good as asking thought-provoking questions.

One of the first steps we take toward purchasing the field is to begin selling everything we own. In this case, we’re talking about our beliefs. We have each, in our own way, bought into the belief systems of others that we have held as our own, perhaps more out of a sense of safety in numbers. Conviction varied. I got in touch with some of these possessions when I began asking myself this question: If I learned that Jesus never even existed, would it change my faith? Would it alter my quest for deeper understanding? Though I don’t question his existence, I do know that my faith in God does not depend on the narrative that has grown up around Jesus.

For me, the most important resurrection that I celebrate, is the resurrection of my own soul. This, I believe, is the truth that Jesus knew would set us free.

Your God Connection: An Easter Perspective

YouTube: Your God Connection: An Easter Perspective

The Easter story is about Jesus enabling unity with God. The catch is that this unity occurs after this life, when we make it to our heavenly abode. Jesus taught something different, and he seemed confident that some in his audience would have a spiritual awakening that would reveal their God connection.

“There are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom” (Matthew 16:28).

Many of us grew up believing we were separate from God, destined one day to return home. We’re now learning that we are one with God, a concept difficult to grasp given our upbringing. Seeing God not as the old man in the sky, but as the creative life force animating all beings, allows us to use different metaphors to illustrate our shared unity.

Think of a river meeting a hydroelectric dam. God is the river; you are the dam. Just as the river flows in one direction, so God as the creative life force flows in one direction—from the inside out. The river is raw, universal power. The dam converts the river’s power into electricity that lights a city.

God is our limitless source, flowing within us and turning the turbine of our executive faculties: imagination, faith, will, judgment, and elimination. Using these faculties, we direct this raw power of God in ways of our choosing. This seems to be the point Jesus was making when he said this:  

“The good man out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure produces evil” (Luke 6:45).

As you awaken to the truth of your oneness with God as the creative life force flowing through you at this very moment, you become more aware of how you use these faculties that convert this universal energy into the specific expression you call your life.  Your God connection is your key to the quality of life you desire.

Exploring the Mystery of Spiritual Rebirth

YouTube: Exploring the Mystery of Spiritual Rebirth

Using a term like rebirth, we may be tempted to think of reincarnation. Reincarnation is the same soul being born into a new body. Rebirth is the same soul awakening to a deeper experience within the same body. We see Spring rebirth in a tree that went dormant for the winter. It’s the same tree with new life.

While I believe reincarnation has a place, the thing we are most interested in is spiritual rebirth. Like the tree, we want to learn how to experience a current situation in a new way. This, I think, was the essence of Jesus’ ministry. He was trying to help people cope with the challenges of daily living by teaching them to experience them from a higher perspective.

We’ve all been in situations that we did not like because we felt negative, like they would never end. Then, the time came when we could see light at the end of the tunnel. At that moment, the challenge did not seem so big, and we may have even wondered why we made such a mountain of it.

The human experience itself can sometimes feel like an insurmountable burden. But what if we suddenly realized our time here is really just a flash in the pan? What if we knew this was but one of our many incarnations? This flash of insight is a kind of spiritual rebirth. It is a glimpse into a larger context that puts our present experience in a healthier place. Such insight is empowering, a great source for a second wind.  

Spiritual rebirth is not about changing the world; it’s about changing the way we experience the world. Affirming our true, limitless spiritual nature lifts our vision to broader vistas. Just as the countless challenges we have encountered in the past have faded from our memory, so that challenge that plagues us today will be as nothing tomorrow. We do not ignore that which is ours to do, but we do it from the strength of knowing this too shall pass. Spiritual rebirth occurs the moment we open our eyes to the truth of who and what we are as spiritual beings.

The Million Dollar Question

YouTube: The Million Dollar Question; Does God Require Sacrifice?

One of the most popular summaries of the Christian message comes from John 3:16:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

This passage raises two important questions concerning the nature of God. Is the love of God conditional? Did God require the sacrifice of His only Son?

According to John, one must believe Jesus died for our sins to gain eternal life. The implication is that whoever does not believe in him will perish and will not have eternal life.

Then we’re told that God “gave his only Son”. We understand this to mean that God gave his Son to be put to death as a sacrifice for our sins. How can such a human sacrifice be a requirement with a God who loves the world? The unconditional love of God would be better expressed in this way:

For God so loved the world that he ensured none would perish but all would have eternal life.

This is certainly more in keeping with the lesson of the prodigal son. The father so loved his son that he welcomed him home, no questions asked, no conditions imposed.

We cringe when we read of cultures that practiced human sacrifice to appease the gods. However, as Christians, we’ve become so accustomed to Jesus as a human sacrifice that we have somehow disconnected pagan barbarism from Christian theology. The principle, however, is the same. A life is given to change the behavior and attitude of God.

From a spiritual perspective, one of the most important issues we must sort out is our understanding of God. A God that requires sacrificial appeasement cannot be considered a God of unconditional love.

The Jesus Question

YouTube: The Jesus Question

Most of us in this country have a Christian background, which prompts us to look to the sayings of Jesus for guidance on spiritual matters. How we think of Jesus makes all the difference on what we hope to find. The mainstream Christian thinks of Jesus as the Savior who offered the only way to eternal salvation. The American New Thought movement, which flourished in the nineteenth century, saw Jesus as the Wayshower, one who understood and expressed fully his Christhood, and invited all people to do the same.

Charles Fillmore, an American mystic that became Unity’s co-founder, adopted this view as the cornerstone of his teachings. Assuming Jesus attained immortality in the body, he believed that anyone who aligned with his Jesus Christ standard could also lift this fleshly clothing to such a high vibratory level that we would no longer age or experience physical death. His model placed the soul in a state of evolution, traveling through multiple incarnations with the goal of reaching the ultimate prize of immortality. In his book, The Spiritual Journey of Charles Fillmore, Neal Vahle includes this quote:

“This question is often asked by Unity readers. Some of them seem to think that I am either a fanatic or a joker if I take myself seriously in the hope that I shall with Jesus attain eternal life in the body. But the fact is that I am very serious about the matter.”

As I point out in my book, The Complete Soul, I find this interpretation of Jesus places him impossibly out of our reach. The basic premise of the mystic is that God, as omnipresent Spirit, is centered as the soul of every person. As such, the soul is complete. What evolves is our understanding of who and what we are as spiritual beings. Our objective is not to overcome the death of the body, but to understand that the soul is already immortal. The spiritual journey is all about moving from the body-based self-image most of us operate from, to the understanding that we are spiritual beings going through this human experience. The condition of the body is not the barometer of the soul.

The truth that comes through our current near-death research is, I believe, closer to the ideal that Jesus taught. This research reveals the immortal nature of the soul, not at the end of a very long evolutionary process, but now, at this very moment. Getting a true glimpse of our divine Self is the truth that sets us free.

The Defining Factor

YouTube: The Defining Factor

Now as they went on their way, he entered a village; and a woman named Martha received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving; and she went to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:38-42

While the Bible often gives God a distinct and commanding voice, sometimes through a heavenly messenger, I think our best conceptualization is the still small voice given to Elijah.

But what is a still small voice? It’s not really a voice at all. We should think of it more as an impulse than a voice speaking words. It is the impulse to be free. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus opens his ministry by quoting from the book of Isaiah. When we go back to the Hebrew scripture, here’s what we find:

“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?” (Isaiah 58:6).

By this account, it is clear that the focus of his ministry is to “let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke.” He also says that those who have learned from the Father will come to him. In other words, those who have learned to listen to the still small voice of God will understand what he is talking about.

Why do we crave freedom? Because the soul is already free. At the spiritual level, there are no restrictions. We encounter restrictions at the physical and material levels. Jesus is teaching people how to work with these seeming contradictory conditions. While most were waiting for a messiah to appear and set them free, Jesus was teaching that freedom begins as a perceptual shift. If you seek first the kingdom of God, that is, if you learn to heed the quiet voice of God, it will help clarify your vision and make straight your path.

Though we may not have thought of the inner impulse to be free as the voice of God, doing so will help us realize that we desire freedom because our soul is free already. We are being prompted at all times to claim our inherent freedom.

The Voice of God

YouTube: The Voice of God

When we think of God’s voice, we might imagine a booming sound echoing across the universe, one that would coincide with the muscular figure depicted in so many classical paintings. In Unity, we are most familiar with Elijah’s still small voice that comes after the mighty winds and earthquakes.

While the Bible often gives God a distinct and commanding voice, sometimes through a heavenly messenger, I think our best conceptualization is the still small voice given to Elijah.

But what is a still small voice? It’s not really a voice at all. We should think of it more as an impulse than a voice speaking words. It is the impulse to be free. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus opens his ministry by quoting from the book of Isaiah. When we go back to the Hebrew scripture, here’s what we find:

“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?” (Isaiah 58:6).

By this account, it is clear that the focus of his ministry is to “let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke.” He also says that those who have learned from the Father will come to him. In other words, those who have learned to listen to the still small voice of God will understand what he is talking about.

Why do we crave freedom? Because the soul is already free. At the spiritual level, there are no restrictions. We encounter restrictions at the physical and material levels. Jesus is teaching people how to work with these seeming contradictory conditions. While most were waiting for a messiah to appear and set them free, Jesus was teaching that freedom begins as a perceptual shift. If you seek first the kingdom of God, that is, if you learn to heed the quiet voice of God, it will help clarify your vision and make straight your path.

Though we may not have thought of the inner impulse to be free as the voice of God, doing so will help us realize that we desire freedom because our soul is free already. We are being prompted at all times to claim our inherent freedom.

Soul Searching

YouTube: Soul Searching

“Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:20

While this seems like a personal warning to the modern reader, it will help to get some context. The scribes and Pharisees were religious professionals whose positions gave them special recognition. Seeking such positions often meant that it was the position itself, and not the spiritual quest, that drew their interest. If we think of Jesus referring to the kingdom of heaven as the spiritual dimension rather than a place you go when you die, then this makes sense.

To be productive, the spiritual quest must be pure, based on an honest desire to know God. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matt. 5:8). If we are seeking God simply as a means of solving a problem, then our spiritual quest will only take us as far as the end of the problem. Meister Eckhart addressed this issue with this famous quote:

“Some people want to see God with their eyes as they see a cow, and to love Him as they love a cow – for the milk and cheese and profit it brings them. This is how it is with people who love God for the sake of outward wealth or inward comfort. They do not rightly love God, when they love Him for their own advantage.”

Soul searching, at its best, is really about understanding our spiritual motive. Are we seeking an understanding of the bigger picture, and how we fit in, or are we simply looking for a little milk and cheese? If we actually want to enter the kingdom of heaven, that is, if we want to experience genuine spiritual revelations, then we need to become pure in heart, to seek God for the sake of knowing God. This is why Jesus put this at the top of the list, to seek first the kingdom and all other things would be added.

We all appreciate people who want to get to know us, not for what they can get from us, but because they value us as people. These are the relationships that are most meaningful and most reciprocal.

Let There Be Light

Watch YouTube Presentation: Let There Be Light

When our space program took us to the moon, we were enthralled when we saw for the first time our gorgeous gem of a planet rising through the black backdrop of space to a place just above the horizon of the moon. We’d never seen an earthrise. Taken by the beauty and wonder of this image, we may not have quickly gleaned all the implications that it so clearly demonstrated.

We see the earth in this photo because it reflects the sun’s light. What this tells us is that the sun’s light is just as present in the apparent blackness as it is on earth’s surface. In this sense, sunlight is omnipresent, but it is only apparent to us when an object capable of reflecting light is present.

In the Genesis account of creation, God says, “Let there be light.” This first step can be accomplished and still appear only as the black of space. Place an object in this stream of light, however, and you see that the light was present before the introduction of the object.

The Big Bang theory contradicted this order of creation, suggesting that matter came first and then life (thanks to something like a perfect combination of chemicals and an extraordinarily lucky lightning strike). This would be a little like saying that the earth in our photo produces the light that enables us to see it.

I can more easily grasp the idea that the energy we know as life, the light of every living creature, permeated the otherwise formless universe. The biological objects that were capable of reflecting or expressing this life then came along. All that makes up the life, love, power and intelligence that we know as God was present long before the biological reflecting agents appeared. God does not evolve; the biological reflecting agents do, but probably not in the way we imagine.

When we refer to ourselves as spiritual beings, we are, by analogy, referring to an aspect of ourselves that is equivalent to the primordial light. The light that we are does not evolve. It is already complete. Nor does our ability to reflect this light evolve. As with any object placed in the path of sunlight, our ability to reflect this divine field of energy is inherent in our makeup. The light actually made us for this single purpose of reflecting itself. It did not start with an inferior product that it would eventually perfect. It started with that perfection.

That we are capable of believing God is absent or in any way separate from us is like the earth saying, “I’m surrounded by blackness. When will the light dawn?” The whole time the light is present, powering all the many systems of earth, asking nothing more from the earth in terms of its awareness or deserving. Nor does the sun ever say to the earth, “You owe me big time for giving you all this free light.”

Although we are capable of capturing and reflecting the unseen light, our senses-based, intellectual orientation has prompted us to invent the illusion that something more must happen prior to our immersion in the light. Many have accepted the false belief that if enough of the race evolves, the rest will be carried in on its coattails. This superstition stands like a great shield blocking the ever-present light. We abide in the shadows of ignorance, passing on from one generation to the next that this shadow is a thing with which we must contend, that there is more than one presence and one power in the universe, and that in some near or distant future we will all know only the one. The metaphysician, in this regard, is as prone to superstition as the Christian fundamentalist awaiting the second coming.

The groping in darkness we see currently in our world perpetuates the myth of spiritual evolution. The presence of strife, however, is no measure of the presence of Truth.

Emerson observed, “We sell the thrones of angels for a short and turbulent pleasure.” Those who strive only for the short and turbulent pleasure provided by the shiny objects of material gain overlook the deeper, all-sustaining truth of that divine, infinite sea of light forever shining in the darkness, a light without which nothing else would exist.

The God Perspective

In the New Testament letter of James, we find this reference to God as the, “Father of lights with whom there is no shadow or variation due to change” (James 1:17). Presenting God as changeless is a significant departure from the traditional view of a Deity bearing human emotions of likes and dislikes, moods and changing attitudes. We so routinely and casually ask for God’s special blessings or favors that we may not stop to realize we are indeed addressing a perception of a Creator whose attitudes and behavior are quite subject to change. Could James’ changeless Father of lights bless and not bless, or pass out serpents and stones when we really need fish and bread?

It is certainly easiest to think of God in terms of our human relationships. There are times when we feel close to those around us, and times when others or we seem more distant, depending on prevailing moods. For some we would grant favors without question. For others, our favors would come with conditions.

Many think of their relationship to God in much the same way we might think of our relationship to the sun. We have full sunny days and we have cloudy days. We have daytime when the sun is out and nighttime when the sun is not. We experience the sunrise and the sunset, the skin-burning summer sun and an icy cold winter sun. The sun, we might conclude, has many moods.

All of these variations, however, have less to do with the nature of the sun and more to do with our relationship to it. When you think from the perspective of the sun itself, you see a very different picture. How many days has the sun seen, for example? We say this closest star is something in the neighborhood of fifteen billion years old. How do we measure a year? That would be 365 sunrises and sunsets. Multiply that by fifteen billion and you have more days than most of us can wrap our minds around.

The sun itself has seen but a single day, and that day has stretched throughout the duration of its life. The sun has never risen, never set, never known the cold of winter or the dark of night. It has never seen a shadow or experienced the dark corner of a cellar. If the sun peers into the corner of a cellar, it sees its own light. Nor can the sun see the long shadows cast over the evening landscape. There is no variation due to change.

Like the sun, we cannot understand God from the ever-changing human perspective. Impossible as it may seem, we have to think of God from God’s perspective. From the sun’s perspective we can understand how it can never see a shadow, how there is only one condition and that condition is light. It is only as we think of God from God’s perspective that we can begin to grasp the truth that there is only one Presence and one Power. There is not good and evil, not light and shadows, but absolute good, as in absolute light.

Using this familiar example of the sun, the abstraction of a changeless God of absolute good does not seem so abstract. And the abstraction lessens even more when we consider that eternally shining light at the center of our being. We sift through our ever-changing moods, our senses-based definitions of God to find that true core where there is no shadow or variation due to change. As the sun sees only light, so we see only light when we view our lives from our own radiating center of light.

It is a comfort to me in my darker moments to think of God from God’s perspective. There are no darkened moments in God. Why should I succumb to shadows I see only because I have lowered my vision to the spinning earth and the affairs of the human condition and turned my back on the life that is the “… light of men”, the light that “shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (Jn. 1:4-5).

The light that you and I seek is here now, has always been here, and will always be here. As we commit to opening our minds and hearts to the God perspective, every shadow dissolves into the nothingness from which it came.