The Mystical Christ

painting by John Collier

by Michael Maciel

The tendency on the spiritual path is to personify divine principles, and to a certain extent that’s okay. But the discipline is to never forget who the person is and which principle is being represented. In the case of Mary, the mother of Jesus, this is especially true because, well, she’s the mother of Jesus, you know? And if you’ve already personified the Christ in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, then Jesus is God, which makes Mary the Mother of God. And I am quite sure that there is no one in the universe who would object to that appellation more than Mary herself.

The reason divine principles are personified in the first place is that in order for a teaching to persist over time, it must be turned into a myth. This doesn’t make it a lie, which is the way most people interpret the word “myth.” Instead, it turns it into an immortal story. And because divine principles don’t change over time, all of the world’s great myths closely resemble each other. It does not mean, as some mythologists think, that one story gets emulated over and over, thus building up a mystique around it. The stories are similar because the principles they describe are eternal.

Some believe that the Feminine Principle has to do with the mystery of childbirth, which it does, but to say that that’s the only thing it does misses the boat entirely. Childbirth, while miraculous, is still of the body. Even if you raise it to the mental level and call it the creative principle, it’s still only a mental phenomenon. No, the real meaning of the Feminine Principle has to be ontological in scope. It has to be about being itself. This is the realm of the divine – not body, not mind.

For this reason, the Feminine Principle cannot be about Mary alone, nor can it be about the female gender alone. Gender is body. And it doesn’t help us very much either to try to expand it into a cosmic perspective and say that it is about polarity, though it is about that, too. But to think that Mary represents the negative charge of an electron would be reductionist in the extreme.

There is a reason that people are used as icons, that God is pictured as a person, that animals and other living things are used to describe divine principles. The universe is not merely an aggregation of rocks and ice pushed and pulled by nuclear reaction and gravitational force; the universe is alive.

When we talk about the Feminine Principle, we are talking about consciousness. And even deeper than that, we are talking about Being and the way Being expresses itself outwardly into manifestation—the act of creation.

The act of creation requires four things:

• an idea of the thing you want to create – a plan
• the will to put your plan into action
• the daring to commit the action, sometimes in the face of seemingly insurmountable resistance
• and the ability to let go of your action so that your plan can manifest (on the seventh day, God rested)

The Feminine Principle is the spiritual universe’s response to these four elements of the act of creation. “Let it be done……….unto me!” That which is put into motion by mind must have an energy that receives the action and brings it into manifested form.

Now, this all sounds so cosmological, so metaphysical – even occult. And it would be all that if the universe were not conscious and alive. Rocks, trees, plants, and animals are not enough to contain this Life. We are not talking about nature worship. What we normally perceive as “nature” is but the effect of a larger Life, our own physical body being no exception. It is the Solar System itself that constitutes the vehicle of this larger Life – a living cell in the greater body of the Cosmos. We have to understand the body in which we live before we can understand the greater body. As above, so below.

The universe functions through adaptation. It takes the infinite number of available possibilities and decides which of them will be acted upon. The ancient symbol for decision is the sword. (Note that the word “decide” has the same root as the word “homicide.”) The ovum culls the herd of sperm cells, choosing only one. The rest die.

The Divine Feminine yearns to fulfill the Divine Will. Without the Divine Feminine’s yearning (and capability) there could be no Divine Will. Neither could exist without the other. A plan means nothing without the ability (and the mater-ial) with which to carry it out.

The vast productive power of the Divine Feminine belies its seemingly passive nature. Just as the ovum controls which sperm will be allowed to start the process of reproduction, so does the Divine Feminine adjudicate the endless ramifications of the mind. If the mind were the final arbiter of what would be created, this universe would be chaotic and unsustainable. It would implode under its own weight. Thus the Divine Feminine is the Preserver of the Cosmos.

The Divine Feminine manifests itself in both men and women. It is not exclusive to the female gender. In fact, it has nothing to do with gender at all. Women manifest outwardly as feminine, but inwardly, which is to say spiritually, they are fiercely masculine. This is why they are the chief proponents of the world’s spiritual movements. Men, on the other hand, are spiritually feminine, which means that they are willing to receive instruction. But those who have achieved the balance of male and female within themselves are capable of being both proponents and adherents. They can both give and receive. They have the ability to create within themselves. This is the Sacred Marriage spoken of by the ancients. It is the inner meaning of the Virgin Birth. Mary was one who had attained the Sacred Marriage, and was thus able to give birth to the Sun.

Jean Erdman, dancer and wife of Joseph Campbell

by Michael Maciel

What is the purpose of baptism? Is it merely a ceremony, a dedication of one’s soul to a particular religion or body of believers? Or does something actually happen? Are people somehow different after they’ve been baptized, different in a real way? If they are, then there would had to have been a movement of energy. Power would have had to have been invoked, and its movement would have had a lasting effect on the initiate’s energy body.

That’s right, baptism is a spiritual initiation. The priest places his or her hand on the initiate’s head and says, “Pass into this body, Father. Bring this child into the Cosmic Consciousness for its life of service.” Baptism is the activation of the crown chakra, the Thousand Petaled Lotus at the top of the head. It’s purpose is to prepare for the “coming of the Lord,” which is religious jargon for the initiation of Illumination. By waking up the crown chakra and infusing it with the Christ energy, which has its own unique vibratory signature, the initiate is oriented toward the Christ experience—the Illumination.

In terms of auto mechanics, the baptism is like charging up the battery and connecting all the wires. All of the car’s circuitry is hooked up, programmed, and tested with electrical current. The Illumination is like turning on the ignition—actually firing up the engine. The human body has its own electrical circuits and its own energy. The vibration of that energy has different levels or frequencies—octaves, if you will. The higher the octave, the more attuned that energy is to the Cosmic energies, the spiritual energies of the Sun. This is why we call techniques like baptism “solar” initiations. The Illumination is getting the energy body of the initiate fired up with the Light of Christ. It begins the process of switching over from deriving one’s spiritual energies from the Earth to getting them directly from the Sun.

The Earth has powerful energies too. Its energies are similar to the energies of a bell when it’s been struck by a hammer. They are secondary energies. The Earth swims in a sea of vibratory energies, and in turn vibrates synchronously with them. The Earth’s energies are a combination of its magnetic field and the electrical energies from the Sun. This is the metaphysical interpretation of the Earth’s symbol—the Cross, the intersection of two distinctly different energies for the purpose of creating a pulse.

Just as there are techniques for activating solar energies within the human body, so are there techniques for amplifying the Earth’s energies. The body has a particularly strong energetic relationship with the Earth, one that can be exploited to harness different physical energies. The center or focus of the body’s attunement with the Earth is called hara. By focusing one’s mind on the hara while performing certain physical actions, great strength can be acquired. This is the secret of the martial arts. The martial arts initiate can do things with his or her body that ordinary people who haven’t had that training can even imagine, everything from healing disease to punching holes in a wall with one’s bare fist.

Over the course of human history, three spiritual paths have developed. One path focuses on adapting the body so that it runs on solar energy, thus developing cosmic consciousness; one path utilizes the Earth’s energies for the accomplishment of superhuman feats; the third path is the path of the Moon. This is where we learn about cyclical forces, time, and the subconscious mind. Which, in a timely way, brings us to the subject of . . . you guessed it . . . belly dancing.

You know how it is with bells—once you start banging them, you just can’t stop. Nothing gets people’s attention more than the movement of life energy in their bodies. Joseph Campbell once said that people aren’t looking for the meaning of life so much as the experience of being alive. Once we find out that the body has different frequencies of energies and that those frequencies can be manipulated for different purposes, watch out! There will be dozens of different schools popping up overnight, historically speaking. And each of those schools will have its spin-offs—one of which is belly dancing.

Belly dancing is a curious blend of Earth and Lunar energies worked in such a way that they activate and amplify the second chakra, called svadhisthana, which in Sanskrit means “her favorite resort.” Gee, I wonder what that is. A skilled belly dancer (an initiate in her own right) can open and potentialize the second chakra of every person in the room. She does this by using the Lunar and Earth frequencies in conjunction with time, or timing, the rhythmic and arrhythmic beats of cymbals and drums. Combined with specific abdominal movements and breathing techniques, the same Lunar and Earth energies can be activated in the body of each person in the audience, creating an altered state of consciousness. This altered state of consciousness is as powerful as a drug experience. Because the techniques of belly dancing focus directly on the autonomic nervous system, the audience gets high on the energies through sympathetic resonance.

Women are particularly well-suited for belly dancing for two reasons: one, because they’re female; and two, because who wants to watch John Goodman do a belly dance? Being female usually makes you more attuned with cyclical forces, time, and the subconscious mind. So obviously, all the best belly dancers are women. Men can belly dance too, of course, but for whatever reason, that particular art form never really got off the ground.

The human body runs on spiritual energies. These energies are subtle and are cosmic in origin, which means that they were already here when we arrived on the scene. Through a series of step-down transformers called chakras, these cosmic energies are translated into physical expression. The interplay of these energies has been a major focus of humanity’s attention since . . . well, forever. There are all kinds of names for the different energies, their location in the body, their use, etc., but it sometimes helps to forget all that and simply talk about them in terms of what they are—power, force, and energy. Sanskrit names, color charts, and diagrams are too intellectual. After all, it’s not the meaning of life that we’re after but the experience of being alive. Besides, without the experience, all the explanations are meaningless.

The problem with the word within is that it refers to a direction in space. Whenever we discuss spiritual realities, we leave the domain of time and space and enter into the eternal. This presents us with a problem: if we can’t “go” anywhere, but we don’t like where we are now, how do we get to the “place” we want to be? Well…we go within. So where is this place we can’t get to?

Some forms of plants, like the palm, are endogenous, which means that they unfold from within themselves. Spiritually speaking, we are endogenous, in that our infinite potential unfolds from within us. There is no place that we can go, and nothing that we can get, that can add to the divinity of our being. Within, therefore, is not a place, but a happening—a transformation of being from one state to another. Awakening to the spiritual nature of our being happens when we let go of our concepts of who we are and allow the outer illusion of our personal identity to dissolve, revealing that which was there all the time.

Letting Go
There is a way to energize the process of letting go, so that “within” is easier to find. Usually, this happens by accident, literally, as when we are faced with some catastrophe, or when our life is threatened by illness. We often hear stories about people finding God at the end of their rope. We don’t have to wait for a disaster, however, if we approach the process willingly and with a little knowledge.

The Ins and Outs of Awareness
But first, we need to talk briefly about awareness and what constitutes inner and outer experience. We tend to think that when we look at the world around us that we are having an outer experience, and when we look into our heart or mind, we are having an inner experience. This is not the case. Both experiences are actually outer experiences. Here is an easy example that will show why this is: while driving, look out at the road in front of your car. Then, look at the person sitting in the seat next to you. One is “out there”, and the other is “in here.” But aren’t both of these things external objects of your awareness, even though one is outside your vehicle and the other inside? Like a computer, we take the input from our senses and make a copy of it. Our minds literally replicate the world that our senses report. But when the world changes, we are still looking at the image we made of it, which is frozen in time. In other words, we are living in the past, looking at an artificial reality and not the eternal present. This artificial reality becomes our reality, which explains why we never quite know what’s going on.

Energizing the process of letting go, and thereby making within easier to find, is accomplished by detaching awareness from that which it is aware of and turning it back upon itself. This is what advanced yogis practice and have practiced for thousands of years. It is an arduous task, however, that takes many years (if not lifetimes) to master. It is a direct frontal attack on the ego, which can be harrowing. Most of us are not willing to walk into that kind of fiery furnace! We need an easier method. How do we do it?

Becoming the Source
Hindus make pilgrimages to the headwaters of the sacred Ganges River. Sacred rivers symbolize the flow of divine life into the world, so going to the source, for a Hindu, is like returning to God. Of course, these pilgrims don’t really believe that God lives in the mountains where the river begins—they don’t literalize their symbols as we tend to do in the West. The outer action of walking to the headwaters is a ritual, a living meditation on the inward journey toward the Source of All. When one reaches the source of the river, she can then turn around and look downstream, as though she herself were the source of it. This is a way to lose oneself—by becoming one with It. The only thing that the one who does this will be aware of is the endless flow of the eternal Life of God. Jesus said of such a one that “out of his belly shall flow rivers of living waters.”

Axis Mundi

What does this tell us about our relationship to the flow of the eternal Life of God when we are in this state of consciousness? It tells us that we are not the flow itself, neither are we “in the flow,” but that we are the source of the flow. This is what it is to be alive. This is what it means to be spiritually endogenous, to unfold from within the infinite part of ourselves, the deep tissues of our soul. This is being at one with Being, where the Infinite says through us, “I am that I am.”

When awareness is turned back upon itself, it comes face to face with Being, which is the source of awareness. Therefore, Being is within awareness. Coming to this realization is called “standing in the holy place,” the immovable spot, the axis mundi of Buddhism. Isn’t this what we’re really seeking when we “go within”?

An Exercise
Try this: imagine that you are a Hindu pilgrim standing at the headwaters of the Ganges. Now . . . stretch your arm out in front of you and pretend that the river is flowing out through it. Feel the River of Life flowing through your arm, as though your arm were a conduit. You are feeding the world with the never-ending grace of God. Next, move your arm, and feel the strength, the vitality, and the tingling in your muscles. Feel the sensation of this and ask yourself, “What is the higher octave of this vibratory sensation in my arm?” If the sensation were a sound—middle C on a piano keyboard, for instance—what would the sensation feel like if it were one octave higher? In other words, what is the sensation a projection of, or a result of? If you could see this higher sensation, what would it look like? You will discover that the sensation in your arm is the effect of the life force that is moving through the nerves. The higher octave of the sensation is the energy of the life force itself, which is light. This light cannot be felt, but it can be seen. This unfelt, un-feelable energy is within the sensation.

Of course, the energy within the nerves of your muscles is not the only type of energy that you can experience. You can also feel the love radiating outward from your heart. You can ask, “What is at the center of this feeling? From where is this feeling radiating?” Is the muscle of your heart tingling with the feeling of love the way the muscles of your arm are tingling with the exertion of movement? There’s something else in there, isn’t there—some invisible organ.

Isn’t it wonderful? Some part of you that cannot be dissected or removed is vibrating with the distinctive sensation called love. By placing your attention on it, you have moved one level of consciousness above your physical body. The energy moving through your invisible heart is producing the sensation called love. You feel the sensation in your invisible heart, but not the energy. The energy is within the sensation. Put all of your attention on that energy. You are now two levels of consciousness above your physical body, and you have entered into the Grand Heart Chakra.

See how easy this is?

The questions you ask about the source of these energies might not produce intellectual answers, but they will take you even farther within. Relax, and lean back into the openings that your questions will provide. Don’t worry if you find it hard to put what happens into words. These things cannot be described—they can only be experienced.

In Summary
Our awareness is like a spotlight projecting either outwardly upon the world of things or inwardly onto memories and ideas. From the standpoint of awareness, these contents of the mind are just as much “out there” as the objective world of things. I see my house in front of me. In the memories of my mind, I see my dear, departed grandmother. Both are objects of my awareness.

In actuality, we see nothing out there. All of our experiences, both inner and outer, are reproduced onto the holographic screen of our consciousness in much the same way that  computer programs are reproduced onto our computer’s monitor. Just as it’s easy to think that our edits are occurring directly on the monitor, instead of in the computer’s micro-circuitry, so do we think that we’re interacting with the world out there. Does this mean that the screen of the monitor is unreal or that the world doesn’t exist? Of course not. It just means that the real action is taking place somewhere other than where it seems to be. It also means that there is much more going on than meets the eye. Therefore, no matter which direction we project the spotlight of our awareness, either out there or in here, it is always shining on an object that is external to awareness. Being is the source of our awareness. After all, there has to be someone who is being aware. Being, therefore, is within awareness. In order to go within, we must become Being.

by Michael Maciel

The tendency is to think that we are in our head. Most people locate themselves just behind the forehead, between the eyes. But that’s not the center of our being. When we look for it, we find that the center of our being is in the center of our body, above the solar plexus and below the heart.

This is our point of radiation. This is where we extend from. Of course, we can express from any of the centers in our body, but the energy that flows through those centers must first flow through the center that is above the solar plexus and below the heart.

If we were to concentrate on the solar plexus, we would soon find that our desire nature would be out of control. If we center ourselves in the heart, we will be flooded with alternating feelings of bliss and sorrow. The Self, however, is marvelously neutral. It is unbiased and has no predispositions. Therefore, it is perfectly wise. It is who we are, but at the same time cares nothing for what we like or don’t like, think or don’t think, care for or don’t care for. When we get out of the way and let it take the driver’s seat, life begins to look a lot different.

Sometimes, when I write things, I think (or assume) that everyone knows where I’m coming from, what context I’m speaking in. I just assume that when I say that the Self is in the area above the solar plexus and below the heart that people will automatically get that I’m not talking about it like it was an orange or something.

So, here’s what I mean: let’s take the heart chakra as an example. The heart chakra is located in the heart, right? Well, that’s not entirely accurate, or at least it is misleading to say it that way. Why? Because in reality, there is only ONE heart chakra, and it exists everywhere. There is no place where it does not exist, because it is a non-local phenomenon. Kind of like a city’s main radio station exists everywhere in town, even in the bedroom closet under the dirty clothes. Put a radio there and it will pick up the station as easily as it would if it were on the kitchen counter.

The heart chakra is not the nerve ganglion in the heart, just as the radio station in the example above is not in the radio. The nerve ganglion in our heart is built to resonate with the Grand Heart Chakra. In fact, it was built by it. All of our organs and tissues—the brain, the heart, the solar plexus, the generative organs—these were all built by the corresponding energetic structures in the “body” of God. Those structures do not look like their corresponding parts of our body. But our organs and tissues function according to the same principle and they hum with the same energy. That’s why when we put our attention on them, we pick up on the vibrations that they are attuned with.

(PLEASE do not take this to mean that I think God has a stomach and a spleen. What I am saying is that stomachs and spleens function according to specific ideas in the Mind of God. Each is a manifestation of a principle translated into this world for a purpose.)

So, when I say that the Self is located above the solar plexus and below the heart, I mean that in the same way as I have described here. I am not talking about a “thing” or even a “place.” I’m talking about an energy field. It’s real. It’s there. I know it’s real, because I can see it. But I don’t see it like I can see my radio. I see it more like I can see the radio waves in the air. Those waves are real—no one can argue that. And I can see them, but not “see” them, if you know what I mean. It’s a kind of vision that Jesus alluded to when he told Thomas, “Blessed are they who have not seen but have believed.” He wasn’t saying that we have to take it on faith, however, like a child has to believe things that he hasn’t experienced yet. Rather, Jesus was telling us to open up to what we KNOW. No one has to convince me that radio waves are real. I know they are. And the more I know it, the more I can “see” them. But it’s a different kind of sight.

Religious and philosophical teachings are divided into two main categories—the esoteric and the exoteric. Historically, the esoteric teachings have been kept secret, given only to those who were deemed ready by Teachers who held the “keys to the kingdom of God.” Whereas a spiritually mature person recognizes that these “keys” are symbolic of revealed truths, someone less spiritually mature would picture in his or her mind actual keys made to fit an actual lock, albeit one not of this world. This is the difference between esoteric and exoteric students of religion and philosophy.

The esoteric student understands that religious icons and symbols represent principles and laws of nature, including both the seen and unseen worlds. The exoteric student takes the symbols literally—Moses actually parted the Red Sea; Jesus, the man, actually sits at the right hand of the Father, etc. While helpful to an undeveloped mind, such literal interpretations can only conceal the more sophisticated and abstract principles they were designed to portray. But, in this Internet age when all knowledge is freely available to nearly everyone, the time has come to speak more openly of the deeper truths of antiquity, lest through misunderstanding, the ideas themselves become symbols, hiding the very truths of which they speak.

Add to this the need to integrate the astounding growth in scientific knowledge into the body of thought called “The Ancient Mysteries.” Scientists and careful thinkers of all disciplines have brought new meaning to the old maxim, “Man, know thyself.” Neuroscience and Cognitive Science, along with the science of Linguistics, have revealed much about how the human organism works, especially the brain. And while this new knowledge (doubling itself nearly every few years) has enabled us to understand consciousness more than ever before, the sciences have yet to acknowledge the existence of the Universal Creative Mind of God.

Mystics and sages throughout the millennia have understood more about the nature of mind than present-day scientists, but they have not, for the most part, been able to articulate their knowledge in today’s language. Combined with science’s inbred prejudice against mysticism in general, the gap between science and religion widens everyday, bringing us closer and closer to an evolutionary catastrophe—the materialist view that human beings are machines whose software developed on its own through random, selective processes and not downloaded from a superior intelligence. As long as scientists believe that consciousness is a product of the brain and not the other way around, they will continue to seek ways to enhance this flawed mechanism by external means. Mystics, on the other hand, want to develop what is already there.

The Ancient Mysteries have always taught that the human organism is a vehicle for consciousness, and that the notion of a separate self is an illusion. They did not preach against individuality, as is commonly believed today, but rather understood that it is through individual choice that spiritual progress can be made. Every time we make one choice over another, whether based upon logic or intuition, we rewire our brain in a way that supports further choices along the same lines. Thus does humanity evolve. If through technology that fundamental process is preempted and people begin to rely on artificial, implanted devices to enhance awareness, spiritual consciousness will devolve into greater and greater materialism, the belief that the physical world and its senses are all there is to the human experience.

The Ancient Mystery Teachings were given to the world as tools with which humanity can realize its own potential. These tools lie within the individual heart and mind. But, while scientists tend towards the material understanding of life, spiritually minded people tend toward the opposite pole, regarding science with as much suspicion as scientists regard mysticism. This is just as grievous an error. It is only by marrying the two paths in an enlightened awareness that humanity can make the next leap in evolution, bringing the best of the rational mind and the intuition together into a collaborative whole.

The greatest of the mystics from the dawn of human history up to our present day have achieved this marriage of the inner and the outer within themselves. Such enlightened people have brought humanity its greatest discoveries in science, philosophy, art, and social justice. It was the Egyptian principle of the One God, brought forth and articulated by Moses, that enabled science to envision a world governed by universal law and thus open the door to unprecedented technological advancement. It was Paracelsus who intuitively unlocked the secrets of pharmacology, extending the lifespan of human beings by decades. And it was Pythagoras who, through his wisdom and depth of vision, gave us the profound understanding of numbers and geometry that enabled us to land on the moon. These people were mystics who, along with countless others, acted as the mediators between heaven and earth, providing humanity with priceless knowledge of the cosmos and the meaning of human life.

Scientific prayer is based on the premise that all people are connected through mind, not only with each other but with all of nature, and, most importantly, with God. This connection spans the entire spectrum of reality from the largest scale to the subatomic realms of energy and matter.

The basis of scientific prayer also includes the premise that the substance of mind is one and the same with the substance of the universe—not in the normal sense of the word “substance” but in a deeper, more fundamental way, the kind of substance that precedes matter and causes it to come into being.

Mind is energy—luminous, radiant, and all-pervasive. It is light. Within its frequencies are encoded all of the patterns of creation from the macrocosmic to the microcosmic—its periodicities, cycles, and waveforms. It is the All in all. Scientific prayer is the conscious and methodical use of these energies.

This raises a lot of red flags (ala Disney’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice) amongst thoughtful people. And the modern day use of natural laws, such as genetic engineering and GMOs, shows just how risky fooling around with Mother Nature can be. It begs the question,  are we wise enough to do anything at all in this domain?

By citing genetic engineering and GMOs in the context of prayer, I am inserting yet another fundamental premise into this discussion: our ACTIONS are our prayers. This is prayer in its most practical form. It is different from purely devotional prayer or mystical contemplation. It is prayer with a purpose. It is how we bring ideas into physical reality. And for the religious amongst us, we can take comfort in Jesus’ words, “Whatsoever ye ask in prayer, believing, it will be granted unto you.” Nowhere does he say that we should only pray for spiritual things.

While most scientists don’t believe in God, they do have faith in the possible. They don’t beg the laws of physics to perform miracles, but they do know that the proper use and understanding of those laws—when put into action—will produce results. And they’ve gotten pretty good at that. The mystically inclined person could learn a lot from them.

Recently, I watched a lecture by the famous scientist, Richard Feynman, on the topic of nanotechnology. He explained how it is possible to make machines that are little more than a few atoms wide. To most people, this would seem impossible. But in reality, it is not only possible, it is now being done routinely. It turns out that by taking a simple element, such as silicon, and building it up layer by layer with other elements, and using techniques to etch patterns on these layers, complex mechanisms can be made on the sub-microscopic nanoscale. Such a technology makes possible a future that most of us cannot even imagine.

To be sure, there are risks associated with nanotechnology, but that’s a topic better suited to other websites. The reason I bring it up here is to point out that prayer has its risks as well. There is, after all, that saying: Be careful what you pray for; you might get your prayers answered! If prayer is real, which it is, then we must accept our responsibility in its use. Accepting our responsibility for our prayers is, in fact, an act of faith. Wishes are harmless, but prayers have consequences. You can’t get your prayers answered if you don’t believe it’s going to work.

New Thought experts say that we must not dictate to the Divine Mind how to go about giving us the results we want, that we should only present It with the outcome, not the process. Good advice. But practically speaking, the outcome we’re looking for almost always demands that we change ourselves, sometimes in drastic ways. We cannot expect to get the results we are looking for while going about our lives in the same old way. If our faith in God is great enough, the necessary changes will come without regard for our ability to adapt. We might pray for more money and immediately get fired from our job—one possible first step to getting a better paycheck.

From a practical standpoint, prayers are built from the ground up. Just as nano-machines are built through successive layering, each layer modifying the layer below it, so must our prayers begin with the elements at hand. We have to begin where we are. If it’s new wine we want, we have to start by making new wineskins. This is a little bit like build it and they will come in the movie, Field of Dreams. But in the movie, if we remember, the action had to be there; the ballpark had to have players, albeit invisible ones, in order for physical spectators to show up. In our minds eye, we have to see our outcome as a living reality before it can manifest in our experience.

There’s another popular saying: If you want to win the lottery, you have to buy a ticket. This is a good example of how we participate in the process. We’re not interfering with God by buying the ticket; we are simply creating an opening through which God can work. Another thing we might do would be to examine our attitudes about money and about being rich and to make any necessary adjustments in our belief system. This would be like grading the ground before digging the foundation for a new house, removing the boulders and tree stumps, which is something that we must do before our dreams can become a reality.

Scientific prayer is a participatory process. It’s interactive. We may not be able to “push the river,” but we can speed it up or slow it down. Our lives have momentum—we can use the energy of that momentum to either ride the rapids or generate electricity. We can deepen a riverbed by dredging the bottom (by deepening ourselves), and we can speed up its flow by narrowing its channel (by focusing our thinking). In neither case have we done anything to the water, but we have channeled its energy in ways that best serve our needs. So it is with the karmic energies in our lives. We can’t stop them, but we certainly can and do USE them.

If you don’t know about scientific prayer, I recommend that you read The Science of Mind, by Earnest Holmes. It’s one of the best books out there on the subject.

It is tempting to think of consciousness in terms of its contents and not as a thing in and of itself, like thinking of a mirror that has no reflection. So, I want to be clear at the outset that it is consciousness itself that needs raising and not its contents. And by “raising,” I mean a kind of frequency enhancement that enables us to see more of what  actually exists, an empowered awareness that can access a wider and wider context within which we experience the world.

Such a raising of consciousness, for instance, would enable us to have greater compassion for others, because we would be more aware of what they were feeling. It would prevent us from seeing other people as objects and thus make it more difficult to use them as though they were. Raising our consciousness would make it easier to see the world as interconnected, the “Web of Life,” and that what we do to one part of the web, we do to ourselves. It would enable us to see that sustainability in our economic systems is preferable to continual growth. It would show us immediately and obviously those things and activities that threaten our health and wellbeing, and which things enhance them. We would be able to see our rightful place in the world, and even more, our place in the world hereafter, so that we could make our life choices with our soul’s wellbeing in mind as well as our body’s.

There is so much more to the world and its workings than we see, either with our eyes or our understanding. And yet, year after year, those limits to our vision and our understanding are stretched further and further, so that now we are able to know exponentially more about everything than we could have ever imagined. But, we continue to believe that we see everything, that we understand it all, and in so doing we blind ourselves to what is yet possible. The act of raising our consciousness is a way to remedy that problem.

So how do we do it? Ironically, it is not by increasing our knowledge of the world or the things in it. It is by intentionally turning our awareness away from all things outer and turning it instead back in upon itself. This is kind of like a mirror looking at its own reflection (if it had one!) This might sound hopelessly abstract, so let’s look at it from a different perspective:

We know that there is an inner light, an energy, the power of life that courses through our body. The light we are looking for is this life energy made visible. It’s not hard to see. It’s easy to imagine, and the imagination is as good a tool as any to put us in touch with what is actually there. Think of it as your inner vision.

This inner light corresponds with the nerve energy in your body. The nerve fibers carry the electro-chemical substance of the nerve energy, and the nerve energy carries the light.  Anywhere you have nerve energy in your body, you have light. The easiest place to see this light is in your central and autonomic nervous systems. Also, the terminuses of your hands and feet are especially active with radiation from the life force. But, it is better to look within your body than on the outside, to look at your inner core than at your fingertips.

How does light enable us to raise our consciousness? Simply put, we need light to see. When we realize that we see with our brain and not with our eyeballs, we get a better idea of what “seeing” actually is. In fact, we can take it one step further and realize that our brain doesn’t see anything either. It is our mind, which exists independently of our brain, that sees. So, light is that which enables our mind to see. The more light we have, the more we are aware of the reality of the space in which we live, both the inner and the outer.

There are many different ways to meditate, and this is just one of them. But I think you will find it an effective way to raise your consciousness. The key is to turn off your external sensory awareness and use your inner vision—your imagination—to look into your core energies, the light within the nerve energies of your spine. Lean into that. Allow it to spread throughout your inner space, your inner field of awareness. Later, you will see it start to flood your physical body, and the Illumination will begin.

See you there!

033

by Michael Maciel

Jesus uses the word “sword” in two instances: once when he says that he came not to bring peace but a sword, and again when he says that he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword. The second instance is directed at Peter, who had just wounded a member of the Sanhedrin’s posse in the Garden of Gethsemane when they came to arrest Jesus.

Now, it seems clear to me that two different types of swords are being referred to: the weapon and the symbol. Why would Jesus say that he came to bring a sword when he so clearly forbade physical violence?

German sociologist, Max Weber, said that any attempt to get at the truth will have the characteristic of doing violence. In other words, our false beliefs don’t die easily—they must be slain. When he said this, he wasn’t talking about physical violence. He was talking about the way that a person sometimes feels attacked when their deeply held assumptions, especially assumptions about themselves, are called into question.

A physical sword has only one purpose—to kill people. So why then is the image of a sword evoked so often in the mystical literature ? I think the answer to this can be found in a more contemporary teaching about guns. Guns also have a singular purpose, that of killing. Every child who grows up in a family that owns guns almost certainly hears (one hopes) that a gun is not a toy. Later on in life, especially if guns are a part of a their job or if he or she carries one for protection, another rule is given: never draw your weapon unless you are prepared to use it. 

Both of these maxims are decisive and earnest. They attempt to instill in the novice a certain respect and sobriety in the use of firearms. The lesson is that once a gun is brought into play in a given situation, everything changes. One not only declares a singular intent but also the will to carry it out. If one fails to make his or her intent clear, or if they lack the resolve to follow through should events call upon them to do so, having a gun will almost certainly work against them, possibly costing them their lives. 

Now, just imagine the kind of discipline and resolve you have to have in order to keep from flinching in a potentially deadly encounter. And think of how many times you have witnessed or taken part in an interchange that resolved itself solely by a demonstration of superior will power, not requiring the use of force at all, where the gun was cocked and aimed (metaphorically speaking) but not fired?

These examples are not given as a justification for violence or weapons; they are given in an attempt to see past the debilitating effects of current-day political correctness, which tells us which words are okay and which aren’t, not based on the reality of the message but on the hot buttons they push. I’m sure that the word “sword” had the same ominous meaning to people in Jesus’ day as the word “gun” does in ours. Just imagine him saying, “I come not to bring peace, but a gun.”

The word “sword” in mystical literature has a specific meaning, one that has nothing to do with physical power but rather the WILLpower one must possess in order to succeed on the spiritual path.

The willpower that a soldier brings to the battlefield is the same willpower that we must bring when we set foot on the spiritual path. Unless we are willing to “suffer unto death” in our inner struggles, we will never claim victory. The Hindu sage, Ramakrishna, said, “Do not start on the spiritual path unless you are as eager as a man whose hair is on fire to jump into a pond.” And a Zen master once said, referring to a disciple’s cherished beliefs, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him!”

When we read the tenth chapter of Matthew, we find Jesus telling his disciples pretty much the same thing. It’s the same spirit. He says, speaking in the first person but really referring to the God Self within them, “For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.” The entire lesson is about resolve. He is saying that when we begin the process of enlightenment, our whole life is going to change, and no one who feels that they have a claim on us is going to be happy about it, neither your family nor your society.

Another aspect implied in the word “sword,” when used in the mystical sense, is that, when drawn, it is a statement of intent. Jesus is telling his disciples that if they intend to go down this path, they must commit to it as though their life depended upon it. They must value their commitment more than they value any other human relationship, including those with their own families. Nothing can be more important than God.

This is nothing new. Every spiritual teacher throughout history has said the same thing. The truth will set you free by cutting away everything that is untrue, especially your self-image. When Jesus said, “A man’s foes will be they of his own household,” he was saying that everything that is familiar is going to increase its hold on you; the more your consciousness rises above the level of commonplace thinking, the more your mind will rebel. And its rebellion is going to manifest not just inwardly but outwardly also. How can it not?

We don’t just slip into mystical enlightenment. It doesn’t come to us meekly, pleading with us to keep it company. No, it has to be taken. Not as in stealing, but in the same way you would set about winning a contest, a serious contest, a contest where not winning isn’t an option. What do you think a free-climber is thinking when he or she is about to scale a thousand-foot rock cliff? Do you think they’re saying to themselves, “Gee, I hope I make this.”? I don’t think so. No one puts their life on the line hoping it’s going to work out. That’s not the proper mindset.

The name of the sword is “Victory!” It’s the only true battle cry. Let it be yours.

First, let’s be clear about what consciousness is. It’s one thing to be aware of our surroundings, our immediate environment, the objects and people closest to us physically, the smells and sounds that waft over us, the temperature of the room or the wind, and so on. Focusing on the present moment may be grounding, bringing with it a certain peace. But the level of consciousness we want to look at now is the one that monitors our reaction to these things.

Chief among our reactions, the one that matters most in our attempts to be more conscious, is fear. Of all the emotions we can experience, fear shuts us down the most. It causes our blood vessels to constrict and our breathing to become more shallow. Our hearts begin to race, and all we want to do is get away from the threat we perceive.

Perceive is the keyword. It is not the threat that scares us, it’s our perception of it—the story we tell ourselves about it—that frightens us. Take away the story, and the fear disappears.

The great Hindu swami, Master Subramuniya, had a mantra he used when he was a little boy, whenever he found himself worrying about something. It went like this: I’m all right right now. He would say it over and over until his awareness became focused in the present moment. When our awareness is focused on an event that hasn’t happened yet, that event lives only in our imagination. Our fear is based on something that is unreal, something that we are making up. It’s not that the danger isn’t real—it most certainly is—but our story about it is total fiction.

For example, most of us are afraid of what will happen if we lose our job. The very thought of it makes us do all kinds of things that we would not do otherwise. But in reality, losing one job can very often be the catalyst to create a much better life and not the beginning of the end that our imagination would have us believe.

So, how do we stop the story? There are ten ways I can think of right off the bat: our fingertips. We have two terminuses, our hands and our feet, that connect us with the earth. They connect us in ways that our eyes cannot, in ways that our sense of smell is insufficient to record. Even our lips and tongue cannot tell us as much as our fingertips or the soles of our feet. There is something magnetic about touch that connects us with the world. It connects us in a way that is tangible.

Our fingertips only know the present moment. They tell us what is here now. And when we listen to what they are telling us, they bring us squarely into present time. We forget about the future, and our fears evaporate. We forget about the past, and our regrets disappear. It is far easier to let them connect us to the earth directly than it is to focus with our eyes and our other senses.

Touch is immediate. What we touch has arrived. What we touch, we grasp—in every sense of the word.

We already know that matter is alive, that even the most inanimate objects, like rocks and furniture, are humming with molecular intelligence. If they weren’t, they would dissolve into nothingness. Only the patterns of energy on the atomic and sub-atomic levels hold them together, patterns that are based on geometry and the immutable laws of physics.

There is nothing in the physical world that is not alive—maybe not in a “hey, how are ya” kind of way, but in a deeply profound, existential, self-awareness kind of way, a self-awareness that knows it’s own vibratory structure, a kind of knowing that is entirely without reflection, a direct knowing that exists in and of itself without the need to question or assess what it knows.

This kind of knowing is synonymous with being. This kind of knowing is what brings matter into existence, brings form into the world. You might even say that knowing is existence, that knowing gives birth to form.

But, metaphysics aside, our immediate goal is to “touch the earth,” to let the earth “be our witness.” And in that touching we find ourselves in the present moment, not in an imagined future moment that hasn’t arrived. In the immediacy of our experience—in our grounding with the earth—we find our strength, we find our eternality. The universe no longer rushes toward us with unknown intent. Rather, we become its center, that around which it revolves. We become the axis mundi, the central mountain of the world. 

We live so much in our heads that the physical world has lost its real-ness. If we are here for any reason at all, it is to know this place, to connect with it and breathe our life into it. Our purpose here is not to escape from the world, but to know it, and by knowing it to bring it back into the consciousness of God. When we do this, fear no longer holds us, death loses its sting, and the infinite shines in every blade of grass, in every grain of sand.

By losing the life we imagine ourselves living, by giving up the future as something we know for certain, and by letting go of the past and all of our judgements of it, we find our true life, the life that has been ours since the beginning, from the dawn of creation right up to this present moment. That life is right here, right now. We only have to reach out and touch it.

Fear is future-dependent. Live here. Live now. And when the future arrives, you will be there to handle it.