What is the Christ?

Yesterday we saw that seeing Christ-consciousness in the world is “the symbol that the time for learning now is over, and the goal of the Atonement has been reached at last.”

Our special theme continues by saying, “So therefore let us seek to find Christ’s face and look on nothing else.”

This sets the goal. Just as the instructions for Loving Consciousness Meditation ask us to love our consciousness and ignore everything else, our special theme asks us to seek Christ-consciousness in everything and look on nothing else.

That doesn’t mean that we should repress anything else that we might see. It means that we should practice the Loving All Method with it.

This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t take action in the world if we would normally take action. It means we should practice the Loving All Method with anything we perceive, anything we experience, and any action we take.

Let’s review some of the instructions from the Loving All Method:

Love every thought you have exactly the way it is.

Love all your emotions exactly the way they are.

Love your body exactly the way it is.

Love the objects you see exactly the way they are.

Love the people you see exactly the way they are.

Love your actions exactly the way they are.

Love everything you feel, think, say or do exactly the way it is.

Love everything you see, taste, touch, smell or hear exactly the way it is.

Love everything other people do, feel, think or say exactly the way it is.

Love everything that happens exactly the way it is.

Love every activity exactly the way it is.

Love every experience exactly the way it is.

Love everything exactly the way it is.

If you don’t understand how to practice the above instructions using the word “love”, you can substitute the words “emotionally allow” for the word “love” in the above instructions.

After practicing everyday for one month using the words “emotionally allow”, you can substitute the words “emotionally accept” for the word “love” in the above instructions.

After practicing everyday for one month using the words “emotionally accept”, you can go back to the original wording of the instructions, just as they are, using the word “love”, and then continue using the word love from then on.

No changes in your external behavior are required.

For example: if a vase falls and you would normally try and catch it, you will also try and catch the vase while you are practicing the Loving All Method.

You do not allow the vase to fall because you are loving the falling.

If someone were to try to punch you in the face and if you would normally duck, you will also duck while practicing the Loving All Method.

You also love the fact that you are ducking to avoid being punched.

The Loving All Method is about emotional acceptance.

The Loving All Method is not about changing your actions.

If someone says something mean to you and if you feel bad emotionally because of what they said, then love your negative emotion and love yourself for having the negative emotion.

Love as much as you can love.

What you wish to change, you will still change.

The Loving All Method is developing a new feeling habit.

The Loving All Method is developing the habit of feeling love towards everything you perceive.

What limits can I lay upon God’s Son?

“God’s Son” is a synonym for consciousness.

Our lesson says, “Today let me give honor to Your Son, for thus alone I find the way to You.”

The way to remember our source is to remember our truth. And the way to remember our truth is to continually focus on awareness (consciousness).

It is as Nisargadatta Maharaj said:

How do you go about finding anything? By keeping your mind and heart in it. Interest there must be, and steady remembrance. To remember what needs to be remembered is the secret of success. You come to it through earnestness.

If you have 30 minutes for meditation, I recommend this meditation today:

Loving Consciousness Description K

What is the Christ?

Our special theme says, “And how long will [Christ’s] holy face be seen, when it is but the symbol that the time for learning now is over, and the goal of the Atonement has been reached at last?”

In the Bible, when speaking of the last days, Jesus said, “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near.”

The end of the ego is near when we view all events from the perspective of Christ-consciousness. When loving all is our natural way of being, we identify with awareness-life-presence instead of the body-mind, and we see life as the truth of everything, we can know we are only a whisper away from the final end of the ego.

How do we know this is true?

The ego simply doesn’t see that way. The ego is judgment and separation. So when judgment has died in us, and we see everything as the same life-awareness that we identify with, the ego has grown very, very weak in us. It is on its last legs, assuming we continue with the spiritual practice that brought us this far. It is important to note that some sages warn that as long as even one thought remains in the ego thought system, the ego can regain strength if we do not continue to be vigilant.

Creation’s freedom promises my own.

Today’s lesson says, “The end of dreams is promised me, because God’s Son is not abandoned by His Love. … Should I wait in chains which have been severed for release, when God is offering me freedom now? I will accept your promises today, and give my faith to them.”

We give our faith to the promise of awakening by listening to spiritual intuition, by practicing the Loving All Method, and by focusing on awareness in ourselves and life in all other living things.

We also give our faith by identifying with spiritual intuition over the ego’s thinking and with life-awareness over the body-personality.

There is a thought that may appear in your mind that says it’s arrogant to identify with spiritual intuition and life-awareness over thinking and the body-personality. The hidden idea in that thought is that you are thinking and the body-personality, and you are not good enough to be spiritual intuition and life-awareness.

This thought is an ego preservation strategy. It isn’t true.

The ego may also ask something like, “What will others think if you start talking like a spiritual guru?” Or, “What will others think if you aren’t concerned about things like you were before?”

Any thought like that is also an ego preservation strategy.

What are you?

Where do you place your faith?

Abide as that. Be that.

If you have 30 minutes for meditation, I recommend this meditation today:

Loving Consciousness Description J

What is the Christ?

Our special theme speaks of forgiveness. It says, “The Holy Spirit reaches from the Christ in you to all your dreams, and bids them come to Him, to be translated into truth. … For when forgiveness rests upon the world and peace has come to every Son of God, what could there be to keep things separate, for what remains to see except Christ’s face?”

Our first special theme was, “What is forgiveness?” We saw that forgiveness is recognizing yourself as the unaffected Self. Therefore, “what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred.” Forgiveness “looks, and waits, and judges not.”

In other words, forgiveness is abiding in the qualities of Christ-consciousness—acceptance of what is, openness, non-attachment, and unconditional trust. This is often called equanimity.

When we abide in equanimity, we allow spiritual intuition to be our consistent guide. That is forgiveness.

If I am bound, my Father is not free.

Today’s lesson says, “If I am bound in any way, I do not know my Father nor my Self. And I am lost to all reality. For truth is free, and what is bound is not a part of truth.”

The truth is, we are unaffected by the world. We are the unaffected Self.

If we believe the mind’s chatter—the mind’s definition of “I”—and if we project our attention into the body as if the body is “me,” we do not know our Self. We do not recognize our nature. And if we do not recognize our nature, we do not recognize the nature of our source.

Yesterday we contemplated what we wanted to be identified with. If Christ-consciousness was your decision, then be doubly committed to spiritual intuition and the Loving All Method today. The Loving All Method is the practice of equanimity, which is the practice of identifying with your true Self. Spiritual intuition reminds you to be what you are.

If you have 30 minutes for meditation, I recommend this meditation today:

Loving Consciousness Description I

What is the Christ?

Our special theme says, “Home of the Holy Spirit, and at home in God alone, does Christ remain at peace within the Heaven of your holy mind.”

Yesterday we saw that spiritual intuition is the means to truth realization, just like kicking the ball is the way to get the ball in the net in soccer. Just like a soccer player needs to become skilled at kicking the ball, its helpful for a spiritual seeker to become skilled at listening to spiritual intuition.

Our special theme provides a clue that will help us become more skilled at listening to spiritual intuition. It refers to Christ-consciousness as the “home of the Holy Spirit.” It doesn’t refer to human consciousness as its home. This is an important point.

When we are fully identified with human consciousness (the mind), we are fully identified with thought. That means we are identified with chatter about what should be and what should not be, what we like and don’t like, etcetera. These thoughts are not the home of spiritual intuition. They are the home of ego. When we ask for guidance from this place of concern—from wanting things to be a certain way—we invite the ego to chatter even more.

When we identify with Christ-consciousness, or at least with the qualities of Christ-consciousness, we open ourselves to know the guidance of spiritual intuition. Some of the qualities we might identify with are acceptance of what is, openness, non-attachment, and unconditional trust. When we shift our perspective into these qualities, spiritual intuition can become clear, because we have shifted into the perspective that is the home of spiritual intuition.

Let me not bind Your Son with laws I made.

Today’s lesson says, “Your Son is free, my Father. Let me not imagine I have bound him with the laws I made to rule the body. He is not subject to any laws I made by which I try to make the body more secure. … Let us not worship idols, …”

In other words, today’s lesson is an invitation to shift from identifying with the mind—from its ideas of who we are, where our safety lies, what our happiness is, etcetera—to identifying with consciousness (awareness).

Yesterday we noticed what we meant by “I”. That provided us with the opportunity to notice what we are identified with. Today, let’s contemplate what we want to be identified with. Which identification do we feel is in our best interest, the human thinking mind or present awareness-consciousness?

Since today is a day of contemplating what you want, I do not feel to influence you with a particular guided meditation. Instead, I will provide links to gentle background sounds, which you can use as you meditate. You can also meditate in silence.

Tibetan Bells

Nature Sounds

Meditation Music

Gregorian Chanting

What is the Christ?

Our special theme says, “Home of the Holy Spirit, and at home in God alone, does Christ remain at peace within the Heaven of your holy mind. This is the only part of you that has reality in truth. The rest is dreams. … The Holy Spirit reaches from the Christ in you to all your dreams, and bids them come to Him, to be translated into truth. He will exchange them for the final dream which God appointed as the end of dreams.”

This excerpt invites us to do two things:

1. Discern between truth and dreams.
2. Discern between the right mind (spiritual intuition) and the wrong mind.

I used to think that the right mind was truth. I used to think that the goal of truth seeking was to learn to listen to only the right mind. However, spiritual intuition is not the goal. Spiritual intuition is the means.

Let me share an analogy. Lets imagine that we are children, and we have just joined our first soccer league. Since we are learning to play soccer, the coach spends a lot of time teaching us to kick the ball. Kicking the ball isn’t the goal. The goal is to get the ball in the net. However, kicking the ball is the means of getting the ball in the net, so learning to kick the ball well is important.

Learning to listen to spiritual intuition is like kicking the ball in soccer. Spiritual intuition isn’t the goal, but the means to reaching the goal.

What is truth?

According to our special theme, the truth is beyond dreams; it is even beyond the happy dream. Ultimately, absolute truth is beyond Christ-consciousness.

Notice, again, what our special theme says:

“Home of the Holy Spirit, and at home in God alone, does Christ remain at peace within the Heaven of your holy mind. “

Just as the human experience is within Christ-consciousness, Christ-consciousness is within truth, and that truth is still what we are (“your holy mind”).

It’s pretty amazing. We appear to be human. We are awakening to the realization that we are Christ-consciousness. Yet, our absolute nature is that which makes Christ-consciousness possible.

Ultimate truth, then, is indefinable. Yet, because it is what we are, it can be directly known.

The Word of God is given me to speak.

Today’s workbook lesson says that God’s Word is, “My Son is pure and holy as Myself.”

“Myself” in this sentence is our absolute nature. From our perspective as humans, it is helpful to think of this nature as the source or “Father.” Until we awaken to it, it is helpful to honor it in this way.

“My Son” is Christ-consciousness. From our perspective as humans, it is helpful to begin to notice that Christ-consciousness is what we are. It is our most genuine “I”, our true Self.

Our lesson says, “Let us accept His Fatherhood, and all is given us.”

This sentence points to a shift in our identification. Instead of identifying with the human, who is within Christ-consciousness, we are invited to identify with Christ-consciousness, which is within the source.

Today’s lesson says, “The Word of God is given me to speak.” This is an invitation to speak from Christ-consciousness, to have “I” refer to our consciousness-Self instead of the human-self.

Today, pay attention to what you mean by “I”. Is “I” being used to represent your true Self, or is it being used to represent the false self?

When you notice that “I” in your speaking or thinking points to the false self, silently ask yourself, “What am I?” Look. What is most true about you in your current experience? Are you ready to speak from that truth?

If you have 30 minutes for meditation, I recommend this meditation today:

Loving Consciousness Description H

What is the Christ?

Our special theme says, “Home of the Holy Spirit, and at home in God alone, does Christ remain at peace within the Heaven of your holy mind. This is the only part of you that has reality in truth. The rest is dreams. Yet will these dreams be given unto Christ, to fade before His glory and reveal your holy Self, the Christ, to you at last.”

A dream is defined as “a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person’s mind during sleep.”

In today’s excerpt from our special theme, “dream” is an analogy. Certainly, we are not in the human sleep state as we walk about in our daily lives. However, we are still living a dream when we believe we are affected by the “series of thoughts, images and sensations” experienced throughout the day. We are not affected by thoughts, images and sensations, because we are untouched consciousness, the witness of the human experience.

Today, continue to check in with your untouched present nature. Continue to notice that it is more intimately you than anything else you might call you.

God’s healing Voice protects all things today.

Healing is awakening to our true nature.

Today’s lesson says, “Let us today attend the Voice for God, which speaks an ancient lesson, no more true today than any other day.”

What is true today that has also been true on every other day?

Do not look to your mind for the answer to this question. Look to your consistent nature. It is here, present now and “no more true today than any other day. … It is in this that all things are protected.”

The prayer from today’s lesson is:

Your healing Voice protects all things today, and so I leave all things to You. I need be anxious over nothing. For Your Voice will tell me what to do and where to go; to whom to speak and what to say to him, what thoughts to think, what words to give the world. The safety that I bring is given me. Father, Your Voice protects all things through me.

The best way to live this prayer today is to stay focused on our untouched nature. Let the world be as it is. Ask for nothing from the world, and practice surrender as it is taught in The Teachings of Inner Ramana.

If you have 30 minutes for meditation, I recommend this meditation today:

Loving Consciousness Description G

What is the Christ?

Speaking of Christ-consciousness, our special theme says, “Your mind is part of His, and His of yours. He is the part in which God’s Answer lies; where all decisions are already made, and dreams are over. He remains untouched by anything the body’s eyes perceive.”

That means that Christ-consciousness is untouched by anything that occurs in the human experience.

The best way to discover that you are Christ-consciousness is to check in with consciousness (awareness) frequently, and notice it is always the same. As the human that you seem to be goes through different experiences today, repeatedly check in with consciousness. Notice its sameness for yourself. Notice its untouchedness.

Also, take the time to notice that this present untouched nature is you. Notice that this present consistent nature is actually more intimately you than anything else you may call you.

Today belongs to love. Let me not fear.

As you go through the day today and different experiences come and go—some the mind may consider favorable and some the mind may consider unfavorable—continue to check in with awareness. Continue to notice your untouchedness.

The end of fear lies in the direct realization that you are untouched by everything that happens in the world.

If you have 30 minutes for meditation, I recommend this meditation today:

Loving Consciousness Description F

What is the Christ?

Speaking of Christ-consciousness, our special theme says, “Your mind is part of His, and His of yours. He is the part in which God’s Answer lies; where all decisions are already made, and dreams are over.”

While we were on Lesson 267, we spent the day with a visualization plan. It might have been Lesson 267 as it was written, the visualization plan you wrote earlier in Gentle Healing, or a new visualization plan. This is the plan I was with that day:

I forget about anything I am not called to by God. I joyously answer all of God’s calls, no matter how big or how small. I am completely surrendered, completely in love, and awakening to truth at the perfect pace, God’s pace.

My visualization plan is in the same vein as the excerpt I have quoted from our special theme today. Today’s excerpt and my vision point to the easy path, the path of being completely surrendered in trust to spiritual intuition.

From our human perspective, awakening is not complete. However, from the perspective of Christ-consciousness, it is complete. In fact, from the perspective of consciousness, non-awakeness has never happened.

Realizing the perspective of consciousness, a wise human relaxes into the current experience. Relaxing necessarily includes tuning into and following spiritual intuition, since the wrong mind is agitation.

From a human point-of-view, what we know about everything is extremely limited. The wise human becomes comfortable with not knowing and lives in the mystery in joy by following intuition in the moment. The wrong mind, which thrives on agitation, worries, tries to figure things out and tries to control everything toward an outcome that is decided upon in the mind.

If we see Christ-consciousness as our truth and the human as a temporary experience, we relax and enjoy the ride. If we see humanness as our reality, we tend to struggle against the unknown and undesired.

The stillness of the peace of God is mine.

As today’s lesson says, “Perhaps we are now ready for a day of undisturbed tranquility.”

Are you ready to trust that consciousness is your reality? If so, you can relax, and watch the human dream from the stillness of reality.

The lesson also says, “If this is not yet feasible, we are content and even more than satisfied to learn how such a day can be achieved. If we give way to disturbance, let us learn how to dismiss it and return to peace.”

It is helpful to pause whenever disturbance arises. Notice that you are aware. Notice awareness is always present, regardless of the current human experience. Happy or sad, at peace or agitated, healthy or sick, in love or lonely—awareness is always present as you.

If you have 30 minutes for meditation, I recommend this meditation today:

Loving Consciousness Description E

What is the Christ?

Our special theme says, “Christ is the link that keeps you one with God, and guarantees that separation is no more than an illusion of despair, for hope forever will abide in Him.”

This sentence is an invitation for us to become clear on the difference between what is true and what is not true.

Let’s look at the definitions of true, or real, and not true, or illusion.

Yesterday we learned about consciousness, which is the realm of creation and the ability for creation. Consciousness is the direct creation of source. Therefore it is an extension of source and the same as source.

“True” and “real” point to that, to the essence of consciousness and source, which is changeless and eternal.

Temporary appearances are made of consciousness. They are an extension of consciousness just as consciousness is an extension of source. Yet on the surface, they appear to be something other than consciousness. They appear to be thousands upon thousands, actually billions of different names and forms. The temporary things they appear to be are “not true.” They are “illusion,” because each of these things is actually more than it appears to be. Each thing is not its temporary appearance, but the eternal essence of its source.

To become clear on what is true and what is illusion, we will continue to focus on awareness in ourselves and on life in the living things that we encounter throughout the day.

How can illusions satisfy God’s Son?

Today’s lesson asks, “Can dreams content me? Can illusions bring me happiness? What but Your memory can satisfy Your Son?”

Temporary appearances occupy the mind. Temporary appearances give the mind something to think about. Since things are always coming and going, shifting and changing, the mind remains very occupied. This is life to the mind.

However, we are not the mind, and what is life to the mind is actually agitation or suffering for us. It’s like keeping our attention with the restless waves on a stormy sea, fearing what will happen to the wave, while ignoring the changeless nature of the sea at its depths. Focusing on the surface is suffering. Realizing and abiding as the depth is peace.

The practice we have already committed to today is also the practice that will bring us to realize peace. It is the practice of focusing on the depth instead of the surface. We will focus on awareness in ourselves, and we will focus on life in each living thing that we encounter today. It doesn’t matter if the people we encounter seem happy, angry, or afraid. The life in each one is the same. Life-awareness is the changeless depth of our source.

If you have 30 minutes for meditation, I recommend this meditation today:

Loving Consciousness Description D