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           The Mystery and Beauty of Oneness    
             
March 2005

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   “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil: for thou art with me;” (Psalms 23:4 to ;)

   “Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from they presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.” (Psalms 139: 7-9).

   “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. " (Romans 12:2).

   In this human experience of want and woe, victims and victimizations, we often feel so very alone. We can surround ourselves with people, but still feel solitary in our own being, cut off from the Source of that being. Adrift in the prison of a material body and a seemingly isolated mentality—not knowing where, how, or why we came to be in this human condition—we try to push away the fear of such isolation, as we attempt to build self-reliant skills for coping with all the evils of our existence.

    When we are very young children, everything in this life is a mystery; and until we each learn to build a few of these coping skills, we'll need to have a protective adult with us at all times, in order to feel safe. Otherwise, fear will instinctively set in. One has only to observe the five-year-old boys and girls on their first days of Kindergarten, to see this instinctive nature of fear, which often takes over as they see their parent or protector walk away and leave them on their own, in a new situation.

   Yet, this first real taste of 'being on their own' affects each one differently, depending upon how strong a hold the illusion of material isolation has upon the child. Some children will cry for hours, unable to be comforted by the teacher. These small ones will only feel safe when their mommy or daddy returns to fetch them. For other small ones, who've caught a sense of God, or a loving invisible presence with them, not much fear sets in; Kindergarten is more like a new adventure. Sometimes the awareness of Spirit hasn't been taught to a little one; this young individual has, for other reasons, awakened from within.

    The biblical passage, “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3) is speaking of such spiritually-aware little ones as these. Children have the capacity to trust the invisible realm of Spirit more easily than adults who've been educated against it. Thus, some children have already 'entered into the kingdom of heaven', to some degree, not needing to have a human protector with them in order to talk, listen and communicate with God. Heaven is a harmonious state of being, and they're able to bring this heavenly harmony into their daily activities. God is infinite Spirit; and for such little ones who've already become aware of their oneness with Spirit, the mystery of a loving, invisible Protector, is no greater mystery that the visible things they see about them every day. But for those of us, children or adults, who don't yet perceive our conscious oneness with God, it only takes a few seconds in thought to awaken it.

   Now, make no mistake about it: it's the five physical senses that make us feel so utterly alone in our own being. The physical sense of things wars against the spiritual truth of things. If we rely only upon the five material senses for information gathering, they will shut out our greatest perceiver of all—our mind, or spiritually, infinite consciousness. And these deceptive senses of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell, all rivet our thoughts on the externalized things going on at any point in time. They don't perceive, or show to human eyes, what God is doing at the same time we are viewing a chaotic material scene. We must go within consciousness to perceive that.

   In spiritual fact, we live in the divine Intelligence which conceived of us in the first place; we dwell in this infinite Consciousness of all creation. We were never separated from this Intelligence; in fact, we live within it and it lives within us. Our consciousness is our very link to the God-Mind. And this dwelling place has nothing to do with a physical brain. What we call our mind, is really our consciousness; and it exists separately from the fleshly form of anything. A material brain has nothing to do with our consciousness. We only believe it does. We shut down the level of this material consciousness (the physical mind we believe we possess) when we sleep, go into a coma, or seemingly die. But our true consciousness goes on throughout all of it, even when it has abandoned the fleshly form and material brain, (in physical, so-called death), that it was associating with itself. Spiritual identities don't live, or die, in the fleshly form they manifest, any more than the number four exists on a chalkboard, and then disappears when it's erased from the board. The number four will exist, without physical form, no matter how many times it takes form and is erased in that form. It exists because infinite Spirit created it for all time, just as we were created for all time.

    The shared, infinite consciousness, which is within each of us, (sometimes called the Christ Consciousness) is the awareness of all spiritual reality. It's also the perception of the deceptive nature of so-called physical reality, with all its evils or lacks of the abundance which God has created, and has endowed to Its creation forever. In this infinite consciousness of spiritual reality, we find eternal health, not ill-health; wholeness, not injury or deficiency; abundance, not lack; home, not wilderness; and we find our own place in the divine family, divine kingdom, and divine purpose. In short, we find heaven (eternal harmony).

   When Paul the Apostle said, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus,” (Philippians 2: 5), he was speaking of this universal Christ Consciousness—the conscious awareness of all spiritual reality—that Christ Jesus was expressing. Paul is urging us to recognize this state of mind, this Christ Consciousness, which is our very link to God, and to everything in God's kingdom. This innate oneness with the infinite, divine Intelligence, to be acknowledged and conversed with, leads us out of any human sense of danger, just as it led Christ Jesus through, and gave him dominion over, every evil thing he encountered. Even death on the cross had no effect upon the Christ (the spiritual reality) of Jesus' true being—the identity always safe in God's keeping.

   Jesus expressed this consciousness of the Christ identity, in a more spiritually enlightened way than the rest of humanity. Thus, after first declaring Jesus to be a devil, the people began to declare him to be a God. Not surprising, since the healing and other miracles he did were certainly above the ability of the rest of the people. Yet, Jesus said, “...he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do;”(John 14: 12 to 2nd ;).

   These words of the Master need to be absorbed. He seems to be saying that, if we believe in the Christ, (the spiritual identity he was trying to show about all of us) then we'll be able to demonstrate the spiritual laws and safety which already exist in the spiritual kingdom of God, ever-present with us. We can demonstrate God's power of law over creation, although we're still appearing in material form. Our human sense of age doesn't matter; even a child can seek this spiritual realization within. And by calling forth the Christ identity, (the divinity Jesus demonstrated from within) we begin to transform our thoughts, which in turn transform the human scene.

   Now as to this issue of divinity in mankind: yes, I do believe that Jesus the Christ was more spiritually enlightened than the rest of us. And I do believe he is the son of God; yet, by what he taught, all creation is filled with the rest of God's sons and daughters. We all share in his divinity. I'd like to split a hair, here, in an interpretation concerning Jesus' seemingly-exclusive divinity, for those who might be reluctant to accept the universal nature of the Christ: The Bible, (in 1 John 4: 9) states: “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.” (My emphasis.)

    According to all biblical and historical records I've researched, Jesus was the only individual, in this human experience, who was called the only begotten Son of God. Notice that it doesn't say 'only son' but rather, “only begotten Son.” And I believe this is true. The word, begotten, is critical to comprehend. I think it means that, while we're all God's sons and daughters, we still made our entry here (in the human experience) through the material birth process of a male sperm and female egg. Jesus was the only individual whose physical birth only partially came through this human process. In other words, Spirit, God, alone was the Father of Mary's pregnancy or conception. No fleshly male was involved in the manifestation of Jesus in the flesh. That is unique above all of us who came into fleshly form through a complete, rather than partial, material reproduction cycle. God is infinite, creative Spirit; God's claim as ultimate Creator was manifested in the birth of Jesus. It proved that material reproduction isn't and wasn't necessary to bring forth, into form, any identity of God's creating. And that physical, virgin birth of Jesus, made him the only one, so far, to have been begotten (brought forth) by the male side of Spirit, God.

   Now, all over the world, people have different views and theories of Jesus, and mine is only one more opinion. Like some others, I've spent many years in trying to study and know the right way to view him. One day, in trying to see Christ Jesus in the proper spiritual light, I came to rest in this: that he was really our spiritual brother, who came into this shared physical level of consciousness to show us ourselves—who we really, spiritually, are. His demonstration was the way we should follow. And acquainting ourselves with the invisible kingdom of God seemed to be at the heart of his teachings. From this, all manner of healing of the ills of the flesh followed. At the end of his earthy mission, he even showed that death had no claim on God's children. (And he had shown this before, when he called Lazarus from the grave; Lazarus, who was just an ordinary human-being had been risen from physical death, showing that he, too, was God's son, and thus untouched, in reality, by material beliefs of law.) (See John 11: 43, 44).

   For me, the love that such a spiritual brother, Jesus, had for humanity and our unenlightened thought, was and is an incredibly beautiful gift. I think he was telling us that, in spiritual reality, we are all divine, because there is nothing else to be. Don't fear thinking such a thing. The five physical senses hide the truth of being. There's only one, real creation, and that one is God's spiritual creation, filled and peopled with spiritual, not material, identities.

    And “we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28) in this infinite Consciousness and Intelligence which created us, even though we're not detecting it yet, and, therefore, aren't proving the deliverance which comes from knowing, and trusting, (as Christ Jesus did) that the kingdom of God is supreme over material illusion. Everything Christ Jesus did pointed to our oneness with God, and that God's attention, His Love, and His Kingdom is still ever present with us.

   The teaching of the Master was all-important; none of his words are without value. In order to save us from all the ills and evils of 'the flesh', Jesus had to change our thoughts and beliefs about reality. That's why he kept speaking and speaking of the kingdom of God. Only by changing our beliefs, by feeding us with spiritual truths of our invisible, mental link to God, our Source, will we be able to mentally and spiritually cause the health and harmony of the kingdom of God to break through the illusion of material discords, that seem so formidable and powerful to us.

   We can only experience, at any time, that which we are conscious of. So, if we shut down consciousness to the point of keeping our thoughts focused only on the physical scene before our eyes (instead of actively, mentally seeing our spiritual reality which is invisible to the physical sense of sight) we'll be greatly handicapped. Likewise, if we listen to the external conversation and advice the world offers us, we shut off what our spiritual consciousness within is telling us to do. (This is what is meant by “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” Matthew 6:24; we can't be focusing on God's spiritual creation and the material sense of reality at the same time.) Just in this same way, if our perception relies on what we smell, taste, and touch physically in the material environment, we're certainly missing what consciousness is perceiving of our real environment and our actual, present safety in it.

   Since our spiritual consciousness is the only place we really live, and since this conscious perception is the only real 'sense' to honor as a truth-teller, we must realize that it is within this consciousness that God speaks to us. It's within consciousness that the universal God-connection exists. Within our consciousness is our oneness with God—our divine Source of whatever we could possibly need to be eternally alive and well.

   No one is ever alone. No one has been, or ever will be, separated from his and her Source of being. Our Creator is the Infinite Intelligence of the universe. The universe of Spirit exists only within this divine Intelligence, and thus, all identities, including you and me, have our ever-lasting, real being within the one, universal consciousness of God, which we all share. We could only be separated from God, if this divine, creative Intelligence forgot having created us! Otherwise, we're still right there, in the divine consciousness, right in the eternal place we're supposed to be—in God's knowledge and awareness of each of us, every moment of our existence.

   So, instead of being alone and left to our own devices, we've never been alone or separated from God's loving care. We weren't alone before we made our entry on this human level of thought, (though we don't remember our pre-existence at this unawakened level) and we won't be alone after we leave it. Aloneness has, and always will be, an illusion of the material senses. It's a lie about our circumstances. We are at one with not only God, but with all that fills creation. As we entertain these thoughts in consciousness, the mystery of spiritual oneness begins to evaporate from our thinking. The mental fog begins to clear, showing what had seemed a mystery, solved. When it does, a new path of living opens before us, and we find neither beginning nor end to that path. And the fear, which the lie of separation from God produces, will leave us—turning every new day, not into ill-health, decline, or decay, but into a new adventure, filled with health, joy, and the knowledge of God's power to keep us safe forever.

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