Riding the Waves of Life, Facing My Strong Resistance to Jesus Christ
Coffee Time Wednesday, January 23, 2013
My boat bounced along several waves of life in my meditation and in Pat’s and my coffee time this morning. I began by reading and being inspired once again (see my previous blog entry) by my quote (open quote) from Pathwork Lecture 175 Consciousness: Fascination with Creation. So very inspiring.
Another insight floated up. Pat and I have been talking about friendship, expressed in affection and in other ways. In many ways simple friendship is a mystery and unfamiliar to me. In meditation I recalled Jesus calling his disciples friends and found the passage I remembered being John 15:15: I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
I took that in for a moment. Jesus was calling his disciples friends – and making a big deal out of it on that Maundy Thursday, his last day with the disciples before his death. He was announcing such an intimate relationship with his disciples, and Jesus felt it was important that he declare the nature of his relationship to them. It is interesting that this is just hours before he would be leaving them physically. This last night with them he was holding nothing back from them. He was sharing all he knew, and so he was establishing intimacy with them. Can I take the nature of that relationship in? Could it be possible for me?
And suddenly, and with excitement, I realized that the same is true for the Pathwork Guide. I looked at Pathwork Lecture 175, for example, and it begins: Greetings, all my friends here who receive tangible blessings in the form of energy currents containing consciousness and strength. They flow toward you and permeate you. They are a reality that can be perceived as your own consciousness grows and ventures forth.
Two things come to mind. First, nearly every lecture begins with the Guide calling his audience “Friends,” in fact often, “Dearest Friends,” and even, “My Dearest, Dearest, Friends.” Instead of glossing over these words of introduction, can I take them in – sitting in the friendship of the Guide and of Jesus Christ? This is a relational statement, inviting me into a friendship, a friendship of intimacy, of sharing truths. I pause. Somehow I notice that I can take this in more easily from the Guide than from Jesus Christ, but we’ll address that later. Suffice it to say that this relational statement of being considered a friend, a dearest or even dearest, dearest friend of the Guide enables me to consider being loved by the Guide. He is not some distant fountain of wisdom somewhere “out there” but wants to be intimate with me, to share what he knows because he loves me. That is a powerful statement to take in fully.
Secondly, these 42 words introducing this Lecture, when I read them slowly and devotionally, can satisfy and feed me for days. I do not need the more than 2,500 pages of material contained in the 258 lectures to be nurtured for the rest of my life. I can just hang out here with this introduction to Pathwork Lecture 175 for a few days. And I derive pleasure from dancing with these few words. They express Mystery beyond my capacity to truly Know and understand, but being beyond my capacity to understand these words does not bother me – something inside of me Knows these words of the Lecture to be Truth and as such they feed, nurture, and inspire my Soul this day on many levels deeper than my mind. But this morning I read other words from this lecture as well, just to bathe in the Truth they represent.
Pat joins me for coffee…
Pat: (While lighting our altar candle) I light the Light of Consciousness. Gary: I just have to smile and read you what I was just reading from Pathwork Lecture 175 (¶4):
I would like to talk about aspects of consciousness and its significance in the scheme of creation. Our work in the forthcoming months must deepen your comprehension of the power and significance of creative consciousness. Creation is indeed a result of consciousness and not, as generally assumed, the other way around. Nothing can be unless it first exists in consciousness, whether the consciousness is the universal spirit, the universal self, or whether it is the individualized self. Whether your consciousness perceives, creates, and formulates something important, world forming, or just a passing insignificant attitude, the principle is the same.
I also read paragraphs 12 and 13 from this lecture (from the aforementioned quote). Pat: Wow! Wow! Wow! Gary: And the rest of this quote goes on to say we must empty out untruth before pouring in these lofty truths. We are not to superimpose such lofty thoughts onto our many images, distortions, patterned thinking, and misperceptions. No, we are first to express and empty our busy mind of its false, limited concepts. This reminds me of what Jesus said about putting new wine into new wineskins (Mark 2:22: And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.) This is such a familiar passage to me from my bible days, but I did not really understand what Jesus meant. In the light of Pathwork I do, or at least somewhat do. Ditto Jesus’ words to Nicodemus: You have to be born again — so radical is the message of Jesus about the nature of the Kingdom of God that is within us. I love the way these Bible verses float up from my memory bank, and I am so thankful for everyone who got me into the Bible, especially in my thirties – but also as a young child. Pat: Yes, and these new ways of understanding the Bible are described by Cynthia Bourgeault as well in such works as her The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind – A New Perspective on Christ and His Message.
Pat: This morning I feel like I have been run over by a Mack Truck. Last night, in my dream state on the “other side” I was given a deeper Knowing. While I am not sure what this Knowing was, I know that something was given me that will help when I now come back to ordinary consciousness. I Know that what you read from Pathwork Lecture 175 is true – we have all we need for life on the inside. But my egoic mind wants to be alert, on the lookout, judging, controlling, steering the ship based upon what it senses from the outside. So attuning to the Universal Spirit within that this lecture speaks of is key. And this does require, as the lecture says, a quieting down. If that is what one is intending, this is what one’s practices enable one to do. Our practices – mind training, our coffee time, etc. – build our capacity, our awareness. This is what is here in the morning between us and in us – the energy field that comes here – the invitation of Universal Spirit to be here. This is our practice. We “arrive,” as Sage mentioned.
Pat: But what is here too is the harsh moralizing overlay pattern – the energy of the controller. It takes a good amount of practice to SEE that going on as primary webbing (a complex of patterns) in how we live our lives. So what if we developed the capacity to turn inward? Gary: Out of that inner consciousness comes everything: moods, attitudes, our relationship, etc. Pat: Out of that core does not come moods – moods come out of distorted energies. Gary: Consciousness (positive or negative) creates moods (positive or negative).
Gary: I want to return and face my intense resistance to Jesus Christ. For what ever reason, this morning this issue is up for me. My resistance to Jesus Christ is very perplexing and disturbing to me. How is it that I can relate to the Guide as my friend, but I really push away Jesus Christ? You lit the candle this morning. If I were in a positive relationship with Jesus Christ it would have been so natural to see that candle as representing the Christ Consciousness in our midst. Again I am drawn to the Bible, this time Matthew 18:20: For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them. Why will I not welcome Christ into our midst? What has turned me against Christ? It just makes no sense to me, and yet I resist Christ with all my might – a true life-or-death matter for me! I do not experience Christ as a friend. Or let us consider Pathwork Lecture 258 Personal Contact with Jesus Christ — Positive Aggression — The Real Meaning of Salvation, which contains the words (¶37):
… There are a number of words which many of you have become allergic to. … The name of divine manifestation in human form — Jesus Christ — is, as you well know, one such word. Yet if you heard a description of God as form, as personal helper, friend, guide, as all-forgiver, as a being of translucent light and perfection, you could accept it. So do not let the word “Jesus Christ” stand in your way. He is the Christ, and He was Jesus when he incarnated.
But rather than invite Jesus Christ in as my personal helper as this lecture suggests, I cringe at the thought of the presence of Jesus Christ – I have become allergic to Jesus Christ! WHY? Instead of welcoming his invitation of friendship, I push him away with all my might in fear. Why is this so? How have I so poisoned my Soul Substance to Jesus Christ? I must exhume that fear deep inside of me, examine it, and discover why I hold on so tightly to this fear. My prayer is not that God would magically change this fear – for this God will not do. Rather my prayer is for God to guide me through my patterned beliefs and webbing that trap me here. I ask God to show me the way to purify those aspects in me that cause me to have terror at the presence of Jesus Christ. AND, if transformation is required to overcome my negative intentionality to resist Jesus Christ, I ask for that as well, by Grace. At this point I am not sure what is required, but I do know it is beyond my will.
I cannot superimpose Jesus as my helper on top of such fear. I must express the fear and doubts that are in me before impressing something new. If I try to put this new wine (Jesus Christ) into old wineskins that still resist Jesus Christ in every way possible, the wineskins will burst and the wine will be wasted.
This split with Jesus Christ could be my core split. Right now it feels like my strongest negative intentionality – my “I will never accept Jesus Christ” energy. Whew. That energy is certainly palpable. As I said earlier, my defense against receiving Jesus Christ is a matter of life or death to me. It is important to know this about myself and stop lying to myself or stop trying to will myself to accept Jesus Christ before exhuming the causes of my rejection of Jesus Christ. Pat: In the balance of things with US, I’m glad that as a young person I fell in love with the Christ. Gary: That bodes well for us, for me. And it is so challenging for me to relate to “falling in love with Christ.” I am so perplexed by the strength of my resistance.
Pat: Can we really come to understand the deeper work we are here to do? Wow, wow, wow. (at this Pat got her mind training cards – material from Ken McCloud’s website):
Keep these two principles, even if your life is at risk:
1) Internal transformation is the organizing principle of your life.
2) Let go of your commitment to it and you lose your life.
So Mind Training – central to my Awakening Into Presence Practice and mentioned in Pathwork Lecture 175 – is our means of transformation.
Pat: Death of this body seems like such a consequential thing, and it is. But all the interplay with death is a waste of time. Gary: So many of the Pathwork Lectures go through this matter of death – stating that death is an illusion, BUT clinging desperately and hopefully to knowing that death is an illusion, when it is superimposed upon what is true for you – namely that in fact I fear death – the superimposition does no good. For example “taking comfort” from, say, a book like Eben Alexander’s Proof of Heaven, does no good when it is superimposed upon an underlying fear of death.
Pat: I am so glad I’ve cleared my life to allow more time for US. And in closing, I don’t know where I was during the night, but I worked hard!
With love, Gary
Epilogue
At 2:00 PM on Wednesday Pat and I had our couple’s session with Sage and Anthony. It was one of the most powerful sessions we’ve had, and Pat’s hard work during the night seemed to prepare her for it. Then on Thursday I had my helper session with Moira Shaw. Moira and I hit straight away my resistance to Jesus Christ. The results were amazingly simple, powerful and helpful. I hope to be able to share more of this later.