The Mystical Christ

by Michael Maciel

We have to be careful not to insist that those who have committed evil be punished for what they have done, because at the end of this life, we will stand in judgment of our own deeds, and the punishments we would mete out to others will be meted out to us, not because God is vindictive, but because we are.

If, however, we endeavor to forgive those who have wronged us here in this life, then we will be more apt to forgive ourselves of the acts we have committed against others, acts that we will be reviewing and evaluating as part of our transition into our next stage of life.

I knew a woman once who failed to strap her infant’s car seat into a seatbelt. She hit another car and her baby was killed. The officer on the scene issued her a citation, because it was against the law in that state to leave a child unrestrained while riding in a motor vehicle. My immediate concern was for the mother—the grief, along with the unbearable guilt, that she must be feeling. I also could not help but be astonished that she got a ticket for her negligence, as though she hadn’t been sufficiently “punished” already. The law, in this case, had already been fulfilled in the most punishing way possible.

The one thing we can reasonably expect in the immediate afterlife is a stripping away of the filters that blind us to the feelings of others, enabling us to mistreat them. Without those filters, the full force of our actions will make themselves known in such a way that we won’t be able to escape feeling their effects, as if we ourselves had been the victim. This is the “purging” or “Purgatory” that can be found in one form or another in the teachings of all of the world’s enduring religions. There will be a “Judgment Day,” but it will be us in the judge’s seat, not God.

The only preparation we have is to humbly and sincerely review our past deeds here and now, to develop our capacity to feel empathy and and to have remorse for the pain we have caused others. The measure of our success will be in our ability to have compassion on those whom the world, in its unrelenting thirst for revenge, has consigned to the fires of hell.

by Michael Maciel

If you identify yourself as your physical body, reincarnation can seem farfetched. But if you identify yourself as a trans-physical being, regardless of what words you use to describe it (such as “soul”) then reincarnation blends seamlessly into the experience of life.

“Trans-physical” is different from “non-physical,” in that it acknowledges the importance of physical life, as distinct from those who say that physical reality is an illusion. In one sense, that statement is correct, but it is only correct in a sense. The notion that physical reality is an illusion implies that physical reality is unimportant, which anyone with a clear sense of themselves knows that it is not. We need a physical body in order to experience physical reality. And, as it turns out, our spiritual growth depends on it.

The notion that we have a trans-physical being is more scientific than one might think. It is the notion that matter is in-formed by vibration and not, as is most commonly thought, the source of vibration. This idea that matter creates itself is fundamentally superstitious, and yet it perniciously inserts itself into nearly every vein of scientific thought.

We know that matter can be shaped and reshaped by vibration, as in the manipulation of sand particles on a paper diaphragm by sonic input (cymatics). We also know that we live in a sea of vibration, cosmically speaking. The tendency, however, is to regard this “sea” simplistically, the same way (before the advent of spectral analysis) we regarded sunlight.

We now know that the complexity of matter’s range of vibration exceeds our ability to comprehend, as in astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington’s famous quote, “Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.”

The analogy for the “sea of vibration” in which we live is the broadcast of radio waves from a transmission tower. The broadcast is simultaneously power and information, which any radio within the broadcast range can transmute into intelligible sound.

But just as sound can form shapes in the particles of sand on a diaphragm, these infinitely more complex “sounds” of the universe (the broadcast) can form complex structures of infinite variety in the part of the greater spectrum we call the physical world.

In this way, we can say that vibration = information = matter. Matter is information made visible.

The notion that reincarnation is a scientific fact becomes plausible when we place vibration, in all of its infinite variations, at the center of “being.” Vibration and information are one—separate, yes, but one.

The question then becomes whether we identify with our physical bodies or with the broadcast that informs them. If we are “unique creations of God,” as the doctrine of souls proclaims, then we could very well be unique “messages” within the broadcast.

The real value of the idea of reincarnation is not in discovering who you were, but rather in discovering who you are. Instead of interpreting your life as a series of points on a timeline, across which your being travels, it makes more sense to see yourself as the immoveable point past which the timeline flows.

So this then is an alternative way in which to approach the subject of reincarnation. I’m not saying that it’s the “truth,” but rather suggesting it as a starting point for a more nuanced inquiry, using it as a hypothesis rather than as a dogma.

by Michael Maciel

There is only one story, says the famous mythologist, Joseph Campbell, and that is The Hero’s Journey. It is the story of all of us as we leave the safety of the known and venture into the unknown, to find there the Pearl of Great Price and bring it back into our everyday lives.

This Pearl is, of course, the Self, called by many names by many faiths, but always the simplicity of who and what we are. It cannot be described. But the Way to it can be described. It has been laid out in countless tales by those who “for My sake” have left the world behind and traveled the inner paths to the real.

Once arrived, no further description is needed. Nor is there any necessity for a “path.” But there are those who are called to teach, to lead others on the same path that helped them achieve their enlightenment, who know the value of the Ancient Wisdom Teachings. These master teachers would never set these teachings aside. They would never dismiss them because they were buried under centuries of misinterpretation and erroneous translations. Because, having been there, they can see through the clutter. Therefore, they know what is useful and what is not.

The Teachings are a living thing, and like all living things they require constant renewal—the continual adaptation to present-day circumstances and levels of consciousness.

It’s reckless to say, “You don’t need the Bible or _________ (fill in the blank),” because as we grow in spiritual consciousness, each new level brings with it a test, the temptation to stop at the border station as though it were the destination. One teacher said, “The student will be tempted to take the bit and run.” Thinking they have the whole story, they set themselves up as spiritual authorities, and then devote most of their time to self-promotion.

The other temptation is when they regard their own minds as the pinnacle of spiritual attainment. Having grown accustomed to their superiority, they lay aside the principles they learned on the path that got them to where they are, and they advise their students to do the same, even though they’re not ready to strike out on their own.

This is an all-too-common mistake committed by those who are enamored by their own achievements. They say things like, “Just be!” as though that’s the all-and-everything anyone needs to know in order to wake up. They will spout endless streams of platitudes pointing to some elusive state of being, which for the average person is unattainable—not because they’re unworthy, but because they are unprepared.

It would be ludicrous for a virtuoso violinist to tell his students, “Just play!” Such guidance could only come from an ego completely separated from reality. Why then is it so believable when a pretend spiritual teacher says, “Just be”?

Oprah Winfrey, who has done so much to bring spiritual teachings to the world through the mass-media, nevertheless once told one of her guest-speakers, “We sell the dream.” As long as spiritual attainment is portrayed as a “dream,” it sells. But the very instant you place requirements on it—the way a master violin teacher would require of his students—the dream loses its appeal and ceases to sell.

And it doesn’t matter whether the fee is in dollars or applause. When so-called teachers present spiritual awakening as a vague allusion, an exalted state to which everyone is entitled whether they work for it or not, they are only drawing attention to themselves. They care nothing for the actual spiritual advancement of their students. Their entire presentation is a fraud and will only serve to keep people stuck where they are, replacing one “dream” with another.

True spiritual teachers are not self-promoters. One of the greatest teachers—Buddha—told his followers, “I am the finger pointing at the moon, not the moon.” He too was beleaguered by followers who wanted to turn him into a god. Whenever someone passes themselves off as a “spiritual authority,” continually pointing their finger back upon themselves, beware. They do not have your best interests at heart. All they’re looking for is to get something from you, either your money, your applause, or your sex—and sometimes all three.

Spiritual attainment requires work, the same as any other worthwhile discipline. It doesn’t matter how many books you read or the words you use or the symbol you hang around your neck. The only thing that matters is the amount of time you spend practicing. This requires intense inner work.

Meditate. Pray. Be charitable. Lose yourself in self-forgetting service for the good of all. There is no other way, and there are no shortcuts. If someone says, “It’s easy,” they’re lying.

by Michael Maciel

It’s especially important during times like these, when emotions are running high and fingers are pointing in all directions, when everyone is desperately trying to make sense of a world that is clearly going insane, that we practice meditation. We must find that clear space in the midst of the chaos and take refuge within it. Only then will we be able to think clearly and not be carried away by mass hysteria.

Take a moment and consider the following:

Most of the time, the thoughts we think are not our own. We merely re-think thoughts that have been around for thousands of years. Our brains have evolved around them, not for our survival but so the thoughts themselves can survive. Because for the mind, consistency is more important than truth.

Our collective thoughts are a trap of our own devising—a box outside of which it is nearly impossible to think. Believing that you can think your way out of the trap (implied in the statement “you create your own reality”) is simply more of the trap. “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking that created them.” –Albert Einstein
There is a way out, but it does not involve thinking. The trap is made of thoughts. Thoughts are the only way that the trap can keep itself intact. It is onlyby NOT thinking that the trap can be transcended.

But do not equate having thoughts with awareness. They are not the same. In fact, it is very difficult to think thoughts and be aware at the same time. Only a quiet mind can become fully aware. Once the mind is aware, the trap becomes obvious for what it is—limited and small.

The thoughts that make up the collective trap (the box the mind has created for itself) are logically consistent, but truth cannot be discerned by logic alone. Just because the thoughts that make up the trap are logical doesn’t make them true. Any premise, true or false, can be carried to a logical conclusion.

The mind is not the problem. A good mind serves awareness. But a mind held captive by its own thoughts can only impede awareness.

Throughout time, mystics have taught three methods for escaping the trap:

1) Concentration
2) Meditation
3) Contemplation

Concentration is mastering mental focus. It is the ability to think about one thing at a time, the ability to control your attention, to keep it where you want it to be.

Meditation is the intentional cessation of thought for the sake of enhancing awareness. It is the ability to be aware of both inner and outer states of being.

Contemplation is the ability to be aware and to have thoughts at the same time. It cannot be achieved without having first mastered concentration and meditation. Contemplation can only be achieved “outside of the box.” Merely thinking within the constraints of the pre-fabricated thoughts of the collective mind will only yield more of what is already there. Only through contemplation can anything new be revealed.

If quieting your mind is difficult, practice concentration. I recommend the “Orange Concentration Exercise” found in the “Exercises” tab of The Mystical Christ.

Your mind is your most valuable asset. Take care of it. Don’t let others tell you what to think. Do your own thinking. But you can only think—I mean REALLY think—if you can first NOT think. Only an aware mind can think its own thoughts. Be aware. Be awake.

by Michael Maciel

It’s not a difficult concept. The esoteric teachings say that the Christ Being, the Lord of the Sun, the Son/Sun of God, voluntarily shrunk Itself down into the body of a little child. It did this for the express purpose of bringing new life into the planet so that it could overcome the spiritual inertia in which humanity had become trapped. So the birth, in a sense, was actually a death—an entombment in the dense, confining consciousness of the physical plane. The very act of being born was, for the Christ Being, a crucifixion.

We are spiritual beings having a human experience. Our souls are led deep inside the labyrinth of our physical body, the vehicle prepared for us so that we can experience Earth. And like Theseus, we are given a thread of truth that will lead us out of the maze and into the Sunlight of full spiritual awareness.

All of us—you, me, everyone— are the Christ Being refracted into billions of shards of light, seeking to “boldly go where no one has gone before.” Joseph Campbell, the famous mythologist, said that we are the eyes of the Earth, the ears of the Earth, the hands of the Earth, as though humanity were the Earth’s vehicle of self-expression, its most sentient organ of perception, its ultimate product of evolution—the entire ecosystem become self-aware.

But Campbell was only partly right. The Earth is only one component of this Solar System. To say that humanity is a product of the Earth is to say that life itself is a product of the Earth, when we know for a fact that it is not. All life comes from the Sun. The Earth is a response to life, not its author. So it’s far more accurate to say that we are the Sun, and even more than that, we are the entire Solar System, shrunk down into a particular expression within a particular domain. The “Self” is the Whole Thing. We are It, and It is us. Earth, as it happens, is merely one adventure in the soul-saga upon which together we have embarked.

Our bodies truly are a product of the Earth (fueled by the Sun). They are Life’s act of “reaching up” to the Sun, its desire to be inhabited by its Source. Evolution is a two-way street. Intelligence, encoded in the light, permeates the Solar System. Matter, simultaneously fueled and animated by that intelligence, continually seeks to attune itself with it. Our bodies are literally built by the Sun, informed by the intelligence within Its radiance.

When the attunement of matter with Spirit is close enough, the Heavenly Marriage takes place. The vehicle is impregnated with the Word (the intelligence), and a “Son” is born. But the child is born in a cave—a labyrinth—from which it must find its way back to its father, the king. It’s path is fraught with danger. Many heroic feats must be accomplished before it can fully remember who and what it is.

This was the only way for the Christ Being to experience the Earth. From deep within the “cave” of the human body, It had to learn how to use the organs of perception the body provided, organs that were made by and for the Earth. And in using them, It would develop and strengthen them, so that they could withstand the intensity of pure awareness—the total spectrum of divine consciousness that would eventually shine through them. This is the Hero’s Journey described by Campbell, the descent into darkness—the death and burial in the tomb of matter—and the return to the world of light.

It is highly unlikely that Jesus of Nazareth was born on December 25th, or even in the year zero of the Common Era. His actual birthdate is irrelevant. What is likely is that he was an initiate of high degree, born and trained to be a suitable host for the Christ Being’s incarnation, which had been foreseen for thousands of years. This is the historical significance of the event we know as “Christmas.”

But as significant an event as this was, it means nothing if it is not recapitulated in each and every human being on the planet. Each one of us must stop identifying with our physical body and look within to the Christ Child at the center of our being. We must, like the Three Wise Men—the fully developed body, mind, and feeling nature—offer our gifts to it, and guide it away from the forces of the world that seek its destruction. We must lead it into the Land of Egypt, into the Ancient Mysteries, where it can grow and be strengthened by the truth before it embarks upon its Hero’s Journey.

So this, then, is the Mystery of Christmas. It is the most inward part of the spiritual year. It’s no coincidence that it is also the shortest day of the year, the day on which the Sun once again begins its own Hero’s Journey and ascends from its lowest point on the horizon back to its exalted position in the heavens. This is the season wherein all of the powers of Earth and Heaven collaborate with us in our endeavor to find the Christ within—our own divine nature. Let it be born. Let it shine forth through our eyes, and let it give its gifts to the world through our hands. Let it hear the sorrows as well as the joys of the Earth through our ears. BE the Christ. Be the All. It’s who you are anyway. It is what you were born to do.

by Michael Maciel

In boxing, there are training exercises where parts of your body are restricted. Your ankles are tethered together to keep you from over-reaching and getting off-balance. Your strong arm is lashed to your body so that you’re forced to use only your jab. These exercises are designed to isolate certain functions in order to draw attention to them, not because they’re weak necessarily, but because you’re not using them enough. You’re out of balance.

Your trainer tethers your ankles because you’re stepping too far in the direction of your opponent, which means you’re “chasing” him. Thus, he’s controlling you and can lead you into a trap. If your trainer lashes your punching arm to your side, it’s because you’re trying too hard to knock the other guy out. And any swing that doesn’t connect puts you off-balance.

Balance is the key in almost every sport. Balance is the position of power.

The same can be said about the spiritual life. We can get so caught up in outer forms of service that we neglect our inner connection, using our busy-ness as an excuse to skip our meditations. Or we can choose the outer route of trying to “fix” people, always jumping in with an answer, instead of taking the inner route by simply connecting, letting them know that we understand what they are going through.

But sometimes, people need an answer, and sometimes they need our silent presence. Sometimes one, and sometimes the other—we have to be good at both. Our own Self-realization is the greatest service we can offer the world, but it’s not the ONLY service. It’s the people who are relying upon us for one reason or another (either our family members or our customers) that test our ability to respond. We don’t have to go looking, necessarily, for opportunities to serve others. All we have to do is answer the door when they knock.

But don’t let balance itself become your new god. There are times, when in the act of commitment, that balance must be sacrificed. Just be sure that your commitment—your punch—connects. A commitment that doesn’t connect can be your undoing.

Balance is the Middle Path. But it’s a place from which to instigate action, not a thing to worship. It’s a platform, not a destination. It’s the place you always want to return to as quickly as possible, but don’t tether yourself permanently to it. The secret to throwing a good punch is not in the strength of your arm; it’s in its timing and its exact placement. Timing and positioning, balanced by the appropriate amount of power—this is the Middle Path.

by Michael Maciel

Meditation is paint drying. It is grass growing. It is the surface of water on a windless day.

It is the body of mind, the mind of body—the act of being without doing.

It is deep, dreamless sleep while being awake.

It is the end of time.

It is the space between breaths, the space between thoughts, the space between heartbeats. It is the space between everything and everything.

“Lift the stone and there you will find me. Split the wood and I am there.”

“…I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”

– Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903, in Letters to a Young Poet

by Michael Maciel

Spiritual alchemy is not so hard to understand if you look at it as chemistry.

Core principle of alchemy: solve et coagulae (dissolve and recombine).

In chemistry, we break substances down into their constituent components and then recombine them in different ways.

Spiritually, we learn to distinguish between different levels of vibration, using our inner faculties to separate them out.

As in chemistry, the more refined a substance is (how well you have separated it out from other substances), the better results you will get when you use it to make something new.

This process of separating out is called “discernment,” which is usually carried out either by burning or distillation. In alchemy, it’s called the Element of Air, because burning and distilling create gasses.

The biggest detriment to clear thinking is the lack of discernment, the inability (or unwillingness) to look squarely at an assumption (what “is”) and to avoid breaking it down into its components.

Keywords for the lack of discernment: conflation (blending two different ideas into one); obfuscation (to be evasive, unclear, or confusing); confirmation bias (interpreting all data as supportive of one’s belief, whether or not it actually is).

Confirmation bias is the biggest impediment to clear thinking. We must entertain opposing views fully, and test them—look for their merits as well as their flaws. We must also do this with our deeply held beliefs and convictions.

Fire is the precursor to air, alchemically speaking. Fire is the agent by which we reduce ideas to their essential elements. We have to be willing to undergo the process if we hope to arrive at truth.

To be willing, and then to strike a match.