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| “Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “Take away the stone,” he said… ““Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” John 11:38 – 40 Wikimedia Commons
The first chapter of my forthcoming book, Take Away the Stone: Resurrecting the God Within
We are
One with God
“I and
the Father are one.” John 10:30
“Now
that which is that subtile essence (the root of all), in it all that exists has
its self. It is the True. It is the Self, and thou, O Svetaketu, art it.”
Khandoyga Upanishad
“And
indeed We have created man, and We know whatever thoughts his inner self
develops, and We are closer to him than (his) jugular vein.” Quran 50:10
To the average religious person – reared in the traditions
of orthodox belief – the idea that Divinity dwells in the human heart reeks of
heresy. Having been brought up with a picture of the Infinite as an angry old
man in the sky, dispensing rewards and punishments as he pleases, they regard
with dogmatic suspicion the notion that Deity is “closer than breathing, nearer
than hands and feet.” This sectarian attitude is personified vividly in the
Gospel of John as the group who sought to stone Jesus for uttering the above
quoted truth.
“Because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”
To which the Master replied:
““Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are
“gods” ’?”
Referring to the sixth verse of the 82nd Psalm:
“I said, ‘You are “gods”; you are all sons of the Most
High.’”
This is only a reiteration of the allegory given in the
first chapter of Genesis:
“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of
God he created them; male and female he created them.”
When we see through our eyes, not merely with them, we
discover the true spirit of the Scriptures stretched in smiling repose, behind
the stumbling block of the literal letter which kills true understanding; in
this instance the lesson being that, despite the seeming differences of race,
language, and religion, we are the progeny of “One God and Father… who is over
all and through all and in all” whether we know this Power as Allah, Jehovah,
Brahma, Tao, the All, the Absolute, Reality, Nature, or Life.
Science reinforces this idea, showing us that the myriad
forms of life share the same fundamental building blocks biologically,
chemically, and molecularly[1]. “We are all one” as Nikola Tesla
observed, conduits of the same vital energy in which we “live and move and have
our being.”
Beyond the bounds of biology, on every link of the Great
Chain of Being, each form of manifested Life – from the smallest pebble to the
boundless human genius embodied in an Einstein or Shakespeare – possesses, to
varying degrees, consciousness; which modern science is increasingly
identifying as the fundamental factor in how we experience the physical world.[2]
It permeates every moment of time, point of space, and bit of matter. It is that
innate awareness animating the vibrational orbit of the smallest particle,
guiding the plant towards the nourishing sunlight, serving as the instincts of our
animal brethren, and spurring humanity on to greater heights of creativity and
ingenuity.
This intangible but potent power has been called Cosmic
Consciousness, Universal Mind, Buddha Nature, Atman, the Superconscious, the
Oversoul, and the subconscious mind, among other names, but was known to the
ancient Hebrews as the great I AM or Yahweh, translated as Jehovah and rendered
as the Lord and God in subsequent English translations of the Bible. The name
most famously appears in Chapter 3 of the Book of Exodus, when Moses sees the
essence of God in the burning bush in the wilderness and, being tasked with
liberating the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt, asks, “Suppose I go to
the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’
and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”
“God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to
say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ” (Exodus 3:13-14)
Throughout the Gospels Jesus expressed his understanding of
and relationship with this power, which he called “the Father within” and has
been dubbed Christ Consciousness by some spiritual schools, to differentiate
the man Jesus from the illumined state of consciousness he attained (Christ
being a title rather than a surname, derived from the Greek Christos, meaning “anointed one”):
“Before Abraham was, I am!” (John 8:58)
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to
the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)
“When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he
asked his disciples… “Who do you say I am?” (Matthew 16:13, 15)
As shown in the first example at the beginning of
this chapter Jesus didn’t claim to have a monopoly on access to this Power,
which he continually reinforced to his disciples:
“Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me (the I AM or
Christ consciousness) will do the works I have been doing, and they will do
even greater things than these.” (John 14:12)
The Apostle Paul expounded upon this same point in his
letters:
“God has chosen to make known… the glorious riches of this
mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians
1:27, italics added)
“Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you?”
(2 Corinthians 13:5, italics added)
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live,
but Christ lives in me.” (Galatians
2:20, italics added)
It is clear that both Jesus and Paul are talking about an
impersonal spiritual principle (Christ), rather than a human personality (the
historical man called Jesus of Nazareth). Taking the above literally would leave
us in the darkness of confusion, but thankfully “God is not the author of
confusion, but of peace.” (1 Corinthians 14:33, King James Version)
We shall discover further how the Biblical writers, using
the person and story of Jesus, were trying to illustrate how every person could
attain conscious contact with the indwelling I AM to realize “the freedom and
glory of the children of God.” (Romans 8:21) Let us begin this eye opening
process by delving deeper into the nature of this eternal, omnipresent
principle.
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Friday, June 16, 2017
First Chapter Preview of My New Book, Take Away the Stone
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