How esoteric we make the learning of Christ. Often shrouded in mystery and only ‘earned’ knowledge, it is true that the concept of Christ has been written up and owned by much-securitised elaboration.
Yet is the central message of the Christ symbol simple - the Christ dwells within each and everyone one of us – no exceptions, and that indwelling takes the form of a love not made from the confinement of the human form. All that is required is a recognition and acceptance of this ever-present and time-tested truth and is what He, as Jesus, came to teach us all. A message in a body the man was.
The art of living the Christ life is different for us all, yet clearly the same. And the similarity can only be seen when we pare down the espoused doctrine, practised ritual and expected ceremony. We are all looking for an effectual and conclusive answer to the yearning that fills us. We are all on an internal search made manifest externally. We look to others and their bodies to conclude the infernal longing to feel whole, and it is here that our similarities can be recognised.
We are all in a body, wandering around our little piece of this place, bumping into other bodies and stopping with them momentarily in the hope they are the one. The one who will give us our completeness and cease the yearning that leads the quest. Therefore we are all the same in our pursuit of the Christ, just wearing different garments and looking for It in different places and faces.
If we accept that the search is circular and will eventually lead us back to ourselves then we can begin to take up some of this steadiness we already have contained within us. We can tap the Source.
If the Christ is a permanent presence and ultimately an internal experience then it logically follows that: when the Source is housed within, it must go with me wherever I go, it must be with me through whatever I send my mind. A possible Presence of another aspect of myself capable of raising me up and out of a self-imposed sentence.
Practicing Christ becomes personal and often imperceptible. The coming together of bodies always brings with it the opportunity for something good or bad. Maybe we can choose consciously to let the Christ in us be present or at least witness to the interaction, but maybe we do not have to.
Christ's presence working within us can be seen at rudimentary levels such as ‘good works’ or deeds and thinking the best thoughts you can about yourself, another or a situation. But these can carry with them a certain level of superficiality which, although intellectually can appear as the ‘right thing’ to do, may in fact lack authenticity due to minimal intuitively guided emotional intent, leaving our thoughts and actions as hollow sounding.
Our own Christ presence will, if allowed, work itself out of us in authentic ways and uncontrived situations.
We are all working at the highest level we are capable of, yet also is it given to us to consciously try and increase our capacity to embody the Christ within us.
We can do this in many ways, but primarily the main way Christ becomes amplified and made manifest in our conscious daily thinking and subsequent lives is to call It in to be there.
You may not recognise the presence nor feel or think anything out of your normal range but it has the effect of path clearing and setting an intention. Outcomes need to be left out of your control.
Setting a daily intent can be done from just five minutes of your morning allotted to prayer or meditation or a contemplative quietude achieved easily from walking, surfing, running or any activity which supports individual silence and nature.
You may quickly forget this time the moment you are out of it, but it will not make its doing any less effective. By letting yourself experience some quietness from the Christ within you, you have fed from the stream that runs on His golden droplets, broadening the distance between its banks.
The quiet times taken to deliberately remember yourself in God will heal you and align you with your path home – often called or felt like ‘your purpose’.
Yet the truth is we have no purpose, other than to remember who we are and from what we came. From this awakening, snakes out our individual path which may feel like a certain purpose or point to a place, person or course of action we are impelled to take.
But let it be known that we do not need a burning impulsion to know we are connected to Christ, quite the contrary. The deeper your knowing the less likely will the desire be to 'do’ anything. You will sit happily in the knowledge of Who you are and in Whom you reside. Your only ambition; to be complete in the Peace He has given us. That is all.
Yet that is enough AND is your service to yourself and all your brothers. No ambition to be apart from Him any longer, no desire to be the controller from within. The Self that knows is simply let be and all else falls away. That is your journey, that is its purpose. Do not waste time grandiosing yourself or life down here, we are all one and the same and not one of us is special over the other, not one, regardless of the physical and thought forms we have moulded and hold ourselves into. Many confuse the outer picture as the most important part of the return journey. Evidence, they believe, to their spiritual development.
All external needs will be met as you begin to consciously give up the need to control the return trip. We do not decide to take a ferry ride and then proceed to tell the driver how to get us there. We accept he knows what it is he is doing – why else would get on board?
Do not keep wasting your time trying to control the journey, use your time instead to keep turning back to your Christ within. The journey, its scenery – people, places and events, are ultimately immaterial and will be forgotten the moment these bodies close their eyes.
Absolute faith is not a blind believing but a certainty in the knowledge of whom you are letting run your life. The ego or Christ. There are no other choices, only the two.
Ego asks questions which shatter, divide and suspect. Christ fed thought will provoke a line of questioning designed to return the upset mind gently back to its Source. Ego thinking will want to question others motives and analyse their behaviours and the impact it is having on them all the time. Christ led inquiry sees the faults and flaws, even feels the pain but uses it to remind its thinker – you are safe and need not feel wounded for too long because the Self He made cannot be harmed in any way. All, therefore, becomes a lesson and your thinking a teacher.
Globally we have grasped the concept of ‘learning a lesson’ yet the same sight does not yet see us as teachers. We model who we think we are in all our interactions, and from where we came – dust and dirt or light and eternal spirit, teaching ourselves just as much as others.
So how do we practice Christ without false enactment?
Spend your time wisely. It’s your time.
Give yourself the gift of Christ by giving yourself time spent in It. All else that occurs will be influenced by this without you even realising it.
For it is only knowing ourselves in Him, forsaking all other selves we have made, that we can recall the Gift that God has given us and pass through the eye of the ego. It is only when we leave ego identity and all its trappings and walk back towards the Christ already in me that I can know true freedom.
Recognition and acceptance are all it requires. And the recognition need not be comprehensible to us at this level of consciousness. Yet from a daily practice not focused on perfection, but just showing up to do it, attempts are all that are required.
Each step toward the Christ light, however flawed or faltering is not taken without support. We are not imagining The Call, this pull, it is innate, placed within us to keep us safe from the insanity we have made from our chosen absence from His memory.
Yet are we safe. It is already done. Now need we only accept the truth of who we are consistently. Amen.
