Who is this ‘Christ’?

At this time of advent there is preparation for the birth of Christ and the festival of Christmas.

Also winter solstice is also at this time with the returning of the light. Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights has been celebrated in November.

Many people gather at this time and light is a big theme at this time of year for people of many faiths, or none. Love is the celebration. There is a preparation within our own hearts also to receive and give love and light with gratitude. To look out for those in need and to come together.

Jesus and awakening to the Christ light

Who is this Christ? Who can say? We could say it seems there are essentially two ways of seeing Christ. Both valid and not mutually exclusive. There are many more ways of course and many levels of experience, but here we are focussing on these two essentially for now in order to deepen understanding and explore unity through direct experience.

Jesus of Nazareth, the beloved son of God and the saviour of the world. HIs birth is celebrated at this time. What an extraordinary and beloved man who is one with God and who has touched and transformed so many people’s heart by the power of God’s love. His living spirit still inspiring people today. The wounded healer, the gateway, the one who removes the veil and any separation between us and God. Blessed is He.

The Christ light, Christ consciousness, truth, love and life itself. Some say the God Self in all. Our shared being.

This latter way of seeing Christ is described by the Orthodox Church as a process of theosis

Theosis is ‘a transformative process whose aim is likeness to or union with God, as taught by the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Byzantine Catholic Churches’.

It perceives this universal Christ light radiating from all transfigured beings. Christ it is said, was transfigured, or ‘filled with God’s light’. In this clip Frederica Mathewes-Green says that we are destined to be ‘filled with Christ’s glory’. This illuminating light of Christ is perhaps called by so many sacred and holy names, is it not? Is transfiguration another word for enlightenment or awakening? Is this the universal light that is also referred to in the term ‘enlightenment’. Is transfiguration the same as enlightenment?

Buddha means ‘to awaken’

The verbal root of the word ‘Buddha’ is budh- which means “to awaken,” and its literal meaning is closer to awakening. In the western world the concept of enlightenment has become synonymous with self-realization and the True Self, being regarded as our substantial essence, being covered over by social conditioning. Self Realisation is essentially awakening to the light of Truth.

It includes and transcends the personal, separate self. It includes and transcends our human personality and history through recognition and realisation of the God Self – the True Self, beyond human understanding and definition. The ground of being. Jesus appeared as a man and was born and died, but who he truly is can never die. The living sacred spirit of Life.

Is this light the same, in essence, as our own True Self?

If Jesus is seen only as the former perspective, as the man, the form, the person of Jesus only. Then it seems so that no other ‘person’ can possibly be such a gateway. He is totally unique.

However, many sages and holy beings have awakened fully to the truth. Could it be that they have transfigured as Christ himself did and taken up their cross and died to what is false, to what is sinful. Have they too crucified the reign of the false egoic identity and broken free and become, as it were, bodhisattvas for the world? Are these extraordinary beings actually one with the light of Christ as pure consciousness, in harmony with his holy presence and living spirit? Truly one with Him. Undivided, pure and formless. Have these beings become so empty of themselves, so humble and surrendered and free of the grasping selfishness of ego that indeed, they have become a pure instrument of God’s peace and grace, just like Christ did? Is there even a dissolving of any sense of separation and a divine unity with the one source?

Are we, in our True pure Self, ‘other’ than Christ or one with Christ? Separated from his light or one with His light? Can light be divided? Can the spirit of God be in one place and not in another? Or does God’s spirit permeate everything and everyone? Contemplate this.

You are the light of the world

Do we not see today that many lives are turned around and literally saved from much suffering and anguish by the light of the pointings of Mooji, Gangaji, Bentinho Massaro, Adhyashanti, Eckhart Tolle, Satyananda, Rupert Spira, Shunyamurti? Is the light of truth that these beings point to not the very same light of truth that Jesus spoke of when he said ‘you are the light of the world’ and ‘the kingdom of heaven is within’?

Could it be that the formless, limitless, ever present, imperishable, ever lasting light of Christ consciousness is the one True Self that Jesus speaks of in the bible? Could it be that we too could wake up to such a light inside our very own being? A light that permeates everything and yet is unphathomable and indefinable. Yet fully present and natural and here.

Are these blessed beings not the radiance and transmission of this light of truth? Are they not the very same light? So empty and humble actually that the universal almighty power of the divine uses them to invite beings into a more elevated and true revelation of who we truly are? I do not wish to offend anyone by saying this but rather to point to the universality of this light and also the imminence of God in our own being.

Duality and non duality

The former way of seeing Jesus is more rooted in dualistic thought and understanding it seems. This is respected. It is beautiful and the stories of the life of Christ inspire and uplift countless beings. Dualistic understanding is a way of seeing that accepts this world of separated names and forms to be reality. The vedas and ancient scriptures of India describe such a realm as Maya, the phenomenal play of Leela. Essentially the surface appearances – duality

The latter way of seeing the universal light of truth is impersonal and all pervading. Non dual. A reading of who Christ is that is essentially metaphorical. The one subject. In other words Christ can be seen as a beautiful pure and loving being, loved and adored by so many, and also a metaphor for awakened creation. ‘I AM’. A healing of the mind.

Christed, anointed. A deeper and more subtle non dual truth. We can love Jesus as the saviour, but also see that his light is formless, limitless and free. Far beyond being merely human, as are we.

Advent means ‘Coming’ in Latin. The coming of Christ into the world and the church marks advent with lighting candles to represent the themes of hope, peace, love and joy.

When Jesus is seen only as an individual person to follow – the holy man who is other and separate from us – then he is understood to be the only pure sinless one

Unity

When Christ is seen as the one True Self in whom there is unity.
Everyone is known to be pure and sinless in their true stainless nature – through death to the ego self which only appears to exist in the delusive dualistic realm. In truth there is only unity.

All is the love and light of Christ and all is Buddha nature of peace and all is the Tao (to name just a few ways to the unnamable mystery) All these are pointing to the universal vibrational field of the divine. Our own natural being

Is it possible that actually God sends many across the ages, who are all conduits for his pure grace and healing light? Appearing as many – but actually only one in truth.

Christ IS pure

Christ is our own True Self and permeates all life and all beings. Life itself is sacred