"Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus
said to her, “Give Me a drink.” For
His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How
is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews
have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew
the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would
have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing
to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water?
Are You greater than our father
Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and
his livestock?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this
water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him
will never thirst. But the water that I
shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into
everlasting life.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may
not thirst, nor come here to draw.” (John
4:6-15: New King James Bible Version (NKJV).
When
Christ Jesus and his disciples walked the Earth, they often spoke in symbols to
the crowds in order to help their followers understand the spiritual principles
being taught. For example, the ‘water’ at the well that Jesus spoke of was
really signifying the eternal life-force
that exists within each child of God.
This eternal life-force is within our very existence. But in the false, material sense of
reality, this true identity (our spiritual identity, or Christ identity) is
hidden beneath our finite, material sense
of body, mind, and soul. In other
words: under the spell of finite materiality, we don’t realize that our true
identity is our spiritual, ever-lasting Selfhood (our true body, soul and mind). When
Jesus was speaking of the ‘living water’ “springing
up into ever-lasting life”, (see quotation at top of article) he was certainly not describing our
fleshly bodies or material brains (which we erroneously believe to be our minds.) Our material bodies will never spring up into
ever-lasting life. These temporary
body-forms serve us in this mortal, human experience; but they are not immortal
forms. The material substance of these
earthly bodies do not continue after the physical death process; for when we
are done with them, they disintegrate into dust. It
is only our spiritual body, soul and
consciousness that continues to exist forever, because only the spiritual substance of all things in
God’s creation continues. So, while in
this temporary material experience, it helps to realize that death isn’t the
end of anyone. By his resurrection from
the physical death process, Christ Jesus demonstrated that right where the
material forms of identity seem to be our reality, in actual fact our human
experience is only a temporary span of time to play the part of a material mortal.
Beneath the material sense of reality sleeps our everlasting, spiritual consciousness
(the Christ Consciousness) which is our connection to the God-mind within all
creation. When fully awakened spiritually, the collective Christ
Consciousness remembers what came before the Adam dream-state of finite, material existence. So,
why do I say speak of a ‘Christ Consciousness’ when Jesus was the only
Christ? Because this is where many miss
the fact that Jesus was really called, “Jesus,
the Christ”. The term, ‘the Christ’
is the universal symbol for all of God’s spiritual children. Just as it was ‘Jesus the Christ,’ another
could be called, ‘Nancy, the Christ’, or ‘Tom, the Christ’ because “the
Christ” is a universal title, not a name.
The Christ is the spiritual title
for all God’s spiritual off-spring, but never for the temporary, fleshly mortals
we seem to be, but are not. As
long as we miss this nuance, we’ll never reveal, to ourselves or the world, our
own spiritual identity. Instead, we will keep believing that the
flesh is our identity and our material
name is our real name, when it is not.
Our real name is ‘written in heaven’, but we’ll know it when we fully
awaken out of the temporary illusion of materiality.
This
was shown, quite clearly, in the Bible, when St. Paul said, “…he died for all, that they which live
should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them,
and rose again. Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea,
though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a
new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:15-17; (KJV). (My underlining emphasis).
It is not the finite, Adams or Eves of
humanity, but rather, those who ‘put on’ the ever-lasting Christ as their
identity, who are awakening out of the sleep of materiality. And just as our night dreams fade with the
morning sun, so do the illusions of materiality fade with our spiritual
awakening. Once we begin to awaken to
our true Selfhood as God’s everlasting spiritual children, safe and sound in
our heavenly environment, our spiritual memories will return. In other words, when we awake to our heavenly
reality before we fell asleep in the dream of materiality (often termed, the
‘Adam dream’) our memory of events before we fell asleep will also return.
If anyone doubts this, here’s something
interesting that Jesus told his disciples, once, when they were rejoicing over
their own success in their ability to heal the sick that came to them: Jesus told them: “…do not rejoice in this,
that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names
are written in heaven.” (Luke 10: 20 (NKJV). My emphasis
Here,
Jesus was telling humanity that the spiritual knowledge of healing was for anyone
who earnestly pursued it. The disciples
were pursuing it. The disciples were learning
it at the Master’s hand. With his own
healing ministry, Jesus was demonstrating, for all humanity, the spiritual
healing he and his disciples were practicing.
And this spiritual healing phenomenon was working its way into the false,
material sense of things. In other
words, the divine, healing truths they were practicing were bringing the
healing element from the spiritual dimention, we call heaven, into the human
belief system.
In
our daily, human experience, we often think that spiritual realities don’t
matter much, especially in our busy, more complicated, material world. We sometimes cling to the past because the past
seemed to move slower and have less stress.
So, material beliefs and situations seem to be more important, while
spiritual things can often seem whimsical and out of reach. The material often appears to be the substance of things, while the spiritual
seems to be the shadow of
things. But, ultimately, that assessment
gets the cart before the horse.
It is my belief that in the end of the
material experience, when we pass away, we leave the false, material body
behind us, and it returns to the nothingness that it was. We all know that. And, with the false, temporary fleshly form,
we also leave the false sense of a
finite life behind us. Shedding the
finite physical form, we don’t need the limited, five physical senses anymore,
because our spiritual sense of all things returns to our cognizance, and we
awaken to learn that we never were trapped in a finite, material form. That was just the false, sleeper sense of
ourselves.
It is also my belief that when we fully awaken
from the false, material sense of being, our true, ever-lasting spiritual Self
remembers who we really are: God’s forever children, whose substance is spiritual,
not material. Yet, we won’t forget those
whom we loved in our temporary, earthly experience. For, since there is no death that can
permanently take from us anyone we love, neither is there any pain of parting,
nor loss of time, nor lack of eternal harmony.
But
here’s the kicker, as they say: When we
are fully, spiritually awake, we will also realize that the spiritual
kingdom of God had been invisibly present with us, all the time…it was just
invisible to the limited, material senses. At any time, we could have turned our thoughts to our Oneness with
divine Spirit, and we would have been delivered from whatever grievous,
human situation we encountered. When
we don’t believe that, however, we interfere with God’s divine deliverance toward
us. Our divine, spiritual deliverance
doesn’t manifest in the material scene when we don’t, mentally, invite it
in. And we don’t invite it in when we don’t trust it. And our lack of trust shows us that we are
still fearing some power opposed to
God, which breaks the first Commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods
(powers) before me.” That
is why faith is paramount to our
deliverance from our human woes. Without
faith, we have no trust. Without trust
we miss the spiritual, mental message that comes from within our Christ
Consciousness. God doesn’t withhold good from us. Divine Spirit is trying to converse with us
from within our deepest, spiritual consciousness. But,
we must listen for that inner-voice of infinite Spirit. And when we do, this biblical passage speaks to those
who do trust the divine ever-presence and love for each of us: “Your ears shall hear a word behind you,
saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” Whenever you turn to the right hand Or
whenever you turn to the left.” Isaiah 30:21 (NKJV). Thus,
trust in God’s invisible presence
and love for us opens the door of the Christ Consciousness that lies deep
within us all. But no one can exist in a
mental state of fear and trust at the
same time. While in fear, we sabotage
our own delivering thoughts that come to us from the universal Christ
Consciousness within. While in fear, we
don’t heed, or perceive, that inner, spiritual direction trying to unfold in
our thoughts. Of
all the things I have discovered in my own human life experience, learning of
the universal Christ Consciousness, within ourselves, is a leap into the
beginning of wisdom. We must listen
for the delivering thoughts that come to us from this inner, spiritual consciousness. And the way will come, when we open the
mental door and shut out any doubt and fear.
Elijah
the Prophet was praying about the rebellious people who were against God when
he heard that inner voice from Spirit within saying, “Go
out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke
the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in
the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the
earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and
after the fire a still small voice.” (1 Kings 19: 11, 12; (NKJV). Here
God was revealing to Elijah that God, Itself, was with Elijah and the children
of God; and all the power of the Almighty came to Its children as a “still, small voice” from within
themselves, not from any worldly presence or power. The mental voice of God was not weakened by any material,
world power. The divine, infinite
Spirit, we call God, has all the power there is, anywhere, in any dimension of
being. So, basically, the message to
Elijah and all his followers was to just trust that invisible presence, no
matter what threats boasted themselves in the material realm. God
never abandons his spiritual children (and we’re all those children.) For, all
the grief, pain, lack, hatred, and any other evil that ever pretended to exist
within our material sense of the world…all these evils, were never a match for
the Almighty. And they still aren’t. |
