Joel (from the Center for Sacred Sciences) gave his traditional Christmas talk on the 25th, and I missed it unfortunately. The audio will be available in a few weeks and can be ordered from the center. 

The talk was on the nativity scene as a mandala, or seen as a dream or teaching story, and a friend was kind enough to send me a brief summary as he remembered it. 

Here are a few things based on that summary, with additions on my own. This has already gone through a few filters, so it only reflects my own take on it. Not necessarily what Joel said. 

The virgin birth. The awakening is born of spirit, not of the human. It is what we are awakening to itself. The timeless now awakening as always and already here. It does not come from and cannot be initiated by anything human. It is grace.

The stable. Awakening can happen in ordinary and humble circumstances. It also embraces and is often lived through ordinary and humble circumstances.

The shepherds. Awakening includes the ordinary in our lives. And it is available to ordinary and humble people.

The wise men. (Sometimes kings.) Wisdom is in the service of awakening. The ruling views and habits align with and are in the service of what we are awake to itself. 

Animals. Awakening embraces and is lived through our animal and human nature. 

The star. A guiding star. Also the presence of the celestial. Spirit. That which all experience happens within and as. What we are. 

The angels/messengers. ??? (Maybe the knowing that comes with awakening. The obviousness of Ground awake to itself as the awake no-thing appearing as the myriad forms and experiences.)

The baby. The innocence of awakening. Not knowing. Curiosity. Wonder. 

The gifts. An offering of what we take as most precious. A sacrifice of our most precious stories and identities. 

All of this reflects the fruits of awakening, and are also guides and pointers for the path. 

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I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “this very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.” - Matthew 26:34. Also Luke 22:34. Mark 14:30. John 13:38.

Adyashanti talked about this during his July intensive this year (I have listened to the two first session on CD.)

As so much in the New Testament, it is a beautiful expression of what we are likely to encounter on the path.

I find this for myself in small daily situations, and also in the overall process of recognizing what I am and taking the consequences of it in my daily life.

Mainly, I notice I am caught up in a story. I find what is more true for me. I live from that for a while. Get caught up in the story again even if I know better. Shift into living from what is more true for me. And so on.

John is, as so often, even more to the point:

Then Jesus answered, “Will you really lay down your life for me? I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!” - John 13:38

Of course, for most of us it happens more than three times. But it doesn’t have to.

(The illustration is an Ethiopian painting from the 1600s.)

From New York Times today:

JERUSALEM — A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days.

If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus, since it suggests that the story of his death and resurrection was not unique but part of a recognized Jewish tradition at the time.

Of course, the Jesus story has parallels with not only Jewish myths, but also myths from other earlier traditions of that time and region.

Some examples are given in The Jesus Mysteries by Tim Freke and Peter Gandi where they outline the following parallels of the Osiris-Dionysus and Jesus stories:

• Osiris-Dionysus is God made flesh, the savior and “Son of God.”
• His father is God and his mother is a mortal virgin.
• He is born in a cave or humble cowshed on December 25 before three shepherds.
• He offers his followers the chance to be born again through the rites of baptism.
• He miraculously turns water into wine at a marriage ceremony.
• He rides triumphantly into town on a donkey while people wave palm leaves to honor him.
• He dies at Eastertime as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.
• After his death he descends to hell, then on the third day he rises from the dead and ascends to heaven in glory.
• His followers await his return as the judge during the Last Days.
• His death and resurrection are celebrated by a ritual meal of bread and wine, which symbolize his body and blood.

Why is it so? The obvious answer is that the Jesus myth picked up elements of existing myths to make it more familiar to the people of the time.

But another answer, as Freke and Gandi points out, is that these stories are about an inner truth more than an outer - historic - truth. They reflect an inner process of growing and waking up.

And that is why similar story elements not only appear in traditions of that place and time, but around the world in many different cultures, and also in dreams and visions of people today.

None of this really touch whether Jesus was a historic figure or not. He may well have been, and the specific events of his life may or may not have followed the lines of the Jesus story as we know it today.

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The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

Matthew 6:22-24

This whole passage is interesting. From a conventional point of view, the two first paragraphs don’t make much sense, and the third is taken literally and maybe seen as overly harsh.

Yet when there is a shift into headlessness or Big Mind/Heart, it becomes clear and is revealed as a beautiful and true passage.

The single eye is awareness itself, that which all happens within, to and as. When it notices itself, all is revealed as luminous both metaphorically (clear insight into what we are) and literally (sense of luminosity in all there is).

If it doesn’t notice itself, there is darkness. We are confused about who and what we are, and also don’t notice the luminosity inherent in all form and experience. This confusion is the root of all that is conventionally seen as evil, including all suffering and unease.

We cannot serve two masters. We cannot be confused and identify with content of awareness, and at the same time notice what we are.

Or more accurately, we can - and inevitably do - for a large stretch of the awakening process. Both may be present simultaneously to some degree, with one shifting into the foreground and then the other. But there comes a time when we have to make a clear decision.

Am I going to continue to indulge in whatever comes out of this mistaken identity, even as I know it is a mistaken identity, or am I going to wholehearted give myself to what I already am?

And this shift may involve strong resolve which is reflected in the somewhat harsh language of the passage above.

I thought this was cute. Why not look good for Jesus?

Seems that it would be part of any comprehensive and integral approach

And it is always interesting to explore where I find the genuine truth in this, for myself. Where do I find the genuine truth in looking good for Jesus?

For me, it has to do with inviting guests.

Any content of awareness is a guest, so if we take a visit by Jesus to happen within content of awareness, we can invite it in.

We can do certain (second person) practices, find receptivity of the three centers, and more. We can invite Jesus in as alive presence in its many forms such just alive presence, or its aspect of luminosity, or infinite love, or wisdom, or the fiery heart quality I find when I do Christian practices, or for others, maybe as a vision or a voice, or something else. Or just the good old taste of an open heart at our human level.

And if we take Jesus, or Christ, or the combination, to be a noticing of what we are (that which experiences happens within, to and as), then that is also something that can be invited in. We can prepare the situation, as best as we can. And that guest may come as well, or not.

So by inviting in Jesus as any or all of these guests, we want to look our best. We want to look good for Jesus, inviting him in for a visit.

Of course, Jesus, as anything else, lives his own life, on his own schedule. And that is also part of the game.

Unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of God.
[Mark 10:15]

Some of the ways I find myself more childlike…

• Exploring the sense fields, and the simplicity of noticing what arises in each, how thoughts combine with the others to create gestalts, and how these gestalts are as ephemeral and insubstantial as thoughts themselves when this is seen, and appear very substantial and real when this is not seen.
• Learning to trust what is really here, what I notice and discover through simple practices such as the headless experiments.
• The simplicity of finding myself as awareness, and all that arises as awareness.
• Receptivity of the three centers - view, heart and belly.
• Finding the genuine truths in accusations, joining in with the other.
• Saying yes or no from clarity.
• Not having to defend the truth in any story, nor defend against the truth in any story.
• Making a fool of oneself, through acting from what is alive here now. (As i do with this blog.)
• See thoughts as thoughts.
• See thoughts as tools for this human self to orient and function in the world, and having no value beyond that.
• Not knowing. See thoughts as tools only.
• Willing to be wrong. Exited to be wrong, to move out of familiar views and identities.

Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me. (Matthew 25:40)

As with so many of the saying of Jesus, this one is beautiful, simple and true in many different ways.

It is true through a Jungian filter, where we see Christ as the realized wholeness of this human self, and the ways we treat others as mirroring the ways we treat ourselves. This one is helpful, although a little limited.

More interestingly, it is true in the sense discovered by mystics from any tradition… There is only God. There is no I with an Other to be found anywhere, even if it may appear that way. All beings happen within, to and as God.

God can notice itself or not while functionally connected to a living being (in our case, this particular human self). If it doesn’t, there is suffering. If it does, there is a release from suffering.

And if there is suffering, it is, in a very real sense, God that is suffering.

It doesn’t touch what God is, which is this stainless awakeness untouched by anything in the world the same way as space is not touched by its content. Suffering is nothing else than this awakeness itself, no other than God itself.

Yet, it is experienced as real, substantial, happening to a separate I, so it is very real in that sense.

All of this means that whatever we do for any being, we do for God. Whatever we do for the least one, the one who suffers, we do for God. When we help someone, even in small ways, it is God we are helping.

It is God helping God. God exploring how it is to be finite, to be helped, to help.

All happening within, to and as awakeness.

A simple way to look at Jesus Christ…

Jesus was the human being, reorganized within the context of a soul awakening (alive presence, oneness) and quite possibly a nondual awakening.

The soul and nondual awakening is the Christ part. The awakening to who/what we are at the soul level, as this alive presence, and what we are as awakeness and this field of awakeness and form inherently absent of an I with an Other.

When we engage in Christian practices, such as the heart/Jesus prayer (brief prayer with the breath/heartbeats) or the Jesus meditation (visualizing Christ in the six directions and the heart) we invite our human self to reorganize within this new context, we tap into the particular Christ flavor of soul level awakening (one that I experience as especially fiery in the heart and on top of the head), and we invite what we are to notice itself.

I am organizing an event with a man from Sweden who is coming to prepare us for Christ. He arrives with his family, his wife and children, and the soulful and rich embrace of family, friends, local community, the three centers, and human self, soul and Spirit is essential for the coming and physical embodiment and life of Christ.

Christ is already coming in our community, and the Swedish man and his community arrives as a catalyst for a deeper, more full and mature integration, one that includes all of these - family, friends, community, head, heart, belly, human self, soul and Spirit.

The Christ is coming as a very strong presence and light, golden and red, with blue and green included as strains of light.

The dream, and the sense of Christ awakening in and as the community, was very vivid. Christ awakening as the community of our individual self, embracing head, heart and body, human self, soul and Spirit, and awakening as our human and Earth community of family, friends and local (and global) community.

The soulfulness and maturity, which I find most readily in Scandinavian cultures, is an important catalyst of the embodiment and lived life of Christ. My sense of my own inner and outer community, in the dream and my waking life, is of one that is impoverished, deeply needing this infusion of soulfulness and fullness of life.

This dream is a direct reflection of what happened as I fell asleep, where I continually surrendered anything and everything to the alive luminous blackness: any identities, all knowing, anything familiar, any remaining toeholds.

There is a real sense of fear here, of death, of complete annihilation. But it is needed, and I feel ready for surrendering it all, completely, over and over. There is no other way. I know deeply that it is the least painful way. Holding onto anything is suffering, and there is no way out except for surrendering it all.

Death and resurrection

Since this came up related to the Christ meditation, I also thought of how Jesus (the man) mirrored this process in his own life. He went through a process of awakening, then a death, and then resurrection.

At some point, we are invited (a polite term!) to surrender it all. To die to all that we know ourselves as. We surrender all identities, all knowing, anything familiar, any remaining toeholds. It all has to go. And it really is experienced as a death, with all the fear and terror that can come up around that. And through that process, that complete willingness to surrender it all, we do die as anything we know ourselves as, and are resurrected into a new life.

Although it isn’t really an invitation. It is a process that goes far beyond our intention or will. We are just swept along with it, almost helplessly. The only thing we can do is to willingly surrender to it, which makes it a little less painful.

And it may also happen many times, in many different ways. Each time surrendering new layers, dieing to current identities and familiar ways of living, and being resurrected into something new. Over and over.

Deaths and resurrections within realized selflessness

Even in the midst of realized selflessness, there are these deaths and resurrections.

There is the realization of everything as always fresh, different and new. There is a deepening into realizing and living from realized selflessness. There is a deepening into new realms of being.

Each of these involves a continuous dying to anything familiar, and a continuous resurrection into a new life.

I did the Christ meditation last night, and noticed a new shift and a few familiar things as well.

In the Christ meditation, I visualize Christ in my heart, and in front and behind, on the left and right, and above and below, about 5-8 feet out. Christ can be visualized as a presence, a light, or even in the physical form of Jesus, depending of what resonates the most and gives the strongest sense of presence. For me, a combination of presence and golden light seems to work best.

Soft alive loving intelligent receptive luminosity

The difference this time was the quality of the light. This time, it had a soft rounded quality, as a soft luminous deep infinitely loving, intelligent and receptive luminosity, with an alive presence. It has the deep velvety quality of the fertile darkness, and the aliveness and love, intelligence and receptivity of the alive luminosity.

In my dream that morning, the fertile blackness took on the qualities of the alive luminosity, revealing itself as luminous blackness. And during this meditation, the luminosity took on the deep soft quiet qualities of the fertile darkness. They seem to be revealing themselves as just two facets of the same, in different ways, with one in the foreground, then the other.

Directions

I also noticed the experience of the directions again, as I often do.

The front seems to have to do with my conscious daily life and interactions.

The back with my individual shadows, maybe shared with people in my groups such as culture and nationality, and in general what I tend to be unaware of in my daily life.

The sides with community and relationships with humanity, animals, plants and the Earth.

Above with traditional yang spirituality, such as transcendence and ascension.

And below with deep feminine spirituality, and also deeper collective shadows.

Placing, or noticing, the Christ there allows the light of awareness into these realms, allowing them to reorganize within the light of consciousness.

Unique quality

I also notice the unique Christ quality. It involves the heart center, but so do anything else related to Big Heart, such as Avalokiteshwara (Chenrezig, Kanzeon, Quan Yin). It involves the head center as well, especially the crown. But it also has a very distinct quality, a fiery alive presence that I have not experienced with anything else.

Tongues of fire

I also took the opportunity to look at the tongue of fire in the mirror afterwards (I know this is weird! I am definitely pushing my comfort zone by writing about this.) It looks like a cylinder of very clear light attached to the crown, maybe about 1.5-2 inches wide and 5-6 inches tall. When I move my head around, it follows exactly, as if solidly attached to the crown.

So it doesn’t really look like a tongue of fire, but it is very understandable why it may be described - and depicted - that way. It is of clear brilliant light, attached to the top as a flame to a candle (!), and it also has the fiery quality of the Christ presence itself.

When we worked with the Hebrew letters on Sunday, sounding and visualizing them above the head and at the three soul centers, we used letters with tongues of fire above them.

It reminded me of one of the most surprising experiences in my life. In the years following my initial awakening, I did did the heart prayer and Christ meditations and visualizations along with a more Buddhist practice, and along with everything else happening, I noticed an unusually intense activity on the crown on my head. The awakening also allowed me to see energies, and as I happened to walk past a mirror following an especially alive Christ meditation, I saw a flame on top of my head.

It was hugely surprising to me as it seemed to reflect the descriptions in Acts, which I up until then had taken as purely metaphorical. Now, it seemed that it was far more than metaphorical. The tongues of fire is a literal description of what happens when we connect with the Christ consciousness and energy. There are literally tongues of fire, energetically, activated at the top of our heads, and visible in our energy systems.

I am also surprised by drawings and paintings such as the one above. It is just about exactly what I saw, and see whenever I immerse myself in Christ practices. Have these artists seen it for themselves? Do they intuit or sense it? Do they base it one representations made by others who have seen it? It is probably a combination, and different for each artist. But it is still surprising, and beautiful.